What mechanics for recovery do you use if a party is attacked through a long rest.
For example, they are resting up for the night, its been about 4 hours and a group of owl bears comes through the camp and attacks the members. A combat ensures, spells are used, damage taken.
Now the party have not completed a long rest, would you say they have completed a short rest? if the combat is resolved and they go back to resting up, considering the combat probably lasted at most a minute of game time, if that, would you allow them the full benefits of a long rest 4 hours later?
I'm picturing everyone just rolling over away from the smoking owl bear corpses and instantly falling back asleep and I have to say no to the long rest. But maybe just say that particular long rest only takes six hours, so that they just get a late start after breakfast, rather than nothing.
The broader answer is I almost never attack the party while they're in a long rest. Are you sure this is a good idea? It's exactly why fighters insist on wearing full plate armor to the bathroom.
I have, on numerous occasions, had an encounter for my players during a long rest. Mind you, I always tailor it so the one PC on watch, SHOULD be able to handle it pretty easily, allowing the rest to sleep. Current campaign, so far they have had I believe 3 long rests interrupted. Only once did the character on watch handle it solo and the other times it delayed the party's start the following morning, as they wanted to get the benefits of their long rest.
The reason I do this is because in the areas they are at times, there are a lot of hostile creatures. Most days they do not burn up ALL their resources, thus the single person on watch should have enough left to handle the minor challenges that enter camp unexpectedly. They are about to hit an area where a long rest will be due and they will be at risk of attack from more than one person can handle alone. I am hoping they are starting to get a better feel for their abilities and can make the right call to either wake the camp or deal with the intruder alone. The one encounter so far the watch person handled alone was a zombie that staggered through the woods into camp. Cleric didn't even waste spell slots, just walked over and traded blows with it, pounding it to mush. Again, the intruders I send so far are pretty obviously weak, so I am trying to keep them on their toes (keep posting a watch) but allowing the chance for at least 3 of the 4 getting their full rest benefits.
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I haven't attacked them during a long rest. I would let them get attacked, if they long-rested in an area that was likely to get them attacked. So far they've been pretty smart about not doing that.
However, according to RAW in the PHB, if the rest is interrupted by activity, including fighting, which is specifically mentioned, the only way to benefit is to start over again. Quote:
If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
So if they started resting at midnight, and were attacked at 4 AM for a 5 minute combat, they'd have to rest from 4:05 AM until 12:05 PM to get the benefit of a long rest. And at 4:00, they would not yet have the benefit, so no healing yet, no new spells yet... they are in the same state they were in when they first went to sleep.
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I haven't attacked them during a long rest. I would let them get attacked, if they long-rested in an area that was likely to get them attacked. So far they've been pretty smart about not doing that.
However, according to RAW in the PHB, if the rest is interrupted by activity, including fighting, which is specifically mentioned, the only way to benefit is to start over again. Quote:
If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
So if they started resting at midnight, and were attacked at 4 AM for a 5 minute combat, they'd have to rest from 4:05 AM until 12:05 PM to get the benefit of a long rest. And at 4:00, they would not yet have the benefit, so no healing yet, no new spells yet... they are in the same state they were in when they first went to sleep.
While this is true, the encounters my party faces during the rest last 2, MAYBE 3 rounds at best. 1 hour of combat would be around 100 rounds of fighting. That is a rather major disruption. The zombie I mentioned, was taken out by the Cleric in 3 rounds, so 20-ish seconds, under a minute. The allowed interruption time is QUITE generous and I use it to my (and the party's) advantage.
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I played in a game a while back that had something like this happened, no, this period of strenuous activity interrupts the long rest, it does count as a short rest though.
I haven't attacked them during a long rest. I would let them get attacked, if they long-rested in an area that was likely to get them attacked. So far they've been pretty smart about not doing that.
However, according to RAW in the PHB, if the rest is interrupted by activity, including fighting, which is specifically mentioned, the only way to benefit is to start over again. Quote:
If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
So if they started resting at midnight, and were attacked at 4 AM for a 5 minute combat, they'd have to rest from 4:05 AM until 12:05 PM to get the benefit of a long rest. And at 4:00, they would not yet have the benefit, so no healing yet, no new spells yet... they are in the same state they were in when they first went to sleep.
That makes no sense from the rules, the wording is at least an hour of walking, fighting casting spells, if the combat lasts 5 minutes, then based on that rule they are fine to just roll over, back to sleep and carry on the long rest as normal. in fact based on that if they got disturbed for 55 minutes they would still be able to continue the long rest?
