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."
This seems a bit weird. Even if, and I assume this is the case, non-long rest sleeping will get rid of exhaustion this could potentially punish players who manage their resources well.
Let's say that there are seven encounters where the players could potentially spend resources but, thanks to lucky dice rolls, excellent roleplaying or clever thinking they managed to get through 5 of those without actually having to do so. No-one spent any spell slots, no bardic inspirations, etc. Then they have have night on the town celebrating their achievments and the bard decides to give the cleric some bardic inspiration to let them dance better at the local tavern, the cleric blesses everyone and conjures food and water for everyone and hey presto, some fun roleplaying moments later everyone has spent half of their resources. Then all of the sudden there comes news that bandits will attack tomorrow. In a normal game that wouldn't be a problem. In this game the players won't be able to have a long rest and so they are punished not only because they could solve situations without spending resources in previous encounters but also because they made fun and appropriate roleplaying decisions on a night of celebration.
I'd be careful about inflicting this on my players.
I'm firmly in the camp of "Asking the DM if it was a short rest is fine - telling them that it was is not".
It's fair to say that if you hadn't anticipated spending an hour doing nothing, then it's not fair to expect you to declare that you're starting a rest on the off-chance that something will happen to let you finish it. If you do that, then expect people to declare that they are starting a short rest every time that they stop for anything, just in case it take an hour and they get the rest.
Obviously you rules that it needs to be declared at your table, so they should do that. But similarly, allowances for things like this, if asked for, can be made.
Although, after an hour of doing nothing (presumably narrated as "you sit for an hour doing nothing", immediately saying "well if I was doing nothing then that's a short rest" isn't like someone pulling out abilities no-one expects them to still have and saying "oh yeah, I recovered these when we sat down for an hour at the end of last session, i considered that a short rest!". That's what I'd consider retconning - going back in time to change something. Finishing spending an hour doing nothing and immediately saying "and that was a short rest" is not really retconning.
Hmm.... Now, I agree that the player does sound* like they're pushing against the agreed upon rules of the table. And that's a bad thing.
Personally, I do agree with the way that the player is dealing with short rests more than your rules of pre-emptive short rest declarations. My favorite classes are bards and warlocks, two very short-rest dependent classes. And having to ask the DM every single time the group stops "do we have enough time to short rest?" gets old FAST. The players get annoyed, the DM gets annoyed, makes the game less fun. And so what if the players recharge their abilities? Using powers are FUN. And we're all here to have fun.
Again, trying to go against the rules that the table agreed upon is an objectively bad thing, even if I do sympathize with the why.
* We do only have your side of the issue, so its possible there's more going on that we the forum as well as you the DM are just not seeing
Asking if they have time to short rest is counter-intuitive. How would they know if there is going to be a planned or random encounter? Maybe it is in the way you phrase it. "If we feel safe, I want to try and take a short rest".
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.
The difference between reading a book and watching out for cheaters is focus and concentration. While reading a book, you can let your mind wander any time a thought comes into your head. That is restful. Keeping a close eye on a game is like being on duty. Keeping a close eye when there are consequences is stressful. Watching for cheating probably takes as much effort as actually playing the game. Now playing a game could be restful, if you don't particularly care about the outcome and allow yourself to focus as much or as little as you'd like. But if it was an important tournament, it wouldn't be restful.
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.
The difference between reading a book and watching out for cheaters is focus and concentration. While reading a book, you can let your mind wander any time a thought comes into your head. That is restful. Keeping a close eye on a game is like being on duty. Keeping a close eye when there are consequences is stressful. Watching for cheating probably takes as much effort as actually playing the game. Now playing a game could be restful, if you don't particularly care about the outcome and allow yourself to focus as much or as little as you'd like. But if it was an important tournament, it wouldn't be restful.
