You're the arbiter of the world, and therefore you make the rules. The posts here about players asking for short rests are fine, but ultimately it's your call.
There's valid discussion here about the nature of short rests, what they entail, and how to arbitrate. I think for me, the line for short rests is "Is there going to be a dice roll involved, and does that check have the chance of failure. If yes, it's not a short rest." Long Rests specifically have clauses about combat, watches, etc but short rests don't. Xanathars introduced rules regarding the various kits because RAW prior to that, it was hard to adjudicate what a player could actually DO with them. All of those clauses though have zero chance of failure, it just works as a benefit of being proficient.
To go back to the bar analogy, if your players are in a bar and they say hey, we've been in here for 2 hours, can we short rest? My thought as a DM is "Did anyone ask for dice rolls to do something." Now, if I asked them, then I might err on the side of the players because I forced that. The character wasn't actively doing something, but something happened in their environment and you're allowed to react. Flip side though, if the characters in the bar are actively playing music, or looking for information? That's not a short rest anymore, you're adventuring. No short rest allowed.
if the PCs are in a tavern somewhere and the players state they will explicitly take a short rest there and then, should they still be allowed to make an active check (say, Perception to see if someone is cheating at cards or Sleight of Hands to be the one doing the cheating)?
I'd like to point out that, if the party can keep watch as part of a long rest, then I feel that keeping an eye out for cheating shouldn't be held against short rests.
if the PCs are in a tavern somewhere and the players state they will explicitly take a short rest there and then, should they still be allowed to make an active check (say, Perception to see if someone is cheating at cards or Sleight of Hands to be the one doing the cheating)?
I'd like to point out that, if the party can keep watch as part of a long rest, then I feel that keeping an eye out for cheating shouldn't be held against short rests.
Long rests seem to be comprised of 6 hours of possibly interrupted sleep + two hours of light activity possibly including watch duty mostly for practicality's sake. If they didn't allow a couple of hours being on guard and/or interrupting your 6 hours, parties of 4 PCs couldn't take long rests in 8 hours unless they were willing to forego having someone one watch. That's all I'm reading into that.
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if the PCs are in a tavern somewhere and the players state they will explicitly take a short rest there and then, should they still be allowed to make an active check (say, Perception to see if someone is cheating at cards or Sleight of Hands to be the one doing the cheating)?
I'd like to point out that, if the party can keep watch as part of a long rest, then I feel that keeping an eye out for cheating shouldn't be held against short rests.
Long rests seem to be comprised of 6 hours of possibly interrupted sleep + two hours of light activity possibly including watch duty mostly for practicality's sake. If they didn't allow a couple of hours being on guard and/or interrupting your 6 hours, parties of 4 PCs couldn't take long rests in 8 hours unless they were willing to forego having someone one watch. That's all I'm reading into that.
I agree with this as well. The whole point of a long rest is the in game mechanic of getting all of your abilities back, and if not playing with variant rules, restoring full HP as well. Short rests don't have that same level of power, and the description is FAR stricter on what they can do. Even all of the xanthars rules that were introduced have zero dice rolling required, which is why I go that way.
The whole point of a rest is it's a menial task. Little to no effort, can be done without actively thinking. If you're actively roll to observe cheaters, you're not resting. You're putting in active effort. That being said, I would tell the player something to the point of "Based on your passive scores, you haven't observed any cheating. If you want to make a roll for it, that would be an active conscious decision, and therefore would invalidate your short rest. What would you like to do here?"
Yeah, a lot of this has intent on mechanics as well, but in the same token that we see a lot of short rest heavy classes, such as Bards and Warlocks TYPICALLY get the shaft in terms of not enough short rests, it's just as easy to flip the script to make those classes very much overpowered and the Wizard feeling they get the shaft because here's a 9th level warlock potentially slinging 2 5th level spells every combat and the Bard throwing around inspiration like candy whereas the Wizard has to ration spells because Arcane Recovery is a one time per Long Rest mechanic.
ALL of that factors into it, and each table is going to have different balance behind it.
My ultimate ruling in cases like this comes down to -- are the players trying to game the system, or are they asking for something that makes in-character sense or otherwise won't matter much in the scheme of things? If they could easily just take a short rest in the next hour and time is not a factor, then I don't care that much one way or the other (though realistically, neither should they). If they're trying to game the system to get something they really ought not to have, then the answer is no, and if they try it too often I start to become a stickler and invoke rules like, "If you haven't had at least so many hours since the last rest AND a minimal number of resource-draining encounters, you can sit here all you want, and there will be no benefit of a rest."
