how risky is a short rest?

[da newt]

A recent post got me thinking about realistic short rest availability. In my experience, if the party tries to find a way to short rest, they usually can - there are times when you can't, but they are the exception (chases, timed events, harmful environments, etc).

There are spells that make it easy - Tiny Hut, Rope Trick, etc.
You can rest while traveling.
You can hide.
You can barricade your team in a 'safe' place.
You can retreat to the last nasty trap and use it as protection.
The PCs who don't need the rest can continue to do whatever or just guard the others.
You can set alarms and traps and use familiars as lookouts.
You can set up a nasty ambush at a choke point and wait for the bad guys to wander into your kill box - you either fight in a time/place of your choosing (hopefully with a surprise round for the cherry on top) or get a rest.
Etc ...

Sure, there is some inherent risk to resting for an hour, but normally that risk is just that the bad guys might come to you instead of you moving into their territory.

How hard is it for you to get a short rest, and why?

[Frogreaver]

A recent post got me thinking about realistic short rest availability. In my experience, if the party tries to find a way to short rest, they usually can - there are times when you can't, but they are the exception (chases, timed events, harmful environments, etc).

There are spells that make it easy - Tiny Hut, Rope Trick, etc.
You can rest while traveling.
You can hide.
You can barricade your team in a 'safe' place.
You can retreat to the last nasty trap and use it as protection.
The PCs who don't need the rest can continue to do whatever or just guard the others.
You can set alarms and traps and use familiars as lookouts.
You can set up a nasty ambush at a choke point and wait for the bad guys to wander into your kill box - you either fight in a time/place of your choosing (hopefully with a surprise round for the cherry on top) or get a rest.
Etc ...

Sure, there is some inherent risk to resting for an hour, but normally that risk is just that the bad guys might come to you instead of you moving into their territory.

How hard is it for you to get a short rest, and why?

It’s more that normally when a short rest is easy to get, so is a long rest.

Which then makes it come down to time pressures if you are trying to enforce rest pacing. Which ends up not actually working so well all the time. As it’s hard to maintain constant time pressure in such a way that feels organic instead of contrived.

Ideally you have players that rest based more on roleplaying ques than on trying to ensure they maintain a high level of resources before any combat encounter. That’s really the key to make rest pacing work IMO.

[Mastikator]

A short rest in enemy territory should have a risk of them discovering you and thus you going on the defensive.

A long rest in an equivalent scenario should not only guarantee it but risk an ambush, if not during the rest then when the Tiny Hut goes down.

IMO a dungeon's set of encounters should be based on the adventuring day scheme and if the DM wants the players to rest then it should make narrative sense that they can as well.

[Frogreaver]

A short rest in enemy territory should have a risk of them discovering you and thus you going on the defensive.

A long rest in an equivalent scenario should not only guarantee it but risk an ambush, if not during the rest then when the Tiny Hut goes down.

IMO a dungeon's set of encounters should be based on the adventuring day scheme and if the DM wants the players to rest then it should make narrative sense that they can as well.

A group concerned about resource recovery would just long rest and skip short resting under such a paradigm as they can have an encounter without interrupting their long rest but that’s not so with a short rest. Unless your option is always the nuclear one - where long resting there is essentially a death sentence - then this solution just makes thing worse.

What I find is when you try and police resting via encounters during resting is that players just budget such potential encounters into their play, such that they just rest sooner they they normally would have. Which usually makes the problem worse not better.

[Mastikator]

A group concerned about resource recovery would just long rest and skip short resting under such a paradigm as they can have an encounter without interrupting their long rest but that’s not so with a short rest. Unless your option is always the nuclear one - where long resting there is essentially a death sentence - then this solution just makes thing worse.

What I find is when you try and police resting via encounters during resting is that players just budget such potential encounters into their play, such that they just rest sooner they they normally would have. Which usually makes the problem worse not better.

IMO it's less about resource budget and more about running a believable dungeon. If you're spending an hour resting then there's a big risk that a patrol sees your group. That patrol then retreats and sounds the alarm and now you have the whole dungeon either grouping up to kill the group or escaping with the valuable loot.

Resource management is something that should be taken into consideration when the DM makes the dungeon, not when the DM runs the dungeon. When the DM preps the dungeon there should only be as many encounters as the party can handle in a single day. And if the players decide to waste valuable resources on easy encounters then that is their choice and the DM should respect their choice. Sometimes respecting a players choice means you kill their character or fail their quest.

Edit-

By "big risk" I mean not guaranteed, and should depend on the circumstance of the actual game. A DM should make it possible to short rest somewhere in the dungeon at low risk, and if the players come up with a plan to short rest at low risk the DM should enable that. And if the players short rest outside the BBEG's quarters then the DM should reward the player's choice with a big juicy ambush.

[tokek]

I prefer an attack and counter-attack style of dungeon.

So if the party attack one area they are likely to get a counter-attack from nearby allies of what they attacked. That means that even if they try to short rest it will be disturbed until such allies have been dealt with.

But once the one or two nearby groups that were alerted have been eliminated or driven off its likely that there are empty areas of dungeon (other than traps) before the next set of creatures so the party can then short rest.

Long rests are a rather different matter. Things which move around the undefended/unoccupied parts of the dungeon need to be be considered here, expect encounters with these sorts of things which are not necessarily associated with any of the groups that occupy the dungeon. Also any enemies that were merely driven off might try to regroup and mount an attack of their own if they have this much time to do so. I don't assume most things driven off can regroup faster than that unless they are notably efficient militarily or particularly well led.

All of this sort of assumes the long-deserted "dungeon" that has been infiltrated by a number of hostile creatures over time which are all somewhat mutually hostile or at best neutral. If the dungeon is a functioning fortress under competent central control then rests of any kind are going to be hard to explain or justify as being safe.

(For this purpose dungeon is a term which would include all sorts of environments in which lots of dangerous enemies and traps are all found in close proximity)

[Sigreid]

It's really not any different than a real world military unit needing a break in the field. You do the best you can to find a spot that lets you keep a low profile and is defensible. Then you keep sound down, don't build a fire, keep your weapons at hand and do your best to just relax, breath and maybe eat a snack.

[Frogreaver]

IMO it's less about resource budget and more about running a believable dungeon. If you're spending an hour resting then there's a big risk that a patrol sees your group. That patrol then retreats and sounds the alarm and now you have the whole dungeon either grouping up to kill the group or escaping with the valuable loot.

