Punishment for resting?

[daimonionen]

Do you put some sort of limitations/hassle on resting? Like a random encounter? Or say they can't rest in certain places or something? And if say, they have to go outside of the dungeon to rest, do they after they have rested, have to fight their way back to where they were last? Seems too easy to just let them start up again where they left off.

[hymer]

Do you put some sort of limitations/hassle on resting? Like a random encounter? Or say they can't rest in certain places or something? And if say, they have to go outside of the dungeon to rest, do they after they have rested, have to fight their way back to where they were last? Seems too easy to just let them start up again where they left off.

It all depends. If they are hacking their way through an ancient tomb of traps, golems and mindless undead, their rest is unlikely to be disturbed. If they go outside to rest (the atmosphere in the tomb is not conducive to resting, say), then the tomb won't change by the time they come back (unless someone else is also looking to get into that tomb and arrive in the meantime).
If, on the other hand, the group is invading a hobgoblin fortress, the pressure is going to mount every moment they stay after the alarm is sounded. Resting will be quite impossible, and leaving to return after a long rest will let the hobgoblins react to all the things that have gone wrong. Extra guards will be posted, patrols will take hounds with them if the PCs infiltrated by stealth, broken doors will be repaired or shored up, etc. The hobgoblins may have guessed what the PCs were after and taken measures to protect it. And they will be sending extra patrols into the area around the fortress to look for further intruders, and so they may find the PCs resting if they didn't go far enough or hid well enough.

If the PCs rest in an area where there are random encounters rolled for, I'll roll as appropriate for the time they spend resting.

[Ruslan]

Assuming the adventure is not on a timer, the environment can still prevent them from taking rests. I usually have four kinds of environments in my games:

1. Extremely hostile. Check for random encounters every 10 minutes. All random encounters are hostile. Players may attempt to rest, but it will be useless, as every attempt to camp just ends in another fight. Example: in the middle of the Dark Lord's fortress.

2. Moderately hostile. Check for random encounters ever 1 hour. Most random encounters are hostile. Short Rest is probably possible, but Long Rest is not. Example: in the long-abandoned mines of Ker-Banogh, rumored to be cursed.

3. Slightly hostile. Check for random encounters every 8 hours. Some random encounters are hostile. Short and Long rests are possible. Example: in the heart of Stittlewood forest.

4. Not hostile. Players may take downtime to their liking. Unless there's a story reason, rest is never interrupted. Example: PC's hometown.

[The Glyphstone]

If they do need to fight back in, the fights should at least be easier (assuming not too much time resting). Otherwise they'll get locked into the unbreakable cycle of expending all their resources, then resetting all the progress they've made in the process of recovery. But as mentioned, it's heavily dependent on the context of where they are. An empty tomb and a hobgoblin fortress will have very different reactions to a partial attack. Similarly, a hobgoblin fortress in the middle of Gobbotopia and a keep on their border will have very different levels of resource available to react with.

[IShouldntBehere]

Do you put some sort of limitations/hassle on resting? Like a random encounter? Or say they can't rest in certain places or something? And if say, they have to go outside of the dungeon to rest, do they after they have rested, have to fight their way back to where they were last? Seems too easy to just let them start up again where they left off.

What happens is what happens. Depends on then when, where and why of it all.

Resting out in some random stretch indistinct wilderness: Probably nothing happens. Maybe once in a roll a low chance for a random encounter just the keep the wilds wild, but hardly as a matter of course.
Resting in a "Dungeon": Long-Abandoned dwarven ruins guarded by automatons? It's probably safe to rest anywhere you've already cleared out as the artificial guardians probably patrol along set paths, and have destroyed other monsters.
Resting in a "Dungeon": An ancient eleven city filled with the angry spirits & corrupted spirits of those killed by the apocalyptic magic that destroyed their empire? That's a very bad idea.

Leave to rest after exploring parts of the Crystal Forest? Chances are what you've cleared stays cleared as the Gem-Beasts are territorial it would take time for any to move back into the liars of those you killed
Leave to rest after breaching the defenses of the Goblin Warrens? Chances are not only have the guards & dogs been reinforced but double or tripled-down since last night's invasion.

It isn't dictated by any hard and fast meta-rules. Things are what they are. Metagame considerations may influence what sort of locales and challenges I introduce, but that's about it.

[Joe the Rat]

I encourage my players to take short rests - Almost everyone has SR reset resources, and hit dice, and they're rather bad about stopping and pacing. usually in the form of "this spot seems quiet and out of the way. It would be a good point to rest." If I roll for encounter, I'll put it towards the end. Short rests will typically not result in increased difficulty unless they've made a big mess of things.

Long rests depend on where they're resting. Out in the wilderness or not in someone's layer, I do a 3-watch encounter check. In someone's layer I'll check hourly, but that gets modified by if they find an out-of-the-way or unpatrolled area (fewer rolls or check at "disadvantage), or if they try to hide or bluff in the thick of it (where I will roll checks with "advantage" - and possibly have two randoms show up together). Long rests typically "reset" patrols and defended zones.

[Arkhios]

In the middle of hostile territory?
A camp out in the open is more likely to draw unwanted attention than a carefully hidden camp, maybe in a cave, for example.

In a no man's land?
A camp anywhere is just as likely to draw attention from wildlife as from wandering monsters. An abandoned shack, a cave, or maybe a easily hidden ravine might serve as a safe spot to rest.

