What does it really mean if a creature doesn't require sleep?

[Greywander]

As someone who's worked on an undead race, this comes up often for me. And it's not just undead, a lot of other creatures also don't require sleep, such as elementals or constructs. There's even an invocation that allows any tomelock to not need sleep. But what does this actually mean?

Using the strictest possible interpretation, a creature who doesn't require sleep merely isn't penalized for not taking a long rest every day. If/when they do take a long rest, they would still need to sleep for 6 hours out of the 8 hour long rest.

In some specific cases, the rules have more to say on the subject. For example, the Aspect of the Moon invocation not only makes a warlock not require sleep, but specifically allows them to pass a long rest doing light activity for the whole 8 hours. Warforged, instead of sleeping for 6 hours, spend those 6 hours in a motionless state where they remain awake and aware. One of the odder ones is elves, who spend 4 hours in a trance instead of sleeping, which originally still required 8 hours to complete the long rest but was errata'd to mean they only required 4 hours to complete a long rest.

It does kind of make sense to do it this way. It would be nice to have an easy rule where you could just say a creature doesn't require sleep and it would, say, allow them to do light activity during a long rest. But I can definitely see the value in having a type of creature that doesn't need sleep, but still had to sleep to do a long rest. In a way, sleeping is still a method of resting and recovering, it's just that the creature doesn't wear themselves down from everyday activity in a way that requires sleep to recover from. But if they work themselves particularly hard then they will need to sleep to regain full strength. It's also probably worth giving different creatures that don't require sleep different rules for how they handle resting, making them each unique instead of all being the same. Ultimately, since resting is typically something that only PCs do, a lot of monsters that don't require sleep don't have any extra rules that modify how they take long rests, which means they either still need to sleep, or the DM needs to come up with something themselves.

[Lunali]

The strictest possible interpretation (of the sleep deprivation rules in XGtE) is that all PCs need to take a long rest every day or suffer from sleep deprivation, whether they need to sleep or not. I generally stick to this interpretation, though I don't call it sleep deprivation, you're just pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion. I treat all long rests as 8 hours, if you don't need to sleep or require less time, that's fine, the extra time is available for light activity.

[JonBeowulf]

Short answer:
It means exactly what it says on the can... they don't require sleep. :smalltongue:

Real answer:
For NPCs it's mostly irrelevant because plot will put them where they need to be, when they need to be there, ready for whatever they need to be ready for.

For PCs... you've uncovered a real twisted mess. I don't blame the designers for failing to list the benefits of sleep ("it's sleep. what do you think it does?") but listing a few exceptions each with their own special rule leaves us trying to define what sleep provides so we don't take it away when deciding what happens during a long rest to something doesn't need it.

[Greywander]

The strictest possible interpretation (of the sleep deprivation rules in XGtE) is that all PCs need to take a long rest every day or suffer from sleep deprivation, whether they need to sleep or not. I generally stick to this interpretation, though I don't call it sleep deprivation, you're just pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion. I treat all long rests as 8 hours, if you don't need to sleep or require less time, that's fine, the extra time is available for light activity.
I'd be curious to get a page number or quote of the rules so I can see what it says for myself, but this doesn't make sense to me. You're essentially saying that not requiring sleep does nothing, since you're still required to take a long rest and a long rest still requires sleeping (unless the feature says otherwise). I would argue that the need for a long rest relates to the need for sleep, as by default a long rest always includes 6 hours of sleep. If you don't need sleep, then you don't need to long rest. But if, say, you needed to get expended spell slots back, then you'd still have to sleep for 6 hours as part of a long rest, even if you don't need sleep.

Elves are also a particularly interesting case. I didn't think it said they didn't require sleep, but I double-checked and it does say they don't need sleep. However, the very next word is, "Instead," implying that trancing might still be a daily requirement instead of sleep. It also says that 4 hours of trancing provides the same benefits as 8 hours of sleep does to a human. So in the end, it's not actually clear if elves can skip long rests without penalty, or if they get penalized for not trancing daily like a human would get penalized for not sleeping. This is probably something a lore buff could settle.

