Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 AH_schulerta Sep 05, 2014 8:45:27	Sorry if this has been covered already. I wanted to get a feel for what most people thought the ratio of short rests to long rest should be. I was thinking three short per long. I realise some days may have 1 or none, and another may have four. Just thinking about the average.
#2 mellored Sep 05, 2014 8:47:06	We usually get 1 or 2.
#3 Uskglass Sep 05, 2014 8:53:51	Slightly sideway to the topic, but an interesting house rule I've red somewhere else that I'm interested in trying out is for allowing characters to get the benefits of a short rest with only a 5-10 mins pause, but at cost of sustaining an Exhaustion level.
#4 BW0222 Sep 05, 2014 10:21:28	IMO, you only give characters a short or long rest when they specifically ask for it, or if they present a daily routine (with times) which they are going to repeat until they say otherwise.   Short rests limit you to eating, drinking, reading, and tending wounds. Long rests require sleep and specific guard duties limited to an hour. Unless players otherwise say that is all they are doing... then they are presumably doing other things. Because of the restrictions on rests, I need to know exactly what people are doing. Who is on guard duty (they can't get a short rest), who is taking what actions during their short and long rests, etc. And most importantly, I need to be able to interupt them if something happens.   Most travel is only 8 hours a day, and folks likely always work a short rest (breakfast), short rest (lunch), and short rest (dinner) in -- all assuming they have someone/thing on guard duty. Then a long rest at whatever bed time they set. Players could easily give me a standard schedule. The rest of the time, I have to assume they are doing non-rest activities -- travel, keeping watch, tending horses, pitching tents, making a fire, foraging/hunting, etc. In town that could be... buying supplies, having repairs done, securing inn rooms, traveling around the city, etc.   Again, I just see it easier to for players to set standard schedules and watches. If an attack happens at 11am and then they run into a cave at 3pm... I know they had their scheduled 'lunch' short rest. If they get attacked during lunch, it is then up to them if they wish to finish lunch (short rest) or continue. If they enter a dungeon, get on a ship, are force marching, etc. then I'd ask for a new schedule.   IMO, folks needing short rests will discuss it with the party and let you know. Otherwise, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are obvious times with overnight sleeping your long rest. Let players give you a schedule and use that as a baseline.
#5 Magi_theKid Sep 05, 2014 10:46:12	Running Mines of Phandelver, my players avoided short rests until they felt like they actually needed one. Of course that was at level 1 where their piddly 1 Hit Die was a rare and treasured resource to be spent only in the most dire of moments. Thankfully the first cave is pretty darn dire. After that as they went exploring they would take short rests always knowing that they were giving up an hour of their time to do so. I didn't keep super close track of time, but one of the party members had died in the cave (there were only 3 of them and I didn't adjust the cave) so they were on the clock to pony up 500 GP for the diamonds to rez him and every hour that ticked by they felt.    Was pretty great. So I guess my thing with Short to Long Rest Ratios is it depends on the kind of adventuring day the players are having, but if you are dungeon crawling with someone who has a per short rest feature (channel divinity, action surge, etc) and you put the players on a clock you wind up with some pretty entertaining and meaningful player decisions, which is the more interesting piece of the Short to Long puzzle to me.
#6 Saelorn Sep 05, 2014 11:11:15	Five or more? I play short rests as the only kind of rest you can perform in the field, and long rests require you to be indoors in a safe area.
#7 Lawolf Sep 05, 2014 12:10:04	Out group has a lot of spellcasters so barely any short rests are taken. Most of the times we find a way to get a long rest.    I hate it.
#8 DemoMonkey Sep 05, 2014 13:09:28	"Short Rests per Long Rest"   Short Rests are 1 hr.   Long rests are 8 hrs.   The answer is "8".   MATH!
(Reply to #8) Ashrym	DemoMonkey wrote:
#10 MechaPilot Sep 05, 2014 21:08:25	I think the most accurate answer would be that it depends on the adventure in question.  If the adventure has a time crucnch involved, the PCs may not even get one short rest per long rest (because they are pressing on to get the more beneficial rest later), or they may get a lot of short rests per long rest (as they can't afford the time for a long rest).  If there is no time crunch at all, I'd expect one or two short rests per long rest to be pretty common (assuming the default length of one hour).
#11 Shiroiken Sep 05, 2014 21:17:01	Generally we get 0-1, with the occasional 2. Short rests usually come with an opportunity cost, so we tend to avoid them until we feel them needed.
#12 Noon Sep 05, 2014 22:14:23	The question does seem to painfully assume it's not up to the players how it happens, but instead out of the players hands and just some average determines it.
#13 Foxface Sep 05, 2014 23:35:13	There is no relationship.  5e explcitl takes a position that short rests will happen when the party rests for a short time, and that long rests will happen when the party rests for a long time.  Different classes get different benefits from either rest, so how many of each and how often will depend entirely on party makeup and player inclination.  How many "should" happen is an empty question, since it is up to the players to decide when and how often they rest (with whatever consequences the DM dreams up).   If you're getting at how many should happen for classes to be balanced, again that depends on party makeup.  Frankly, 5e takes a long-form view of balance, and makes little attempt to balance classes across the day, prefering instead to focus on balance across an adventure.  It relies on the law of averages to handle balance concerns.  While not like the earliest editions where casters suffered at the earlist levels only to be rewarded at the highest levels (and the reverse for non-casters), it is far from 4e's goal of rough balance across the day (if not the encounter).   My advice, loathe as I am to support it, is to not worry about it.  The designers intended for you to not care, and just let the players play, and rest when they want to.  There are benefits and costs to resting that are ingrained in the classes as well as benefits and costs that you can apply based on your perogative as DM, so the party will have plenty to consider when making their decision to pause or set up camp for the night.  For better or for worse, the game is designed to accomodate this sort of play.
#14 Zardnaar Sep 06, 2014 5:42:05	My group is probably averaging about 1, I do not let them know if there is a time limit on most things or not so the PCs may not know how urgent something is.
#15 Ramzour Sep 06, 2014 11:30:55	My group usually takes about 1-2 Short Rests in a 4-hr gaming session. We usually go by feel and handwave the time spent. However, there are instances where they want to take a Short Rest and don't because of some pressing matter. I don't prevent them, though, if they want to....but there might be consequences in certain instances. Anyway, for the most part they just take it and move on.
#16 Tony_Vargas Sep 06, 2014 12:28:18	AH_schulerta wrote:
#17 TheLyons Sep 06, 2014 13:34:24	I prefer my players do 0 to 3 and to do it for reasons such as bandaging and eating rather than "I get x mechanic back after a short rest", obviously that's part of it but feels to video gamey to specifically use it as a reason. Short resting after EVERY encounter won't happen as there typically is a response cost and usually reasons to not take them other than long overland travel with sparing random encounters.
#18 TheLyons Sep 06, 2014 13:34:26	I prefer my players do 0 to 3 and to do it for reasons such as bandaging and eating rather than "I get x mechanic back after a short rest", obviously that's part of it but feels to video gamey to specifically use it as a reason. Short resting after EVERY encounter won't happen as there typically is a response cost and usually reasons to not take them other than long overland travel with sparing random encounters.
#19 Ramzour Sep 06, 2014 14:12:51	TheLyons wrote:
#20 AH_schulerta Sep 06, 2014 18:25:34	Thanks for all the replies.