So you go with the nuclear option. Good to know. So essentially no short resting or long resting in the dungeon or probably a death sentence. So why would any player short rest in such dungeons?


Resource management is something that should be taken into consideration when the DM makes the dungeon, not when the DM runs the dungeon. When the DM preps the dungeon there should only be as many encounters as the party can handle in a single day. And if the players decide to waste valuable resources on easy encounters then that is their choice and the DM should respect their choice. Sometimes respecting a players choice means you kill their character or fail their quest.

That’s a great example of why the adventuring day shouldn’t be the rigid 6-8 encounters. DMs shouldn’t have to engineer a dungeon to contain just the right number of encounters. And heck, if the nuclear test playstyle you just advocated is followed you might as well forget about rests anyway. IMO. The adventuring day should be more flexible.


Edit-

By "big risk" I mean not guaranteed, and should depend on the circumstance of the actual game. A DM should make it possible to short rest somewhere in the dungeon at low risk, and if the players come up with a plan to short rest at low risk the DM should enable that. And if the players short rest outside the BBEG's quarters then the DM should reward the player's choice with a big juicy ambush.

If there’s patrols in the dungeon why would there be a safe place to short rest. And If there was and you could short rest there, why couldn’t you long rest there. It doesn’t make any sense IMO. Very contrived.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Resting should be risky as hell! - but marginally less risky than trying to continue when you NEED the rest.

I like the rule that Adventures in Middle Earth introduced: you don't get Long rests when adventuring, only when you're in a Sanctuary location (basically any one of the strongholds like Rivendell, the Shire, Gondor, etc).

For regular D&D, that would mean no more Long rests in the dungeon, in enemy territory, etc - at least until you get the spells to allow it. I mean, that's what those spells were invented for - avoiding the wandering monsters in the dungeon while you rest and heal up.

So taking a bit of the Old Skool playbook, during a Short rest, the GM should be assessing how vigilant the party is being, how quiet, how visible, etc, and comparing that with the creatures who are nearby.

[Sorinth]

If there’s patrols in the dungeon why would there be a safe place to short rest. And If there was and you could short rest there, why couldn’t you long rest there. It doesn’t make any sense IMO. Very contrived.

It's a question of traffic flow. Guards might patrol the hallways but not enter every single room, so you could potentially find a room that nobody will enter for an hour or two, but harder to find one that nobody would enter for 8hrs.

[Keravath]

It’s more that normally when a short rest is easy to get, so is a long rest.

Which then makes it come down to time pressures if you are trying to enforce rest pacing. Which ends up not actually working so well all the time. As it’s hard to maintain constant time pressure in such a way that feels organic instead of contrived.

Ideally you have players that rest based more on roleplaying ques than on trying to ensure they maintain a high level of resources before any combat encounter. That’s really the key to make rest pacing work IMO.

I usually find long and short rest availability to be very different.

If a party has an encounter late in the adventuring day then they might end the day early to begin a long rest.

However, if it is morning or early afternoon, with a large fraction of the day left - then, unless the party is already at a town or an inn where they can decide to laze away the day doing nothing of significance until they can start a long rest then there is no opportunity to take a long rest until the end of the day since the party can't benefit from a long rest more than once every 24 hours.

This means that, like it or not, the party has to deal with whatever occurs during the rest of the day and night before they can actually gain the benefit of a long rest. On the other hand, there are likely many opportunities for a short rest in that time frame.

If a party is exploring a ruin, use up 3/4 of their resources in the first hour so that by 10am they are down a lot - they don't have a chance for a long rest. They might be able to withdraw/fight their way out - go find a secure camp/town - deal with any problems that might arise and subsequently return the next day after a long rest. However, there are any number of side effects this can have - especially since the inhabitants of the ruin might be more prepared for their return.

On the other hand, even in a dungeon/ruin, the chances to fit in a short rest are fairly reasonable.

---------

For the purposes of planning, I usually divide an adventuring day into "time zones". Morning, mid-day, afternoon, evening, night - further subdivision is possible depending on the events (i.e. the encounters are grouped together). A long rest typically happens at night since the party can't have one more than every 24 hours and they usually had one the previous night. This leaves four time zones for encounters with the possibility of 3 short rests, one between each time zone.

Some days the party might have an encounter in only one time zone. Other, more eventful days could have an encounter in every time zone. The party usually doesn't know what sort of day they are going to have so they need to keep that in mind when deciding what resources to use.

A DM that runs a game with usually only one encounter/day encourages the players to use all their resources on that encounter since they know what to expect, thus either making it very easy or resulting in the DM compensating by having one very challenging encounter (which perpetuates the expectation). Either way, it creates a game play style that some enjoy since it might amount to one "epic" fight/day. However, it favours long rest classes over short rest ones and eliminates the use for short rests pretty much entirely.

On the other hand, a party can still have "epic" fights even with several encounters in a day. The players are also pushed a bit to consider saving resources for the situations that really need them.

[Frogreaver]

I prefer an attack and counter-attack style of dungeon.

So if the party attack one area they are likely to get a counter-attack from nearby allies of what they attacked. That means that even if they try to short rest it will be disturbed until such allies have been dealt with.

But once the one or two nearby groups that were alerted have been eliminated or driven off its likely that there are empty areas of dungeon (other than traps) before the next set of creatures so the party can then short rest.

Long rests are a rather different matter. Things which move around the undefended/unoccupied parts of the dungeon need to be be considered here, expect encounters with these sorts of things which are not necessarily associated with any of the groups that occupy the dungeon. Also any enemies that were merely driven off might try to regroup and mount an attack of their own if they have this much time to do so. I don't assume most things driven off can regroup faster than that unless they are notably efficient militarily or particularly well led.

All of this sort of assumes the long-deserted "dungeon" that has been infiltrated by a number of hostile creatures over time which are all somewhat mutually hostile or at best neutral. If the dungeon is a functioning fortress under competent central control then rests of any kind are going to be hard to explain or justify as being safe.

(For this purpose dungeon is a term which would include all sorts of environments in which lots of dangerous enemies and traps are all found in close proximity)

I think you described it better than I. The fortress dungeon is not a good place for short rest classes.

The faction style dungeon works a bit better, but is also more prone to long resting.

