"A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it."
My thought is that as long as the interruption(s) are less than 1 hour for the 8 hours of rest you're not interrupted and get the benefit of the long rest.
Any period of fighting (and, possibly, casting spells - in relation to magical energy reserves) is strenuous activity; heck, the possibility of being injured during those activities is enough to nullify the effects of any incomplete rest.
A DM could rule that the benefits of a Short Rest are gained, if the Long Rest lasted at least as long as a Short Rest does.
I assume what is considered a strenous activity will be otherwise determined by the DM. I have a question about the 1 hour duration though, is it for each activities enumerated or just the first (walking)?. Is it
1) 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity
OR
2) 1 hour of walking, 1 hour of fighting, 1 hour of casting spells, or similar adventuring activity (lasting also 1 hour)
Because 1 hour of fighting would mean any combat of less than 600 rounds would not interrupt a long rest....
Plaguescarred wrote:
akaddk wrote:
akaddk wrote:
E-Tallitnics wrote:
iserith wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Is picking a lock strenuous? If not, then no, it wouldn't. The point is that a period of strenuous activity disrupts the long rest. The rest of that ambiguously worded sentence is providing examples of things that could be interpreted as strenuous activity. Wether that's an hour of walking, and a bunch of other stuff, or an hour of one of several things, or an hour total of the listed adventuring activities... This looks like a job for the Tweet-Mobile.
Personally, I say we all start declaring a Long Rest, then spend the next 55 minutes walking around looking for a safe location. By the time we stop, we're almost an hour in!
Regarding the lock picking, that's my point. An hour of lock picking might detract from the ability to rest and recover, just like an hour of walking or an hour of fighting. Does 1 minute of fighting (10 full rounds which most fights in my experience are way less than that) interrupt 8 hours of rest though? I tweeted at Mike Mearls and will post the response if I get one.
Consider also, you're in the wilderness where there's less chance of a random encounter than in a dungeon. Using playtest guidelines for random encounters, a "sparsely inhabited" region means a 33.66% chance of at least one encounter over 8 hours. In a "typical region," that chance rises to 72.75%. Not all random encounters are fights, but we're talking about a pretty high chance of having to reset the rest. That's an awful lot of loafing about. (We'll have to see, of course, how they recommend the random encounters be determined in the final product.)
I am in the "fighting interrupts rest" camp. A nice DM can always let the party sleep the 8 hours, and a sporting DM can harry the party so they are forced to conserve their resources and not go NOVA long rest NOVA long rest. Also, the idea of people fighting 
for 599 consecutive rounds of solid combat and then not needing to reset the rest, while mere walking 
for 6 seconds longer than the fight would need to reset the rest, doesn't "rest" easy with me. 
I always assumed that the rule was put in place so that a group of monsters may attack the camp during the night without causing problems with pacing if time is relevant and the characters need the rest. When it comes to the 1h limit I guess it is mostly because it is a nice number.
Regarding how reasonable 1h is I guess it can be compared to parents being woken up in the middle of the night to handle a wet bed, a baby in need of breastfeeding or change of diapers etc. If those are regarded as strenous activities (just as casting a spell is), then at about what point does the interruption make you wake up and feel like you slept closer to one hour than to 8?
And for that matter, is casting a cure wounds spell to regain a few hit points in case of random encounter going to interrupt a rest either? What about busting off a prestidigitation to clean the undies your wizard soiled when the bugbear charged at him last encounter? Does that interrupt a rest by virtue of "casting a spell?" I wouldn't think so. I think these things need to be an hour or longer to do that. I could be wrong though. Hopefully Mike Mearls gets back to me.
So... you can walk for 59 minutes and not interrupt a long rest, but spend 3 seconds trying to climb something and you have to do your long rest over again? It's a list of gerunds - the "at least 1 hour of" applies to each gerund in the list. Granted, a DM could rule however they want, but it seems silly to me to tell PCs that the 7 1/2 hours they spent resting doesn't count because they spent one round in combat just as they were finishing their rest.