Anyway, my point is that it's obviously a matter of location - and in some cases, timing - where or when it's safe to take a rest, short or long.

If players are foolish or short-sighted enough to camp in the open, then I'll definitely roll for a random encounter appropriate to the area. Depending how much effort they put to hide their camp I might adjust the chance to be higher or lower.
If they find an abandoned shack, it's likely a DM's way to hint that it's safe to rest in here, unless there's a reason to believe otherwise.

[LudicSavant]

Do you put some sort of limitations/hassle on resting? Like a random encounter? Or say they can't rest in certain places or something? And if say, they have to go outside of the dungeon to rest, do they after they have rested, have to fight their way back to where they were last? Seems too easy to just let them start up again where they left off.

In the campaign I'm currently DMing, pretty much every adventure has had a time-dependent component. In one, the PCs were seeking to rescue captives who were going to be sacrificed in a ritual. In another, the PCs were competing to get an artifact before a rival adventuring party. In another, the PCs were trying to get people out of a city under siege by securing a temple with a permanent Teleportation Circle so that they could evacuate people in time. All of this is in addition to having a dynamic world populated with characters with their own agendas which they are moving forward on their own time.

PCs choosing to rest in such circumstances always had natural consequences to be weighed. Time does not wait for the PCs, and the competition moves forward while they wait. In many cases, taking too much in-world time would simply cause the main objective to be failed outright.

These are not some predetermined punishment for resting. They are simply natural consequences that arise from the passage of time in the scenario.

Those who would be big damn heroes must learn to arrive in the nick of time. :smallwink:

[Laurefindel]

Generally speaking, I only allow rests in environments where the characters can reasonably relax and rejuvenate. I.e., no long rest in the forest where the dire wolves are howling, and no short rest in the dungeon if the characters know there are kobolds around the corner that could attack at any time. I'm a fan of random events (in which encounters with bad guys is a possible result) and "living" environment as long as they move the story forward and don't merely stall it. Other than that I don't like to "punish" anything the players do, but as some other posters said, there may be consequences to their actions.

[BW022]

I don't think since 3.x, that random encounters make too much sense. Combats in 5e still take about 30-60 minutes. Dungeons and modules in general are built with this in mind and typically there are only maybe 5-6 rooms with a two to three combat encounters in a "dungeon". Most tend to be extremely small -- a few hundred feet across tops. It rarely makes sense that random monsters can come along. Even in the wilderness... more than the occasional random encounter really slow the game down, disrupts plot, and forces PCs into taking time consuming measures to avoid such things.

However, in certain cases, there are penalties for resting. However, these are either obvious or build into the plot.

In "dungeons" (mazes, cave systems, small castles, towers, city buildings, etc.)... short resting typically means that the inhabitants of the complex become aware of the PCs and either a) gang up and attack the PCs will resting, b) fortify themselves in a room with reasonable traps, guards, barricades, pre-positioned for the fight, etc., or c) they pack up and leave (often with treasure, prisoners, etc.). The penalty is fighting everyone at once or arriving at an abandoned place.

In wilderness or cities... unless there is a time constraint on the PCs, resting is resting. Unless the plot specifically calls for something time constrained to happen, there typically aren't logically any reason that the PCs can't rest. Sometimes I'll at specific timed events to keep the PCs moving and these can become penalties for resting -- say they are chasing some group on horseback, there is a snow storm coming in and they need to get over the mountain in two days, or the full moon is five hours and the PCs need to find the werewolf in the village before it kills again.

[DanyBallon]

I don't enforce anything special for resting, but sometimes I remember them that resting in hostile territory isn't always the best thing to do.

Once I had to prevent them from using a short rest after their first fight of the day. I told them that I don't like the idea that the adventuring party starts its day at 8:00 AM, got into a fight, then take a hour-long rest at 8:15 AM. I asked them for a better ressource management, and to carry potions and scrolls around. After that talk, the issue never came up again, as they agreed that it was pushing the limits of versimilitude a bit too far.

[hymer]

Even in the wilderness... more than the occasional random encounter really slow the game down, disrupts plot, and forces PCs into taking time consuming measures to avoid such things.

Speaking as a proponent of the (prudently used) random encounter table, I have two thoughts on that comment:

1: It certainly shouldn't be a time consuming process to avoid a random encounter. PC parties are small groups, and usually have some alert people in them. About 80% of the time (or something), the random encounters I run with can be avoided simply by seeking cover and sitting tight until the other creatures pass.

2: Random encounters should really be about much more than the chance of starting a fight (although some groups relish any chance to draw swords, and most groups can feel rather aggressive on occasion, and so will welcome an unscripted fight). Granted, some encounters will almost certainly be of the 'fight or evade' variety, but there's much more than that available. Disguise yourself as one of those encountered and see if you can find out some useful information. Or if they're not that hostile, just talk to them and see what they know. Maybe practice a little pick pocketing. Or use a charm spell you don't usually get much chance to use. See if they have a map they'll trade, or some stories or gossip to swap. Hire them as mercenaries or scouts. And so on.
As the DM, you can likewise do things to a random encounter to make it more integral to the world, or simply more amusing. Improvise an interesting situation, using the situation and the rolled result as your cues. What is a lone X doing out here? Could be a crazed hermit, a lone survivor of a catastrophe, a lost traveller desperate for help, a poet seeking solitude, a travelling merchant, an escaped convict (perhaps falsely accused), etc.