Wandering monsters aren’t likely to invade the factions territory that you just pushed out. So that should be relatively safe. The faction retaliating at a certain point works. But Technically the party could just rest until that faction stops counter attacking for a reasonable period of time. It’s not like a couple of factions worth of 2 encounters of enemies could ever really challenge the party. And after they are all defeated, there’s a place to long rest - at least for a while.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I think it's very important to remind those saying "if you can short rest, just long rest" that you can only have one long rest over a 24 period. It's been mentioned by Keravath but it needs to be stressed.

So don't think of a long rest as only 7 hours longer, it's almost always going to be more than that if you need the rest during a dungeon crawl.

[Frogreaver]

I think it's very important to remind those saying "if you can short rest, just long rest" that you can only have one long rest over a 24 period. It's been mentioned by Keravath but it needs to be stressed.

So don't think of a long rest as only 7 hours longer, it's almost always going to be more than that if you need the rest during a dungeon crawl.

That’s fair. But it’s also worth pointing out that dungeon crawls are not the only part of the game. The close proximity in dungeons helps ramp up the number of encounters and the impacts that has on resting.

But in more spread out areas it’s harder to justify depriving a long rest if desired.

[da newt]

Do y'all believe that it's common or reasonable for a dungeon / fortress / lair to have an organized patrol that checks every room every hour 24/7? This seems unrealistic to me in all but the most well organized and paranoid of circumstances.

If your incursions have been noticed (combat can be loud), they will be reacted to NOW - either more bad guys coming to get you, or everyone is fleeing. If attack / retreat is not imminent, you can often find a room, close the door, wedge it shut w/ pitons, and have a quick rest OR take even more precautions with just a little effort.

Long rests are a more likely to be interrupted (~ 8x as likely) and you can only long rest once per 24 hrs.

[Sigreid]

Do y'all believe that it's common or reasonable for a dungeon / fortress / lair to have an organized patrol that checks every room every hour 24/7? This seems unrealistic to me in all but the most well organized and paranoid of circumstances.

If your incursions have been noticed (combat can be loud), they will be reacted to NOW - either more bad guys coming to get you, or everyone is fleeing. If attack / retreat is not imminent, you can often find a room, close the door, wedge it shut w/ pitons, and have a quick rest OR take even more precautions with just a little effort.

Long rests are a more likely to be interrupted (~ 8x as likely) and you can only long rest once per 24 hrs.

This too. I also feel that traps should be near the entrance or restricted areas. Even kobolds know that random traps all over the place are going to cause more deaths in the tribe than they prevent.

But in general, if you can get to a store room or something like that without being detected, you can probably spare a short rest.

[Skrum]

I personally do not allow long rests unless the characters are in established shelters/civilization in friendly territory. Basically, somewhere they could take off their armor, not post a guard, and actually come down from high alert.

Short rests I try to fit them in narratively. They can't happen literally anywhere, but if there's time and place to sit and relax for an hour, that can be a short rest.

[Sigreid]

I personally do not allow long rests unless the characters are in established shelters/civilization in friendly territory. Basically, somewhere they could take off their armor, not post a guard, and actually come down from high alert.

Short rests I try to fit them in narratively. They can't happen literally anywhere, but if there's time and place to sit and relax for an hour, that can be a short rest.

I would expect rangers and druids to be able to find/create camps in the wild that are plenty comfortable.

[Skrum]

I would expect rangers and druids to be able to find/create camps in the wild that are plenty comfortable.

I would be inclined to buy this argument, if a player tried to sell me on it. But I would still want it to be an established thing, like a camp they've made over several days that also gave them time to scout the surrounding area. I would probably give this to anyone proficient in survival.

My reasoning on this is narratively separate long and short rests as more than just time spent resting; long rests are supposed to be *sleeping* for most races.

[BoutsofInsanity]

An hour is not a long time.

Especially in matters of distance. Overestimating the chance of an encounter in the wilderness is something we make the mistake of.

Picture this right? Your party engages some Gnoll scouts for a larger band. You defeat them but you need to rest for a bit to heal up. Maneuvering off the path, heading deeper into the woods, covering your tracks either with survival or pass without trace for 30 minutes should enable a decent resting spot for an hour to patch up and lick your wounds.

Especially if the DM enables a hidden site with either a Stealth (Wisdom) check for hiding the campsite or a Survival.

Before the main camp of Gnolls notices the missing scouting group and sends a search party you should be able to rest up pretty easily.

But an 8 hour rest? Even with all the tricks of the trade the chances of the Gnolls finding you becomes a lot more likely. Especially if they muster some magic or a good number of searchers. That's 8 hours of potential searching.

Short rests are pretty viable more often then not, even in hostile territory. 8 Hours in hostile territory should be rare, difficult, and more often then not not happening.

[tokek]

Do y'all believe that it's common or reasonable for a dungeon / fortress / lair to have an organized patrol that checks every room every hour 24/7? This seems unrealistic to me in all but the most well organized and paranoid of circumstances.

If your incursions have been noticed (combat can be loud), they will be reacted to NOW - either more bad guys coming to get you, or everyone is fleeing. If attack / retreat is not imminent, you can often find a room, close the door, wedge it shut w/ pitons, and have a quick rest OR take even more precautions with just a little effort.

Long rests are a more likely to be interrupted (~ 8x as likely) and you can only long rest once per 24 hrs.

Very much this.

The well organised fortress is not a thing adventurers usually find themselves attacking in my games. They are far more likely to be in the ancient abandoned temple, some long lost dungeon or a ruined city that has been taken over by roaming bands of dangerous creatures.

Finding a short respite to bandage wounds and grab a bite to eat should not be too hard. There is some risk but usually I will let them short rest without disturbance if they are reasonably careful.

Assault on a well organised fortress with alarm systems, a garrison in reserve to respond to threats etc is a very rare sort of quest. I've done it a few times over the years but adventuring parties by themselves are very poorly suited to that sort of work unless they are in full stealth/deception mode for nearly all of it.

[Segev]

Long rests do need to be restful. A determined enemy outside a Tiny Hut can still make a lot of noise and otherwise ensure you don't get eight hours of peace.

[Keravath]

I would be inclined to buy this argument, if a player tried to sell me on it. But I would still want it to be an established thing, like a camp they've made over several days that also gave them time to scout the surrounding area. I would probably give this to anyone proficient in survival.

My reasoning on this is narratively separate long and short rests as more than just time spent resting; long rests are supposed to be *sleeping* for most races.