SeanCaruso wrote:
Dunno... if I were playing and my DM ruled that a random encounter during the night rendered our long rest invalid because we had to spend a few rounds in combat (strangely a popular interpretation here), I wouldn't find that very sensible or fun. To me, that would be an exercise in exploitation and fundamentalist rhetoric. 
Personally I think it's clear that disruptions under an hour are fine, whatever they may be. Sure, no spell (by the RAW) takes an hour to cast, and no fight takes an hour, but what if you're attacked, something is stolen during the attack, you then need to track the person, another fight breaks out, etc... that could be over an hour, and it includes spells being cast. I think that's why fighting/casting is mentioned. I think it's extremely arbitrary to go "Well guys, we fought this goblin attack for three minutes, guess our 6 hours of rest so far have all been for naught! I'm soooo tired now!"
Personally I found the fact that you can now do a nightly ambush on the PCs without interrupting long rests to be a great boon for the GM. The whole situation was just nasently unpleasant before. It was always utterly ridiculous for the casters to have to spend exactly eight hours resting, fearing to be interrupted by the slightest small little problems because else, poof, have to wait eight hours again! As far as "resource conservation" is concerned: I don't see the problem. They still have to be allowed to rest for eight hours to get the benefit. Introduce elements into your story that make eight hours of rest impossible, hard to do, or make there be consequences for it happening. If "send a lone goblin to attack the party at night, tee hee" was your only tactic for enforcing resource conservation on your PCs before, then I dare say with all audacity that you need some new tricks. I'd start rolling my eyes at the lack of creativity and exploitation of idiotic mechanics quite fast if I were one of your players.
On top of that, obviously time spent fighting, walking, etc... doesn't count for the rest duration. So none of that "declare a rest then walk for 55 minutes to a safe place" stuff. Common sense.
Also akaddk, you do seem to have a hang for the melodramatic. Several posters disagree with the viewpoint of you and yours, and most of these have not expressed any super literalist on-the-dot-time-measurement fancies. Then one poster brings forth what I see as a purely rhetorical question meant to illustrate the ridiculousness of the viewpoint he is reasoning against, and you explode into a huff and puff about "the ridiculousnes sof people's opinions". Plural. That seems unwarranted considering only a single poster seems to have erred in this regard and then, as I have said, only as a matter of debate. The ridiculousness of your overreaction is what's truly disheartening. As far as a game that is supposed to be fun is concerned: I'm sure your players will think it more fun if that one nightly ambush does not force them to either waste 8 more hours -or- go without spells for a day. If you want to hang true to the adversarial DM interpretation, however, then by all means. Fun is subjective after all.
Unahim wrote:
It seems reasonable to me that it's one hour of any strenuous activity which includes walking, fighting, casting spells, etc. I think this nicely accounts for the traditional "attacked by wolves while resting around the campfire" encounter without requiring the PCs to start another long rest from where it was they were interrupted.
Per the rules, a character can only benefit from one long rest in a 24-hour period, so it's not abusable.
So, if you're woken up and fight, strenuosly, for 50+ minutes (or just get up and exercise, strenuously, for 50+ minutes), your sleep is not going to be adversely affected? Ridiculous.
akaddk wrote:
Unahim wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
@akaddk: Shoot it down then with a counter argument. I see lots of places in the rules that say it's a game and nothing that says it's a simulation of reality. It does say in the rules a DM can impose more realism, but that would suggest to me that is not what the game expects as default. Therefore, I think arguments that hinge upon "well, in real life, being woken up to fight would impact your ability to rest" is kind of weak. I think that some editions of the game also had rules about combat interrupting rests and that it's natural, if wrong, to want to drag those assumptions into this game. I take each edition as its own separate game and endeavor not to do that.
Of course, if Mike Mearls comes back and says that any fighting, be it as little as a single round, will interrupt a long rest and require it to be reset for the PCs to gain any benefit, I will concede the argument because those are the rules of the game and I will play by them. Until then, I see that the 1 hour bit as a gerund that qualifies the rest of the sentence, allowing for the traditional campfire random encounter without the need for reseting the long rest.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
E-Tallitnics wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
iserith wrote:
.@mikemearls How are Long Rest interruptions meant to work? The land is in confusion & dismay! http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?730649-5e-So-if-a-long-rest-is-interrupted-you-start-all-over … http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/42123/does-a-short-combat-or-casting-one-spell-interrupt-a-long-rest …
Mike Mearls @mikemearls 7m @sevensideddie interruption needs to be a full hour. Testers: "We rest 7 hours, a kobold knocks on the door, and now we have to start over?
