DMing Short rests

[MrStabby]

Short rests have been a bit of a problem for my groups, both in the campaign I play in and in the campaign I DM.

Long rests are easy - you can take a long rest if you are in a safe place. You cannot rest if you are in a dangerous place. Of course there are still occasional ambushes and a place may not always be as safe as the PCs think it is - although that is another issue.

The problem with the safe/dangerous rule of resting is that there is no point at which you can take a short rest where you couldn't take a long rest - meaning there is no advantage to having short rest abilities.

One way I have tried to deal with it is having timed adventures - where there is a race on to finish. It worked well but to do that more than once feels like you are overusing it and I would like to be better able to use the short rest mechanic without resorting to perpetual gimmicks like that.

A second equally contrived method is simply interrupting a long rest with a fight and declaring the long rest a short rest. Again DM fiat as a one off there was fine but it would become deeply annoying if I overused it.

Shortening the duration of a short rest so it could be fitted in in the course of a dungeon crawl or similar is fine, but balancing it such that you can't take them whenever you want is then also tricky. Again, drawing a line to limit these seems also a little bit arbitrary.

Allowing more random circumstances where short rests can be taken is also a little unequal. The lack of spread may make short rest abilities very much weaker if their distribution is random (so that abilities get topped up before they have been used/needed or long after they would have been useful) or very much stronger if it is the long rests that get interrupted.


In short, finding a way that short and long rests will naturally slot into an adventuring pattern and a story is being a right pain. Allowing adventurers to schedule a regular tea break at the same time in the morning and afternoon to split the adventuring day seems a little contrived.

The solution I am currently thinking of is mainly for warlocks and monks (as they are in my campaign). I am thinking of assuming two combats per short rest and moving short rest abilities to initiative rolling. Warlocks, when they roll for initiative may recover a spell slot. Monks recover Ki points up to half their level. I am not sure what to do for warlocks at 11th level when they would recover 3 spells on a short rest though.

Am I the only person that seems to have a problem resolving this?

[CNagy]

I treat short rests as something you mostly do in dangerous, enemy territory. In a dungeon, it usually means barricading yourself into a room and resting while keeping a watchful eye on the door.

I always felt like the assumption of short rests was less based on actual opportunities in play and more as a guideline for how short rest abilities were balanced. The party who fights off an orc raid on a village might not necessarily follow it up with an immediate trek out to the camp to wipe the rest of the orcs out. They could take a short rest but they could just as easily take a long rest and replenish the spellcasters' slots.

Short rests are basically for refreshing short rest abilities and using hit dice to heal. I've found that what works for my table is allowing 10 minute rests that refresh short rest abilities, 2/day. To heal using hit dice, you still have to take the whole hour.

And something that I did not know: it takes a full hour of interruption to interrupt a long rest. The book uses the description "at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity." An hour! Show of hands, anyone ever participate in a combat that has reached Round 600?

[Demonic Spoon]

Short rests aren't "rests" in the same way as long rests are - a short rest is just when the party isn't performing strenuous activity. They're still awake and alive - they can have people guarding and listening at various doors, their weapons out, armor on, etc. If monsters kick in the door while the party is short resting, they can still be up and fighting almost immediately.


Another thing to think about is: how dense are your dungeons? Is literally every room packed with monsters? If so, then it makes sense that you'd see an isuse with resting when a monster is literally one room over. If you spread things out a bit more, though, such that a dungeon requiring a short rest is actually fairly large, then it's less of an issue.

[Millface]

The DMG suggests 6-9 encounters per day. Two or Three short rests and a Long rest. If the party turns all of these into long rests you're looking at a dungeon taking ~26-34 hours.

I see two problems here:

1. Timing a mission isn't really a "mechanic" that you use or overuse. It's just a fact of life. I can barely think of any kind of real quest or mission that wouldn't or shouldn't have consequences if the party takes 30 hours plus travel time to get it done. Rescuing someone? Well, he's dead or moved now. Grabbing an artifact from a tomb? If you guys got wind of it it's safe to assume some other party or entity has heard about it recently as well, now it's gone because you slept 5 times thinking that you have all the time in the world for everything you do.

