Dream

[lall]

A long rest used to read:

“Long Rest

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.“

I believe that’s why Dream is worded the way it is.

A long rest now reads that six hours of sleep are needed.

Do you think any sort of erratum is needed for Dream, or at least a Sage Compendium entry? I believe the intent is that the messenger gets their long rest, assuming they trance for at least six hours.

Also, I never realized it read:

“While in the trance, the messenger is aware of his or her surroundings, but can’t take actions or move.” That’s pretty similar to the elf’s trance in that assuming they have Alert, the messenger can’t be surprised. I think that makes Dream worth casting every night even if the Dream is six hours of wall staring.

[Devils_Advocate]

A long rest now reads that six hours of sleep are needed.
Yes, because that more clearly communicates the intent. Less than 6 hours sleep was never meant to be sufficient for a long rest, except in special cases, as with elves. But the punctuation was ambiguous at best. If instead it had been

"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"

then it would have been clearer that the maximum amount of non-sleep activity is 2 hours. But, of course, what that means is that at least 6 hours of sleep are required. So just saying that explicitly gets the point across even better.

I remember this stuff being subjected to cheesy rules-lawyering back in 3.5's heyday. ("Nothing says that you have to sleep with your eyes closed!") Guess not much has changed!