This One D&D Rule *almost Fixed 5e
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2024
- Several positive rule changes have come and gone in One D&D, but this one bugs me the most. Here's how you can still make it fun! ▶️ More below! ⏬
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00:00 5e's not broken, but this rule is
01:52 how dnd 5e long rest actually works
03:19 how ONE DND made it much worse
05:43 long rest solution 1 & sponsor!
07:05 location-based resting
08:37 5e DMG rest options are mixed
10:49 best dnd long rest for dungeons
13:19 reminder about the main problem
13:44 old school dnd rest rules!
#onednd #dungeonsanddragons 
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why i think nimble is great?@@garygood6804
I use either the rule half HP is stamina, returned in an hour of rest, the rest needs a uninterrupted night to recover. I also use HP recover fast as long as you don't Zero it (fall in combat), then you need at least a week to recover.
Leomund's Tiny Hut enters the chat and says, "C'mon in guys, rest in the dungeon and get the benefits of the long rest."
Unless your DM decides that LTH breaks their "gritty realism" and subsequently nerfs that spell. 😒
D'oh!! (wah wah wah) ...@@finnulf
@@Lustvig🤷♂️ I can live with a DM attempting their version of "gritty realism" (caveat: in a fantasy role-playing game) - as a long-time DM myself, I'm just trying to help them find a good middle ground. Your mileage may vary.
@@finnulfI'm not one of those DMs. This is a fantasy game, and the point is for people to have fun living their fantasy, not forcing them to follow your rules. There certainly should be rules, and elements of realism, but nerfing spells and changing rules to be more "gritty" should only occur with player agreement and buy-in.
@@ryadinstormblessed8308100% agreed. I have my own ideas of "gritty realism" and I'm pretty sure that 99% actually stays within RAW. I'm a pretty big fan of 5e - I feel that it's D&D done right. In 43 years of playing RPGs, 5e is easily my second favourite iteration of any RPG.
I'll say this, the idea that an adventurer or battle hardened person sleeping anywhere they can being immersion breaking, seems a bit odd considering anyone in the military will tell you that there will be instances where they will be forced to just sleep anywhere and that including getting broken sleep due to being on guard for 2 hours.
I'd say if you do this "safe place" rule, the DM has to give the party the opportunity to turn an area into a safe place. They could bar the doors in one room of a dungeon or use familiars to keep watch.
Otherwise your spellcasters are gonna be the weak link in the chain of your party, and they healers are gonna be crying out to leave and trek all the way back to down before every boss room.
Well there's a difference between getting sleep, and getting restful effective sleep. Usually if you're sleeping out in the woods on a military operation, I assume most won't awaken fully refreshed. There's a level of paranoia with sleeping in a dark woods not knowing if any shadow is an animal trying to eat you, or an enemy soldier creeping up in the night. The problem isn't sleeping itself so much as getting the full restorative effects of a long rest. Sure, you're getting enough sleep to fight off exhaustion, but your back is probably going to be sore from sleeping on cold stone, you wouldn't have had any water to clean your bandages, you're eating poor quality trail rations and the dungeon chill isn't doing any help in helping you recover from the disease from that rat bite.
@@taragnorthe key term in what you said there was "I assume".
Having been in the Marines, I don't agree. Modern society has made us soft, and we're interposing our concepts of comfort onto how our characters would function.
The issue of full healing during a Long Rest is definitely a different topic, and I'm not saying it's realistic to do that, no matter where you're sleeping. Merely that characters in this setting can certainly be well rested while sleeping anywhere.
And by the way, my halfling Sorcerer loves his comforts, which is why much of his Bag of Holding is taken up with tent, sleeping pallet, pillows and blankets.
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 I'm not saying the characters would be exhausted or fatigued, just that they won't get a perfect sleep suitable for a long rest. As far as the "softness of modern society", keep in mind that beds are not a new thing. They've been around in pretty much every culture, even the ancient ones, in some form or another. The idea of getting a more effective restful sleep through comfort is not a new one by any means. It's reasonable to have resting in a bed confer some meaningful bonuses compared to being camped out in the wilderness.
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 I agree. All branches of the military commonly finds themselves sleeping in conditions that would not qualify under those terms, and have done for centuries. I would also add that the navy sleep on ships that are cramped, in motion, and possible to be attacked. So, by those rules, nobody in the navy has ever had a long rest.
And even as someone who has chosen the "soft life", I've often slept for many consecutive days in conditions what wouldn't qualify. From camping as a child to being partied out at a festival.
Also from a game viewpoint it impacts classes differently. A fighter may be at only half effectiveness without their long rest abilities, but a full caster or healer is a chocolate teapot without their their long rest abilities. So when your healer casts their last heal spell, it's time to turn around, climb out of the dungeon, travel the four days back to town, so you can rest in an inn.
@@taragnorwhen's the last time you got perfect sleep?
My interpretation of the newest rules for interrupting a long rest is that once any of the action occur none of the others would add any extra time. So if everyone rolled initiative, two people took damage, and one person cast a spell, they would already have interrupted the rest by rolling initiative and so nothing else in the list is interrupting the rest and so does not add time to the rest.
That makes sense, but it sucks that one person casting a spell could mess up everyone's rest
@@BobWorldBuilder It wouldn't. A long rest isn't _per party,_ it's _per individual,_ so the one person who cast a spell would have _their_ rest interrupted, but the others would be fine. The one who didn't get their rest would just end up with a level of exhaustion if they weren't able to complete a long rest that day.
That was my reading as well; the list is just a collection of actions that will interrupt the rest, not that each separate action adds an additional hour.
Mostly felt like trying to close some nitpicky holes that people could have brought up with the previous rules, such as arguing that even though they rolled initiative it didn't interrupt their rest because they didn't do any actual fighting.
@@BobWorldBuilder, well, this is also create an opportunity of different activities for other players. More for roleplay than actual fighting or dungeon crawling. Little scouting, more time for crafting or repairing things, researching some books or maps, etc. Or just small talks near campfire. My players tends to rush through long rest like "We set a camp, we eat, sleep, here we go, let's continue!", so I feel like I should slow them down a bit.
@@Fitcher007just ask them to describe what they do or what they talk about when long testing or setting up camp. The DM controls time and one of the important techniques is switching between character acting and description, interacting with the characters vs interacting with the players.
I always grouped it differently. (1 hour of walking)(fighting)(casting spells). The only thing that time limit affected was walking.
Same here.
Yeah I think that's a more sensible interpretation, and the first One D&D playtest wording change was for people like me :P
I've played at tables where it wasn't, though, and can honestly say it gives a different feel. But not worse or better. It was faster paced, since long rests were easy, but lower tension. Good for something like a Lord of the Rings, high heroic fantasy, where there are meant to be long spaces between REALLY big encounters.
That goes against both grammar and what the designers have said they intended the rule to be.
Ditto. Any combat breaks the rest, however I did give the benefit of a short rest, should the interruption happen at least an hour into the attempted long rest. Since, I, as the DM, control that interruption, it always happened at least an hour into the rest.
For my 'viking' campaign, we use a 24 hour long rest. This must happen in a 'safe' space, with food and shelter, such as a tavern or allied camp.
The rationale is 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of training and maintenance (reading spellbooks, praying, sharpening blades, mending armour, etc), and 8 hours of rest and relaxation. Brought back certain class abilities, like Arcane Recovery or Channel Divinity, to a *daily* refresh. Otherwise, the night's sleep counts as a Short Rest, but is still required to avoid Exhaustion.