Whether you're doing a simple one off mission or a quest to save the world from the forces of darkness time is ALWAYS a factor.

2. Dungeon design. Every single dungeon should have patrolling monsters, what's the point of having treasure if you aren't trying to protect it? What monster in their right mind wants to sit in his one room and never move for all eternity just waiting to be slaughtered? They take shifts, they DO things. Resting for an hour while alert and ready for ambush once you clear a room and board it up is easy, especially if you time the patrols. Sleeping 8 hours should be impossible.

[Malifice]

I did something identical to the above.

Short rests in my games are (an arbitrarily small amount of time from a few minutes to an hour) that can be taken no more that twice per long rest. Occasionally I may allow more (If the PCs have been having a hard time of it through no fault of their own).

Quick bandage of wounds, drink of water, catch breath, bite to eat, map check and you're good to go.

[Millface]

I treat short rests as something you mostly do in dangerous, enemy territory. In a dungeon, it usually means barricading yourself into a room and resting while keeping a watchful eye on the door.

I always felt like the assumption of short rests was less based on actual opportunities in play and more as a guideline for how short rest abilities were balanced. The party who fights off an orc raid on a village might not necessarily follow it up with an immediate trek out to the camp to wipe the rest of the orcs out. They could take a short rest but they could just as easily take a long rest and replenish the spellcasters' slots.

Short rests are basically for refreshing short rest abilities and using hit dice to heal. I've found that what works for my table is allowing 10 minute rests that refresh short rest abilities, 2/day. To heal using hit dice, you still have to take the whole hour.

And something that I did not know: it takes a full hour of interruption to interrupt a long rest. The book uses the description "at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity." An hour! Show of hands, anyone ever participate in a combat that has reached Round 600?

Definitely spot on about balance and dungeons. But even your long rest instead of short before you head to the orc camp after repelling the attack could have consequences. It really depends on how deeply your DM thinks about his bad guys.

I would play it that once the tide turns some of the orcs try to flee, if one manages to get back to camp with news of a powerful party of heroes then they aren't just going to sit idle and wait for ambush. They'll be preparing every minute that you wait. Kill all the runners though and you can take your rest.

At first my party didn't think about things like time and enemy intelligence and things were tough for them, but it didn't take long for them to figure it out. This depends heavily on what kind of DM you have though. To many, monsters are just mindless beat sticks to line up and knock down.

[MrStabby]

Another thing to think about is: how dense are your dungeons? Is literally every room packed with monsters? If so, then it makes sense that you'd see an isuse with resting when a monster is literally one room over. If you spread things out a bit more, though, such that a dungeon requiring a short rest is actually fairly large, then it's less of an issue.

Dungeons are pretty dense in the sense that if you let one group of enemies shout a warning then there will be about two other groups nearby that will hear them (and will either flee or come and investigate), though not always in the next room in say an 8 room area of a dungeon you would be able to hear a shout/battle.

Basically the problem is that I am having difficulty balancing the classes around short rests without putting arbitrary feeling rules in place. I want to find a set of adjustments to make to the rules such that they feel natural but also balance the class abilities (as described in the DMG).

[Paeleus]

In my group's current campaign, the DM stated at the beginning that it would a bit grittier. This translates to a short rest being 8 hours and a long rest being a week. As he wants to have more downtime activities, this mechanic allows these downtime activities to occur during these week long, long rests. As a player, I have noticed thatit changes our playing styles (no more abusing rests when we've expended all of our resources/abilities -> being more conservative with abilities/slots and working together more, acting less like murderhobos-> we're acting less like ***** to townspeople/npcs because that town is now a refuge for rests and we're encouraged to explore crafting and stuff, and it adds a sense of mortality and danger to our characters->helps us invest more in the actual character vs. being invested in what the character can do). I'm not sure if this would be kosher with your campaign and your groups playing style, but it's a cool way to steer away from just swinging and casting for your entire campaign/session.

[Millface]

Dungeons are pretty dense in the sense that if you let one group of enemies shout a warning then there will be about two other groups nearby that will hear them (and will either flee or come and investigate), though not always in the next room in say an 8 room area of a dungeon you would be able to hear a shout/battle.