I haven't attacked them during a long rest. I would let them get attacked, if they long-rested in an area that was likely to get them attacked. So far they've been pretty smart about not doing that.
However, according to RAW in the PHB, if the rest is interrupted by activity, including fighting, which is specifically mentioned, the only way to benefit is to start over again. Quote:
If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
So if they started resting at midnight, and were attacked at 4 AM for a 5 minute combat, they'd have to rest from 4:05 AM until 12:05 PM to get the benefit of a long rest. And at 4:00, they would not yet have the benefit, so no healing yet, no new spells yet... they are in the same state they were in when they first went to sleep.
That makes no sense from the rules, the wording is at least an hour of walking, fighting casting spells, if the combat lasts 5 minutes, then based on that rule they are fine to just roll over, back to sleep and carry on the long rest as normal. in fact based on that if they got disturbed for 55 minutes they would still be able to continue the long rest?
Agreed. Those saying the group loses any and all benefits or chances are house ruling, not following RAW. All good, since table rules are what needs to be followed, so not a big deal. As you point out, however, RaW easily allows a brief skirmish mid-rest, with no notable penalties.
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the wording is at least an hour of walking, fighting casting spells
The way I read it, it should be taken as, (1) at least one hour of walking, (2) fighting, (3) casting spells.
Nobody spends 1 hour straight fighting (that would be 600 rounds of combat -- I don't know if there have been 600 rounds of combat in my entire campaign so far).
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the wording is at least an hour of walking, fighting casting spells
The way I read it, it should be taken as, (1) at least one hour of walking, (2) fighting, (3) casting spells.
Nobody spends 1 hour straight fighting (that would be 600 rounds of combat -- I don't know if there have been 600 rounds of combat in my entire campaign so far).
Cutting off what it says and eliminating the punctuation does change what it says. Reading it as printed, however, seems to point toward an hour of ANY of those activities, thus the "or":
at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity
The essence is interpretation at each table. My table I use it exactly as written, the next takes it differently, and either is fine, so long as it's consistent. Also, I use random tables to determine if something occurs during a long rest (aside from the one zombie, which was part of advancing the story)
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the wording is at least an hour of walking, fighting casting spells
The way I read it, it should be taken as, (1) at least one hour of walking, (2) fighting, (3) casting spells.
Nobody spends 1 hour straight fighting (that would be 600 rounds of combat -- I don't know if there have been 600 rounds of combat in my entire campaign so far).
In a typical list in English you don’t include a time/quantity component in one part of the list and not the others. The way it’s worded here it is correctly interpreted as:
“If there’s an hour of adventuring things being done (which includes walking, fighting, casting spells), then the rest is interrupted.”
To interpret like you said it would go:
”At least 1 hour of walking, any amount of fighting, or more than 1 spell”
Otherwise it grammatically makes no sense. In your interpretation you’d also have to accept casting spells as meaning “more than one spell” as a strict restriction. So during your watch, if you cast two Cantrips of Light, your rest would also be interrupted.
Edit: the other incorrect interpretation would be assuming that 1 hour is the quantity of everything in the list. But that doesn’t make even partial sense considering the activities presented, like you said.
1 hour of Fighting or casting spells is ridiculous.
I just looked for ANYthing on SA for a reference, to see if we could find what the devs intended and there is nothing to actually clarify. That said, this appears to be a rule that is entirely open to DM discretion. I am applying what I would consider common logic, a brief 5 minute skirmish wouldn't ruin a night's rest for ME, so there is no way it would impact a hero. I find it most intriguing and wonderful, that discussions like this arise and we see different interpretations of them. It really shows how the books are guidelines and ideas for running the game, with the finer points being decided by the game god, DM.
So far as trying to follow grammar and such on D&D rules, there have been enough SA bits where reading the rule and applying standard English rules to how it is written are "wrong" according to devs. Take the Twinned Spell and Dragon Breath example. Not a single word in either spell/ability description technically disallows it, BUT, SA stands that the effect of the effect of the spell discounts it. I think the lesson here is to not waste excessive time and energy on a poorly written rule and make a judgement that makes sense for your table.
Oh, and I found, reading through, Lyxen's link was more a rehash of this thread so far, lol. Seems nobody has a clear understanding of what exactly is intended.