The players are really liking it. They enjoy having to husband their resources and the process of being whittled down to the raggedy edge. A Full Rest is more appreciated and those with Short Rest recoveries feel the benefit.
That sounds pretty cool. When would players regain hit dice?
@@jhizzlefoshizzle6406 I assume the old "up to half" is implemented since it was not stated otherwise.
@@jhizzlefoshizzle6406 Actually, all of them return, because it's easier to book-keep and when I've run them to the raggedy edge they've used them all. They usually take 2 or 3 days downtime anyway so I stopped bothering and just assume they get them all back.
Limiting rests and requiring players to manage resources makes for a different game. Super heroes should get all their HPs and abilities back quickly to reenter the fight. Gritty, more "realistic" dungeon delvers should have to conserve their powers and worry about whether they can get back to a safe place. I think the latter makes for a better RPG but it all depends on the style of game you want to play.
@@keithkannenberg7414 That's the problem with 5e. In previous editions (never played 4e), those type of games were possible, because there was more room for different playstyles. It's really hard to do that in 5e. And at the same time, it's really hard to make fights challenging and still having time for roleplay as well. Few fights last more than 2 rounds, and even then it can take forever. I'll still run and play 5e, but *Shadowdark* is a much better experience.
I started with older editions where it was expected for players to actually work out a watch rotation, staggering out their long rests instead of everyone sleeping all at once so rests in safe places are faster and for the sake of safety rests in dungeons take closer to 12 hours to account for watch rotation. I also remember clerics and druids needing to state a specific time of day when they had to drop everything and chill for an hour to regain spells, and wizards needing an extra hour after they wake up from 8 total hours of sleep in order to prepare their spells.
I think most groups that have encounters at night still plan the watch rotation. Mine does anyway! I don't make the players choose when their spells recharge, but they usually call it on their own, being fair about whether or not their charcter got the right amount of rest before an encounter in the night
Exactly. Clerics declare when they gain their divine casting, Mages wake up and prepare spells. Clerics typically do the same to make the group travel easier, but there are some flavor choices depending on the deity.
A long rest is 8 hours, 6 of which are spent asleep, and the other 2 can be spent doing light activity-such as keeping watch.
A party of 4 will rotate watches throughout the rest.
RAW, prepared casters prepare their spells AFTER a long rest, not during, and at higher levels, this could very well take up to an hour.
Clerics and druids still do, in fact, “drop everything and chill for an hour,” it’s called a short rest, and it recharges their Wild Shapes and Channel Divinities.
I thing long rests are so "broken" in 5e because healing cant keep up with damage, and not all caster classes have an arcane recovery mechanic.
What's the fix to this one? Is it cheaper healing pots or maybe giving you one "free" hit-die per short rest regardless if you had any left?
Spell slots are the tricky one as they should be a finite resource but some classes just fare way better overall with this. Are there any like mana pots type items or mechanics in DnD? Have a gold or resource cost and can only be used on short rest (not in combat) but can renew a spell slot.
A cleaner fix could just be that characters regain up to half hit points and spell slots on a short rest regardless but seems a bit simple.
@@m41282 an official fix or an unofficial fix? The idea of using two kinds of long rest mechanics seemed to be a good approach. I've listened to playthroughs where the DM would homebrew a potion that would give the benefits of a long rest so the characters could keep going. A good true fix would probably require a rebalancing of the game. Because once the PCs are out of hit points, and have burned through hit dice, you either gotta give them a way to recover or you'll kill them with any more combat. I just say lean into the high fantasy. It's a world with magic, things don't have to operate the way you're think they should.
@@Nemnar7that potion isn't actually homebrew, it was an official item from way way back when
@@m41282 i'd argue that there's no fix because it's broken.
Would be good if rangers got a unique optional ability to make long resting in dangerous locations easier.
Or have spells that help build the security of a campsite like alarm but expanded.
I like it!
Maybe if there was some kind of survival check baked in? With advantage if they were in favoured terrain?
From playing Pathfinder: WOTR, you would assign tasks to party members, such as cooking and watch, one of which was a camouflage check which would reduce chance of encounter and make the camp more "safe". Basically just a survival check. There was also a task for shielding against demonic corruption which could be a fun thing to include/combine as a kind of meta exhaustion.
Check out 5e Adventures in Middle Earth. It's got the low-magic Tolkien setting with some rules that make long resting mid-adventure quite difficult. And the Rangers of that setting (called Wanderers) ate granted a number if known wilderness areas they are familiar with. In those areas, they know of places where safety, uninterrupted sleep, and long rests are possible.
Never create a rule that you’re just going to negate 90% of the time with some other rule. That's two worthless rules.
I, as a DM, have never once tracked how many hours my party spend awake or asleep, nor do we roleplay rests that much. The story dictates when the day is winding down and the party decides if they are going to sleep, unless I have something specific I want to happen while they try to rest, I let the rest complete and we move on. If I were going to adapt any of these suggestions it would be a long rest can only happen in a safe location, i.e. they have to retreat somewhere, find somewhere, or make somewhere safe before a long rest can be granted, otherwise it would just be a short rest.
Something to keep in mind….if you decide to go with a different rest mechanic, make sure your players are onboard. There are a lot of abilities that switch on/off on rests so depending on how many warlocks and wizards you have…making sure they are able to still make wise decisions based on their rest is important
For a while I homebrewed a rule where, whilst in a harsh jungle, the party had to make a survival check when making camp. On a 15+ they rest as normal, on a 10-15 they can fully recover one of either HP or expendables (things like spell slots, rages, superiority die) and on less than a 10 they had to treat it as a short rest.
Plenty of issues with it (effects some classes more harshly for one) but it did encourage them to do short forays into the jungle and then back to town rather than spending months wandering and fighting.
If your campaign time mirrors real life, and your group meets weekly, gritty realism means you recover between adventures.
Haha I like that idea!
I'm still not recovered from some of the encounters we have had. And I wasn't even present in character!
This is what I do! it's also cool, because seasons change to match real life, and the characters gets lots of downtime activities.
@@JackOfHearts42 Unfortunately it only works if your sessions each week can of a decent, predictable, and consistent length. If you have 6 hours to play one week and 3 the next, chances are you're starting and/or ending sessions in the middle of the action to some extent.
Like my group will often end a session right before we'd need to roll initiative for a combat encounter, or manage to finish a combat and need to wait for next session before even handling loot, let alone deciding on what we're doing next. A session might start with a lot of time spent roleplaying and handling logistics back at base/town/whatever, only making a small bit of progress into the dungeon before stopping.
And any time we say we might try to do some stuff in-between sessions, it invariably gets pushed back into being taken care of during the scheduled game time. And if it doesn't it can cause mistakes. Like, just this last session, we realized we'd never disturbed the magic items an exiting party member had left behind in a chest in their old room several in-games weeks ago (and a few in real life years ago on top of the sessions we'd missed that detail for beforehand, since that DM's campaign had been on hiatus for an uptick in work schedule while other people in the group DMed, including one campaign ran by a first time DM that went for levels 5 through 23, technically 24 if counting after beating the final big-bad, that had spun off from a previous level 3 one-shot).
Doing this in my new campaign:
Full rest: 7 days in a safe location (town)
Half rest: 8h in wild, caves, and the like. Roll half of your hit dice (does not count as used) get half of spells lots back of each level up to level 5.