Basically the problem is that I am having difficulty balancing the classes around short rests without putting arbitrary feeling rules in place. I want to find a set of adjustments to make to the rules such that they feel natural but also balance the class abilities (as described in the DMG).

It's coming across like you think that realism is annoying. I'm not sure if that's what you mean, but that's how it sounds.

You mentioned them being able to short rest whenever they want, but that doesn't help much, since they run out of HD to heal up with pretty fast. Short Rest is there to gain back your middle of the road resources and some HP. Exploiting it won't do you any good. 2/3s of your rests should be short ones, at least, and that makes sense. You don't go to work for 3 hours then sleep 8 hours/rinse repeat, and if you allow your party to go balls to the wall every encounter that messes with challenge balance. They're supposed to be paying attention to resource management.

If things like time, class mechanics, dungeon pacing, and intelligent resource use on behalf of the party are annoying to you then we can't help much can we? You'll just have to homebrew something based on what your table finds fun. For me these mechanics work perfectly.

[MrStabby]

It's coming across like you think that realism is annoying. I'm not sure if that's what you mean, but that's how it sounds.

You mentioned them being able to short rest whenever they want, but that doesn't help much, since they run out of HD to heal up with pretty fast. Short Rest is there to gain back your middle of the road resources and some HP. Exploiting it won't do you any good. 2/3s of your rests should be short ones, at least, and that makes sense. You don't go to work for 3 hours then sleep 8 hours/rinse repeat, and if you allow your party to go balls to the wall every encounter that messes with challenge balance. They're supposed to be paying attention to resource management.

If things like time, class mechanics, dungeon pacing, and intelligent resource use on behalf of the party are annoying to you then we can't help much can we? You'll just have to homebrew something based on what your table finds fun. For me these mechanics work perfectly.

OK I have clearly not explained myself well here at all. Lets have another go.

I think the situation is that rules conflicts with realism if the game is to be balanced. My problem isn't with the realism but with the rules (hence I asked for suggestions to adjust rules, rather than reality). Short resting whenever a character wants is not really about hit dice so much. With other forms of healing, a short rest is nice but not crucial. The issue with short rests is that some classes more than others have their resources based on them.

If you allow short rests any time then monks and Warlocks become too powerful. If you allow them too rarely they they become too weak. You need a system to have something in between to retain class balance.

To have something in between you can either be arbitrary about it and say that the party can have two short rests per day between encounters. Whilst fair, it is hard to hide how arbitrary it is.

Alternatively you can try and change the short rest mechanic so that naturally it can happen on average a couple of times per day. You can do this by adjusting the length or requiring more or less peace for it to happen. The problems here are that all your adventures become pretty homogeneous to accommodate this or the short rests tend to cluster (simply due to random variation) and clustered rests give much less benefit than evenly spaced rests.

One thing I find odd is that a lot of people are simply repeating what the DMG guide says - yes I have read it , yes it is the source of the problem, no the solution is probably not going to be re-reading it (unless elves have sneaked in in the middle of the night and re-written it).

[ZenBear]

The way I see it, short rests are meal breaks and long rests are sleep time. If you require your players to take a meal to benefit from a short rest, you have a natural limit to how often they take them. If they abuse it, they get fat and start getting sick and fatigued quicker. Limit rations if you want to tie them to a town or settlement. Also, try as you might you can't sleep 8 hours, exercise for 2, then immediately sleep again. Most people can't sleep on demand at all, it's an uncontrollable reflex they have to work around.

[Kryx]

If you allow short rests any time then monks and Warlocks become too powerful. If you allow them too rarely they they become too weak. You need a system to have something in between to retain class balance.
Limit the number to be what is expected then. I limit short rests to the expected 2 times per day and have changed the duration to 5 minutes. It allows for classes with the short rest mechanic a chance to shine.


To have something in between you can either be arbitrary about it and say that the party can have two short rests per day between encounters. Whilst fair, it is hard to hide how arbitrary it is.
It is arbitrary. There is no fluff to it. That's the mechanics of the game. Same as 1 long rest per 24 hrs.


I try to aim for the higher amount of encounters that the DMG suggests, but it's hard.