I'm going to have disagree to that from my experience. Reading a book often requires a lot of concentration. Scenes to build in your imagination can take a lot of effort, following the narrative especially if the story is in a place very different so you have harder time keeping up with references and speech patterns presented very differently to your own. Some stories are fast-paced in places and slow in others, making it harder to keep track. A good story really engrosses you, and if you're immersed well enough, you can have physical reactions: action-packed scenes can make your heart beat faster and get some adrenaline going, descriptions of gross things can induce gag reflexes and particularly horrific or traumatic scenes can induce anger, fear - even mild panic attacks. And that's just the fiction side. The non-fiction? They usually require even more mental stamina. Some books offer considerable knowledge on a subject, but are so dry that it's struggle to get through them or are so mentally engaging and difficult to follow it can hurt your brain.
Some books can be a simple easy leisurely breeze. Some shock your system so much you can't think properly for days. Books hold a lot of power, if written well, and require vastly more more effort than checking for a cheater in a simple tavern card game - to the point where any comparison is laughable.
Checking for cheaters in card games, heck even playing the games, doesn't even come close to the mental efforts involved in reading a good book.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
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.
The difference between reading a book and watching out for cheaters is focus and concentration. While reading a book, you can let your mind wander any time a thought comes into your head. That is restful. Keeping a close eye on a game is like being on duty. Keeping a close eye when there are consequences is stressful. Watching for cheating probably takes as much effort as actually playing the game. Now playing a game could be restful, if you don't particularly care about the outcome and allow yourself to focus as much or as little as you'd like. But if it was an important tournament, it wouldn't be restful.
I'm going to have disagree to that from my experience. Reading a book often requires a lot of concentration. Scenes to build in your imagination can take a lot of effort, following the narrative especially if the story is in a place very different so you have harder time keeping up with references and speech patterns presented very differently to your own. Some stories are fast-paced in places and slow in others, making it harder to keep track. A good story really engrosses you, and if you're immersed well enough, you can have physical reactions: action-packed scenes can make your heart beat faster and get some adrenaline going, descriptions of gross things can induce gag reflexes and particularly horrific or traumatic scenes can induce anger, fear - even mild panic attacks. And that's just the fiction side. The non-fiction? They usually require even more mental stamina. Some books offer considerable knowledge on a subject, but are so dry that it's struggle to get through them or are so mentally engaging and difficult to follow it can hurt your brain.
Some books can be a simple easy leisurely breeze. Some shock your system so much you can't think properly for days. Books hold a lot of power, if written well, and require vastly more more effort than checking for a cheater in a simple tavern card game - to the point where any comparison is laughable.
Checking for cheaters in card games, heck even playing the games, doesn't even come close to the mental efforts involved in reading a good book.
I don't know a lot about how strenuous playing a game of cards and watching out for cheaters might be. I do know about reading books. It takes my full attention to do that. By the rules, you can maintain Concentration on a spell while reading a book. You can do it while in combat, and only have to make checks if you get hit. It seems like playing cards would be considerably easier than keeping a spell going, you can do that all through a Short Rest while reading a book and still get full benefits.
What I do know is that the resting system in general needs some work. The lack of clear rules about how many Short Rests you get per day, and when you can take them, makes some classes overwhelmingly powerful and weakens others. My Battlemaster gets 4 Maneuvers, 1 Second Wind, and one Adrenaline Surge per Short Rest. That can be used up in a single turn. I need those Short Rests pretty badly. I hang on to those things like gold, and risk losing out on them when the party stops for a Short Rest. A Warlock needs them pretty badly too. Almost everything a Warlock gets refreshes on a Short Rest. They want them pretty badly as well, but that's the whole problem. Give my Battlemaster all the Short Rests she wants, she's fine. Give the Warlock the same? Boom.
I'm fine with "retconning" a Short Rest, but only if there is a sharp limit to the number of them you get per day. The DMG apparently suggests two. I'd be more comfortable with 3, and I've pondered using a d6 and generating it randomly, but it would be very hard to explain why a day would pass in which only one Short Rest was permitted. Maybe 1d4+1?
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.
The difference between reading a book and watching out for cheaters is focus and concentration. While reading a book, you can let your mind wander any time a thought comes into your head. That is restful. Keeping a close eye on a game is like being on duty. Keeping a close eye when there are consequences is stressful. Watching for cheating probably takes as much effort as actually playing the game. Now playing a game could be restful, if you don't particularly care about the outcome and allow yourself to focus as much or as little as you'd like. But if it was an important tournament, it wouldn't be restful.