Short rest: 2 h normal rules.
thanks for the idea
For the playtest 7 wording, i think a long rest can only be interrupted once. It wouldn't be one interruption (+1 hour) for each time a character took damage, because the long rest was already interrupted by the first instance of damage (or initiative, etc.)
It could in theory be interupted again, but that woulrd require the party to have chosen to resume the rest, ie finishing the combat and starting to rest again.
@@HarryhighdefThat's how I interpret it. If the party rests in a dangerous location, I roll for an encounter every hour, which means that every encounter extending the rest by 1 hour has a risk of triggering another encounter. Theoretically that can cause a chain reaction that makes resting in a very dangerous space impossible. For example, a rest on a place with a 50% encounter chance per hour would on average take around 16h because it triggers 8 encounters. The party would likely not survive that, and take the hint to abort the rest and find a safer spot.
As for interpretation of long rest in 5e:
For me it always was "Interruption is caused by: a) 1 hour of walking b) casting spells c) fighting d) any strenous activity".
EDIT: OH, no, new rules have very much different phrasing than i thought. My previous comment about better phrasing was edited out
The rule is rather simple, the long rest is interrupted by any of those things listed, once it is interrupted it doesn't matter what happens until the party tries to continue long rest. So at most, they need to rest that extra hour per interruption.
Yeah I think that's a more sensible interpretation, and the first One D&D playtest wording change was for people like me :P
Casting spells interrupts a long rest ... what?!
This is not RAI, nor is this how the English language works, but you are free to be wrong.
@@AllanSavolainen I feel like the smart thing under these circumstances (which basically just matches my real life sleeping habits), is to always try to start a long rest when you need your first short rest of an adventuring day, interrupt it intentionally after whatever few hours you can spare, then continue the long rest the next time you need a short rest, repeating until you're ready to take the last couple so hours of the long rest to complete it. After that, you take normal short rests over the 16 hour wait time, hoping you can manage a more solid long rest by the end of it.
Basically, you would be artificially creating a 24 hour rests of safety and roleplay each time before going into dangerous situations to set this up, so that your first time counting a long rest is a shorter time in any one spot by having the option. Which is simultaneously very metagamey, but at the same time something you might realistically expect adventurers to do (and what a large number of people in real life will do if they can when they have a day or two off work).
"My physical copy is shipping soon." You really do well with those funny little asides.
Thanks! And it is!
My party is 3/4 of the way through Out of the Abyss, and there really isn't any safe places to rest in the Underdark. My wizard usually just casts Leomin's Tiny Hut, and we call it a day. They also have Daern’s Instant Fortress, so really they have two options, but without either of these, resting in the Underdark by having to head back to an inn would completely derail the game, because of the distances involved in traveling for place to place.
Yeah location matters. I talk about this in my own game toward the end of the video
The Lord of the Rings TTRPG had this great idea for "refuge locations" where you could locate a secluded hollow or easily-defensible, shallow cave to rest inside of. These were special areas that players could find in the wilderness, and they had an air of safety about them.
The issue i find with the long rest and gaining spells back very much depends on the adventure itself. Some adventures will have them exploring mega dungeons where it may take days to get out and to some place of safety. It would hamper casters as they'd only be at half spand and with the gritty options it could suck if one random encounter beds your pc's for a week with the quest being time sensitive. It all comes down to if it works within the overall story.
Yeah I think the idea of using a dungeon rest and a travel rest, like Dungeon Dudes (maybe?) works well
I found gritty realism resting to actually pair really well with time-sensitive quests. It presents your players with a real dillemma of pushing on despite low resources vs. potentially missing an objective.
In default 5e, the “safe place to rest” ends up making Leomund’s Tiny Hut super attractive (more so than it already is) - learned that one the hard way. 😂
I have one campaign I'm in where that spell was made not worth taking simply by the fact that one of the party members is considered large size by the DM and the player. Though, it can count the same if the party really wants to rely on large sized mounts. Or if there's just 10 or more total creatures in the group for whatever reason.
@@ShalakorWell I guess the 10 or more people isn't super problematic if of those ten people at least two of them are a Wizard, Tome Warlock with the ritual casting invocation, Twilight cleric, Bard or character with the ritual caster bard/wizard feat in which case you just make two tiny huts lol
There’s one joke in Rabtoons final fantasy parodies that explains the long rest issue, “Just sleep it off, you’ll be fine”
Hear me out, This will sound crazy, half everyone's health. and after any combat they get all their health back. We've run this and its great how it changes the gameplay loop, we long rest rarely, even the Wizard is eager to push on when they're at full health.
We don't describe losing HP as getting hit, instead it's stamina, so when they drop they've only been hit once. It helps with the immersion.
This is the way. Although I double monster damage and half monster HP so my players don't have to do anything to their sheets.
I wish we had an injury system. One that debuffs a player character till certain conditions of healing are met such as lesser restoration or greater restoration required to heal or they have to drag them back to town to find a healer. Break a leg; reduce speed to 5ft till a successful medical check. This sets the leg and your only reduced to half speed and no charging or dashing. Lesser restoration completely removes the debuff and heals the leg.
Yeah I think exhaustion could be used for this to an extent. I like how DCC specifies certain critical hits and attacks cause wounds with effects and simple specifications for healing
Well we do, it's in the DMG as a variant rule. There's a whole table and everything for when you get hit with a crit or reach 0hp.
You can, of course, do that. Some people may find that fun, some may not. I really depends - again - on what type of game you want to run.
I’m currently running the Dungeon Dudes, Dungeons of Drakkenheim campaign. It’s amazing in many ways. But something I love that’s relevant here. When you are in the haze, (which is almost everywhere in the city that all the adventure sites are) you cannot gain the benefits of a long rest. It makes the city feel dangerous, forces the party to make tough choices about how far to push, and makes the journey back to the town outside the haze (which acts as a home base) feel scary too.
Honestly this campaign is so damn good!
In my superhero game, long rest get you to full life, but everytime you make a death saving throw or fall to 0 HP you get 1 exhaustion (-1 to all roll), exhaustion only disappear with a trip to the hospital and a couple days/week of bed rest. As long as you adventure, you are weared down, simple and easy.
Nice!
My personal house rule is that PCs recover a number of hit points equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum of 1) per level after a long rest, and at the start of a long rest, they can also spend HD to regain extra hit points (representing tending to wounds, using natural remedies or ointments, etc.) before going to bed. They still regain half their HD at the end of a successful long rest. For a well rested party, this usually means their first long rest can get them back up to full capacity, but the longer they are in a dungeon or wilderness, the more it becomes a game of attrition and resource management. Scales pretty smoothly, too. To be fair, my games lean more towards low encounter counts and are a bit grittier.
0:14 4E's bonuses were not complicated. You write down your base attack bonus for your weapon attack. You write down your base attack bonus for your spell attack.
You use one of these two base attack bonuses whenever you use one of your powers, plus or minus any buffs/debuffs and DM inflicted circumstance bonus/penalty.
D&D 5E still has the SAME calculations, just that the circumstance bonus/penalty is replaced with advantage or disadvantage, as the DM still inflicts those upon you.
I really miss the numerical modifiers, it had more granularity than just getting advantage/disadvantage for everything, it may be more simple but I feel like we lose out on things that can make the game more nuanced
Really, it's just still cool to insult 4e. You see, that's why they do it.
@kennymahan9354 I've honestly seen more people defending 4e over making fun of it in the last couple years
The small issue I have with the long rest at a "safe location" is that for overland travel, is that (I would think) merchants would build safe huts or lodged along any major trade routes, and along at least some of the miner trade routes, completely removing this issue as long as you're traveling along a major trade route.
