Armor and resting

[KittenMagician]

so i started a new group with some coworkers (not sure if it will be bad or good yet) and they wanted to take a long rest in a not necessarily safe place. The question of can you gain the benefits of a long rest while still wearing armor came up. one player thought sleeping in light armor (leather) was fine but not medium or heavy armor. i was under the impression that any armor prevents or lessens the effects of the rest. the PHB and DMG give no guidance on the subject as far as i can tell, in both sections on armor and resting. is this just a DM's call or is there some rule somewhere?

[stoutstien]

so i started a new group with some coworkers (not sure if it will be bad or good yet) and they wanted to take a long rest in a not necessarily safe place. The question of can you gain the benefits of a long rest while still wearing armor came up. one player thought sleeping in light armor (leather) was fine but not medium or heavy armor. i was under the impression that any armor prevents or lessens the effects of the rest. the PHB and DMG give no guidance on the subject as far as i can tell, in both sections on armor and resting. is this just a DM's call or is there some rule somewhere?

There are optional rules in XGtE about resting in armor. Still basically DM call as always.

I suggest taking the pulse of what theme and overall feel you want out of the game before deciding.

[Cikomyr2]

so i started a new group with some coworkers (not sure if it will be bad or good yet) and they wanted to take a long rest in a not necessarily safe place. The question of can you gain the benefits of a long rest while still wearing armor came up. one player thought sleeping in light armor (leather) was fine but not medium or heavy armor. i was under the impression that any armor prevents or lessens the effects of the rest. the PHB and DMG give no guidance on the subject as far as i can tell, in both sections on armor and resting. is this just a DM's call or is there some rule somewhere?

Well, for light armor the time it takes to put on the armor is sufficiently low it doesn't really matter. Medium and Heavy take so long it's just not combat practical.

So the point us moot. If your players want to just have light armor, it won't break the game.

[Aett_Thorn]

I tend to not use the variant rule for resting in heavy armor. It basically penalizes strength-based characters for little purpose. Heavy armor isn’t THAT much better than others to justify additional penalties on top of the heavy weight and disadvantage on Stealth checks.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I tend to not use the variant rule for resting in heavy armor. It basically penalizes strength-based characters for little purpose. Heavy armor isn’t THAT much better than others to justify additional penalties on top of the heavy weight and disadvantage on Stealth checks.

Agreed. Of course I rarely have nighttime ambushes of a resting party (for many reasons, mostly that they don't try to long rest in really dangerous areas), so it's kinda moot.

[Kurt Kurageous]

What gets me is the assumption you can't sleep in armor. First off, resting (long or short) is not necessarily sleeping.

I've worn armor in the SCA and body armor (plate carrier) with the US Army and slept in all of it at one point or another. Taking off the helm(et) is generally a good start to getting comfy.

I agree, it's another pointless penalization of martials. Remember, realism only affects THEM. The wizard never stays up too late reading and memorizing, the warlock never gets a late night call they must take from their patron, etc.

[KorvinStarmast]

I agree, it's another pointless penalization of martials. Remember, realism only affects THEM. The wizard never stays up too late reading and memorizing, the warlock never gets a late night call they must take from their patron, etc. I agree, except for that last bit. I've had a couple of patrons, one of them a GOO and the other an Archfry, who had no sense of when to call and when not to. But their position wasn't one of giving a crap about what was convenient for me. (Kind of like a few bosses and COs that I have had).

so i started a new group with some coworkers (not sure if it will be bad or good yet) and they wanted to take a long rest in a not necessarily safe place. The question of can you gain the benefits of a long rest while still wearing armor came up. one player thought sleeping in light armor (leather) was fine but not medium or heavy armor. i was under the impression that any armor prevents or lessens the effects of the rest. the PHB and DMG give no guidance on the subject as far as i can tell, in both sections on armor and resting. is this just a DM's call or is there some rule somewhere? To give you a point of reference: I (more than once) slept through the night on the metal + nonskid deck of a ship's hangar. We were usually waiting for a part and their berthing was overly full. (Made sure my crewman and copilot had beds). My flight gear was my pillow. I slept well enough. Yes, I was glad to sleep in better accommodations as soon as I could.

No need to penalize martials.

[Devils_Advocate]

Yeah, this is one of those cases where trying too hard to be realistic can hurt verisimilitude, if not by going too far in the right direction then by calling attention to a general lack of realism by way of contrast. Arbitrarily going into an unusual level detail about one specific thing is like the unexpected appearance of a photorealistic character in a work with simple, stylized art: It interferes with immersion by highlighting the normal abstraction.

There are lots of things that could plausibly interfere with characters getting a good night's rest, but 5E generally isn't interested in modelling them. Trying to model them without being over punitive probably isn't worth the effort. If you do want to do that, there's a bunch more to cover than armor. For that matter, not being weirdly specific means addressing mundane complications in general, not just to resting...