I would say an ability check invalidates a short rest, even a perception check or other sedentary check like a history check. I have a sedentary job, but I still do it much better with a short rest at lunch and a long rest at night.
However, there's no reason why one member of the party can't take a short rest while another rolls perception.
A perception check I wouldn't say invalidates it, I mean could people not keep a look out during a short rest to make sure they're not ambushed by monsters etc?
A perception check I wouldn't say invalidates it, I mean could people not keep a look out during a short rest to make sure they're not ambushed by monsters etc?
If you want to go full rules lawyer, a perception check means active searching/scanning. Otherwise the DM would roll any NPC checks or environmental occurances against the character's passive perception. Actively watching something means you are focusing on that, and therefore not "resting" your mind. Once or twice could be easily permitted over an hour, but spending most or all of that time actively scanning for threats, or studying a gambler's hand movements is constant, active skill usage.
As a few others have mentioned, frequent/excessive short rests can result in effectively boosting certain classes power level by a significant amount. If a party is has multiple combat encounters in a single day but benefits from a short rest after each one, it could become possible for, as an example, a warlock to cast as many spells as a sorcerer (with all those spells potentially cast at the highest level possible for the character) while still enjoying more hit points, better weapons, etc. and the sorcerer player might wonder what the point is of playing a sorcerer in the first place. The flipside is also true, as if the party never takes short rests then the warlock player would justifiably feel a bit irritated that they don't get to use their ability to recharge their severely limited spell slots. The answer to that is called "balance" and can be one of the trickier aspects of DMing. If your "short rest class" characters are always going into encounters with all of their rechargable abilities fully available then you should probably try putting some more pressure on the party to limit those rests.
A perception check I wouldn't say invalidates it, I mean could people not keep a look out during a short rest to make sure they're not ambushed by monsters etc?
A lot of the time checks, Perception often being a prime example, don't really represent an instantaneous effort. They're not all Str checks for trying to push open a blocked door or Acrobatics checks to swing from a rope between two ships and land safely, actions that only take a few moments to complete. If you're keeping a lookout during the time of a short rest you are actively scanning for danger the entire hour, even if you roll Perception just once. This isn't - in my opinion at least - restive.
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I saw someone post a rule once that as a DM, they only allow a short rest after 2 resource-draining encounters (doesn't have to be combat), and a long rest after 7 such encounters (the mid-point between the 6 and 8 listed in the rules). And only 2 short rests between long rests. This particular DM said, it can even be weeks or months between encounters... yeah you can sleep all you want, rest all you want, but you don't get the mechanical benefits of a short rest unless it's been at least 2 encounters since the last one... same logic for long rests.
I think if I run another D&D campaign, I will impose this rule. I like it... it forces the players to pay attention to their resources, not just spam everything and then rest, etc. "Sure you can rest here for an hour. No short rest though... you only had 1 encounter since the last one."
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I agree with the limiting short rests to two a day thing, but I think it's fine to just have some less eventful adventuring days where you don't get the full 6-8 in every single day. It's not a big deal if the party gets a breather now and then between more strenuous things.
I would be a little lenient, since it can sometimes be hard to get a word in to request a short rest while the other players are exploring the tavern. I think it's fine if at some point while you're there you say you've been resting since you got there. Not cool if you get into a combat and say, "Wait, I rested back there," but since this player clearly values rests and will always rest as soon as they think of it, you might as well assume they're resting any time they're in a tavern.
Yes and no. If they take a short rest (A Short Rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.) that means things could also happen in that tavern, such as bar fights, pick pocketing, etc. Also, if they are eating/drinking, did they spend gold? As a DM, if there is nothing that affects the story line or moves it along, I would just skip over the tavern and say, "after an hour spent in the tavern, you see that NPC X finishes his dinner and leaves..." But if the party asked if they could take a short rest, I might make some other rolls...
Note to self: using your eyes to see is strenuous activity.
It can be. Ask any good Lifeguard or Crossing Guard. I know a little off-topic but there are times when watching can wear on you.
Given the examples presented as Light Activity that you can do as part of a short rest which all take more effort and thought than looking at some cards. I still fail to see why using eyes to check cards is somehow so immensely more strenuous than using your eyes for reading a book.
I've watched card games looking out for cheating. It was simple, easy, and relaxing, requiring almost no effort. This why I simply cannot reconcile in my head the idea that this simple thing is somehow more stressful than the Light Activity that require far more effort. So to me it comes across more as DMs trying to prevent short rests however they can in a DM vs Player way.
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Note to self: using your eyes to see is strenuous activity.