I'm going to have disagree to that from my experience. Reading a book often requires a lot of concentration. Scenes to build in your imagination can take a lot of effort, following the narrative especially if the story is in a place very different so you have harder time keeping up with references and speech patterns presented very differently to your own. Some stories are fast-paced in places and slow in others, making it harder to keep track. A good story really engrosses you, and if you're immersed well enough, you can have physical reactions: action-packed scenes can make your heart beat faster and get some adrenaline going, descriptions of gross things can induce gag reflexes and particularly horrific or traumatic scenes can induce anger, fear - even mild panic attacks. And that's just the fiction side. The non-fiction? They usually require even more mental stamina. Some books offer considerable knowledge on a subject, but are so dry that it's struggle to get through them or are so mentally engaging and difficult to follow it can hurt your brain.
Some books can be a simple easy leisurely breeze. Some shock your system so much you can't think properly for days. Books hold a lot of power, if written well, and require vastly more more effort than checking for a cheater in a simple tavern card game - to the point where any comparison is laughable.
Checking for cheaters in card games, heck even playing the games, doesn't even come close to the mental efforts involved in reading a good book.
That may be your experience in book reading but it is not universal. I am a ginormous reader and reading a good book relaxes the heck out of me and it is not an effort to read. That is what i do to relax. So I think the jury is still out on that one...
Only part of the entire thing is DM's opinion. Several have said and IMO, rightly so, if the players ASK if the previous bit of "inactivity" counts as a long rest, I likely allow it. If they TELL me it does, I decline. I can and would deliver a handful of reasons, why to me, it wasn't a rest period, but in the end, attitude and tone go a long way.
Zero tolerance to demands or trying to manipulate something will help keep the situation from evolving, where boundaries get nudge further and further until they ARE finally snipped, and then you face a longer debate, due to several "fringe" rulings the player (s?) jumped at and were granted. Nip it in the bud, make sure intent is clear and again, MY opinion, throw a bone here and there, when they stop by an inn, enjoy a meal and hear a couple rumors. "You feel refreshed after your stop in the tavern, everyone gains a short rest benefit" at a time when none of the players asked about it, but it would provide some small perk (spell slots, Ki, whatever might come back on a short rest) That will help them understand you are playing WITH them and they don't need to try and twist things to gain an edge.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
What I do know is that the resting system in general needs some work. The lack of clear rules about how many Short Rests you get per day, and when you can take them, makes some classes overwhelmingly powerful and weakens others. My Battlemaster gets 4 Maneuvers, 1 Second Wind, and one Adrenaline Surge per Short Rest. That can be used up in a single turn. I need those Short Rests pretty badly. I hang on to those things like gold, and risk losing out on them when the party stops for a Short Rest. A Warlock needs them pretty badly too. Almost everything a Warlock gets refreshes on a Short Rest. They want them pretty badly as well, but that's the whole problem. Give my Battlemaster all the Short Rests she wants, she's fine. Give the Warlock the same? Boom.
I'm fine with "retconning" a Short Rest, but only if there is a sharp limit to the number of them you get per day. The DMG apparently suggests two. I'd be more comfortable with 3, and I've pondered using a d6 and generating it randomly, but it would be very hard to explain why a day would pass in which only one Short Rest was permitted. Maybe 1d4+1?
So that's the thing.
I don't think there should be a hard limit on them. Yeah, some classes are HEAVILY balanced around short rests, and those classes need them, and a DM needs to determine what makes sense.
Speaking to your specific scenario, if I were the DM for you and I saw you were blowing all of your abilities on the first turn of combat? Two things would happen. One, EVERY enemy would focus you because of how much you just did, and two, I wouldn't do a short rest after that combat unless the party specifically said they were doing nothing for the next hour. I don't want to incentivize you blowing every single thing on the first turn and then going "Man that 6 seconds really winded me guys, I need a hour nap.", and I'd do the same exact thing to Monks or Warlocks. Letting the fighter in this scenario have always on access to all of their things doesn't bode well for the Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric(less with the class feature variants)/Paladin(ditto with the CFV) who can't really regain that same level of resource back on a short rest.