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Since most battles last only a handful of rounds, and rounds last 6 seconds, if one is to interpret that it takes an hour of fighting to interrupt a long rest, then an entire adventuring day worth of encounters could be done during the long rest and it would not interrupt that rest (an "adventuring day" being 6-8 encounters, let's call it 7 x 7 rounds x 6 seconds = about 5 minutes of actual combat). I find it completely incredible that the developers would intentionally describe a situation in which it would be possible to do all the encounters of an adventuring day in the middle of a long rest period but not interrupt the rest. If that's the case, then almost nothing can interrupt a long rest.
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A fight during a long rest isn’t just the fight itself. It’s getting up, donning armor, fighting, dealing with the aftermath, doffing armor, etc.
However, I still wouldn’t consider this an interruption that would ruin a long rest. There were plenty of nights on deployment when you are woken out of a dead sleep by IDF, small arms fire, etc. You react as necessary, deal with the consequences, and go back to bed. Unless I ended up staying awake half the night, or got woken up over and over again, I was still well-rested the next morning. I view in game encounters while resting the same way.
Since most battles last only a handful of rounds, and rounds last 6 seconds, if one is to interpret that it takes an hour of fighting to interrupt a long rest, then an entire adventuring day worth of encounters could be done during the long rest and it would not interrupt that rest (an "adventuring day" being 6-8 encounters, let's call it 7 x 7 rounds x 6 seconds = about 5 minutes of actual combat). I find it completely incredible that the developers would intentionally describe a situation in which it would be possible to do all the encounters of an adventuring day in the middle of a long rest period but not interrupt the rest. If that's the case, then almost nothing can interrupt a long rest.
Except it doesn’t imply an hour of fighting at all. It implies “strenuous activity” and describes what strenuous activity is. The quantity applies to strenuous activity, not each item in the list (especially since 1 hour of fighting and 1 hour of casting spells is as ridiculous as you put it) and the items in the list can be combined in any combination to equal 1 hour.
1) So if the party walks for 43 minutes, fights for 6, and then casts a ritual for 10 minutes, the Long Rest continues.
2) In your example, the party could walk for 59 minutes, fight for 59 minutes, cast spells for 59 minutes, and do any number of “adventuring activities” for 59 minutes each and not sleep at all and *still* get a Long Rest.
3) Or, the final interpretation: The party can walk for 59 minutes, can’t fight even a single round of combat, and can only cast one spell. You couldn’t even cast a cantrip even twice on your watch without wrecking your long rest.
It’s not difficult to see which example makes sense and which ones defy explanation. Rule it how you want, but 1) is grammatically correct and also reasonable at its face.
Most of the times I interrupt players' long rest is when they try to sleep for 8 hours after doing only a single combat encounter. For example, I set a shambling mound against my party of four fully-rested level 5 adventurers. It was meant to be the prelude to more combat encounters. But no, after beating it, they wanted to take another long rest. So I had two owlbears attack to keep them on their feet. Sadly, the rogue got two crits with sneak attack added on, and the owlbears were dead within two rounds.
I usually give them the benefit of a short rest if they've slept more than an hour, but not a full long rest if it's interrupted.
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Most of the times I interrupt players' long rest is when they try to sleep for 8 hours after doing only a single combat encounter. For example, I set a shambling mound against my party of four fully-rested level 5 adventurers. It was meant to be the prelude to more combat encounters. But no, after beating it, they wanted to take another long rest. So I had two owlbears attack to keep them on their feet. Sadly, the rogue got two crits with sneak attack added on, and the owlbears were dead within two rounds.
I usually give them the benefit of a short rest if they've slept more than an hour, but not a full long rest if it's interrupted.
Technically, you can have a long rest so quickly after another long rest. But I applaud the use of more baddies finding the party when they rest - staying in place for 8 hours should increase the odds that predators might make a run at you. 🙂
A fight during a long rest isn’t just the fight itself. It’s getting up, donning armor, fighting, dealing with the aftermath, doffing armor, etc.
However, I still wouldn’t consider this an interruption that would ruin a long rest. There were plenty of nights on deployment when you are woken out of a dead sleep by IDF, small arms fire, etc. You react as necessary, deal with the consequences, and go back to bed. Unless I ended up staying awake half the night, or got woken up over and over again, I was still well-rested the next morning. I view in game encounters while resting the same way.
Normally I try to emphasize that D&D isn't really a simulation and a lot of the rules don't make a lick of sense if you apply real-world physics to them, but I think this is a good example of how a Long Rest interruption should be handled, both logically and within the context of the rules. I think the main point you brought up that hasn't been mentioned much has been getting woken up repeatedly.