This is why I use 3 different rests:
1. Short Rests - as usual
2. Long Rests - restore class abilities and spell slots
3. Safe Rests - restore hitpoints and hit dice
This allows you to stay active in a dungeon for multiple encounters as long as you have magical healing.
But maintains verisimilitude of resting in a safe location. I have a video about it. But I don't know if it's cool to post the link... is that a RUclips taboo? 😊
Nice one this one ! Mind if I borrow it for my games ?
@@Srasair Go for It!
There's more details in my video,
"5 Homebrew Rules I Use."
@@diredenThanks a lot :D i'll take a look
Nice!
This is much better than the completely no long rest in dungeons. Not being able to long rest in a dungeon is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What if the whole campaign takes place in a dungeon? Mad mage, tomb come to mind. Are they expected to gain exhaustion leaving the dungeon just to long rest? I like your way much better.
That image of your video screen on the drawn bed in the spooky setting had me spitting out my apple X'D
My former group learned the hard way why, as you said, "Location, location, location," is important. I had the party restart the clock each time their rest was interrupted. Sleeping in a monster's house (aka dungeon) meant patrols and random encounters. During one session, it was interrupted then interrupted again then again. Each combat drained resources, and they realized : It's not safe in a dungeon. Took a short rest and made a fighting withdrawal back outside.
I always ruled that if it was a deadly encounter then you had to restart but if you just wiped the floor with whatever random dungeon encounter came up you could keep going.
I’m reminded of the scene from so many movies, where the bookish townie on their first adventure is talking with the hardened adventurer around the campfire.When a snake or some other jungle creature slivers into camp. The townie freezes in fear, but the adventurer just whips out a weapon and kills the creature instantly. The scene normally ends with the adventurer either cooking the creature for dinner or just bidding the townie goodnight.
This kind of flavour shouldn’t require the need to restart the rest.
One thing I tried with a group for resting was that a character could only heal up to their hit die, magic, or potions. Though all class abilities came back. Unfortunately D&DBeyond made that harder to implement so it was abandoned after a few sessions.
It had promise, players weren’t hoarding potions, the cleric was more strategic about spell usage and healer’s kits and medicine checks became useful.
Far better.
I like the Long Rest in Town optional rule, but if there's even one member of the party who has access to any healing spell, medicine skill, or Alchemy tools proficiency then stock rules are fine. I'm willing to handwave injuries if SOMEONE can heal somehow, but if no one can? You gotta find a town and see a healer.
I like location based rest. It makes safehouses in the wilderness much more relevant and can help motivate players to protect them (or be cruelly stripped from them if the campaign gets too easy 😈)
Right! I think the GM could be a little more lose with defining shelter, and then it makes druids/rangers more important to the party for finding "safe" areas in the wilderness
A tiny hut is the safest place a group can be. Until you get Mansion or demiplane.
So that's really only a solution for tier 1.
@@nitePhyyre *throws Beholders at hut until it breaks*
@@choiie you can throw beholders at an inn also, so the point remains 🤷.
I really like the shadowdark way of handling it. Because of the danger levels you can also have your party benefit from making approbiate effords to increase safety of their camp. Like finding a good camping spot while travelling or finding a cavity in the walls of a dungeon and hiding in there or like locking themselves in an unused room they somehow got the keys for. This way we could actually reward those effords by lowering the danger level for the long rest while rules as written they are rather just nice roleplaying.
These are great suggestions! Just last week, I implemented a homebrew ruled for long rests. When the party can't find sufficient lodging and is forced to camp, they must consume 1 ration (about 1 pound of food/drink) to gain the full benefits of a long rest. If they don't have enough rations, they can still long rest, but will only regain half of their resources (e.g. they only regain 6hp instead of 12. They only regain 1 first level spell slot instead of 2). I even made some homebrew rules for hunting/foraging to obtain rations, which my players basically turned into a minigame and ended up being really fun. I got this idea from XPtoLevel3 (who got the idea from Baulder's Gate 3 lol)
Definitely think that emphasizing foraging is a great idea. It makes that built-in wilderness expertise of the ranger so much more meaningful.
In my campaign the church has rooms with enchanted beds that gives the long rest effect and every night costs money. Otherwise in a night you can use hit dice in the first half of the long rest and get back one hit dice for every hour you sleep. So it mechanically ruled that to heal from heavy injuries you need some time and more if the fight of the day was long and had you using hit dices in short rests.
My group were all new players when we started our campaign a couple years ago so I am really glad for the simplicity of 5e's long rest rules. Now that we are more experienced I have considered a system similar to Starfinder where you have stamina points and hit points. The stamina points come back with a long rest but the hit points are harder to recover. To recover hit points you must receive specific healing or they slowly recover over many days. When you take damage, your stamina is depleted first. I really like this because it represents your character's toughness, but if you get worn down enough you start to take on real physical damage that takes time to heal. The DM does not need to worry about it, the players can track it because it follows specific rules that generally don't need interpretation by the DM. As far as spells I have no problem with them completely coming back with a long rest. To me they are less about rest and more about limiting magic per game day. But I also tend to throw enough at my players that most of their spell slots are gone by the end of a game day anyway.
Our table (regardless who's DMing that particular game) tends towards not allowing characters to restart their long rest, or you wind up with characters desynching with each other (and/or NPCs. If your party has wound up nocturnal thanks to slipping Long Rests, good luck getting through town/city gates, or finding an open store). I think that's because most of us have worked odd shift patterns IRL, so we know how broken sleep patterns work.
If your character falls asleep, that's an attempted Long Rest. If they don't get enough sleep or sleep-equivalent* (plus potentially the wind-down/wake-up/stand watch time) because something nasty attacked the camp (or something else dramatic happened), then tough. If you're lucky, the DM won't slap you with a level of Exhaustion, but you won't get the benefit of a Long OR Short Rest either. Occasionally, if the encounter was short enough (no more than 2-3 rounds of combat) and early enough (usually first or second watch, maybe early into third), the DM will let you take a Short Rest after, provided your character stays awake, although this pretty much guarantees the Exhaustion (if you go back to sleep, you might not get the exhaustion... maybe). Why don't we grant a Short Rest for an interrupted Long Rest? Well, we tend to rule that you need to declare you're spending Hit Dice at the start of a Short Rest, although you only get the benefit at the end.
*Trance, Sentry's Rest, etc.
In my group we have a home brew fest system.
Short tests are 10 minutes where someone can patch wounds etc and keep the adventure going.
Long rests are 6 hours with 2 hours being able to be light activity or a combat encounter but only bring back half your resources like spell slots hp etc.
Full tests are 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. So unless players have a way to be safe like in town or spells like magnificent mansion or tiny hut (most of the time) they have to long rest in dungeons to be on watch
I think there's a couple misconceptions here. The first deals with the location based resting. Forcing it to be just at an inn or a "safe" place has its own, bigger, immersion breaking points. A druid is going to get far better rest out in the wilderness than in some luxury city inn. Cave dwelling races would be able to rest just fine in a cave. The war veteran fighter likely has learned how to get sleep practically anywhere, because if he didn't he would have died by now. Rogues might sleep just fine in a dungeon, due to the streets they slept on as child being just as cold (or too much prison time). But everyone having different long rest places is very complex to manage, even though it's the most immersive. Anywhere they can get away with it may be partially immersion breaking, but it's easier to handle with the slight immersion break being propped up with "they're adventurers excuse", while a one-sized fits all only specific location makes it feel too game-like as well as breaking immersion for any character that would have different resting preferences. The tactical considerations are already in the locations as long the DM makes sure the world is alive, and enemies actually do things while the players are resting.