The Seven-Sided Die @sevensideddie 5m .@mikemearls Oh. But that means combat will never interrupt rest, since a 600-round combat is unheard of. Why list it at all then?
Mike Mearls @mikemearls 3m @sevensideddie there could be cases where it's valid - fight starts, now you need to leave the dungeon
The Seven-Sided Die @sevensideddie 1m @mikemearls Ah, so it’s meant to be fairly rare, more “we’ve given up resting for now,” not just attacks on the camp. D
Mike Mearls @mikemearls @sevensideddie exactly
Thanks for posting that find.
Awesome to have confirmation that my exact thought process actually did come up during testing.
I would kind of like a better balance of disturbances during a long rest. According to the last playtest rules In a dungeon every 10 minuts you make a random encounter check, that's 48 rolls to hit a 20% chance.
Now on one hand for the shallow dungeon this makes sense. Pretty much, you camp in the dungeon you are not going to ever get your long rest in. However for deep dungeons, where the DM is crafting a story around an extended stay in a dungeon there needs to be a new set of guidelines. And in Wilderness encounters, rolling 8 times to hit a 20% chance is also pretty high odds you are going to get your rest disturbed.
Here is a bit of the problem, 1 fight in the night, delays the party's plans for the next day for a few hours.
I like the feel of it. "Damn those lizardmen, now the goblins with the cleric hostage have a 2 hour head start on us"
However there is no way that I see for a camped party to necessarily avoid a random encounter while camped. You can have a sentry, but that will only be someone who can ready everyone to fight without a surprise round. For a DM to craft a story around pursuit or otherwise really using the time as a meaninful plot device a few bad rolls can totally blow it for the characters.
I hope when they publish the DMG there is some consideration for how the exploration rules behave during camps, because the exploration action system kind of crubmbles during the extended rest.
I'm on the fence about the combat interrupting the rest.
On one hand, if the party fights off an orcish warband in a fight that lasts 3-4 rounds, then I'd say that was strenous enough to warrant an interruption to the rest, my exception would be if they had already gotten at least 7 hours, because I'm a soft hearted guy.
On the other hand though, If a single goblin wanders into the camp, initiative is rolled, and the archer takes it out with a crit before any one else can act, does it make sense to say everyone is so tired out by seeing the archer's amazigness they need to rest more? Is the archer really that exhausted by firing a single arrow? It just seems a little over the top as an interpretation.
I know everyone hates "DM Fiat" but that seems to be where this is headed, and honestly, if you expect a single round of ombat to interrupt the rest, and you don't want that to happen, then you'll work to prevent that combat anyways. But if you don't then you'll throw fights at the party without fear.
You don't need DM Fiat when there are rules governing how the game works. The rule is that it takes one hour of combat to interrupt a long rest. Anything other than that is a house rule.
Plaguescarred wrote:
Plaguescarred wrote:
MacEochaid wrote:
@sevensideddie : How are Long Rest interruptions meant to work? The land is in confusion & dismay! http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?730649-5e-So-if-a-long-rest-is-interrupted-you-start-all-over … http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/42123/does-a-short-combat-or-casting-one-spell-interrupt-a-long-rest …
@mikemearls : interruption needs to be a full hour. Testers: "We rest 7 hours, a kobold knocks on the door, and now we have to start over?
@sevensideddie : Oh. But that means combat will never interrupt rest, since a 600-round combat is unheard of. Why list it at all then?
@mikemearls : there could be cases where it's valid - fight starts, now you need to leave the dungeon
@sevensideddie : Ah, so it’s meant to be fairly rare, more “we’ve given up resting for now,” not just attacks on the camp.