[Carlobrand]

I'd be curious to get a page number or quote of the rules so I can see what it says for myself, but this doesn't make sense to me. You're essentially saying that not requiring sleep does nothing, since you're still required to take a long rest and a long rest still requires sleeping (unless the feature says otherwise). I would argue that the need for a long rest relates to the need for sleep, as by default a long rest always includes 6 hours of sleep. If you don't need sleep, then you don't need to long rest. But if, say, you needed to get expended spell slots back, then you'd still have to sleep for 6 hours as part of a long rest, even if you don't need sleep.

Elves are also a particularly interesting case. I didn't think it said they didn't require sleep, but I double-checked and it does say they don't need sleep. However, the very next word is, "Instead," implying that trancing might still be a daily requirement instead of sleep. It also says that 4 hours of trancing provides the same benefits as 8 hours of sleep does to a human. So in the end, it's not actually clear if elves can skip long rests without penalty, or if they get penalized for not trancing daily like a human would get penalized for not sleeping. This is probably something a lore buff could settle.

Xanathar's etc. P. 78: "Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. It becomes harder to fight off exhaustion if you stay awake for multiple days. After the first 24 hours, the DC increases by 5 for each consecutive 24-hour period without a long rest. The DC resets to 10 when you finish a long rest."

Now, that's not actually how sleep works, but it's probably as good as you can do without writing up a whole new rule about becoming progressively more psychotic and falling asleep whether you like it or not after a few fails.

As to an entity that does not require sleep, like an elemental or construct: they don't require sleep, period. Nothing happens. That's just their natural state. I don't know any of those that also list some benefit from taking a long rest (of any sort, sleep or otherwise), so presumably they neither need it nor would gain the benefits from it. It's like asking what happens when a fungus doesn't get 8 hours of sleep - nothing, they're not designed to sleep or to benefit from sleep.

(edit: not that fungus is actually designed, but you get my drift.)

[sambojin]

It does bring up some funny things. Shouldn't Warforged Druids wildshape into (giant)bats/ killer whales and take every night's watch? You're not asleep, just resting.

60'/120' blindsight, at least one of which may work on land with air surrounds, ain't bad. Although, your clicks/ whistles and squeals might give your location away more than blindsight will save you. Meh. Maybe crabs/ crayfish (is that electro-magnetic blindsight?), or tremorsense beasts could work better? Whatever. It works for 2/4hrs when you get it, you need 6hrs for a proper rest even whilst conscious, and it would take being at least lvl16 to last the whole 8hr rest for the rest of the party to long-rest off one wildshape charge (although your short rest resources might top up after 1hr of resting, and they might just need 6hrs actual sleep as mentioned below, so lvl12 for a druid to shenanigans it), but it's pretty minimal advantage. I mean, there is a couple of spells or subclasses or many builds for that anyway, so it's not that much of an advantage, it's just a thingy (Moon?) Druids can do.

[Hytheter]

I'd be curious to get a page number or quote of the rules so I can see what it says for myself, but this doesn't make sense to me. You're essentially saying that not requiring sleep does nothing, since you're still required to take a long rest and a long rest still requires sleeping (unless the feature says otherwise).

"A long rest is never mandatory, but going without sleep does have its consequences. If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation on characters and creatures, use these rules.

Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.

It becomes harder to fight off exhaustion if you stay awake for multiple days. After the first 24 hours, the DC increases by 5 for each consecutive 24-hour period without a long rest. The DC resets to 10 when you finish a long rest."

Note that by this wording, while framed as a sleep deprivation mechanic the mechanical portions don't actually mention sleeping at all, only long rests. Going by this I would say that you long rest without actually sleeping, IE by spending the time doing non-strenuous activity. The sleepless Warlock can't skip long resting altogether but he makes an excellent Sentry, or maybe he has some other light activity he can do for eight hours.

That said, there is some ambiguity that arises from the fact that the rules are inconsistent about whether Long Resting and sleeping are synonymous. Just look at the elf trance - it says they gain the same benefit as humans get from eight hours of sleep, but humans don't need eight hours of sleep in the first place. Per the long rest rules, they only need six asleep; it's only the long rest - which includes two hours of light activity - which needs to be eight hours. And like I said above, while mechanically the Xanathar rule bars you from skipping long rests, it's only framed as a mechanic for skipping sleep, which certain characters don't require.

Basically WotC dropped the ball here and the rules suck as a result.

[Xetheral]

Xanathar's etc. P. 78: "Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. It becomes harder to fight off exhaustion if you stay awake for multiple days. After the first 24 hours, the DC increases by 5 for each consecutive 24-hour period without a long rest. The DC resets to 10 when you finish a long rest."