It can be. Ask any good Lifeguard or Crossing Guard. I know a little off-topic but there are times when watching can wear on you.
Given the examples presented as Light Activity that you can do as part of a short rest which all take more effort and thought than looking at some cards. I still fail to see why using eyes to check cards is somehow so immensely more strenuous than using your eyes for reading a book.
I've watched card games looking out for cheating. It was simple, easy, and relaxing, requiring almost no effort. This why I simply cannot reconcile in my head the idea that this simple thing is somehow more stressful than the Light Activity that require far more effort. So to me it comes across more as DMs trying to prevent short rests however they can in a DM vs Player way.
It's as simple or hard as the cheater makes it. As evidenced by the millions of dollars Vegas casinos spend on weeding out cheaters.
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My only real issue is with the person saying it was a short rest instead of asking if it could count. Otherwise sounds like short rest territory to me. Don’t see any reason it needs to be declared beforehand. if you’re doing non strenuous activity, you’re doing non strenuous activity. Would you think similarly about a group setting up camp and sleeping for the night but not explicitly declaring it as a long rest?
OP, to answer you first, it's fine.
You're the arbiter of the world, and therefore you make the rules. The posts here about players asking for short rests are fine, but ultimately it's your call.
There's valid discussion here about the nature of short rests, what they entail, and how to arbitrate. I think for me, the line for short rests is "Is there going to be a dice roll involved, and does that check have the chance of failure. If yes, it's not a short rest." Long Rests specifically have clauses about combat, watches, etc but short rests don't. Xanathars introduced rules regarding the various kits because RAW prior to that, it was hard to adjudicate what a player could actually DO with them. All of those clauses though have zero chance of failure, it just works as a benefit of being proficient.
To go back to the bar analogy, if your players are in a bar and they say hey, we've been in here for 2 hours, can we short rest? My thought as a DM is "Did anyone ask for dice rolls to do something." Now, if I asked them, then I might err on the side of the players because I forced that. The character wasn't actively doing something, but something happened in their environment and you're allowed to react. Flip side though, if the characters in the bar are actively playing music, or looking for information? That's not a short rest anymore, you're adventuring. No short rest allowed.
I'd like to point out that, if the party can keep watch as part of a long rest, then I feel that keeping an eye out for cheating shouldn't be held against short rests.
Long rests seem to be comprised of 6 hours of possibly interrupted sleep + two hours of light activity possibly including watch duty mostly for practicality's sake. If they didn't allow a couple of hours being on guard and/or interrupting your 6 hours, parties of 4 PCs couldn't take long rests in 8 hours unless they were willing to forego having someone one watch. That's all I'm reading into that.
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I agree with this as well. The whole point of a long rest is the in game mechanic of getting all of your abilities back, and if not playing with variant rules, restoring full HP as well. Short rests don't have that same level of power, and the description is FAR stricter on what they can do. Even all of the xanthars rules that were introduced have zero dice rolling required, which is why I go that way.
The whole point of a rest is it's a menial task. Little to no effort, can be done without actively thinking. If you're actively roll to observe cheaters, you're not resting. You're putting in active effort. That being said, I would tell the player something to the point of "Based on your passive scores, you haven't observed any cheating. If you want to make a roll for it, that would be an active conscious decision, and therefore would invalidate your short rest. What would you like to do here?"
Yeah, a lot of this has intent on mechanics as well, but in the same token that we see a lot of short rest heavy classes, such as Bards and Warlocks TYPICALLY get the shaft in terms of not enough short rests, it's just as easy to flip the script to make those classes very much overpowered and the Wizard feeling they get the shaft because here's a 9th level warlock potentially slinging 2 5th level spells every combat and the Bard throwing around inspiration like candy whereas the Wizard has to ration spells because Arcane Recovery is a one time per Long Rest mechanic.
ALL of that factors into it, and each table is going to have different balance behind it.
My ultimate ruling in cases like this comes down to -- are the players trying to game the system, or are they asking for something that makes in-character sense or otherwise won't matter much in the scheme of things? If they could easily just take a short rest in the next hour and time is not a factor, then I don't care that much one way or the other (though realistically, neither should they). If they're trying to game the system to get something they really ought not to have, then the answer is no, and if they try it too often I start to become a stickler and invoke rules like, "If you haven't had at least so many hours since the last rest AND a minimal number of resource-draining encounters, you can sit here all you want, and there will be no benefit of a rest."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
They can ask, and you can say no. You can also say yes. It is entirely up to you.
Keep in mind there are only so many short rests they can take per "day".