I agree with a long rest requiring sleep or equivalent for most races. However, I don't see much issue with this occurring at a camp site or other temporary encampment especially when the party is traveling cross country. Their packs are usually filled with bedrolls, camping equipment and other items. If they decide to set up a camp, they make food, find/setup appropriate shelter, remove armor for sleeping but wear it when they are on watch - personally, I don't see much reason to deny a long rest under those circumstances.

There may be a greater risk of random events when camping out though most wild animals will avoid the people as much as they want to be avoided. (i.e. a pack of wolves or bears or similar are fairly unlikely to attack a group of folks out camping - in real life, a friend of mine was camping by themselves sitting by the fire one evening when a pack of wolves wandered through the camp site looked them over and went on their way - intimidating and a bit scary but most of the time wild animals don't want to attack people - though it does happen).

[Mastikator]

So you go with the nuclear option. Good to know. So essentially no short resting or long resting in the dungeon or probably a death sentence. So why would any player short rest in such dungeons?

No, that's not what I said. What I said was that it depends on the dungeon. The dungeon should be designed with short rest in mind. IF you want to go with the nuclear option then design the dungeon that way, IF you want to allow short (or even long) rest then design the dungeon that way. Make sure it makes sense in that they work that way.

I think I a well designed dungeon is based on the adventuring day scheme. IE 2 short rests and a long rest at the end.

[Sigreid]

I would be inclined to buy this argument, if a player tried to sell me on it. But I would still want it to be an established thing, like a camp they've made over several days that also gave them time to scout the surrounding area. I would probably give this to anyone proficient in survival.

My reasoning on this is narratively separate long and short rests as more than just time spent resting; long rests are supposed to be *sleeping* for most races.

If you think about it, most of human history, most people have essentially lived their lives camping. Well, maybe not most, but there was a long period of time that it was everyone all the time. Still plenty of people/cultures that live that way today.

That said, you are correct that effort needs to be put into setting up so you can actually rest/rejuvenate and not be on pins and needles the whole time.

[strangebloke]

depends on environment.

Enemy base? Simply doesn't work. They will attack you.

Enemy territory, but you're incognito in a city or hiding in a forest? Pretty safe, but don't go for a long rest.

You're on a ship sailing to a new location? Use however much time you have.

[Frogreaver]

No, that's not what I said. What I said was that it depends on the dungeon. The dungeon should be designed with short rest in mind. IF you want to go with the nuclear option then design the dungeon that way, IF you want to allow short (or even long) rest then design the dungeon that way. Make sure it makes sense in that they work that way.

I think I a well designed dungeon is based on the adventuring day scheme. IE 2 short rests and a long rest at the end.

That’s not what you said in the post I quoted, but it very well may have been what you meant. In which case we are much closer to agreement.

I think a dungeon should be designed mostly fiction first with only a little worry about the adventuring day. It’s very difficult to make interesting and different fictional scenarios where the 6-8 encounter day with 2 short rests just naturally happens without leaving long rests very open or closing off short rests entirely.

[LudicSavant]

In our campaigns (with our most experienced/optimized groups, anyways), we sometimes deal with enemies attempting to interrupt rests. If you didn't want to have teleporting fiends trying to scry and die you, you shouldn't have pissed off an evil god. That's just the way it be.

What's that, you're trekking across the desert to try and find the lost city before the evil adventurers? Well they paid all the local harpy tribes to sing and harass you from max flying bow range whenever you try to sleep, and then retreat when you wake up. Also the enemy rogue poisoned your water supply right before you set out. This sort of thing is not only fair game, but expected at this sort of table (I mean, this is a campaign that also had enemies doing things like trying to find and burn the Wizard's spellbook. Successfully, at one point).

Another example of an ambush had us being woken up by some 200 damage worth of explosives, with corpse-eating burrowing monsters coming out of the ground to try and prevent anyone getting downed from getting Revivified.

And yet despite that, we create opportunities for short rests. The Wizard took Tiny Hut and Demiplane. The Bard even had Catnap and was all too happy to use it, knowing that 1 3rd level slot wasn't as much as all the resources the team could get back on a short rest.

While there is definitely something to be said for DMs that don't allow short rests, there is also something to be said for the fact that many of the players who don't get short rests don't try to get them.

[stoutstien]

In our campaigns (with our most experienced/optimized groups, anyways), we sometimes deal with enemies attempting to interrupt rests. If you didn't want to have teleporting fiends trying to scry and die you, you shouldn't have pissed off an evil god. That's just the way it be.

What's that, you're trekking across the desert to try and find the lost city before the evil adventurers? Well they paid all the local harpy tribes to sing and harass you from max flying bow range whenever you try to sleep, and then retreat when you wake up. Also the enemy rogue poisoned your water supply right before you set out. This sort of thing is not only fair game, but expected at this sort of table (I mean, this is a campaign that also had enemies doing things like trying to find and burn the Wizard's spellbook. Successfully, at one point).

Another example of an ambush had us being woken up by some 200 damage worth of explosives, with corpse-eating burrowing monsters coming out of the ground to try and prevent anyone getting downed from getting Revivified.

And yet despite that, we create opportunities for short rests. The Wizard took Tiny Hut and Demiplane. The Bard even had Catnap and was all too happy to use it, knowing that 1 3rd level slot wasn't as much as all the resources the team could get back on a short rest.

While there is definitely something to be said for DMs that don't allow short rests, there is also something to be said for the fact that many of the players who don't get short rests don't try to get them.

This portion of the game is not discussed much and for games that are looking for that more constant deadly feeling resource recovery is as important as using them wisely in the first place. Alone side the different ways you can approach resource management as a player and/or a party.

[Sorinth]

I would be inclined to buy this argument, if a player tried to sell me on it. But I would still want it to be an established thing, like a camp they've made over several days that also gave them time to scout the surrounding area. I would probably give this to anyone proficient in survival.

My reasoning on this is narratively separate long and short rests as more than just time spent resting; long rests are supposed to be *sleeping* for most races.

I don't have my books at hand but I'm pretty sure the Long Rest had the expectation of 6hrs of sleep and 2hrs of other light activities. So the Wizard sleeps 6hrs eats for 30 min and spends an hour and a half going over their spellbook in preparation for the day ahead. Chopping some branches to camouflage and make your shelter a little more weather resistant should reasonably fit into that 2hrs of the LR where they aren't sleeping for a Ranger..