It's totally a balance, but it's not beyond the players to go "Hey guys, lets take a break and do nothing with the intent to short rest". If they do that, then sure, they should get one 99% of the time. Again though, if I'm DMing that campaign though, I'm totally focusing the Fighter/Warlock/Monk who is just going absolutely apeshit the first round of combat.
An hour is a pretty long time to catch your breath. I'm sure everyone has their own experiences, but I seem able to keep short rests down to a manageable frequency mostly by keeping a bit of pressure on - either from wandering monsters or roving NPCs, or from deadlines the PCs want to meet. That does require the players telling me they deliberately want to take a short rest though (unless it doesn't matter, in which case I'll usually give it to them after the fact) since it makes it their decision to risk spending that one hour in one place. Doesn't have to be breakneck speed 24/7 though; if they notice it comes up every now and then, they usually get in the habit of managing things well on their own.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
In the game I am playing, we have yet to get a Short Rest. I have yet to get to use a Maneuver. I've gotten to use Second Wind a few times, Action Surge twice. We only play once a week, for a few hours, online. We have been in combat about six times. Our main party healer is the Wizard (don't ask) and we have about four potions of healing between the 4 of us, a few other utility ones, and nothing else magical. So far, we have gotten two Long Rests. I guess that's about right. We have managed to have fun.
The adventure started just before we reached the village that was our destination. We got ambushed by Goblins on the way. We killed them, one of us went off to track the Goblins down, and the rest of us grabbed a Long Rest while we waited. Our tracker got one in when she got back, and we all set out in the morning, fully refreshed. There was no combat the next day. We got in our other Long Rest and the third day is where we currently are. I think we about 20 sessions into the game now.
We *could* have taken Short Rests, retconned or not, but we had no need of them.
I don't know a lot about how strenuous playing a game of cards and watching out for cheaters might be.
I would say that any game high-stakes enough that you would even care whether someone cheated would be strenuous.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I don't know a lot about how strenuous playing a game of cards and watching out for cheaters might be.
Assuming winning or losing mattered - so a game with meaningful stakes like winning the mcguffin from the antagonist or impressing the local thieves' guild leader or whatever - would a DM be inclined to let playing a game of cards count as a short rest? I don't think so. One of an endless series of games at the campfire to pass the time on the other hand, sure. I'm fairly certain all DMs would be fine with that.
I think that's an easy rule of thumb; if the activity's success or failure is meaningful so the PCs are assumed to try their best to succeed, it can't be "resting".
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
This seems a bit weird. Even if, and I assume this is the case, non-long rest sleeping will get rid of exhaustion this could potentially punish players who manage their resources well.
Let's say that there are seven encounters where the players could potentially spend resources but, thanks to lucky dice rolls, excellent roleplaying or clever thinking they managed to get through 5 of those without actually having to do so. No-one spent any spell slots, no bardic inspirations, etc. Then they have have night on the town celebrating their achievments and the bard decides to give the cleric some bardic inspiration to let them dance better at the local tavern, the cleric blesses everyone and conjures food and water for everyone and hey presto, some fun roleplaying moments later everyone has spent half of their resources. Then all of the sudden there comes news that bandits will attack tomorrow. In a normal game that wouldn't be a problem. In this game the players won't be able to have a long rest and so they are punished not only because they could solve situations without spending resources in previous encounters but also because they made fun and appropriate roleplaying decisions on a night of celebration.
I'd be careful about inflicting this on my players.
I'm firmly in the camp of "Asking the DM if it was a short rest is fine - telling them that it was is not".
It's fair to say that if you hadn't anticipated spending an hour doing nothing, then it's not fair to expect you to declare that you're starting a rest on the off-chance that something will happen to let you finish it. If you do that, then expect people to declare that they are starting a short rest every time that they stop for anything, just in case it take an hour and they get the rest.