The second misconception may be what hit points represent. It's common to interpret them only as how much attacks you can withstand, but they can also be considered as how much superficial damage you can take before you're too injured to avoid something actually harmful. In this second interpretation, only loosing the last hitpoint (and any damage while downed) would result in damage that a long rest couldn't just erase. With this, if you wanted realism, you could just uselingering injuries.
The third, is you forget the specific over general rule priority when refering to monsters that reduced HP and ability scores. With the playtest rules, you still can have monsters that reduce ability scores longer than a long rest, they just have to specifically say "this continues even if you long rest" or "only magic can remove this condition" or some other specific language that overrides the more general long rest rules.
I like to think the max hit points reset and restoring ability scores part of the OneDND long rest mechanics are accomplishing two things:
1) Simplifying statblocks. If 90%+ of the monsters or spells with the ability to reduce max hit points or ability scores are undone with a long rest, it's easier (and space-saving) to make it a general rule than rewrite it in every relevant monster statblock or spell description.
2) 5e specific trumps general. If you still want to have a monster that reduces max hit points or ability scores and a long rest, _now_ you indicate that in the statblock, e.g. "this effect only ends with a _greater restoration_ spell or _remove curse_ or with the blood of a gorgon, etc." and the specific rule will overrule the general long rest mechanic.
Otherwise, great video! Backing that Nimble crowdfunding!
Regarding Gritty Realism, we are currently playing with that in a campaign. It results in a lower tempo during gameplay and a more strategic use of resources and features to avoid depleting yourself too quickly. Not for campaigns on a fast timer, but definitely interesting and different.
What happens if combat breaks out after 5/7 days of the long rest? Do you have to do another 7 days of rest before getting value.
@@gurugru5958 So far, it never happened, since we always return to the town/city for that, basically taking downtime.
@@fredericgenest If the town is explicitly peaceful, then that makes sense. Hut I feel like fights could easily break out in a lot of scenarios, even in a relatively peaceful town.
@@gurugru5958 Not disagreeing with you. But that's how we've been playing it so far.
@@fredericgenest I'm not so much disagreeing but asking. I've considered GR too
Great advice. I've started incorporating rules from Shadowdark and Dungeon Crawl Classics into my homebrew games, and I love it. Thanks for your recommendations. These rest mechanics will work better in my games.
Ya know I like to think I run my game "cinematic" style, like a film, or a TV show... or a Saturday morning cartoon.
Typically in entertainment the story does not focus on the characters sleeping.
My sleep rules are: If you have a long-rest, you wake-up fully healed with full spell points.
I also allow that an hour can provide one HD of hp or one spell-point.
If you feel as though it's a soft-glove for the PC's you just throw more pain at them after they rest.
I do roll wandering monsters which can interrupt sleep, or worse still kill a weakened member of party.
I personally feel that there are 3 "resting zones". Years ago, while DM-ing for some buddies while we were in the military, I used the analogy of resting in barracks, resting in camp, and resting on patrol. Those are 3 VERY different threat vectors, and also 3 very different levels of rest.
That was in the AD&D days, so I have no idea what the actual rules implications would be, but as a concept of so makes a ton of sense.
I believe it might have been Dungeon World that had my favorite rule to regain spell slots: You regain all spent spell slots at sunrise every day. (I'm paraphrasing, but basically that.)
That method is great for me and my groups because, no annoying bookkeeping (9 out of 10 times they get their spells back after they're done sleeping), it'll discourage over-cautious players from hoarding all their spells, it's a flavorful rule that makes spellcasters seem mysterious and supernatural, and, maybe best of all, if you're lucky it could lead to an epic and tense fight where the rogue and fighter types are holding back a mass of monsters for just a few ... more ... moments until the first light of dawn peeks over the horizon and the wizard and cleric get supercharged with all their spells.
There will still be persistent reductions to max HP and ability scores if it's tied to a curse, since curses make all related effects persist until the curse is removed. So if your monsters first apply a curse rider, you still get your multi-day/gradually deteriorating effects. That said, curses are probably also due for rule clarifications.
Another option for resting is saying that you at least need 1 level of exhaustion to take a long rest. Then change the rule that you gain a level of exhaustion after 16 hours instead of 24 hours.
Now your party enters the rest with a level of exhaustion making combats potentially harder during a rest, just don't reset the long rest afterwards. (Creatures that are immune to exhaustion or can not gain it from lack of sleep do not require a level of exhaustion to take a long rest)
Especially for higher level adventures a long rest can feel really weird, where you can recover from a state where you could get beaten by commoners to being able to slay an ancient dragon by just resting for 8 hours. So for that I came up with the following:
For spell slots, you can do that a character regains spell slots equal to twice their level. This starts having effect at level 3, where you can regain up to 6 levels and your total is 8 for a full caster.
Instead of character level you can use spell caster if you wish, so that rangers and paladin's don't get as much.
For hit dice, have them an amount recover equal to their proficiency bonus.
Ooh; I think I remember why long rests got changed to full heals, though. Gaining back a few hit points per rest did help make things feel more grounded in reality, but it also meant that parties without healing magic needed to track a lot of potions (or home-brew the 'heal' skill to work like spells, but only during a rest), and parties _with_ healing magic got an incentive to:
1. cast any remaining magic before resting,
2. rest to regain all spells,
3. cast as much healing magic as is required to fully heal the party, and
4. rest _again_ in order to regain that expended healing magic for use in future encounters
In my experience, this wasn't a thing people did very often, because it's not a fun way to play the game - but the option still came up in discussions when people weren't using a home-brewed on-rest healing rule, which a _lot_ of them did, largely to avoid these discussions about healing magic.
I thikn the one D&D rule of 1 additional hour per interruprion - should be fixable - by simply changing to - per 1 hour of interuption (round up?) -- so if they party gets attacked, everyone rolls initative - then usual combat stuff happens - all inside 1 hour time - add 1 hour once the party re-starts its rest. If the party decised to travel for an hour after the combat - taking us to say 75mins worth of interupption - add 2 hours to the rest length upon restarting
I use the "gritty realism outside, normal resting inside" approach.
To make it make sense, I simply say that traveling for multiple miles outside and then sleeping outside makes it impossible to get a long rest. I also give the option of the players stopping their travel to stay in the same hex (6 miles) and that will allow them to get a long rest and "reset" them back to normal resting. But as soon as they start traveling multiple miles again, that's exhausting and turns you back to 8 hour long short rests.
Part of this long rest fix discussion reminds me of the "Adventures in Middle Earth" (AIME) rules. Long rests in that 5e offshoot require Safety, Comfort, and Tranquility. You can't long rest in a dungeon; you can't long rest in most wilderness areas (perhaps in some mystically serene glade hidden in the woods, but not most areas). On the other hand, the Rangers of that system (called Wanderers) have a class feature which gives them access to a few known areas in the wilderness to take a long rest.
Not mentioned in this video is the interaction of long rests with exhaustion, but exhaustion plays a larger role in AIME, and in 5e you need long rests to clear exhaustion
AIME is a very low-magic setting and I haven't played in a standard 5e game using harsh long rest rules, but I imagine limiting long rests does some work mitigating the whole martial/caster issues some people seems to feel exists. In any case, I absolutely loved how having to go a week or more without a long rest really wore our characters down. The end result of a side quest, for example, was befriending a reclusive family in a farmstead far from other civilization. Having earned a safe place to stop sleep in that area was truly a reward to our party.