[MrStabby]

The way I see it, short rests are meal breaks and long rests are sleep time. If you require your players to take a meal to benefit from a short rest, you have a natural limit to how often they take them. If they abuse it, they get fat and start getting sick and fatigued quicker. Limit rations if you want to tie them to a town or settlement. Also, try as you might you can't sleep 8 hours, exercise for 2, then immediately sleep again. Most people can't sleep on demand at all, it's an uncontrollable reflex they have to work around.

Actually this isn't bad. It then becomes a meal themed rest not a short rest and you can cap how many meals a player can eat in a day. Also, by making it relate to apatite not party time you can help remove some of the conflicts between people who want to stop and people who want to carry on adventuring by allowing people to eat their food as they go.

[Malifice]

Limit the number to be what is expected then. I limit short rests to the expected 2 times per day and have changed the duration to 5 minutes. It allows for classes with the short rest mechanic a chance to shine.


It is arbitrary. There is no fluff to it. That's the mechanics of the game. Same as 1 long rest per 24 hrs.


I try to aim for the higher amount of encounters that the DMG suggests, but it's hard.

Same for me too. I'm working on an average of 2 combat and 1 environmental/ skill encounter per rest, and about 2 short rests per long rest. I probably hit that mark slightly over 50 percent of the time so it's working OK for mine.

Wilderness encounters are proving more difficult to pace, as are town encounters. Much easier to nova (although this arguably makes everyone in the party look amazing - initiative becomes king).

I'm slightly regretting not going with the 8 hour/ 1 week pacing for SR v LR. That would have been a lot more elegant (seeing as I also use a harsher version the slower healing variant). The 8 hour/ 1 week rest duration fixes a lot of personal issues with 5th edition (slows the super fast healing, reduces nova strikes and forces PC's to conserve abilities, makes 'always on' abilities like many feats, fighting styles, invocations, racial abilities, champion abilities and sneak attack and expertise more coveted, and introduces more use of down time) all in one fell swoop.

Im sorely tempted to trial it in game and see how it works. Maybe next campaign.

[Millface]

OK I have clearly not explained myself well here at all. Lets have another go.

I think the situation is that rules conflicts with realism if the game is to be balanced. My problem isn't with the realism but with the rules (hence I asked for suggestions to adjust rules, rather than reality). Short resting whenever a character wants is not really about hit dice so much. With other forms of healing, a short rest is nice but not crucial. The issue with short rests is that some classes more than others have their resources based on them.

If you allow short rests any time then monks and Warlocks become too powerful. If you allow them too rarely they they become too weak. You need a system to have something in between to retain class balance.

To have something in between you can either be arbitrary about it and say that the party can have two short rests per day between encounters. Whilst fair, it is hard to hide how arbitrary it is.

Alternatively you can try and change the short rest mechanic so that naturally it can happen on average a couple of times per day. You can do this by adjusting the length or requiring more or less peace for it to happen. The problems here are that all your adventures become pretty homogeneous to accommodate this or the short rests tend to cluster (simply due to random variation) and clustered rests give much less benefit than evenly spaced rests.

One thing I find odd is that a lot of people are simply repeating what the DMG guide says - yes I have read it , yes it is the source of the problem, no the solution is probably not going to be re-reading it (unless elves have sneaked in in the middle of the night and re-written it).

LIGHTBULB

I understand what you're getting at now, thanks for clarifying. I suppose some classes do benefit more than others, and you certainly don't want them clearing a room/resting in it x 10 for the dungeon. I guess the natural flow of my campaign just hasn't really seen that yet. If you're somewhere that has enough encounters to really use the short rest/long rest there's always some sort of time sensitivity at play.

Bottom line is without giving it any thought at all this has never once been a problem for me, but mileage varies and you're certainly not wrong in your observations. I mentioned realism because realistically everything is somewhat time sensitive if your heroes are out to get it in the first place.

Let them rest all they want, but when they do that gives the bad guys time to call reinforcements, get ahold of their master, move the hostage/item you're after, set up traps and barricades if they know you're there... you can have your baddies behave in any number of realistic ways that punish rest abuse and it stops you having to make rules. 1-2 times you don't mention a time constraint but they make some noise and then rest three times and when they get to the boss room he's gone with all his stuff and they'll get the idea. I just figured this stuff governs itself if the DM is doing his or her job.