@mikemearls : exactly
lawrencehoy wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
akaddk wrote:
Cennedi wrote:
My confirmation:
@mikemearls "at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, ..." Long Rest interrupted by any combat or only combat that lasts more than an hour?
Well, I officially have my very first house rule.
akaddk wrote:
alienux wrote:
Unahim wrote:
Please note that I'm not arguing that everyone should be using strict interpretations of RAW. The return to a greater reliance on DM fiat is, in my opinion, one of the best things about D&D 5th Edition.
In reference to the resting rules:
- I see no reason why the effect of a Short Rest can't be granted, for each successful hour (or whatever Short Rest period is being used) of a Long Rest. There is nothing in the rules that implies this isn't an acceptable interpretation. This method would require more bookkeeping, in the event of an interupted Long Rest.
- I see no reason to not allow a Long Rest to continue after certain interuptions, if the DM adjudicates that it can, including fights (although, I would limit this to fights in which the PCs do not take damage).
- I see no reason not to force a Long Rest to be restarted, if the DM adjudicates that it should be, whatever the reasons.
It looks like I have my first "house rule" as well: any resource expended during a long rest does not recover at the conclusion of that long rest.
I hestitate to even call it a house rule, though, since it seems far more in line with the spirit of the rule than you would get by just playing the RAW.
Alynn wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
It's "at least 1 hour of the following things: walking, fight, casting, etc..." not "1 hour of walking or any amount of the following". Grammatically, you'd have to say: "at least 1 hour of walking or any amount of fighting, casting, etc..." It's not an interpretation, it's how the rule works. Also, it's not "easy mode D&D" at all. I've been avoiding saying it, but... if you need a rule that instantly ends rest as soon as you throw a simple creature into the camp, you might have to reevaluate your own DM'ing style, honestly. DMs with any sort of creativity will still have an unlimited amount of options to really prevent players from resting if the story calls for that. DMs who can only think of "One fight, which ends with the PCs winning and going back to sleep" have more to worry about.
Just to check the statements made here by people about "any amount of fighting would interrupt the flow of your rest" (with such certainty that it almost seemed they had put this to the test!) I did an experiment. I set my alarm clock to 4 hours tonight. When it woke me, I got out of bed (grumbling profanities, to be sure) did two reps of push-ups and sit ups, put on some pants and ran around the block. I blame the darkness for not seeing a loose rock on the track, and my knees a bit blue today from the fall that caused, but I'm willing to take that one for science. I then got into bed. I woke up four hours later (roughly, it was a few minutes over) feeling as rested as always. I'm pretty out of shape, myself, so why would my heroic D&D character fare worse than I?
Unahim wrote:
Unahim wrote:
akaddk wrote:
Unahim wrote:
SirBobington wrote:
akaddk wrote:
SirBobington wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
iserith wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
E-Tallitnics wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
E-Tallitnics wrote:
iserith wrote:
It's grammatically correct. It's thematically correct. It's a good game rule: One hour of fighting to interrupt a rest. If that's not realistic enough for you, feel free to house rule.
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
smacintush wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
smacintush wrote:
The way it reads grammatically supports Mearls' interpretation.
The interrupting phrase in the sentence provides examples of the noun phrase before it. Put another way, the items in between the dashes explain what is meant by "period of strenuous activity."
"Fighting" is not a peeriod of strenuous activity. it is a strenuous activity, sure, but it is simply an activity, with no duration. Each item in the parenthetical phrase is an example of a period of strenuous activity.
The period for all activities is defined as one hour. Possible strenuous activities include walking, fighting, casting spells, etc.
If the parenthetical was meant to explain only "strenuous activity," then "an hour of walking" should have been last in the series, or the phrase should have been written as "an hour of walking or any amount of fighting, casting spells or similar adventuriing activity." The phrase as written also does support Lawrence's interpretation, though--the intention is vague.
I've noticed that many RPG developers are great when it comes to thinking up rules and determining how to model things with dice rolls, but they are not so well-versed in the finer points of the English language, and they are apt to write vague statements that can be interpreted many ways.