But yes for certain styles of game, limiting what gets recovered on a LR while camping works quite well. Just watch out for the wording of some things. Arcance Recovery is once per day not once per Long Rest where's Land Druid's Natural Recovery is once per long rest.

[Dork_Forge]

It depends entirely on who is taking it and where they're taking it.

In general I don't find short rests to be an issue for parties, they tend to fortify their position or hide accordingly when they need or want to take them. I do, however, solidly disagree with the notion that if a party can take a short rest they can probably take a long rest.

1) Long rests are once per 24 hours, that alone should be enough to dissuade the above notion unless 5 minute working days are your table's preferred games.

2) It is far easier to fortify or hide for just an hour where everyone will remain armored and awake, vs 8 hours where that most likely won't be true.

One of my parties early on had a problem with trying to just long rest their problems away, getting attacked in the middle of the night by an undead horde at the gate they had just seized permanently fixed that notion. This wouldn't have been a problem at all with a short rest.

[sithlordnergal]

A group concerned about resource recovery would just long rest and skip short resting under such a paradigm as they can have an encounter without interrupting their long rest but that’s not so with a short rest. Unless your option is always the nuclear one - where long resting there is essentially a death sentence - then this solution just makes thing worse.

What I find is when you try and police resting via encounters during resting is that players just budget such potential encounters into their play, such that they just rest sooner they they normally would have. Which usually makes the problem worse not better.

Technically any encounter of any length ends a long rest, and you won't gain the benefits of said long rest afterwards. Doesn't matter if it only lasted 1 round, if you do any sort of fighting then that long rest is over and you don't gain any benefits. Otherwise you'd need about 10 minutes of fighting, which makes no sense.

[Tanarii]

Sure, there is some inherent risk to resting for an hour, but normally that risk is just that the bad guys might come to you instead of you moving into their territory.

How hard is it for you to get a short rest, and why?
Depends entirely on the frequency of random encounter checks.

15%/ hour, not too dangerous. 85% chance of completing it.
15%/10 min, fairly dangerous. 38% chance of completing it.

Of course, if you've triggered the alarm and enemies are looking for you ... well, I hope you're over-leveled for the place you invaded. :smallamused:

[Reach Weapon]

Before the main camp of Gnolls notices the missing scouting group and sends a search party you should be able to rest up pretty easily.
Not to mention the added bonus of splitting the Gnoll forces, which can be exploited with proper tactics.

[Willowhelm]

Technically any encounter of any length ends a long rest, and you won't gain the benefits of said long rest afterwards. Doesn't matter if it only lasted 1 round, if you do any sort of fighting then that long rest is over and you don't gain any benefits. Otherwise you'd need about 10 minutes of fighting, which makes no sense.

Where is this from? I see this…


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.

Is this a parsing as (1 hour of walking) or (other tasks). Rather than 1 hour of (walking or other tasks)?

[sithlordnergal]

Where is this from? I see this…



Is this a parsing as (1 hour of walking) or (other tasks). Rather than 1 hour of (walking or other tasks)?

It would be the "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."

The 1 hour only applies to walking, and if you do any sort of fighting, spell casting, or "similar adventuring activity", even for 1 round, then your rest is interrupted. You don't get to gain any benefits from the long rest, and you'll have to try again. Its how I prevent my party from just spending multiple days taking long rests, even though they're going through the Tomb of the Nine Gods with a person at 3 levels of Exhaustion. They can't just rest multiple days cause I attack the party at a long distance to start combat, maybe stay around for 2 rounds at the max range of a Longbow, then have the foe disappear and the party has wasted their 8 hours and have to make a Con save vs. Exhaustion because they didn't get their Long Rest in.

They learned pretty quickly "Don't try to rest for a week in Omu". I will admit that the extra exhaustion save is a bit homebrew, but the Long Rest interruption is RAW, and I suspect RAI. Otherwise you'd never be able to interrupt a long rest, because no-one is ever going to run an hour long combat.

[Demonslayer666]

Risk depends a lot on the situation. We tend not to rest when it is risky (high traffic areas), and are smart about it. But, in my 5th edition experience, a short rest is usually available. I don't recall one ever being interrupted. Long rests on the other hand, seem to be far too often no matter what we do.

As DM, I do not allow resting while traveling unless it is in comfort, say on a large ship. Travel is only 8 hours of the day though, so it can be broken up and rests taken when needed.

[animorte]

How about this new method: Short rests should cover most everything and be accomplished with 2 hours.
Exceptional class features and maybe very high spell slots should require a long rest to replenish.

And if this happens to be the case for ALL classes, reduce total spell slots of full casters by 20% or so. Balance.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

For me this is one of the areas 5e modules fall a bit flat. In older editions that I used to play it was common to have wandering monster tables, so it was pretty clear for the DM what the odds generally were of this sort of thing. And if you were homebrewing you could use a typical mod for guidance.
I do generally fall back on a roll of the dice though if the party is in enemy territory. If it's generic wilderness I'd only be rolling for a long rest, as the duration of the short rest likely wouldn't generate a result.

[Tanarii]

I do generally fall back on a roll of the dice though if the party is in enemy territory. If it's generic wilderness I'd only be rolling for a long rest, as the duration of the short rest likely wouldn't generate a result.
Yeah, if you want wilderness journeys to be dangerous, it needs to be very dangerous wilderness, checks at least every 4 hours. That's the way I like it personally, if it's not frequency checks it isn't wilderness. It tamed frontier at best, or civilized, and I don't run traveling adventures in those. That's just traveling from point A to point B.

Or if you feel that's too dangerous (or want to run adventures in semi-tamed frontier with a once a day check) switch your rest model to the Gritty variant. Or house rule your own version. Or steal from a 3rd party like 5e's middle earth, where you can only long rest in a safe Haven.

[Catullus64]

It would be the "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."

The 1 hour only applies to walking, and if you do any sort of fighting, spell casting, or "similar adventuring activity", even for 1 round, then your rest is interrupted. You don't get to gain any benefits from the long rest, and you'll have to try again. Its how I prevent my party from just spending multiple days taking long rests, even though they're going through the Tomb of the Nine Gods with a person at 3 levels of Exhaustion.

I find this a tenuous reading of the sentence in question, if not an invalid one. If it achieves the desired outcome and your players don't mind it, that's a legitimate parsing of the rules, but it's far from the clearest interpretation; other DMs aren't at variance with the text for ruling otherwise.