My house rule has a 10min short rest once per hour which is taken like a break. A per hour long rest once per day that can occur in dungeons and camps where you recover spell slots per level up to 5th for a 5 gour long rest, and a Full Rest that occurs in safe environments like inns, that function in line with regular long rest rules.
I changed the recovery rules. On a short rest, you can spend hit dice up to your Medicine modifier (minimum 1). You can use your uses to give other people rolls of their hit dice by patching them up.
On a long rest, everyone can roll as many hit dice as they want. You get half back at the end of the rest as usual.
The upshot of this is that you can recover half your HP per day during sustained adventuring. If you're low, it will take up to 3 days of rest to restore all your HP and hit dice (that's just how the math works out). I think it makes damage a bit stickier over time.
3.5e. Your number of hit dice (character levels) + Con Mod per 'rest', doubled if you have a trained healer that monitors your care.
I think, the full heal in a night is way more reasonable when you consider, that the group (usually) has a healer with them. When healing magic is cast and somebody has open wounds I often make a point of describing how those wounds heal, even though it still hurts were the wound was. So in the night they basically "just" have to recover from the physical and psychological strain of the day (which also is part of the Hit Points) but not from wounds.
I homebrewed Long and Short Rests to emphasize the importance of Hit Dice as a resource. Long Rest replenishes Hit Dice and Spell Slots, like usual, but not Health, unless you spend Hit Dice you just gained; so coming out of a Long Rest after a big fight is likely to have you still wounded and low on Hit Dice. In Short Rests you cannot recover Health with Hit Dice, but you can use Hit Dice to regain spell slots and gain temporary hitpoints.
My DM uses the designated location rule and it's really cool!
I like it most because it makes short rest builds feel so much more reliable and useful and makes decisions like using 5th level slots much more impactful
It makes encounters have actual consequences with just resource usage and management
Of all the 5e rules, Long Rests probably aren’t one I'd have thought to complain about, precisely because there are the three different versions to pick and choose from... but after watching this video, I do see your points.
That said, I dunno how long I'll keep playing D&D after the new rules come out next year.
While I never expected One D&D to be a fully new edition, I was at least hoping for a change on par with the move from 3e to 3.5e... but with each new playtest they release, I just feel like they’re walking back more and more changes, to the point that now even the "optional" class upgrades from TCoE seem to be getting ditched. TCoE is easily my favourite D&D book, so to me, this is even more demoralising than the OGL scandal was.
Despite all the money I've poured into this system over the years, I can all too easily see myself leaving it before long.
You do what you wish, but just to point something out: the TCoE optional features have been integrated into the base classes and some of the subclass options are likely to appear as the base options of the 2024 PHB.
Fortunately most d20 systems are compatible with a little tweaking!
@@nojusticenetwork9309 Okay, fair point. *Some* TCoE features are being included, but it’s certainly not all of them.
For example, I know that the Monk's "Quickened Healing" feature hasn’t been ported over... because clearly *Monk* of all the classes is the one that's most in need of nerfing, good call there, WotC. /s
They’ve said repeatedly that anything that doesn’t appear in a playtest remains as-is, so the Tasha’s options are still options, and many of them are becoming standard.
Few months ago I saw castles and crusades. I like system a lot and I introduce the system to my friends. We played a campaign and now playing a new one. System can be little bit hard for new DM's but easy for players. In this system characters gains 1 HP per rest. If you rest in tavern or something like for long period of time hp gain increases.
Systems has more perks as well. I hope one day Bob review Castles and Crusades. (english is not my first language, so if i said something wrong sprey)
We went with long rests are 7 days long, and you had to account for your lifestyle expenses. There were bonuses and negatives depending on how rich you lived. This is when players would also engage in downtime activities. My favourite part is that this 7 day period allowed for some great roleplaying and character development.
That sounds great!
Any tips on how to get the pcs back into adventuring each time? What sort of campaign was it, what kind of hooks did you use to get them back into adventuring mode?
@@davec1 We ran the megadungeon Barrowmaze, and played gold for XP for the first 4 levels. So the characters motivation to go to the dungeon was three fold.
1. Get loot to level up
2. Get loot to cover living expenses
3. Get magical loot to help with their next foray into the dungeon
I purposefully made it kind of boring in the homebase town, only sprinkling in one session here and there that dealt with some of the more fun NPC’s or the local politics.
They’ve since left that town and are dealing with a bigger threat to obtain 5th level.
Honestly I would like to see long rest removed and replaced with rituals, or some other activity. Like a wizard has to spend 8 hours concentrating on a ritual to gain spells back. Meaning combat is far more dangerous as they can't cast any concentration spell, or drop concentration from damage. Or a ritual that restores hit points to all party members otherwise you don't heal. Or maybe the rouge gets one that gives the party advantage on initiative rolls on encounters usable once per day. The bard already has something like this with song of rest.
Hell you could even codify a watch like this.
A rest is 8 hours. During a Rest you can concentrate on a rest ritual.
Rest Rituals act as concentration, and also get interrupted if you are 120 ft from your rest site for more than three rounds.
Each Rest Ritual can be used only once per rest per character.
Watch: 2 hour rest ritual (Fighter, rouge, ranger, monk, paladin)
While concentrating on this you and your party can't be surprised.
Sleep: 4 hour rest ritual (all classes)
(You can concentrate on this while incapacitated) You are incapacitated. After finishing this ritual you gain hits points equal to half your max HP.
In Mausritter some conditions (including Injured which you get by going to 0 hp) require a week of rest. When I ran it a retainer of the party needed to rest for a week so they used the time to explore and found a different adventure than the one they were going towards. I liked how the mechanics drove them to make different decisions in the plot.
This kind of system is useful for games where character creation is quick so that each player can easily have a character to go on adventures while another one rests.
Adventures in Middle Earth, which introduced me to some wonderful journey and travel rules (now found tailored for 5E under the book Uncharted Journeys) and it both assumed the Extended long rest of the DMG (Short Rest was 1 night, Long Rest is a week) as well as having a rule that you could only long rest at designated "Sanctuaries". My table and I found to really enjoy this restriction because it would encourage the party who often had to travel all around the region to establish various "checkpoints" which was accomplished by doing missions for settlements, making allies, or spending downtime to ingratiate themselves. Then later on when they would get their next adventure and learn they were traveling far they would actually map their path connecting the dots between these villages, inns, noble houses, etc that they had previously formed relationships with to ensure they were resting properly. It also gave me as GM a way to introduce conflict by having events occur at those sanctuaries that may need the party's attention. Really helped enrich the world they werte adventuring in in a very organic way that didn't require a lot of additional prep work.
And at first I interpreted it like you for years.. But when looking at the gritty realism rest rules a year or two ago I realised the intent was an hour of walking, and the other activities were meant to be read without the hour :-p
6:08
I'd make it so that if somebody had proficiency with, and the tools useful for camping, the party would get the benefits of a long rest. That or a survival check.
A common misconception of long rests is that they automatically end once you've rested enough. Actually, the players choose when to end their long rest. You might sleep 6 hours, but sleep in leisurely for another six if you wanted a later start on the day. This helps with travel where you're safe and guarded, like on a ship.