That rule is extremely punitive when combined with the PHB rule that you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. Combined, it means you have to finish your long rest at exactly the same time each day: even one minute late and you risk exhaustion. Admittedly, that exhaustion will go away whenever you do finish the rest, but that prevents recovering from other sources of exhaustion.

So, let's say the first night of the campaign the PCs start resting at 10:00 PM, and take an 8 hour long rest until 6:00 AM. The second night they start resting at 9:30 PM, but they can't benefit from a long rest until 6:00 AM, so their long rest takes 8.5 hours. The third night they start resting at 11:00, and at 6:00 AM all have to make saving throws or take a level of exhaustion. At 7:00 AM any who failed recover from that level (and only that level) of exhaustion. The fourth night they start resting at 9:30 PM, but can't benefit from a long rest until 7:00 AM, so their long rest takes 9.5 hours. The fifth night they're up late adventuring, and don't start resting until 3:00 AM. At 7:00 AM, they all have to make saves vs exhaustion. At 11:00 AM those who failed recover that level (and only that level) of exhaustion. The sixth night they start their rest at 10:00 PM, but since they can't benefit from a long rest until 11:00 AM their long rest takes 13 hours. The party is now stuck either being mostly nocturnal or else taking really long rests until they deliberately don't rest at all one night (and take the possible exhaustion the next day) so that they can choose their new rest time. Let's hope they can exactly keep whatever new schedule they pick, or this chaos just starts all over again.

(Oh, and that's assuming the party is at least 4 people so they can have one person on watch at all times throughout the rest. If they have less than four and need to stretch out their long rests so that everyone can get 6 hours of sleep and still take a watch, now they have a problem with whomever is on watch first having a different rest time than whomever is on watch last....)

[diplomancer]

"A long rest is never mandatory, but going without sleep does have its consequences. If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation on characters and creatures, use these rules.

Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.

I will never understand how people can read these two paragraphs and conclude that creatures that do not need to sleep have to take the saving throw or suffer exhaustion if they don't take a long rest.

[Mastikator]

I don't think there is, nor should be, any correlation between not needing sleep and allowing shorter long rest. Those are things tracked separately. Not requiring sleep only means that there's no penalty to not sleeping. And not getting the benefit of a long rest is not a penalty, it's a choice. Not being required is not the same as not being capable.

As in, instead of having to do a con save vs exhaustion you simply don't. That's it.

[Hytheter]

That rule is extremely punitive when combined with the PHB rule that you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. Combined, it means you have to finish your long rest at exactly the same time each day: even one minute late and you risk exhaustion. Admittedly, that exhaustion will go away whenever you do finish the rest, but that prevents recovering from other sources of exhaustion.

This is also true of Animate Dead. Refreshing your control over created undead needs very specific timing or it's going to start pushing back on your wake up time.

But in both cases the simple solution that most tables will naturally fall into is to just not be so pedantic about it. Take it on a daily basis rather than literally counting the minutes and don't try to abuse it.

[diplomancer]

I don't think there is, nor should be, any correlation between not needing sleep and allowing shorter long rest. Those are things tracked separately. Not requiring sleep only means that there's no penalty to not sleeping. And not getting the benefit of a long rest is not a penalty, it's a choice. Not being required is not the same as not being capable.

As in, instead of having to do a con save vs exhaustion you simply don't. That's it.

As far as I know, so far, the Coffeelock is the one build that wants to avoid taking a long rest. And many people find the Coffeelock overpowered, and so try to find ways to stop it working. But it's far better to say "I don't allow coffeelocks" than to make a bad reading of the rules to not allow coffeelocks; amongst other things, this bad reading can, in the future, affect other builds which are not as powerful as the Coffeelock.

[Mastikator]

As far as I know, so far, the Coffeelock is the one build that wants to avoid taking a long rest. And many people find the Coffeelock overpowered, and so try to find ways to stop it working. But it's far better to say "I don't allow coffeelocks" than to make a bad reading of the rules to not allow coffeelocks; amongst other things, this bad reading can, in the future, affect other builds which are not as powerful as the Coffeelock.