Obviously you rules that it needs to be declared at your table, so they should do that. But similarly, allowances for things like this, if asked for, can be made.
Although, after an hour of doing nothing (presumably narrated as "you sit for an hour doing nothing", immediately saying "well if I was doing nothing then that's a short rest" isn't like someone pulling out abilities no-one expects them to still have and saying "oh yeah, I recovered these when we sat down for an hour at the end of last session, i considered that a short rest!". That's what I'd consider retconning - going back in time to change something. Finishing spending an hour doing nothing and immediately saying "and that was a short rest" is not really retconning.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Asking if they have time to short rest is counter-intuitive. How would they know if there is going to be a planned or random encounter? Maybe it is in the way you phrase it. "If we feel safe, I want to try and take a short rest".
The difference between reading a book and watching out for cheaters is focus and concentration. While reading a book, you can let your mind wander any time a thought comes into your head. That is restful. Keeping a close eye on a game is like being on duty. Keeping a close eye when there are consequences is stressful. Watching for cheating probably takes as much effort as actually playing the game. Now playing a game could be restful, if you don't particularly care about the outcome and allow yourself to focus as much or as little as you'd like. But if it was an important tournament, it wouldn't be restful.
I'm going to have disagree to that from my experience. Reading a book often requires a lot of concentration. Scenes to build in your imagination can take a lot of effort, following the narrative especially if the story is in a place very different so you have harder time keeping up with references and speech patterns presented very differently to your own. Some stories are fast-paced in places and slow in others, making it harder to keep track. A good story really engrosses you, and if you're immersed well enough, you can have physical reactions: action-packed scenes can make your heart beat faster and get some adrenaline going, descriptions of gross things can induce gag reflexes and particularly horrific or traumatic scenes can induce anger, fear - even mild panic attacks. And that's just the fiction side. The non-fiction? They usually require even more mental stamina. Some books offer considerable knowledge on a subject, but are so dry that it's struggle to get through them or are so mentally engaging and difficult to follow it can hurt your brain.
Some books can be a simple easy leisurely breeze. Some shock your system so much you can't think properly for days. Books hold a lot of power, if written well, and require vastly more more effort than checking for a cheater in a simple tavern card game - to the point where any comparison is laughable.
Checking for cheaters in card games, heck even playing the games, doesn't even come close to the mental efforts involved in reading a good book.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
So it's obvious that it's subjective, then.
I don't know a lot about how strenuous playing a game of cards and watching out for cheaters might be. I do know about reading books. It takes my full attention to do that. By the rules, you can maintain Concentration on a spell while reading a book. You can do it while in combat, and only have to make checks if you get hit. It seems like playing cards would be considerably easier than keeping a spell going, you can do that all through a Short Rest while reading a book and still get full benefits.
What I do know is that the resting system in general needs some work. The lack of clear rules about how many Short Rests you get per day, and when you can take them, makes some classes overwhelmingly powerful and weakens others. My Battlemaster gets 4 Maneuvers, 1 Second Wind, and one Adrenaline Surge per Short Rest. That can be used up in a single turn. I need those Short Rests pretty badly. I hang on to those things like gold, and risk losing out on them when the party stops for a Short Rest. A Warlock needs them pretty badly too. Almost everything a Warlock gets refreshes on a Short Rest. They want them pretty badly as well, but that's the whole problem. Give my Battlemaster all the Short Rests she wants, she's fine. Give the Warlock the same? Boom.
I'm fine with "retconning" a Short Rest, but only if there is a sharp limit to the number of them you get per day. The DMG apparently suggests two. I'd be more comfortable with 3, and I've pondered using a d6 and generating it randomly, but it would be very hard to explain why a day would pass in which only one Short Rest was permitted. Maybe 1d4+1?
<Insert clever signature here>
That may be your experience in book reading but it is not universal. I am a ginormous reader and reading a good book relaxes the heck out of me and it is not an effort to read. That is what i do to relax. So I think the jury is still out on that one...