I think a single combat wouldn't necessarily force a restart to a long rest, but repeated interruptions would. Getting attacked by bandits might have just a minute of combat, but there could be twenty minutes of cleaning up the bodies, checking the area for more, etc... get three similar attacks in a single night and that's too much activity to fulfill a long rest, so while actual combat would only be 3 minutes, there's enough other stuff that happens when woken up in the middle of the night to fight off intruders that a long rest would still be interrupted.
I agree with most of those following Biowiz's post. Numerous encounters/events will ruin the long rest. Ongoing issues/problems will interfere (wailing of a banshee in a nearby tower) and so forth. Perhaps that is why it's worded the way it is, to indicate a single, brief encounter can't mess up the long rest, but getting bothered every hour or so will, even if total combat time is under 30 minutes. Donning/doffing armor isn't part of the equation in my setting, as the characters never say anything about re-gearing, so they enter encounters with crap AC if applicable. On days where they haven't spent any resources, I might throw in a couple encounters, to negate the long rest and make them suffice with short rest benefits. All told, I try to make the encounters and effects make sense. Scrambling out of your bedroll and swinging your sword 3-4 times is hardly going to interfere with getting a nice solid rest.
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Since most battles last only a handful of rounds, and rounds last 6 seconds, if one is to interpret that it takes an hour of fighting to interrupt a long rest, then an entire adventuring day worth of encounters could be done during the long rest and it would not interrupt that rest (an "adventuring day" being 6-8 encounters, let's call it 7 x 7 rounds x 6 seconds = about 5 minutes of actual combat). I find it completely incredible that the developers would intentionally describe a situation in which it would be possible to do all the encounters of an adventuring day in the middle of a long rest period but not interrupt the rest. If that's the case, then almost nothing can interrupt a long rest.
That’s exactly the developers’ intent. GMs should be able to attack parties in the middle of the night every now and again, because that’s exciting. The PCs already are low on resources; if they still manage to win, forcing them to start the rest from scratch is punishing to the point of no longer being fun, as well as being honestly unrealistic*. The point of a game is to have fun.
*Assuming a single fight. Yeah, if you do put eight back-to-back combats in the middle of a long rest, it would make realistic sense that the PCs may need a whole eight hours afterward, but that scenario is absurd to the point that it’s pretty reasonable of the designers to value a simple rule that works 99% of the time over a more complicated rule to account for the final 1%.
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What mechanics for recovery do you use if a party is attacked through a long rest.
For example, they are resting up for the night, its been about 4 hours and a group of owl bears comes through the camp and attacks the members. A combat ensures, spells are used, damage taken.
Now the party have not completed a long rest, would you say they have completed a short rest? if the combat is resolved and they go back to resting up, considering the combat probably lasted at most a minute of game time, if that, would you allow them the full benefits of a long rest 4 hours later?
I'm picturing everyone just rolling over away from the smoking owl bear corpses and instantly falling back asleep and I have to say no to the long rest. But maybe just say that particular long rest only takes six hours, so that they just get a late start after breakfast, rather than nothing.
The broader answer is I almost never attack the party while they're in a long rest. Are you sure this is a good idea? It's exactly why fighters insist on wearing full plate armor to the bathroom.
I have, on numerous occasions, had an encounter for my players during a long rest. Mind you, I always tailor it so the one PC on watch, SHOULD be able to handle it pretty easily, allowing the rest to sleep. Current campaign, so far they have had I believe 3 long rests interrupted. Only once did the character on watch handle it solo and the other times it delayed the party's start the following morning, as they wanted to get the benefits of their long rest.
The reason I do this is because in the areas they are at times, there are a lot of hostile creatures. Most days they do not burn up ALL their resources, thus the single person on watch should have enough left to handle the minor challenges that enter camp unexpectedly. They are about to hit an area where a long rest will be due and they will be at risk of attack from more than one person can handle alone. I am hoping they are starting to get a better feel for their abilities and can make the right call to either wake the camp or deal with the intruder alone. The one encounter so far the watch person handled alone was a zombie that staggered through the woods into camp. Cleric didn't even waste spell slots, just walked over and traded blows with it, pounding it to mush. Again, the intruders I send so far are pretty obviously weak, so I am trying to keep them on their toes (keep posting a watch) but allowing the chance for at least 3 of the 4 getting their full rest benefits.