Agreed. The DM could also decide that the non-sleeper is not allowed to wander off or have huge time costing projects when the rest of the party is resting. TBH I think group cohesion is more important than trying to block off an overpowered build that someone may or may not even be using at all.

[diplomancer]

Agreed. The DM could also decide that the non-sleeper is not allowed to wander off or have huge time costing projects when the rest of the party is resting. TBH I think group cohesion is more important than trying to block off an overpowered build that someone may or may not even be using at all.

Yeah, whatever he does, happens "off-screen". If it involves some risk, make a roll for it and that's good enough. Table time is for all the players.

[Cicciograna]

snip

Personally i have a very easy solution to the problem mentioned.

I would just stop playing with any DM who enforced this kind of rule.

Problem solved, at least for me.

[Porcupinata]

It seems fairly straightforward to me.

Normally, the following rules apply:

1) A long rest takes 8 hours, during which you can only undertake light activity. At the end of a long rest you get class-based resources back, all your hit points back, an ehxaustion level back, and half your expended hit dice back.
2) You can only benefit from a long rest once per 24 hours.
3) Since sleeping counts as resting, having 8 hours sleep (or 8 hours sleep minus a period on watch) normally counts as a long rest, but you don't have to sleep to take a long rest - providing you spend 8 hours with only light activity you can complete a long rest while awake.
4) Elves only need to spend 4 hours trancing each night rather than 8 hours sleeping, but this doesn't affect the duration of a long rest. They still need to rest for 8 hours to get the benefit of a long rest.
5) Every day you go without taking a long rest gives you a progressively more difficult Con check to avoid accumulating exhaustion levels due to lack of sleep. However, mechanics of this rule are badly worded, since they don't actually say anything about sleep. The obvious RAI of the rule is that it is actually referring to going without sleep, and that therefore having a long resting in which you stay awake shouldn't count as having rested for the purposes of this rule.

For characters that don't need to sleep, these are modified as follows:

1) This is unchanged. Creatures that don't need to sleep still need an 8 hour long rest to get the various benefits that a long rest gives.
2) Again, unchanged. Not needing to sleep doesn't mean you can take more than one long rest per 24 hours.
3) This is irrelevant for creatures that don't need to sleep. All their long rests will be ones that they complete while awake.
4) An elf that "doesn't need to sleep" also doesn't need to trance.
5) Given the obvious RAI of this rule, characters who don't need to sleep don't need to make the Con checks for failing to sleep. The only penalty they get for not resting for a long period is not getting the benefits of a long rest.

[Carlobrand]

Personally i have a very easy solution to the problem mentioned.

I would just stop playing with any DM who enforced this kind of rule.

Problem solved, at least for me.

Agreed. This sounds like a DM more interested in rules-lawyering than in verisimilitude.

[Xetheral]

Personally i have a very easy solution to the problem mentioned.

I would just stop playing with any DM who enforced this kind of rule.

Problem solved, at least for me.

I entirely agree. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of writing both a "at least one long rest per 24 hours" rule and a "no more than one long rest per 24 hours" rule.

[CapnWildefyr]

That rule is extremely punitive when combined with the PHB rule that you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. Combined, it means you have to finish your long rest at exactly the same time each day: even one minute late and you risk exhaustion. Admittedly, that exhaustion will go away whenever you do finish the rest, but that prevents recovering from other sources of exhaustion.

So, let's say the first night of the campaign the PCs start resting at 10:00 PM, and take an 8 hour long rest until 6:00 AM. The second night they start resting at 9:30 PM, but they can't benefit from a long rest until 6:00 AM, so their long rest takes 8.5 hours. The third night they start resting at 11:00, and at 6:00 AM all have to make saving throws or take a level of exhaustion. At 7:00 AM any who failed recover from that level (and only that level) of exhaustion. The fourth night they start resting at 9:30 PM, but can't benefit from a long rest until 7:00 AM, so their long rest takes 9.5 hours. The fifth night they're up late adventuring, and don't start resting until 3:00 AM. At 7:00 AM, they all have to make saves vs exhaustion. At 11:00 AM those who failed recover that level (and only that level) of exhaustion. The sixth night they start their rest at 10:00 PM, but since they can't benefit from a long rest until 11:00 AM their long rest takes 13 hours. The party is now stuck either being mostly nocturnal or else taking really long rests until they deliberately don't rest at all one night (and take the possible exhaustion the next day) so that they can choose their new rest time. Let's hope they can exactly keep whatever new schedule they pick, or this chaos just starts all over again.