Interpret it how you want for your group. Honestly, it doesn't make sense for it to take an hour of combat to break a rest. However, if a goblin party should attack the camp, and they are defeated within a couple of rounds of relatively easy combat, then it also doesn't make sense for the long rest to be interrupted. Use your own judgment as to what should interrupt a long rest (or a short rest, for that matter), and rule accordingly. Just remember to be fair and consistent. That's the main thing.
Sleeping or light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. Grammatically the 2 hour limit only applies to standing watch, not every other activity on the list, right? So after you set camp if you spend your first 2 hours eating and talking, your second 2 standing watch, and your last 4 sleeping, then you should be fully rested. And anyone who says that this isn't enough "rest" needs to go talk to a soldier.
When was the last time combat lasted 600 rounds anyway, so why is that even in question? Even 50 rounds, which is the equivalent of 1 round in a MMA fight? If you think a trained professional fighter, which is what your PC is, couldn't take 1 round of a fight they're trained for and be just fine... then I dunno what to tell you.
To help me determine the best way to interpret the rule, I tried to think of what brought me to the point where the players are taking a long rest and why I'm interrupting it with a combat.
So first, what would make the players want to take a long rest:
- The characters are greatly injured from traps, team monster, and a bunch of bad rolls - they are out of resources and the option of leaving the dungeon isn't plausible.
- The characters have used just a small number of key resources and want to recover them before a big fight (e.g. the wizard used up their spells but everyone else is still fine).
I'm sure there's some level of inbetween too. So now as DM i have to think why do I want to throw an encounter at them.
- In scenario 1, the characters are already hurt. Interpretation of the rules may not matter since throwing an encounter at them could likely kill them. So what is my purpose at this point? Am I trying to kill off the characters?
- Scenario 2 is a bit different however. My encounter thrown at them can serve two purposes: First is to force them to use up some more resources (preferably things that won't be recharged after a rest, such as potions). Second, if I follow the interpretation that any fight resets a rest, I may stop the rest and reset it. Purpose one can be useful regardless of how the rules are interpreted, and is the "penalty" in a sense to the characters. The second purpose however, how long will this repeat? Do I keep interrupting it with combat? At some point the characters will be out of resources and then fall into scenario 1.
Other things I consider:
- What message am I trying to convey to the players? Don't ever rest in my dungeons? Am I trying to encourage creativity to secure a place to rest? Do I only want the players to try to rest when they are on their last legs?
- What is the tone of the campaign? Am I trying to be fatal?
In the end though, I don't think it will matter what the interpretation of the rules are. I as DM control the encounters that they face. If I want them to be able to rest for whatever reason, I will just forgo the random encounter. If I want to interrupt the rest, then I can tailor the encounter in a way that makes it so that the rest is interrupted - such as having a bunch of orcs take them prisoner. It can challenge the player without a flat out "No, your rest is reset".
Not every random encounter is even going to be combat anyways, so I can figure out some interesting resolutions anyways.
Scottevil912 wrote:
akaddk wrote:
Scottevil912 wrote:
thewok wrote:
I think the RAW long rest is an awkward rule that will get houseruled in longer campaigns because it doesn't work well with them. It is better suited for games where noncombat time passes as quickly and as simply as possible to get to the "good bits"
Boojum
boojumbunn wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
boojumbunn wrote:
My comment here is deviating from the discussion over RAW/RAI, so I apologize if it is unwelcome. But it seems to me that it's the lack of more graduated options for what "rest" and "interruption" can mean that has led to the formation of two opposing camps on this issue.
I agree that it seems a bit much to require a full hour of fighting to disrupt rest even a little bit, especially if the result is that any resources expended during the fight are fully restored by completing the remaining rest time.
On the other hand, it also seems unreasonable to me that a fight after six hours of rest would require an entire subsequent eight-hour rest, lest not a single hp or spell slot be regained.