Another mistake I see a lot is that you must wait 24 hours after taking a Long Rest. Rather, you can only rest once per calendar day is a better way to conceptualize the rules. From 12am to 11:59pm you can, and must, finish one Long Rest or else suffer a point of exhaustion (since Xanathar's Guide to Everything.) You may do so any time within that window, but only once.
Something people tend to breeze over and forget is that rest is only interrupted by a ~strenuous~ period of the listed activity. Casting a spell with a cast time of an action or bonus action that takes a mere wave of the hand and a few spoken words is probably not justifiably strenuous. That's like suggesting the Ranger doing target practice interrupts their rest the instant they fire their bow once. This is why the concept of "rest casting" is allowed by the rules, where you cast long duration spells like Goodberry or Aid and then promptly complete your Long Rest to get your spell slots back. If you don't like that, just disallow it! You can easily homebrew that the effects of spells and other long-duration features end when you complete a long rest. Or just tell your players no. Bam, solved, you're welcome.
All that said, I love the rule that a Long Rest must be completed in a safe, low-stress environment with basic comforts such as tents, bedrolls and a fire, and a Short Rest requires at minimum a defensible position with good cover or vantage. The DM may adjudicate what this constitutes, and the players may attempt to convert a location into such with their resources and time. Holing up somewhere and making barricades is fine for a short rest, but a long rest requires time to find, set up camp and good reason to believe you're safe. Otherwise, they'll get the ol' "it's too dangerous to rest here."
I also like to reward my players for sleeping in comfortable and luxurious accommodations. If they camp outside, they'll get a Long Rest, but if they go to the fancy inn and get a hearty meal, they might get some temp HP to start the day out, or gain Inspiration or something. More flies with honey, and all that.
I use the slow natural healing optional rule (DMG p. 267): Long rests do not let PCs heal, they must rely on their hit dice.
In my games, I strike a balance between normal rest rules and gritty realism. Basically, players don't regain HP on their long rests, just half their HD. They can spend their HD to heal as normal at the end of the rest. This encourages a little more downtime if they're particularly spent, but they aren't taking whole weeks off.
I also do shorter short rests. They only last 10 minutes, but they are also not as effective as regular short rests. Can only spend on HD per 10 minutes of rest. Players only get 1 recharge of a short rest ability, too (think Pact Magic, or Channel Divinity) per 10 minutes. Song of rest is modified as well to give a flat bonus (+1 for d6, +2 for d8, etc.)
I just find an hour seems too long for one to catch their breath reliably in a dungeon. In an hour, someone's gonna interrupt you!
These are some good changes!
@@BobWorldBuilder Thanks!
I was just getting ready to suggest the “relatively safe place” houserule which I also came up with several years ago and have never looked back - and then you described the exact rule!
Absolute game changer for pacing adventures and ensuring encounters are meaningful.
0:20 "Of course you don't remember, nobody even played 4th" Not only did I play 4th, I liked it. Still have no idea why people disliked it.
I think the reset on Stats and HP on long rest makes me way more likely to homebrew a foe with AS decreases baked into it's attacks. Want a hardcore snake foe? Try a psionic ability that halves a targets con, and a dangerous poison bite with a con save!
I think that the characters could have a few uses of "Heroic Rest" that they use up in a dungeon. Once used up, they need to switch to gritty realism rules and away from RAW 5e long rests.
Here is an idea.
Your long rest is interrupted if you take more than your max hp divided by hit 6, cast a spell of 1st level or higher or use a class feature that recharges on a long rest but not a short rest. If your long rest is interrupted you get the benefits of a short rest instead.
This means that stronger characters can take more damage before they can be considered to have overworked them self out.
I’m thinking of using the 7 days for the whole hit point regen, but leaving the other perks with the 8 hour long rest.
I might require a safe place to rest, but allow them to barricade themselves in a room to make a safe place.
If you do require them to rest at an inn, I’d make an exception for characters with proficiency in survival. Same way that they can camp, but get the comfortable lifestyle.
I don’t think I’ve ever played without a magic healer in the group, I would roleplay that the healer can close any open wounds or mend broken bones during a long rest as just a class feature. In a world with magic nothing has to be immersion breaking
I've heard of an alternative to 10:25, use all 3 types depending on what's happening. EH while inside a dungeon, Standard while in a town and GR during travel. Its a lot of switching but is an interesting concept
Before bad errata we ignore an Elf doesn't long rest in 4 hours, they just spend 4/8 hours trancing rather than 6/8 hours sleeping.
The Long Rest rules as we know them came out of the initial D&D Next playtest because it was what the most people wanted. Players simply didn't want a return to 3e and having to spend three or four days slowly recovering between adventuring days. A full heal is a nice, simple baseline that keeps the story progressing.
Requiring a rest at an inn works fine for a lot of games. But it's problematic for a lot of campaigns where the nearest inn might be 2-3 days away, like when you're on the tundra in RIME OF THE FROST MAIDEN *or* in the jungles of Chuult *or* the underdark facing demons *or* wandering Avernus *or* stuck in the Feywild demesne of Prismeer. And it doesn't work when trapped in the Tomb of Annihilation or Castle Ravenloft when you can't get back to the inn.
HUH! the long rest mechanic is something that always bugged me. I didn't know you were going to talk about it, amazing that you did!
I already have been doing location based rest mechanics. I even have places where they can get better than a long rest. The thing I'd like to try is to find a fair way to change the rest from completely healing you, as that sounds like magic, but without it feeling like they're being robbed of the fun of the game. I have played games where my character was injured and would have to rest for days in order to be recovered, and that wasn't too fun, but healing completely in a single night feels far too easy.
What I think should happen is this. On a short rest, you spend hit dice up to your proficiency bonus (Or just one if you want to make it a little more gritty). On a long rest, you can spend all of them or regain up to half of your total hit dice. You also regain all of your spell slots and spent abilities, so any additional healing would be done with casting healing spells and the like. To me, this feels about right. Still unnaturally fast healing, but makes taking damage still seem like a big deal without robbing the players of continuing the fun after resting for a night. I also like the lingering injuries that Critical Role uses.
I always made it so long rests took "safety", either being in town, a cabin in the woods, or a room in the dungeon that was "secured" in some way (and of course, Tiny Hut spells once they got to that level). Otherwise, you could still rest, but it only counted as a short rest. It made short rest characters actually impactful, and made them plan expeditions out better.
They also carried padlocks and other things to help secure a room if they found a nice out of the way safe spot to secure in their dungeon or ruins. Which helped to be a regular use for the money they had.
I think at least for how I like to run games, this kind of a rest rule needs some kind of a "medium rest" maybe something similar to the bg3 long rests if you dont use enough camp supplies, only recovering half hp and half spell slots. I also at least personally dont have my immersion broken by long resting in camp sites but that may be my long history of playing rpg video games like final fantasy where you can use camping tents as portable full heals, but full resting in dungeons to me is immersion breaking unless the players find some way to make a room safe that cannot be interrupted. I may be biased though as my players tend to engage with long rests in good faith, never going "oh well that sure was a fight, that we went nova on for the sake of it, lets take a long rest!" they try to at least somewhat pace themselves and only long rest when either I call for it as the day is logically ended, or ask for one when very tapped out.
Yep a bunch of other comments have mentioned creating a third kind of rest for their games!
I think you misinterpreted the "Interrupting The Rest" rule. When _either_ (not for each) of the listed events happens, the rest is interrupted for the following hour, and you must extend your resting time by that hour, to benefit from the rest.