Compare a similar passage from the same section: "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."

Similar grammar, but with the time-descriptor at the end. I don't think most DMs would say that only standing watch can be performed for 2 hours, whereas you can read, talk, or eat for any duration, which would be the parallel parsing to your ruling on interruptions. I'm not citing this to say "gotcha", merely to point out how the language on which you base your ruling is probably not intended the way you rule it. Not a problem, but it's best to be clear about that.

As for the actual gameplay implications, I'm not sure I would want the failure conditions for a Long Rest to be that tight. At my tables, I want a mid-dungeon long rest to be possible, if extremely difficult, such that determined and clever players could pull it off in extreme situations. Then again, most of my longer dungeons are not places with singular and coordinated defense forces.

[Tanarii]

I find this a tenuous reading of the sentence in question, if not an invalid one. If it achieves the desired outcome and your players don't mind it, that's a legitimate parsing of the rules, but it's far from the clearest interpretation; other DMs aren't at variance with the text for ruling otherwise.

Compare a similar passage from the same section: "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."

Similar grammar, but with the time-descriptor at the end. I don't think most DMs would say that only standing watch can be performed for 2 hours, whereas you can read, talk, or eat for any duration, which would be the parallel parsing to your ruling on interruptions. I'm not citing this to say "gotcha", merely to point out how the language on which you base your ruling is probably not intended the way you rule it. Not a problem, but it's best to be clear about that.Time descriptor at the end makes all the difference as far as I'm concerned. The comparison is clear to me, short rests are interrupted by any amount fighting or casting spells.

Plus, it'd be really weird for it to need to be an hour of fighting or casting spells. Those things are almost never longer than a minute. That may be why there's really no question in my mind of the intended reading.

[Catullus64]

Time descriptor at the end makes all the difference as far as I'm concerned. The comparison is clear to me, short rests are interrupted by any amount fighting or casting spells.

Plus, it'd be really weird for it to need to be an hour of fighting or casting spells. Those things are almost never longer than a minute. That may be why there's really no question in my mind of the intended reading.

I was citing text on Long Rests, not short. The Short Rest text is quite clear that it needs to be a full hour of un-strenuous activity, as you say.

But it doesn't make much sense for me for a few seconds of strenuous activity to immediately and definitively reset the clock on a long rest. I would generally say that if the strenuous activities, which for me includes most investigation and exploration, total an hour, even if no one activity comes close, that's enough of an interruption. Generally, anything that needs to be done on your feet, or requires real mental energy, counts.

It's a question of making resting an actual point of drama, rather than a yes-no binary. Having even an instant of fighting negate a long rest is just as lacking in drama as sleeping the whole night without incident. If the players know that the briefest attack will reset the clock, why would they ever attempt it? I prefer the tension that arises if the players can conceivably get the Long Rest benefits if they hold out against the attacks & other perils that occur while they're at their weakest.

[Tawmis]

How hard is it for you to get a short rest, and why?

As ye said, assuming they're not being chased...

It depends, on where they are. So for example, if they headed to EVILBOSS_CASTLE_01 and resting in the woods, on the way there... Not too dangerous.

If they've entered the goblin caves, and find a small area to rest that they've cleared out, higher risk. Because even though they cleared out the area, there's probably wandering patrols, especially in a cavern over run by goblins, who take notice to their comrades missing or being dead... now they're on high alert, and searching the cave for the murderers.

[Sigreid]

As ye said, assuming they're not being chased...

It depends, on where they are. So for example, if they headed to EVILBOSS_CASTLE_01 and resting in the woods, on the way there... Not too dangerous.

If they've entered the goblin caves, and find a small area to rest that they've cleared out, higher risk. Because even though they cleared out the area, there's probably wandering patrols, especially in a cavern over run by goblins, who take notice to their comrades missing or being dead... now they're on high alert, and searching the cave for the murderers.

Dungeons and Dragons also known as Home Invasion Robbery, The Game!

[Hytheter]

But it doesn't make much sense for me for a few seconds of strenuous activity to immediately and definitively reset the clock on a long rest. I would generally say that if the strenuous activities, which for me includes most investigation and exploration, total an hour, even if no one activity comes close, that's enough of an interruption. Generally, anything that needs to be done on your feet, or requires real mental energy, counts.

For what it's worth, Crawford agrees: https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/764150520646742016?lang=en

Personally I have always thought this to be obvious.

[Tanarii]

I was citing text on Long Rests, not short. The Short Rest text is quite clear that it needs to be a full hour of un-strenuous activity, as you say.Yes sorry, long rest.


But it doesn't make much sense for me for a few seconds of strenuous activity to immediately and definitively reset the clock on a long rest.
It makes perfect sense to me for fighting. Getting in a fight at all should interrupt a long rest. It's also useful from a gamist perspective.

Spells aren't IRL, so no way to compare there. But from a gamist perspective, it's useful to require them to be cast either before or after a long rest, not in the middle.

And again, fighting or casting doesn't last an hour, ever, so it'd be pointless to call them out that way.

[sithlordnergal]

For what it's worth, Crawford agrees: https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/764150520646742016?lang=en

Personally I have always thought this to be obvious.

My main issue with that reading is that it now means its impossible to interrupt a long rest. Well...technically its possible...but who is going to run an in game hour of combat? If the party is settling down for a long rest, and it takes an hour of something to end it, then the only way to force that party to move is to send a group of NPCs strong enough that they force the party to keep moving. And 9 times out of 10, the party is going to stand and fight, because combat will take less time.

By having any combat at all end a Long Rest, you now have a realistic method to interrupt Long Rests.

[Reach Weapon]

My main issue with that reading is that it now means its impossible to interrupt a long rest. Well...technically its possible...but who is going to run an in game hour of combat?
While such a reading would take an epically large combat to disrupt a long rest, it could also mean that two such interruptions, even relatively trivial ones, would do the trick. Such a ruling would probably conform pretty well to player expectations through lived experience.

[ProsecutorGodot]

My main issue with that reading is that it now means its impossible to interrupt a long rest. Well...technically its possible...but who is going to run an in game hour of combat? If the party is settling down for a long rest, and it takes an hour of something to end it, then the only way to force that party to move is to send a group of NPCs strong enough that they force the party to keep moving. And 9 times out of 10, the party is going to stand and fight, because combat will take less time.