Only part of the entire thing is DM's opinion. Several have said and IMO, rightly so, if the players ASK if the previous bit of "inactivity" counts as a long rest, I likely allow it. If they TELL me it does, I decline. I can and would deliver a handful of reasons, why to me, it wasn't a rest period, but in the end, attitude and tone go a long way.
Zero tolerance to demands or trying to manipulate something will help keep the situation from evolving, where boundaries get nudge further and further until they ARE finally snipped, and then you face a longer debate, due to several "fringe" rulings the player (s?) jumped at and were granted. Nip it in the bud, make sure intent is clear and again, MY opinion, throw a bone here and there, when they stop by an inn, enjoy a meal and hear a couple rumors. "You feel refreshed after your stop in the tavern, everyone gains a short rest benefit" at a time when none of the players asked about it, but it would provide some small perk (spell slots, Ki, whatever might come back on a short rest) That will help them understand you are playing WITH them and they don't need to try and twist things to gain an edge.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
So that's the thing.
I don't think there should be a hard limit on them. Yeah, some classes are HEAVILY balanced around short rests, and those classes need them, and a DM needs to determine what makes sense.
Speaking to your specific scenario, if I were the DM for you and I saw you were blowing all of your abilities on the first turn of combat? Two things would happen. One, EVERY enemy would focus you because of how much you just did, and two, I wouldn't do a short rest after that combat unless the party specifically said they were doing nothing for the next hour. I don't want to incentivize you blowing every single thing on the first turn and then going "Man that 6 seconds really winded me guys, I need a hour nap.", and I'd do the same exact thing to Monks or Warlocks. Letting the fighter in this scenario have always on access to all of their things doesn't bode well for the Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric(less with the class feature variants)/Paladin(ditto with the CFV) who can't really regain that same level of resource back on a short rest.
It's totally a balance, but it's not beyond the players to go "Hey guys, lets take a break and do nothing with the intent to short rest". If they do that, then sure, they should get one 99% of the time. Again though, if I'm DMing that campaign though, I'm totally focusing the Fighter/Warlock/Monk who is just going absolutely apeshit the first round of combat.
An hour is a pretty long time to catch your breath. I'm sure everyone has their own experiences, but I seem able to keep short rests down to a manageable frequency mostly by keeping a bit of pressure on - either from wandering monsters or roving NPCs, or from deadlines the PCs want to meet. That does require the players telling me they deliberately want to take a short rest though (unless it doesn't matter, in which case I'll usually give it to them after the fact) since it makes it their decision to risk spending that one hour in one place. Doesn't have to be breakneck speed 24/7 though; if they notice it comes up every now and then, they usually get in the habit of managing things well on their own.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
In the game I am playing, we have yet to get a Short Rest. I have yet to get to use a Maneuver. I've gotten to use Second Wind a few times, Action Surge twice. We only play once a week, for a few hours, online. We have been in combat about six times. Our main party healer is the Wizard (don't ask) and we have about four potions of healing between the 4 of us, a few other utility ones, and nothing else magical. So far, we have gotten two Long Rests. I guess that's about right. We have managed to have fun.
<Insert clever signature here>
The adventure started just before we reached the village that was our destination. We got ambushed by Goblins on the way. We killed them, one of us went off to track the Goblins down, and the rest of us grabbed a Long Rest while we waited. Our tracker got one in when she got back, and we all set out in the morning, fully refreshed. There was no combat the next day. We got in our other Long Rest and the third day is where we currently are. I think we about 20 sessions into the game now.
We *could* have taken Short Rests, retconned or not, but we had no need of them.
<Insert clever signature here>
I would say that any game high-stakes enough that you would even care whether someone cheated would be strenuous.
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Assuming winning or losing mattered - so a game with meaningful stakes like winning the mcguffin from the antagonist or impressing the local thieves' guild leader or whatever - would a DM be inclined to let playing a game of cards count as a short rest? I don't think so. One of an endless series of games at the campfire to pass the time on the other hand, sure. I'm fairly certain all DMs would be fine with that.
I think that's an easy rule of thumb; if the activity's success or failure is meaningful so the PCs are assumed to try their best to succeed, it can't be "resting".
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].