For rest and healing, I really love the balance within Fantasy Flight Games' Genesys (or the Star Wars re-skin, Edge of the Empire). It is very similar to the DCC rules you mentioned, with the element of Critical Injuries that characters can receive during combat which are extra complicated to heal and require either medical attention from a professional or a successful Resilience (basically Constitution) check to get rid of. The more severe the injury, the more difficult the check to eliminate it, and some are basically impossible to get rid of and will cause major problems without help from a medic (for example, losing a limb). In addition, healing items become less effective the more of them you use in a day - the first one recovers 5 hp, the second one recovers 4, the third recovers 3, etc until they finally become totally ineffective until the next day. This really encourages players to 1) take combat seriously and actually consider other possible solutions before trying to solve every problem with violence, and 2) periodically seek out medical attention and longer stretches of rest (and therefore seek out more populated areas for a change of pace). Obviously this lends itself to a different type of game - this is less Epic Hero, more Everyman Hero type feeling. Star Wars is kinda the perfect niche for it, since you CAN theoretically lose a hand, bounce around in a bacta tank baby bjorn for a week, and return to almost-normal with some invisible (or visible, if you want) cybernetics a la Luke Skywalker, but if you don't get to that bacta tank you are in trouble. But Genesys is setting-agnostic and can be run in whatever type of world you desire - fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, modern day paranormal investigators, retro eldritch horror, whatever floats your boat.
Thought provoking! Will use these ideas for a future game!
Could also do a variant of the DCC rest rules for DnD. Maybe a night's rest recovers 5hp and a day of bed rest +sleep is 10hp or something along those lines
I've switched to the dungeon dudes set-up. Using gritty realism rules in the normal parts and switching to normal rest rules in longer dungeons. The reason why I switched to gritty? That way my "adventuring day" is a lot longer. Both the groups I DM only get in about 2,5 hours per session, every other week. So there's no time (or interest) in filling up most of that time with combat to drain resources. This way we can have roleplay and discovery, without the characters having to fight all the time :-) It also brings a nice option to include downtime and things like training, writing scrolls etc.. Things that normally cost a lot of time. We usually just quickly play out the downtime moments and haven't switched over that long ago, but so far, it's treating us good :-) :-)
Awesome!
I'm prepping for an artic west marches campaign rn. I've decided players cannot long rest outside a settlement, which effectively just means they cannot long rest during a session, since they have to end the session in a town even if they didn't complete the dungeon/quest. The idea of being able to long rest camping in the wilderness in -40 weather just felt insane to me.
My adjustment to location based long rest: sleeping outside a safeplace still gives spell slots, but otherwise acts as a short rest. No free hp, no hd renewal.
I like the idea of certain characters being a ranger who live on the fringes of civilization. Survival skills should be used to identify a safe location and setup for sleep in the wilderness.
I agree it should be location based. Adventurers shouldn't rest anywhere in a dungeon. There should be designated places in a dungeon where one can long rest, the bedroom used by the cultists, a comfortable room with a hidden door and so on...
Might be a crazy idea, but I like the idea of adding a third rest option
-Short rest stays as is
-Long rest stay 8 hours and gives back spells and hp, but stat reductions (or major injuries if you include such a homebrew system) are not cured. After each long rest you lose 1 potential use of hit dice.
-Longer rest, 7 days, refills all uses of hit die, cure all stat reductions or major injuries.
The higher level you are, the more you can spend time not Longer Resting due to having more Hit Die.
When I started running 5e for my kids about nine years ago (dang, has it been that long?) I used the "slow natural healing" optional rule on page 267 of the DMG.
Coming from 2e (where you got back 1hp per day under most circumstances) I just couldn't wrap my head around getting all hp back in one rest, so it worked as a good compromise.
I added in a caveat that if the party long rested in an inn with proper beds or in certain other locations, any hit dice expended would get you the maximum instead of having to roll. For example, if a Fighter expended hit dice at the end of a long rest in an inn with proper lodging, they would automatically roll a 10 on each hit die expended instead of rolling normally.
The fun side effect of this was that they kept track of where the nearest towns were at any time, and if they got the total beatdown they would rest in a town or village for a few days and end up getting involved with what was going on there.
It seems to me that theres a desire for having shorter short rests, to encourage their use, and to have long rests be separated into two groups: town and wilderness (latter includes camping, dungeons etc). This would give you 3 tiers of resting, where a safe long rest (needs a better name) coudl restore basically everything, a wilderness long rest restors less but much more than a short, and a short rest does basically what it does already.
In the game I play in, the Circle of Dreams Druid in our party and my Wizard have broken the simplest home brew fixes for long rest because the DM allows us to have a long rest in the wilderness because we combine the use Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow plus Tiny Hut to avoid interruptions to our comfortable period of rest.
In the UK, a long rest is called "have a cup of tea."
Is there a bonus for scones?
I've been running this rest rule for a while now, and it is absolutely required if you want to run a non-trivial campaign that is actually challenging. I recently saw players go on an expedition into the misty woods and actually fail to make it to their destination and have to return to town. They had to come up with a better plan to get there... which they did and later succeeded. Rules like this do not ruin the player experience. They give the system more heft and interest. They make players engage more to succeed.
The whole issue with long rests or hit-die healing seeming weird lies in assuming HP are literal physical damage. Hit Points are stamina. They’re the fatigue that builds up until you take an actual wound that stops you from continuing to fight.
I adapted the 10-point exhaustion system and use it to represent wounds. You get one exhaustion when you drop to 0 HP. While incapacitated, you don’t make death saves, you make a CON save each turn, and fails give you another exhaustion. Exhaustion gives you a cumulative -1 to all d20 tests, -1 to your save DC, and -5 feet of movement. Exceeding 10 is fatal. You can recover 1 exhaustion per long rest in a safe environment. Rangers can recover 1 additional exhaustion with a short rest, once a day. Revivify, Lesser Restoration, and Greater Restoration recover exhaustion points equal to their spell level, but if the target has more than 10 exhaustion, the restoration spells don’t help.
You can also interpret HP even more abstractly, as representing everything that contributes to defeat (injuries, vitality/stamina, grit) or as a narrative facet that represents nothing in-game.
You could also not interpret HP at all and leave it as function, though this is less satisfying. First and foremost, max HP is a measure of how difficult a creature is to defeat.
With your rules, do creatures make Con saves until they regain HP/reach 10 exhaustion, or are there other ways of stabilizing without intervention? Does a creature stabilize after a certain number of successes? I'm assuming that stabilizing actions taken by other creatures, such as first aid and Spare the Dying, have their usual effect: ending the need for saves and nothing else.
@@ClaudiusPunchinello - Yes, fatigue, luck, pain tolerance, mental resilience, etc. can all play into the abstract HP, and my players interpret their HP loss as makes sense to their situation.
Stabilizing can still be 3 successes on the CON saves, but it doesn’t really come up for my players because they’re more active with healing. Because the CON saves are a d20 test, the penalties for exhaustion affect them, so while you don’t die after 3 fails, you can go into a death spiral. When a character is incapacitated (effectively out of the fight, but not necessarily unconscious) I’ll often let them take a bonus action if they’re willing to risk another exhaustion to do it.
I use the rule that healing potions can be consumed as a bonus action for the normal rolled effect, or if they spend a standard action, the dice are maximized rather than rolled. Feeding a potion to a downed ally takes a standard action and has the normal rolled effect, so Healing Word is usually a better option.
There’s still room for playtesting and patching, but the Tubthumping* Effect isn’t a thing anymore.
*Look up the song by Chumbawumba.