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I haven't attacked them during a long rest. I would let them get attacked, if they long-rested in an area that was likely to get them attacked. So far they've been pretty smart about not doing that.
However, according to RAW in the PHB, if the rest is interrupted by activity, including fighting, which is specifically mentioned, the only way to benefit is to start over again. Quote:
So if they started resting at midnight, and were attacked at 4 AM for a 5 minute combat, they'd have to rest from 4:05 AM until 12:05 PM to get the benefit of a long rest. And at 4:00, they would not yet have the benefit, so no healing yet, no new spells yet... they are in the same state they were in when they first went to sleep.
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.
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While this is true, the encounters my party faces during the rest last 2, MAYBE 3 rounds at best. 1 hour of combat would be around 100 rounds of fighting. That is a rather major disruption. The zombie I mentioned, was taken out by the Cleric in 3 rounds, so 20-ish seconds, under a minute. The allowed interruption time is QUITE generous and I use it to my (and the party's) advantage.
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I played in a game a while back that had something like this happened, no, this period of strenuous activity interrupts the long rest, it does count as a short rest though.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
That makes no sense from the rules, the wording is at least an hour of walking, fighting casting spells, if the combat lasts 5 minutes, then based on that rule they are fine to just roll over, back to sleep and carry on the long rest as normal. in fact based on that if they got disturbed for 55 minutes they would still be able to continue the long rest?
Agreed. Those saying the group loses any and all benefits or chances are house ruling, not following RAW. All good, since table rules are what needs to be followed, so not a big deal. As you point out, however, RaW easily allows a brief skirmish mid-rest, with no notable penalties.
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.
The way I read it, it should be taken as, (1) at least one hour of walking, (2) fighting, (3) casting spells.
Nobody spends 1 hour straight fighting (that would be 600 rounds of combat -- I don't know if there have been 600 rounds of combat in my entire campaign so far).
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.
Cutting off what it says and eliminating the punctuation does change what it says. Reading it as printed, however, seems to point toward an hour of ANY of those activities, thus the "or":
at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity
The essence is interpretation at each table. My table I use it exactly as written, the next takes it differently, and either is fine, so long as it's consistent. Also, I use random tables to determine if something occurs during a long rest (aside from the one zombie, which was part of advancing the story)
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.
In a typical list in English you don’t include a time/quantity component in one part of the list and not the others. The way it’s worded here it is correctly interpreted as:
“If there’s an hour of adventuring things being done (which includes walking, fighting, casting spells), then the rest is interrupted.”
To interpret like you said it would go:
”At least 1 hour of walking, any amount of fighting, or more than 1 spell”
Otherwise it grammatically makes no sense. In your interpretation you’d also have to accept casting spells as meaning “more than one spell” as a strict restriction. So during your watch, if you cast two Cantrips of Light, your rest would also be interrupted.
Edit: the other incorrect interpretation would be assuming that 1 hour is the quantity of everything in the list. But that doesn’t make even partial sense considering the activities presented, like you said.
1 hour of Fighting or casting spells is ridiculous.
I just looked for ANYthing on SA for a reference, to see if we could find what the devs intended and there is nothing to actually clarify. That said, this appears to be a rule that is entirely open to DM discretion. I am applying what I would consider common logic, a brief 5 minute skirmish wouldn't ruin a night's rest for ME, so there is no way it would impact a hero. I find it most intriguing and wonderful, that discussions like this arise and we see different interpretations of them. It really shows how the books are guidelines and ideas for running the game, with the finer points being decided by the game god, DM.
So far as trying to follow grammar and such on D&D rules, there have been enough SA bits where reading the rule and applying standard English rules to how it is written are "wrong" according to devs. Take the Twinned Spell and Dragon Breath example. Not a single word in either spell/ability description technically disallows it, BUT, SA stands that the effect of the effect of the spell discounts it. I think the lesson here is to not waste excessive time and energy on a poorly written rule and make a judgement that makes sense for your table.
Oh, and I found, reading through, Lyxen's link was more a rehash of this thread so far, lol. Seems nobody has a clear understanding of what exactly is intended.
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.
Since most battles last only a handful of rounds, and rounds last 6 seconds, if one is to interpret that it takes an hour of fighting to interrupt a long rest, then an entire adventuring day worth of encounters could be done during the long rest and it would not interrupt that rest (an "adventuring day" being 6-8 encounters, let's call it 7 x 7 rounds x 6 seconds = about 5 minutes of actual combat). I find it completely incredible that the developers would intentionally describe a situation in which it would be possible to do all the encounters of an adventuring day in the middle of a long rest period but not interrupt the rest. If that's the case, then almost nothing can interrupt a long 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.