It seems to me that we could do with a sidebar or optional set of rules suggesting that lost time in an interrupted rest could be made up with a few hours of sleeping in -- probably more than was missed, but not another full eight -- along with rules for partial regaining of resources if it is possible to get some rest but not a full, uninterrupted night. Right now we have a fairly simple and absolute set of rules that will probably work for most cases, but we can all imagine cases in which they yield unsatisfying results in one direction or another (either no recovery after not quite a full rest, or full recovery even of hp and spells lost in the middle of the rest period itself). This seems like the perfect opportunity for some of 5e's "optional, more detailed rules/guidelines."
Deadstop
I think the "1 hour of fighting needed" interpretation is a bit silly, but as the wording is a bit ambiguous, I would go with a tweet from the designers as an indicator on the intent.
Everyone is free to house rule of course.
There are also ways around it, if you as a DM decide you want the rest interupted. You could have some archers in the woods shooting arrows to draw the players out, then have another band raid the camp, attack and flee back into the woods. If the players persue, draw them far from their camp, if they don't have the archers attack again. That sort of thing.
A house rule I would consider is 1 hour of strenuous activity automatically cancels the rest. If the rest is interupted by any shorter length of strenuouse activity, make a CON save vs (single round of combat) DC 5, (up to a minute of strenuous activity) DC10, (1 - 60 mins) DC15 . On a success you can continue the rest, otherwise you must start over.
Deadstop wrote:
Plaguescarred wrote:
Errant wrote:
Deadstop wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
Sissify? Hardly. There's probably a reason why the players have chosen to take a long rest in the first place - they want to recharge their hit points, half their hit dice, and any features that are renewed by resting. They likely aren't in the best shape when they put head to pillow.
Now, if the game expects (as it did in the playtest and the DMG will likely tell) that the DM will be rolling for random encounters, there is a 33.66% chance of at least one random encounter in a sparsely populated wilderness which may result in combat. In a typical region, the chance rises to 72.75%. For a densly populated region, it's 89.99%. This is after the PCs have decided not to press on for the day on account of not wanting to expend further resources, mind you. Long resting in a dungeon, where you check once per turn rather than per hour, is completely untenable.
Forcing them to reset the rest if the encounter they experience is combat could mean a cycle of rarely if ever getting a night's sleep sufficient to recharge abilities. Now, make combat take an hour to interrupt the rest as the rules say and you have a better situation: There's still the concern of bedding down with low resources and possibly being attacked (the loss of those resources being carried over to the next day in the form of less hit dice to go on), but no silliness with regard to needing to take multiple subsequent long rests to regain resources.
The response I expect is that the DM can just decide not to roll for random encounters. In the scenario I have described above, based on the playtest rules, the game expects random encounter checks by design. Remove that and now it's just the DM deciding there will be an encounter that will interrupt the rest. And that does seem rather dickish.
I think something everyone is overlooking with the concept of fighting for 1 hour is that there is nothing that says that hour has to be consecutive minutes of that activity.
For example, in a heavily populated, very dangerous area, taking a long rest may not be tenable due to multiple encounters interrupting the rest. The group sets up camp, eats, sets a watch while the remainder go to sleep. An hour passes with no effect. In the 2nd hour an orc patrol attacks, the party fights them off, but one escaped and they have to relocate. Still they decide to spend less than an hour to do that and if they continue to rest, the clock is not reset, but they tack the time they were active onto the end. Later in the rest period, they are attacked again. This time, the combat carries them over the 1 hour total time allowed for disruptions and the rest period is ruined.
Alternatively, if they get attacked once disturbing their rest or even if they aren't attacked but the rogue on watch woke everyone because he thought he saw someone with a torch nearby and they spend 30 minutes figuring out it was nothing, then they can resume their long rest.
The random encounter rules seem to make it clear that there are opprtunities to interrupt a long rest in a dangerous area thus leading the party to think that trying to long rest in those areas may be futile. That would seem to indicate a long rest in a safer area should be relatively easy to accomplish even if some badger wanders up and the wizards drops a magic missile on it.
Frankly, the real issue to me on this is related to organized play versus home play. Those of us who will always be gaming with a specific group in a non-public area, decide on hwo we interpret the rule and go with that. As long as it is consistent, then there should be no problem. Those more concerned with nailing down the interpretation now are concerned about changes in interpretation from DM to DM, likely to make sure things are consistent in organized play.
d
iserith wrote:
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
I'm just sitting here wondering why there are DMs that want to interrupt the characters' long rest with unrealistic amounts of monsters/encounters?