By having any combat at all end a Long Rest, you now have a realistic method to interrupt Long Rests.

I don't think I've even had a combined hour of combat throughout an entire adventuring day, that's 600 rounds of combat. Worth noting that it doesn't have to be only combat for an hour, combat can be in addition to other hinderances. That said, for as long as a combat you aren't going to run from might take it's probably taking up a minute at most of that hour.

I think it makes sense that any amount of fighting would interrupt the rest, I can't imagine it being very easy to simply continue resting after going from sleeping to life-threatening violent encounter.

[sithlordnergal]

While such a reading would take an epically large combat to disrupt a long rest, it could also mean that two such interruptions, even relatively trivial ones, would do the trick. Such a ruling would probably conform pretty well to player expectations through lived experience.

You need a loooot more than just 2. Combat encounters last 1 minute at best, 2 if its really, really long. In order to prevent a long rest via random encounters with that hour long rule you would need 30 encounters, each that last 2 minutes. Now, these encounters don't have to be combat, it could just be 40 minutes of walking. But here's the thing, if the players are taking a long rest, then they aren't moving. And they're not gonna move unless you throw enough things at them that they finally decide "Alright, lets pack up and keep moving".

That's just not practical, and ends up making Long Rest interruptions impossible.

[Catullus64]

My main issue with that reading is that it now means its impossible to interrupt a long rest. Well...technically its possible...but who is going to run an in game hour of combat? If the party is settling down for a long rest, and it takes an hour of something to end it, then the only way to force that party to move is to send a group of NPCs strong enough that they force the party to keep moving. And 9 times out of 10, the party is going to stand and fight, because combat will take less time.

By having any combat at all end a Long Rest, you now have a realistic method to interrupt Long Rests.

Again, I don't think that interrupting the rest itself and forcing the players to restart is a great goal. I think a much better goal is to make long resting a dramatic endeavor, one that's possible in a dangerous place but carries risk. Having combat of any kind interrupt the rest just seems like a very hamfisted way to shut down long resting as a possibility. It turns mid-rest attacks from a challenge into a big red "NO" button, and thus I think that as a ruling it removes tension rather than adding it. An hour is a pretty narrow time window if the players want to do anything in response to the attacks, like move, set up defenses, interrogate prisoners, cast rituals, etc, but it's mainly there to make sure the rest is mostly continuous.

I also think it's far from a plain reading of the rules text, which suffers from some of the natural ambiguity of English grammar, but that's far less important.

[Reach Weapon]

You need a loooot more than just 2.
You seem to be fixating on getting past the hour mark, while I am pointing out that "an interruption" is singular.

[sithlordnergal]

Again, I don't think that interrupting the rest itself and forcing the players to restart is a great goal. I think a much better goal is to make long resting a dramatic endeavor, one that's possible in a dangerous place but carries risk. Having combat of any kind interrupt the rest just seems like a very hamfisted way to shut down long resting as a possibility. It turns mid-rest attacks from a challenge into a big red "NO" button, and thus I think that as a ruling it removes tension rather than adding it. An hour is a pretty narrow time window if the players want to do anything in response to the attacks, like move, set up defenses, interrogate prisoners, cast rituals, etc, but it's mainly there to make sure the rest is mostly continuous.

I also think it's far from a plain reading of the rules text, which suffers from some of the naturla ambiguity of English grammar, but that's far less important.

You shouldn't always interrupt a long rest, but it should be a tool that is readily available for a DM and easy to use without making some epic event that the players have to run from. Interrupting a Long Rest can help DMs control the pace. For example, in Tomb of Annihilation you can do a ritual that gives you Poison Immunity, advantage on saves against spell effects, and the ability to charm snakes. You basically get all the benefits of being a Yuan-Ti without changing your Race. However, doing so gives you 1d6 levels of Exhaustion.

Several of my players decided to do the ritual, and most of them gained 3 levels of exhaustion, one person had 5. Now, ToA does have a timer, you have to complete the adventure in a certain number of days. Technically the party has plenty of time to take 5 long rests in a row, but I want them to have to face the consequences of doing such a dangerous ritual. They've already stated that if it wasn't for the fact that a single combat ends a long rest, they would just rest 5 days in a row. Since they can't just rest 5 days in a row, they're being forced into the final Tomb with a few party members that have 2 levels of Exhaustion, and one person with 4 levels of Exhaustion. There is a point where the party can safely take a long rest in the dungeon, so they'll be able to get rid of some of that exhaustion, but it'll be difficult to get rid of it all.

Another good reason to have any combat, no matter how small, interrupt a Long Rest is that it basically removes the 5 Minute Adventuring Day issue. You can't really take a long rest whenever you want if 1 round of combat breaks it.

[sithlordnergal]

You seem to be fixating on getting past the hour mark, while I am pointing out that "an interruption" is singular.

I mean, the rules state you either need a single interruption, or an hour's worth of interruptions. So that hour mark is kind of important. If it takes an hour of things to interrupt a Long Rest, then you need to find a way to force players to adventure for an hour when they do not want to.

[Reach Weapon]

I mean, the rules state you either need a single interruption, or an hour's worth of interruptions. So that hour mark is kind of important. If it takes an hour of things to interrupt a Long Rest, then you need to find a way to force players to adventure for an hour when they do not want to.
In both the tweet and the Basic Rules on Long Rests (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/adventuring#LongRest), the magnitude of an interruption that resets the timer by itself may be huge, but the number of interruptions is singular.

[sithlordnergal]

In both the tweet and the Basic Rules on Long Rests (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/adventuring#LongRest), the magnitude of an interruption that resets the timer by itself may be huge, but the number of interruptions is singular.

So, I think I may be misunderstanding what you're getting at here...Yes, you only need one interruption, and yes the interruption doesn't need to happen all at once, but if you follow Crawford's tweet then that interruption needs to take at least an entire hour of adventuring to resolve in order to reset a Long Rest. It effectively becomes impossible to interrupt a Long Rest with this interpretation. Because if a party refuses to do anything until they have a Long Rest, then they're just not going to do something unless there is something massive that happens and forces them to.

By making it so any form of adventuring interrupts a long rest, it ends up making more sense and becomes easier to interrupt a Long Rest. You no longer need to come up with something that will:

A) Take an hour to resolve

and

B) Force a party to do something that they do not want to do, and will try to avoid doing at all costs.