[PoeticDwarf]

Short rests have been a bit of a problem for my groups, both in the campaign I play in and in the campaign I DM.

Long rests are easy - you can take a long rest if you are in a safe place. You cannot rest if you are in a dangerous place. Of course there are still occasional ambushes and a place may not always be as safe as the PCs think it is - although that is another issue.

The problem with the safe/dangerous rule of resting is that there is no point at which you can take a short rest where you couldn't take a long rest - meaning there is no advantage to having short rest abilities.

One way I have tried to deal with it is having timed adventures - where there is a race on to finish. It worked well but to do that more than once feels like you are overusing it and I would like to be better able to use the short rest mechanic without resorting to perpetual gimmicks like that.

A second equally contrived method is simply interrupting a long rest with a fight and declaring the long rest a short rest. Again DM fiat as a one off there was fine but it would become deeply annoying if I overused it.

Shortening the duration of a short rest so it could be fitted in in the course of a dungeon crawl or similar is fine, but balancing it such that you can't take them whenever you want is then also tricky. Again, drawing a line to limit these seems also a little bit arbitrary.

Allowing more random circumstances where short rests can be taken is also a little unequal. The lack of spread may make short rest abilities very much weaker if their distribution is random (so that abilities get topped up before they have been used/needed or long after they would have been useful) or very much stronger if it is the long rests that get interrupted.


In short, finding a way that short and long rests will naturally slot into an adventuring pattern and a story is being a right pain. Allowing adventurers to schedule a regular tea break at the same time in the morning and afternoon to split the adventuring day seems a little contrived.

The solution I am currently thinking of is mainly for warlocks and monks (as they are in my campaign). I am thinking of assuming two combats per short rest and moving short rest abilities to initiative rolling. Warlocks, when they roll for initiative may recover a spell slot. Monks recover Ki points up to half their level. I am not sure what to do for warlocks at 11th level when they would recover 3 spells on a short rest though.

Am I the only person that seems to have a problem resolving this?
You're not the only one, but you can roll the d8, and say there happens something at the hour you rolled. So if you roll a 5, after 5 hours there is something. Only with a 8 they are safe.

[Sigreid]

The short answer is Long rests only provide benefit once per day, and short rests aren't your problem. It's up to the party to determine when they want a short rest, where they are willing to rest and what precautions they are going to take to make it safe. The rules do specify that they can engage in 1 fight in that hour without loosing the benefit of the short rest.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I've actually started tracking time on the same 3x5 I use for XP to account for rests. It allows the meal theme to work, and given some monsters aren't meant to be in the day, others not at night, it works. In fact, some locations have day and night monster shifts because of that. Day monsters marked with a circle, night with a star.

Just don't long rest in the room with the specters.

[Nonah_Me]

The way I handle short rests is that it's part of general exploring a dungeon or looking over a room. I also cut it to about 15 minutes, give or take. Time to catch your breath, maybe look over that statue in the room you're hanging out in, or a short discussion about the magic rooms you found a few days ago. This is also the time for Arcana/History/Nature/Religion checks of a more thoughtful nature. "You know, I didn't think about it at the time, but those zombies don't seem to be constructed like normal zombies. I think they might be small flesh golems." Stuff like that.

I really like the meal time idea. Tying a short rest to consuming one of the rations that everyone gets is flavorful and interesting. It ties the characters into the world and makes people pay attention. It can also be a party cohesion thing. "Hey Warlock, can I have one of your rations? I forgot to stock up back at the inn." "Again? Fine."

[djreynolds]

I think that mechanics should never get in the way of what the DM is trying to create. And this shows just how vital martial characters are.

Now, breaking on a long patrol or forced March is a short rest if done right. Some guys never sat down, other guys stop remove boots and run out feet and switch socks. Other guys are straighting out body armor, reload magazines, cleaning weapons. Patching wounds, etc.