A fight during a long rest isn’t just the fight itself. It’s getting up, donning armor, fighting, dealing with the aftermath, doffing armor, etc.
However, I still wouldn’t consider this an interruption that would ruin a long rest. There were plenty of nights on deployment when you are woken out of a dead sleep by IDF, small arms fire, etc. You react as necessary, deal with the consequences, and go back to bed. Unless I ended up staying awake half the night, or got woken up over and over again, I was still well-rested the next morning. I view in game encounters while resting the same way.
Except it doesn’t imply an hour of fighting at all. It implies “strenuous activity” and describes what strenuous activity is. The quantity applies to strenuous activity, not each item in the list (especially since 1 hour of fighting and 1 hour of casting spells is as ridiculous as you put it) and the items in the list can be combined in any combination to equal 1 hour.
1) So if the party walks for 43 minutes, fights for 6, and then casts a ritual for 10 minutes, the Long Rest continues.
2) In your example, the party could walk for 59 minutes, fight for 59 minutes, cast spells for 59 minutes, and do any number of “adventuring activities” for 59 minutes each and not sleep at all and *still* get a Long Rest.
3) Or, the final interpretation: The party can walk for 59 minutes, can’t fight even a single round of combat, and can only cast one spell. You couldn’t even cast a cantrip even twice on your watch without wrecking your long rest.
It’s not difficult to see which example makes sense and which ones defy explanation. Rule it how you want, but 1) is grammatically correct and also reasonable at its face.
Most of the times I interrupt players' long rest is when they try to sleep for 8 hours after doing only a single combat encounter. For example, I set a shambling mound against my party of four fully-rested level 5 adventurers. It was meant to be the prelude to more combat encounters. But no, after beating it, they wanted to take another long rest. So I had two owlbears attack to keep them on their feet. Sadly, the rogue got two crits with sneak attack added on, and the owlbears were dead within two rounds.
I usually give them the benefit of a short rest if they've slept more than an hour, but not a full long rest if it's interrupted.
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Technically, you can have a long rest so quickly after another long rest. But I applaud the use of more baddies finding the party when they rest - staying in place for 8 hours should increase the odds that predators might make a run at you. 🙂
Normally I try to emphasize that D&D isn't really a simulation and a lot of the rules don't make a lick of sense if you apply real-world physics to them, but I think this is a good example of how a Long Rest interruption should be handled, both logically and within the context of the rules. I think the main point you brought up that hasn't been mentioned much has been getting woken up repeatedly.
I think a single combat wouldn't necessarily force a restart to a long rest, but repeated interruptions would. Getting attacked by bandits might have just a minute of combat, but there could be twenty minutes of cleaning up the bodies, checking the area for more, etc... get three similar attacks in a single night and that's too much activity to fulfill a long rest, so while actual combat would only be 3 minutes, there's enough other stuff that happens when woken up in the middle of the night to fight off intruders that a long rest would still be interrupted.
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I agree with most of those following Biowiz's post. Numerous encounters/events will ruin the long rest. Ongoing issues/problems will interfere (wailing of a banshee in a nearby tower) and so forth. Perhaps that is why it's worded the way it is, to indicate a single, brief encounter can't mess up the long rest, but getting bothered every hour or so will, even if total combat time is under 30 minutes. Donning/doffing armor isn't part of the equation in my setting, as the characters never say anything about re-gearing, so they enter encounters with crap AC if applicable. On days where they haven't spent any resources, I might throw in a couple encounters, to negate the long rest and make them suffice with short rest benefits. All told, I try to make the encounters and effects make sense. Scrambling out of your bedroll and swinging your sword 3-4 times is hardly going to interfere with getting a nice solid rest.
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.
That’s exactly the developers’ intent. GMs should be able to attack parties in the middle of the night every now and again, because that’s exciting. The PCs already are low on resources; if they still manage to win, forcing them to start the rest from scratch is punishing to the point of no longer being fun, as well as being honestly unrealistic*. The point of a game is to have fun.
*Assuming a single fight. Yeah, if you do put eight back-to-back combats in the middle of a long rest, it would make realistic sense that the PCs may need a whole eight hours afterward, but that scenario is absurd to the point that it’s pretty reasonable of the designers to value a simple rule that works 99% of the time over a more complicated rule to account for the final 1%.