[LudicSavant]

This portion of the game is not discussed much and for games that are looking for that more constant deadly feeling resource recovery is as important as using them wisely in the first place. Alone side the different ways you can approach resource management as a player and/or a party.

Yeah. You can create opportunities for rests. There are tons of abilities specifically for this, like Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow, Temple of the Gods, Rope Trick, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Catnap, and more.

Like, if you had time to cast a Ritual, you had time for a Catnap to trade up a 3rd level slot for all of the Warlock's slots, the Fighter's Action Surge and maneuvers, and so forth.

[stoutstien]

Yeah. You can create opportunities for rests. There are tons of abilities specifically for this, like Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow, Temple of the Gods, Rope Trick, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Catnap, and more.

Like, if you had time to cast a Ritual, you had time for a Catnap to trade up a 3rd level slot for all of the Warlock's slots, the Fighter's Action Surge and maneuvers, and so forth.

Go subject for a mini guide. I'm not blessed with articulated writings skills but maybe I'll give it a shot.

[Reach Weapon]

So, I think I may be misunderstanding what you're getting at here...
Yeah, I was sort of hoping someone would jump in and explain it better than I seem to be doing...

Putting a pin in interpreting rules and writings, long rests seem to be not entirely different than sleeping in the real world. As such, it may be useful for us to take a moment and contemplate how often and of what duration your sleep can be interrupted before it is no longer restful.

With that in mind, I am pointing to the fact that both the rule and supposedly explanatory tweet specify an interruption (singular).

As I am interpreting that, a second interruption would reset the 8 hour counter to the end of the first interruption; which I believe makes for a good and clear ruling.


yes the interruption doesn't need to happen all at once
I actually think it's even more disruptive of long rest if you count disparate combat encounters as a single interruption, as there is no good reason of which I am aware that the clock would then not run for the duration, making the counter reset to the end of the concluding combat, assuming the game time elapsed from the first round to the last is at least an hour.

[Witty Username]

IMO it's less about resource budget and more about running a believable dungeon. If you're spending an hour resting then there's a big risk that a patrol sees your group. That patrol then retreats and sounds the alarm and now you have the whole dungeon either grouping up to kill the group or escaping with the valuable loot.


That is a good way to get a whole dungeon murdered. The Party alerts the dungeon, the Monsters choose group up and hit it till it dies. The party sets up an ambush in a choke point and wipes out your dungeon with AOE spells. I have seen it happen multiple times in multiple systems.

I like having a risk of a random encounter every 10 minutes of in game time. Recently I have been rolling a D20 when I would check, 1 is a random encounter or if I roll higher than my last d20 roll that didn't result in a random encounter.

[Dork_Forge]

That is a good way to get a whole dungeon murdered. The Party alerts the dungeon, the Monsters choose group up and hit it till it dies. The party sets up an ambush in a choke point and wipes out your dungeon with AOE spells. I have seen it happen multiple times in multiple systems.

I like having a risk of a random encounter every 10 minutes of in game time. Recently I have been rolling a D20 when I would check, 1 is a random encounter or if I roll higher than my last d20 roll that didn't result in a random encounter.

I wouldn't assume that a party could handle an entire dungeon's worth of encounters rolled up into one. I also wouldn't assume that they're setting up an ambush if they were attempting to short rest, if anything assuming that they're hurt, somewhat resource depleted and vulnerable would be a safer bet.

Preparing an ambush isn't resting, and the party doesn't even necessarily know this is even happening.

[Witty Username]

I wouldn't assume that a party could handle an entire dungeon's worth of encounters rolled up into one. I also wouldn't assume that they're setting up an ambush if they were attempting to short rest, if anything assuming that they're hurt, somewhat resource depleted and vulnerable would be a safer bet.

Preparing an ambush isn't resting, and the party doesn't even necessarily know this is even happening.

I wouldn't assume it either, I simply have been proven wrong on that assumption on multiple occasions. My personal favorite was a one-shot I did, a player kicked in the front door of the dungeon with a loud crash (why this is my favorite story, the door was not locked) and in a dungeon which was meant to be fought with 4-6 enemies a fight they fought 100 goblins at once. party size 3, no casualties.
But my favorite example is also not a 5e example, for 5e I recall a day we deliberately alerted an entire army to our presence so we could maximize our AOE potential and switch to stealth to slip into a dungeon off the shear chaos caused.
My concern is more, don't assume throwing a massive encounter at the party is the solution. My group is the kind that will exploit it to their advantage, and can limit your options in unexpected ways.

[Hytheter]

My main issue with that reading is that it now means its impossible to interrupt a long rest. Well...technically its possible...but who is going to run an in game hour of combat? If the party is settling down for a long rest, and it takes an hour of something to end it, then the only way to force that party to move is to send a group of NPCs strong enough that they force the party to keep moving. And 9 times out of 10, the party is going to stand and fight, because combat will take less time.

By having any combat at all end a Long Rest, you now have a realistic method to interrupt Long Rests.

Why must long rests be interruptible?

[Mastikator]

That is a good way to get a whole dungeon murdered. The Party alerts the dungeon, the Monsters choose group up and hit it till it dies. The party sets up an ambush in a choke point and wipes out your dungeon with AOE spells. I have seen it happen multiple times in multiple systems.

I like having a risk of a random encounter every 10 minutes of in game time. Recently I have been rolling a D20 when I would check, 1 is a random encounter or if I roll higher than my last d20 roll that didn't result in a random encounter.

If the party can take on the whole dungeon in a single fight then IMO they deserve the win. Using chokepoints and other clever tactics is something I think they should be rewarded for. (whether it works should also depend on the monsters in question, kobolds should just flee with the treasure, ogres will stupidly charge, hobgoblins will reevaluate their tactics on the go).

Likewise to the risk IMO it should depend on where they take their short rest, if it's in a hallway that is often patrolled then the risk increases, if the dungeon is filled with the undead who who only awaken when you enter the room/touch the doodad/whatever then it's probably safe to take a long rest. Also if the rooms the party has visited now contain a long line of dead corpses and a patrol sees it they should be alerted if that's not something they're expecting to see. Versimilitude is a very strong driving force for designing unique dungeons, patrols can serve as doom-clocks, undead hauntings can serve as dream based omens, prisoners can potentially help the party, etc. Simulationism isn't my goal but merely having a dungeon that makes sense because then they can make informed and rational assumptions which leads to the holy grail of TTRPG: player agency.