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"real life is a super high CR."
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That's not true. The dmg had zero hard limit on them. It does recommend a group take two per day.
A short rest takes an hour. That puts a practical limit on how many can be taken in a day if you actually want to do stuff.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I would say an ability check invalidates a short rest, even a perception check or other sedentary check like a history check. I have a sedentary job, but I still do it much better with a short rest at lunch and a long rest at night.
However, there's no reason why one member of the party can't take a short rest while another rolls perception.
A perception check I wouldn't say invalidates it, I mean could people not keep a look out during a short rest to make sure they're not ambushed by monsters etc?
If you want to go full rules lawyer, a perception check means active searching/scanning. Otherwise the DM would roll any NPC checks or environmental occurances against the character's passive perception. Actively watching something means you are focusing on that, and therefore not "resting" your mind. Once or twice could be easily permitted over an hour, but spending most or all of that time actively scanning for threats, or studying a gambler's hand movements is constant, active skill usage.
As a few others have mentioned, frequent/excessive short rests can result in effectively boosting certain classes power level by a significant amount. If a party is has multiple combat encounters in a single day but benefits from a short rest after each one, it could become possible for, as an example, a warlock to cast as many spells as a sorcerer (with all those spells potentially cast at the highest level possible for the character) while still enjoying more hit points, better weapons, etc. and the sorcerer player might wonder what the point is of playing a sorcerer in the first place. The flipside is also true, as if the party never takes short rests then the warlock player would justifiably feel a bit irritated that they don't get to use their ability to recharge their severely limited spell slots. The answer to that is called "balance" and can be one of the trickier aspects of DMing. If your "short rest class" characters are always going into encounters with all of their rechargable abilities fully available then you should probably try putting some more pressure on the party to limit those rests.
A lot of the time checks, Perception often being a prime example, don't really represent an instantaneous effort. They're not all Str checks for trying to push open a blocked door or Acrobatics checks to swing from a rope between two ships and land safely, actions that only take a few moments to complete. If you're keeping a lookout during the time of a short rest you are actively scanning for danger the entire hour, even if you roll Perception just once. This isn't - in my opinion at least - restive.
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I saw someone post a rule once that as a DM, they only allow a short rest after 2 resource-draining encounters (doesn't have to be combat), and a long rest after 7 such encounters (the mid-point between the 6 and 8 listed in the rules). And only 2 short rests between long rests. This particular DM said, it can even be weeks or months between encounters... yeah you can sleep all you want, rest all you want, but you don't get the mechanical benefits of a short rest unless it's been at least 2 encounters since the last one... same logic for long rests.
I think if I run another D&D campaign, I will impose this rule. I like it... it forces the players to pay attention to their resources, not just spam everything and then rest, etc. "Sure you can rest here for an hour. No short rest though... you only had 1 encounter since the last one."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I agree with the limiting short rests to two a day thing, but I think it's fine to just have some less eventful adventuring days where you don't get the full 6-8 in every single day. It's not a big deal if the party gets a breather now and then between more strenuous things.
It can be. Ask any good Lifeguard or Crossing Guard. I know a little off-topic but there are times when watching can wear on you.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Yes and no. If they take a short rest (A Short Rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.) that means things could also happen in that tavern, such as bar fights, pick pocketing, etc. Also, if they are eating/drinking, did they spend gold? As a DM, if there is nothing that affects the story line or moves it along, I would just skip over the tavern and say, "after an hour spent in the tavern, you see that NPC X finishes his dinner and leaves..." But if the party asked if they could take a short rest, I might make some other rolls...
Given the examples presented as Light Activity that you can do as part of a short rest which all take more effort and thought than looking at some cards. I still fail to see why using eyes to check cards is somehow so immensely more strenuous than using your eyes for reading a book.
I've watched card games looking out for cheating. It was simple, easy, and relaxing, requiring almost no effort. This why I simply cannot reconcile in my head the idea that this simple thing is somehow more stressful than the Light Activity that require far more effort. So to me it comes across more as DMs trying to prevent short rests however they can in a DM vs Player way.
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Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It's as simple or hard as the cheater makes it. As evidenced by the millions of dollars Vegas casinos spend on weeding out cheaters.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
My only real issue is with the person saying it was a short rest instead of asking if it could count. Otherwise sounds like short rest territory to me. Don’t see any reason it needs to be declared beforehand. if you’re doing non strenuous activity, you’re doing non strenuous activity. Would you think similarly about a group setting up camp and sleeping for the night but not explicitly declaring it as a long rest?
Just like calling UNO - DELCARE THAT S