That, or too many people have high expectations of interactions with monsters and have not gone hunting in the wild. Sometimes, you go 6 or 7 hours without seeing even a squirrel.
People also need to keep in mind that its an hour of strenuous activity that interrupts a long rest, which may include, in part, fighting. It doesn't necessarily mean an hour of fighting straight...
ivstin wrote:
iserith wrote:
While it may be true that the rules say to check once every hour, and on a 17-20 you have an encounter, it seemed like many of the comments were geared around wanting to interrupt the players. A 15% chance every hour to encounter something seems pretty low - that or my dice just hate me. ;)
ivstin wrote:
ivstin wrote:
iserith wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
Oh! Sorry. I won't throw spoilers out, then. ;) Sorry, Iserith, if I spilled too much.
The Starter set covers random wilderness encounters in many different spots and uses the same mechanic in each one.
WE MUST GAME.
ivstin wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
Be3Al2 wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
Proletheus wrote:
After re-reading the basic rules section on long rests, I'm now inclined to think that the meaning is that an hour or more of strenuous activity invalidates a long rest, strenuous activity being walking, fight, spellcasting, or similar.
I arrived at this by noting that the rule refers to a "period" of activity, not one event, and also refers to "casting spells" plural, implying that casting one spell would not interrupt a rest, but a period of casting several spells would. Extrapolating from that, I also infer that combat will only interrupt a long rest if it is part of a time span that stretches for at least an hour. I'd be inclined to measure the "interrupting" period as continuous strenous events (not necessarily of the same type) rather than summing the total time spent on strenuous activities, as this more accurately reflects the meaing of a "period" to me.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
The grammar of the list itself seems pretty ambiguous to me.
It could have been worded more carefully to avoid confusion, but that doesn't seem to imply to me one reading or the other. That's why I looked outside the list formatting to find other clues.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
The Rules as Written say
Adventurers can take short rests in the midst of an
adventuring day and a long rest to end the day.
So either way, they cannot take a long rest in the middle of the day.
SilverBulletKY wrote:
Noon wrote:
"Adventuring Day" can have different definitions. It could be 8 a.m. to midnight. It could be dusk to dawn. It could even be Monday to Friday.
Yes, a long rest is going to end an adventuring day. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to line up with the position of the sun in the sky.
A day doesn't have to be 6 am to 10 pm, but it does describe a 24-hour repeated cycle. No matter what 'shift' on which a party adventures, I believe the rules are saying that the "long rest" bookends your adventuring day: i.e.: it is not intended to take a "long rest" in addition to normative sleep/downtime. The long rest is the downtime.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
Also it says that "Adventurers can", but that's not the only way they can do it. Doesn't say they cannot take one mid-day (unless they already took an extended rest within the last 24 hours).
"I can go to the mall" doesn't mean I can't go anywhere else.
I can see even one fight disrupting rest for one hour but I don't think it has to. Sure the actual combat part only took 18 seconds, but how long was really taken up. Step 1 look out notices something and wakes the party. Okay the clock is ticking, they aren't resting here they are preparing for a potential fight, looking for enemies get weapons ready etc. How long does the enemy skirt the area before attacking, does the party run off into the darkness trying to attack them first? How much time was wasted before that 18 seconds actualy happened? The fight is over, do they just plop down and go to sleep? I don't thik that makes sense, chances are they secure camp, move camp or take other actions to reduce the odds of being attacked again. I can easily see an hour being blown if the fight was tough, it takes a while to wind down, get secure, move etc. I'm going to spend more than an hour cleaning my kitchen today, doing what you need to do after a fight to feel safe for the night can easily take just as long.
On the other hand if the look out notices a lone scout, sneaks up behind the scout and kills them I don't see the lookouts rest being disrupted. And there can be combat encounters that are quick and easy in other respects so they are under the 1 hour wasted time frame.
shivafang wrote:
Ahglock wrote: