wizard resting questions

[newguydude1]

To prepare her daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but she must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If her rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and she must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing her spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, she still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.

does this mean that a wizard can
rest for 2 hours (6 hours left)
get interrupted and do something for 8 hours (7hours left)
rest for 2 hours (5 hours left)
get interrupted and do something for 8 hours (6hours left)
...
until she fulfills the full hours left?

in other words instead of 8 hours of rest, its 16 hours of rest in 2 hours intervals throughout the week.



does being unconscious count as resting? even when handled like being bound and taken somewhere?

[Crake]

does this mean that a wizard can
rest for 2 hours (6 hours left)
get interrupted and do something for 8 hours (7hours left)
rest for 2 hours (5 hours left)
get interrupted and do something for 8 hours (6hours left)
...
until she fulfills the full hours left?

in other words instead of 8 hours of rest, its 16 hours of rest in 2 hours intervals throughout the week.



does being unconscious count as resting? even when handled like being bound and taken somewhere?

I mean, sure? If you only want to prepare spells once per week?

[newguydude1]

I mean, sure? If you only want to prepare spells once per week?

a campaign's bottleneck is resting for spells. 2 hours+ rest during travel inside a caravan throughout the day/week will shorten rest time to regain spells to 1 hour and 1 second.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would say that being knocked unconscious is not resting. It's decidedly not restful and you wake up tired and with a massive headache. The wizard class specifies "a good night's sleep"

May I point you to the magic item Heward's Fortifying Bedroll in Complete Mage as a general solution to this problem. It allows one to get 8 hours of rest in a single hour of sleep. You can only use it every other day, but that alone is a significant time savings for a wizard on the go. They are even useful for martial characters with their ability to heal fatigue, exhaustion, and recover HP in merely an hour. It's great for rangers who want to keep watch.

Though note it does not remove the period of 8 hours before memorizing your spells where any spell cast counts against the next day's spell count.

[Crake]

a campaign's bottleneck is resting for spells. 2 hours+ rest during travel inside a caravan throughout the day/week will shorten rest time to regain spells to 1 hour and 1 second.

If this is your issue, Heward's fortifying bedroll from complete mage explicitly reduces a caster's rest time for spell preparation down to a single hour, along with all the other benefits of 8 hours of rest, but it each person can only benefit once from it every 48 hours. Still, that's far more mileage than 2 hours of rest every day to prepare once per week. It does also function once per day, meaning two people can share one bedroll, so it's pricetag of 3000gp really isn't too bad if this is that much of an issue for you.

[newguydude1]

I would say that being knocked unconscious is not resting. It's decidedly not restful and you wake up tired and with a massive headache. The wizard class specifies "a good night's sleep"

so passing out drunk isnt resting when you wake up with a hangover? if it is resting how is that different than getting knocked out and waking up later?


If this is your issue, Heward's fortifying bedroll from complete mage explicitly reduces a caster's rest time for spell preparation down to a single hour, along with all the other benefits of 8 hours of rest, but it each person can only benefit once from it every 48 hours. Still, that's far more mileage than 2 hours of rest every day to prepare once per week. It does also function once per day, meaning two people can share one bedroll, so it's pricetag of 3000gp really isn't too bad if this is that much of an issue for you.

thanks for the info. but pre-resting for 7 hours and 59minutes and 59 seconds is still a valid strategy when you are on the cooldown of that item. but as fouredged sword says, spells cast in the last 8 hours wont be refilled so its not the best strategy.

[Crake]

thanks for the info. but pre-resting for 7 hours and 59minutes and 59 seconds is still a valid strategy when you are on the cooldown of that item. but as fouredged sword says, spells cast in the last 8 hours wont be refilled so its not the best strategy.

Wait, I guess I still don't quite understand the scenario you're in... Are you trying to get double your spells per day on a specific day by "pre resting" earlier in the week, expending all your spells, then resting for an hour, repreparing, and then going out again? If so, that's pretty much exactly what the 8 hour rule for spells cast recently was made to prevent, and as far as I'm aware, there's no way to overcome it.

[newguydude1]

Wait, I guess I still don't quite understand the scenario you're in... Are you trying to get double your spells per day on a specific day by "pre resting" earlier in the week, expending all your spells, then resting for an hour, repreparing, and then going out again? If so, that's pretty much exactly what the 8 hour rule for spells cast recently was made to prevent, and as far as I'm aware, there's no way to overcome it.

if for some reason you can never have 8 hours of rest because maybe your in a dungeon and being actively chased by search parties, or if your on a serious time crunch and cant afford to spend 8 hours of resting, its handy to be able to regain at least a portion of your spells (spells you cast more than 8 hours ago) by resting for only 1 hour and 1 second instead of a full 8 hours.

if your a wizard about to go into a dungeon, theres literally no reason not to rest for 7 hours and 59 minutes and 59 seconds before you do in case the crawl lasts more than 8 hours. is my line of thought.

[Crake]

if for some reason you can never have 8 hours of rest because maybe your in a dungeon and being actively chased by search parties, or if your on a serious time crunch and cant afford to spend 8 hours of resting, its handy to be able to regain at least a portion of your spells (spells you cast more than 8 hours ago) by resting for only 1 hour and 1 second instead of a full 8 hours.

if your a wizard about to go into a dungeon, theres literally no reason not to rest for 7 hours and 59 minutes and 59 seconds before you do in case the crawl lasts more than 8 hours. is my line of thought.

These are exactly the circumstances that reserve feats were created for honestly.

Also, you don't need to say 7 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds, you CAN just do 8 hours. A wizard doesn't need to immediately begin spell preparation after 8 hours of resting, he merely requires 8 hours of rest PLUS 1 hour of rest immediately before preparing spells. You're way overcomplicating it though, it seems like the use case where an adventuring day exceeds 8 hours to the point where you would actually get a substantial amount of spells back, but you wouldn't have just been able to rest normally is incredibly niche. If you're going into a situation where you KNOW there's a time crunch, that's what consumables are for, wands, potions, scrolls, ways to extend your staying power to push through such time crunches.

[newguydude1]

These are exactly the circumstances that reserve feats were created for honestly.

Also, you don't need to say 7 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds, you CAN just do 8 hours. A wizard doesn't need to immediately begin spell preparation after 8 hours of resting, he merely requires 8 hours of rest PLUS 1 hour of rest immediately before preparing spells. You're way overcomplicating it though, it seems like the use case where an adventuring day exceeds 8 hours to the point where you would actually get a substantial amount of spells back, but you wouldn't have just been able to rest normally is incredibly niche. If you're going into a situation where you KNOW there's a time crunch, that's what consumables are for, wands, potions, scrolls, ways to extend your staying power to push through such time crunches.

ok good point. rest 8 hours. prepare spells. rest 8 hours. now i can get my spells back in 1 hour whenever i want.

what is your opinion about unconscious wizards resting? in your opinion can a wizard knocked out for 8 hours wake up and then prepare spells?

[Crake]

ok good point. rest 8 hours. prepare spells. rest 8 hours. now i can get my spells back in 1 hour whenever i want.

what is your opinion about unconscious wizards resting? in your opinion can a wizard knocked out for 8 hours wake up and then prepare spells?

I'd say it depends on the condition they were left in. If you were knocked out in a fight, then picked up by your team tended to, and left resting in a bedroll, or better yet a bed, then sure. If you were knocked out by monsters and left laying in a ditch in an awkward position, or even on hard cobblestone floors that are sapping away your body heat, then probably not.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Pearls of power, wands, staves, and rings of wizardry have all existed specifically to mitigate this problem since the release of the PHB.

Reserve feats were added with complete mage essentially to put this problem to rest for good.

Being a theurge goes a heck of a long way in that direction too.

Unless you're swapping spells pretty regularly, a sorcerer gets more slots per day as a baseline and only needs 15 minutes to recharge after a night's rest. The difference in versatility gets pretty overstated, particularly if you put any effort into expanding your repertoire.