But the question is are these guys under duress, if so how much decompression mentally or physically can be removed so he can meditate or focus on spells. Are these guys in a fog, mentally?

If on a short rest, spells can be regained and such. Then there must be something between that and the combat encounter. That time frame where you're just focused on the beans, bullets, bandages and your nuts. This might help flush out things.

[LordVonDerp]

If an hour passes with no major events, it counts as a short rest. What's the problem?

[KorvinStarmast]

Short rest is when the DM gets up for a break to the restroom and to grab a cold beer from the fridge. :smallbiggrin:

[djreynolds]

Fair enough, but there must come a time when characters feel secure enough to rest and that must be the long rest, and without it the lose of resources alone is huge. But you're right if you've been sitting around for an hour, you've rested.

[Hawkstar]

I think part of the disparity comes between how short a round is (6 seconds) and how much can be done in a round, with no bearing on how short an hour actually is outside of high-stress situations.

[comk59]

Actually this isn't bad. It then becomes a meal themed rest not a short rest and you can cap how many meals a player can eat in a day. Also, by making it relate to apatite not party time you can help remove some of the conflicts between people who want to stop and people who want to carry on adventuring by allowing people to eat their food as they go.

I really love the meal idea too. It'll make the characters actually pay attention to their rations, which is honestly something I haven't done since I made that one chef character. Plus, the fact that it's limited feels a lot more organic than an arbitrary rests/day mechanic.

[ZenBear]

I'm glad some of you like my meal idea. As a further note, requiring at least 3 meals a day; breakfast in the morning, lunch at midday, dinner in the evening; or the party has to start making saves against fatigue. This means rations must be used and restocked, and short-rest dependant classes won't be force-marched by long-rest classes who don't want to wait around without a penalty.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I'm glad some of you like my meal idea. As a further note, requiring at least 3 meals a day; breakfast in the morning, lunch at midday, dinner in the evening; or the party has to start making saves against fatigue. This means rations must be used and restocked, and short-rest dependant classes won't be force-marched by long-rest classes who don't want to wait around without a penalty.

Consider a Halfling to be at disadvantage, given their desire to eat more often?

Even if the save is DC 5, someone is bound to fail and be "hungry."

Given one is lunch, which meal is the other short rest? Tea at 3?! Can you write out a 24 hour clock to show how this would work? I'm curious, and I don't want to mess up your ideas.

[Bubzors]

Let them rest all they want, but when they do that gives the bad guys time to call reinforcements, get ahold of their master, move the hostage/item you're after, set up traps and barricades if they know you're there... you can have your baddies behave in any number of realistic ways that punish rest abuse and it stops you having to make rules. 1-2 times you don't mention a time constraint but they make some noise and then rest three times and when they get to the boss room he's gone with all his stuff and they'll get the idea. I just figured this stuff governs itself if the DM is doing his or her job.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I'm the campaign I dm I have not yet ran into rest abuse at all, mainly because I have set the expectation that if they rest in the wrong place there will be consequences. Most of the time the party weighs pros and cons of resting and make a group decision from there

[ZenBear]

Consider a Halfling to be at disadvantage, given their desire to eat more often?

Even if the save is DC 5, someone is bound to fail and be "hungry."

Given one is lunch, which meal is the other short rest? Tea at 3?! Can you write out a 24 hour clock to show how this would work? I'm curious, and I don't want to mess up your ideas.

The expectation is 2-3 short rests per day. Wake up and eat breakfast, then go adventuring for a few hours. Personally, I get hungry after 4 hours and start to feel weak after 6, and that's without heavy exertion. Look at a standard 9-5 work day: 8 hours of work with a lunch break in the middle. After work you likely stay up another 4-8 hours and have dinner at some point therein. 2 short rests is lunch and dinner, take a third if the party decides to work overtime. I don't know what the hunger DC should be but if you're fighting for your life and decide to skip a meal, anyone not trained in privation (Con save prof) will likely suffer fatigue.

And yes, halflings have disadvantage. 😆

[Safety Sword]

Meal breaks are short rests.

The characters stop and rest their feet, take stock of their situation, change their bandages, etc etc.

Never had any abuse with characters trying to rest after every encounter, so it's worked pretty well.