(Oh, and that's assuming the party is at least 4 people so they can have one person on watch at all times throughout the rest. If they have less than four and need to stretch out their long rests so that everyone can get 6 hours of sleep and still take a watch, now they have a problem with whomever is on watch first having a different rest time than whomever is on watch last....)

You can also read it that you can't have two LR's entirely within a 24 hour window, which is I think what's intended. So you can't rest 10PM-6AM, and then in the afternoon of that same day - just 3 hours later - rest from 9AM-5PM and say "Gee, all my spells are back!"

Now, what you do in spelljammer on a planet with a 17 hour day, I don't know. :smallwink:

EDIT: Another way to rephrase my point: In the example, from 10PM Day 1 to 10PM Day 2, how many LR's were completed? One. From 9:30PM Day 2 to 11 PM Day 3? One. Etc.

[Lunali]

That rule is extremely punitive when combined with the PHB rule that you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. Combined, it means you have to finish your long rest at exactly the same time each day: even one minute late and you risk exhaustion. Admittedly, that exhaustion will go away whenever you do finish the rest, but that prevents recovering from other sources of exhaustion.

We always treat it as if you can't gain the benefits of a long rest if you finish the rest earlier than you started the previous one. Similarly, for exhaustion, you don't get exhaustion if the 24 hour limit is reached during a long rest. If people started to exploit either the 16 or 32 hour limit, I might change the way things work, but typically variations in rest timing are unintentional.

[Greywander]

Thanks to Carlobrand and Hytheter for providing the proper references to the actual rule.


"A long rest is never mandatory, but going without sleep does have its consequences. If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation on characters and creatures, use these rules.

Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.

I will never understand how people can read these two paragraphs and conclude that creatures that do not need to sleep have to take the saving throw or suffer exhaustion if they don't take a long rest.
Agreed, this seems very clear to me.


Note that by this wording, while framed as a sleep deprivation mechanic the mechanical portions don't actually mention sleeping at all, only long rests. Going by this I would say that you long rest without actually sleeping, IE by spending the time doing non-strenuous activity. The sleepless Warlock can't skip long resting altogether but he makes an excellent Sentry, or maybe he has some other light activity he can do for eight hours.
I disagree, read those first two sentences again. Not only is it framed as sleep deprivation, but you only use those rules if you're simulating sleep deprivation. As in, for a character who doesn't require sleep, you wouldn't even use those rules at all. It's true that the mechanics only refer to a long rest, and not to sleep, but note that a long rest is defined as:

A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch.
So a long rest always involves 6 hours of sleep, unless you have a trait that modifies that. Specific beats general. This is the general rule, and the rules for specific creatures, e.g. elves, warforged, Aspect of the Moon, will override the general rules.

TL;DR, there's two parts to this: (a) You only use this rules when simulating sleep deprivation. If a creature doesn't require sleep, there's no need to simulate sleep deprivation, and thus those rules should not be used. (b) The mechanics only refer to needing a long rest, rather than sleeping, but the general rule is that a long rest requires 6 hours of sleep.


but humans don't need eight hours of sleep in the first place. Per the long rest rules, they only need six asleep;
I really wish they had implemented a third rest category, one I've seen referred to as the "vacation": a week of rest with a full 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of light activity every day. Some of the more powerful resources, such as spell slots of 6th+ level, could then be gated behind this new vacation rest. Vacation resources then roughly correspond to "once per adventure", since you can't take a vacation e.g. in the middle of a dungeon.

My point is, I don't think a long rest actually represents a typical night's sleep. It's field camping. You're in dangerous territory, but you still need to sleep, so you're getting just enough sleep to keep functioning, but not really as much as you should be getting. 8 hours of sleep each day should be the norm, but that would only be viable when you're somewhere safe where you don't need to set a watch.


(although your short rest resources might top up after 1hr of resting,
Something like this came up recently in a thread about a new druid subclass feature that is used at the beginning of a long rest. The issue was that you don't start a short or long rest, you finish them. As long as you've met the requirements for a short rest, you can gain the benefits thereof, even if you're in the middle of taking a long rest. Another time this could come up is if you get ambushed in the middle of resting, especially if some party members are low on HP and could stand to spend some hit dice before engaging in combat.

But you never specifically choose to start a short or long rest. You just start resting, and you keep resting until you fulfill the requirements for a short or long rest, whichever it was you needed.


That rule is extremely punitive when combined with the PHB rule that you can only gain the benefits of a long rest once every 24 hours. Combined, it means you have to finish your long rest at exactly the same time each day: even one minute late and you risk exhaustion. Admittedly, that exhaustion will go away whenever you do finish the rest, but that prevents recovering from other sources of exhaustion.
Agreed, I wouldn't be so pedantic about the timing. As another poster said, I'd apply the same looseness to Animate Dead. Another place it could apply is to Rope Trick or Leomund's Tiny Hut. These last exactly 1 hour and 8 hours, respectively, just long enough for a short or long rest. If you futz around for a few minutes, I wouldn't deny you the rest. Likewise for a number of other spells or effects that have a duration exactly long enough to fit another type of action in, or are even just short due to the second action having a casting/use time of a minute or so.

It could be interesting to do some kind of houserule where when you get near the end of an effect's duration, you can roll a die to keep it going a bit longer. Roll a 1 and the effect ends immediately, but roll anything else and the effect is extended by the next lowest duration. 5e generally uses a specific timescale for durations and such, starting with 1 round, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours. So an effect with an 8 hour duration would be extended by 1 hour chunks. Perhaps each time you extend it, you'd roll an additional die the next time, and if any of the dice show a 1, the effect would end. This gives you a higher chance to extend it at first, but makes it increasingly difficult to extend it indefinitely. You could also give a chance to end the effect early, perhaps having you make the first roll at T - the next smallest duration, e.g. for an 8 hour duration you'd make the first roll at 7 hours. Hmm, while this could be a fun houserule, it also sounds like it might be more trouble than it's worth.


I don't think there is, nor should be, any correlation between not needing sleep and allowing shorter long rest. Those are things tracked separately. Not requiring sleep only means that there's no penalty to not sleeping. And not getting the benefit of a long rest is not a penalty, it's a choice. Not being required is not the same as not being capable.

As in, instead of having to do a con save vs exhaustion you simply don't. That's it.
Agreed. As far as I'm aware, the elves' Trance is the only thing that shortens a long rest, and that's because it's specifically (well, implicitly) written into the feature. They gain the benefits of 8 hours of sleep from 4 hours of trancing, and 8 hours of sleep would constitute a long rest.


You can also read it that you can't have two LR's entirely within a 24 hour window, which is I think what's intended. So you can't rest 10PM-6AM, and then in the afternoon of that same day - just 3 hours later - rest from 9AM-5PM and say "Gee, all my spells are back!"
That's not quite how I'm reading it, but I think this could be a good houserule. It sounds like the earliest you could start a second long rest is just over 16 hours after your previous long rest, so that the second long rest ends more than 24 hours after the previous long rest began. I think this is acceptable. Given how erratic the life of an adventurer can be, this kind of flexibility in scheduling can be necessary.

[Cicciograna]

I entirely agree. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of writing both a "at least one long rest per 24 hours" rule and a "no more than one long rest per 24 hours" rule.

Sorry, it was not my intention to cast aspersions on you, and re-reading my post it is not immediately apparent. I apologize if you felt accused by my words, that absolutely came out in the wrong way.

[lall]

If you have Alert, you’ll rarely be surprised.

[Xetheral]

Sorry, it was not my intention to cast aspersions on you, and re-reading my post it is not immediately apparent. I apologize if you felt accused by my words, that absolutely came out in the wrong way.

Thanks for clarifying! It's much appreciated! :)

[OvisCaedo]

I will never understand how people can read these two paragraphs and conclude that creatures that do not need to sleep have to take the saving throw or suffer exhaustion if they don't take a long rest.

If you want to be even more confused, try understanding how someone could write those two paragraphs and have meant for the repeated mentions of sleep to be completely unimportant to the rule (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/938568519385456641). (though Crawford probably did not actually write that rules text himself, mind you).

I might be cynical, but it comes across to me as a rule that was meant to stop the infamous coffeelocks (especially since it came in the same book as Aspect of the Moon), presented as a rule about sleep because that would make it seem like it was a logical universal rule and definitely NOT about trying to patch out a sketchy exploit without acknowledging it.