But what does "a place that's dangerous enough" really mean ?
Generally, it means an area that's actively patrolled. Which means getting into a fight with wandering monsters (i.e. a patrol) will probably cause someone to go "patrol X vanished, we should figure out what caused that and bring enough force to deal with something that can make a patrol disappear without a trace". So basically, resting is "One Try" -- if you get interrupted, you probably should just give up on getting a rest.
And in organized areas (which are by the way much more dangerous), well the enemy will not respond in a random manner. If they detect intruders sleeping, they will carefully prepare an attack, and it will not be random.
A wandering monster check is perfectly reasonable for a "did a patrol stumble over you" check.
The whole point of having creatures attack them in the dead of night is to interrupt their rest to force them to either rest longer or run on short resources the next day. Either they deal with the ticking clock dangling over their heads and restart their rest leaving them less time to accomplish their goals the next day, or they make due on a short rest and have to be extra careful and parsimonious the following day as a result. The whole point is to crank up the pressure. Why bother otherwise?
Well no, seeing as nothing is recovered until the end of a long rest having the players attacked as they sleep is a great way to give them an encounter while they are still weak, especially if they decided to take a long rest in order to recover and carry on the next day fresh and ready to fight. For instance, Cleric and Wizard are out of spell slots, lets take a long rest and sleep, while sleeping in the middle of the forest, 3 owl bears attack, suddenly the players now wonder if they have to worry about keeping hold of one or 2 resources for overnight, maybe I won't just let them have it their way every time.
Once they spend an hour of downtime it’s a short rest. So if the attack happens in the middle of the night, they have taken at least a short rest. They then face combat. So then they have 3 options: Press ahead immediately, take another short rest and then press ahead, or dig in a little and take a proper long rest. Although yes, saving resources for the night is also a form of tension resolution that generates its own tension. Either way, tension and resolution have occurred, the party will be sure to keep some in the tank just in case, the purpose is served.
No it has been confirmed that a short and long rest can’t be combined you either have a long rest or a short rest. DnD game designers have clarified that online.
So when designing an area I tend to get very detailed, gang of bandits has moved into an area of mountains, you now have a new apex predator that will upset the natural balance of the ecology, they probably prey on the same kind of animals that other large predators prey on, this makes those creatures more likely to hunt out smaller groups of humanoids and risk attacking them.
Dragon has moved into an area, actually this means that area will be moderately safer overall because dragon is hunting down the large creatures for food, so unless your spotted by said dragon there are a lot fewer things in the area to stumble on the party while sleeping.
Well, not sure it really can be micro-described as you seem to want. A group battle, not with the 6 Orcs from your DMG or MM, but homebrewed. They are big, mean orcs (as stated above) and run a decent amount of "rounds" of combat to drop, the players suffer wounds, use resources, someone MAY go down. You're looking for a wound count, or pints of blood lost? I thought the notion would be there, with all the info I have already described. IF I disrupt your rest, there is a reason. I throw random encounters at them, at times, during their Long Rests. It's random. The IMPACT of said event, will or will not drive the plot. If it doesn't, it is a minor inconvenience (see stupid zombie example above) If it does, the team should be awakened and will almost certainly affect their rest. Not sure why there is difficulty in understanding that you can be disturbed by something that's a minor pain and causes little problem OR you can be awakened by something that is quite dangerous and invigorating and that level of disruption will cause problems settling in again. I can't and won't assign a fixed timer to it. If I wanted that I would be on a PC or XBox playing a coded game that did that for me, assigned rigid, sometimes nonsensical rules.
The "painfully simple" rule comes from a place that has no point of reference to how different levels of intensity, within the same time frame, can have drastic effects on a rest. It's ok, because I would wager the majority of folks haven't had to deal with it firsthand. I have, and it's a pet peeve of mine IRL so I work to make my fantasy world mirror that. I suppose if I had no frame of reference for the specific situation, I would rely on an easily measurable metric to work with. Everyone needs a base to work from, I use my life experiences, you use a provided guideline. Keep in mind, as a player, your guideline would benefit me, in a situation where my own would penalize me. It appears, in both cases, as DM< a Long Rest would be interrupted if the DM chooses, either through a long, drawn out period in your world, or a shorted, very heated battle in mine. We end up at the same place, just took a different path.
Unless you are dealing with rules lawyers in your campaign, and are wanting revenge, I think a small encounter isn't going to phase a moderately experienced party. If the characters are first level, then yes, it might very well disturb their long rest. But otherwise...
Think about it like this, an inexperienced party is going to get pretty excited if something stumbles into their camp, even if it's a noisy squirrel. They are all going to get woken up, adrenaline pumping, and even after the squirrel is gone (from the camp, or the world, it makes no difference), they are going to build up the campfire, sit around and talk for however long it takes for them to calm their nerves, get tired again, and go back to sleep. If the party has been campaigning for any appreciable length of time, the morning watch is going to point to the fire and say "Fresh meat for breakfast."
What is the point of the encounter? If it were just a roll of the Random Encounter Table, and I didn't have a good reason for delaying the party, I would only mention it for "game spice". If the characters couldn't be reasonably expected to break a sweat , they didn't break their long rest. Use the game mechanics to tell the story, don't tell the story with game mechanics.
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Just a old, crazy Dungeon Master building a realm one brick at a time...
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.
You are ignoring the "at least" part of that statement. I always play it that if they have a scrap for 3/4 rounds then it doesn't interrupt their long rest because it is less than 1 hour.
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Generally, it means an area that's actively patrolled. Which means getting into a fight with wandering monsters (i.e. a patrol) will probably cause someone to go "patrol X vanished, we should figure out what caused that and bring enough force to deal with something that can make a patrol disappear without a trace". So basically, resting is "One Try" -- if you get interrupted, you probably should just give up on getting a rest.
A wandering monster check is perfectly reasonable for a "did a patrol stumble over you" check.
True, it's generally better to make it so the PCs don't get a long rest at all, rather than merely delaying it.
No it has been confirmed that a short and long rest can’t be combined you either have a long rest or a short rest. DnD game designers have clarified that online.
So when designing an area I tend to get very detailed, gang of bandits has moved into an area of mountains, you now have a new apex predator that will upset the natural balance of the ecology, they probably prey on the same kind of animals that other large predators prey on, this makes those creatures more likely to hunt out smaller groups of humanoids and risk attacking them.
Dragon has moved into an area, actually this means that area will be moderately safer overall because dragon is hunting down the large creatures for food, so unless your spotted by said dragon there are a lot fewer things in the area to stumble on the party while sleeping.
Thanks for the reasoned response :) I appreciate!
An interesting thread here!
Unless you are dealing with rules lawyers in your campaign, and are wanting revenge, I think a small encounter isn't going to phase a moderately experienced party. If the characters are first level, then yes, it might very well disturb their long rest. But otherwise...
Think about it like this, an inexperienced party is going to get pretty excited if something stumbles into their camp, even if it's a noisy squirrel. They are all going to get woken up, adrenaline pumping, and even after the squirrel is gone (from the camp, or the world, it makes no difference), they are going to build up the campfire, sit around and talk for however long it takes for them to calm their nerves, get tired again, and go back to sleep. If the party has been campaigning for any appreciable length of time, the morning watch is going to point to the fire and say "Fresh meat for breakfast."
What is the point of the encounter? If it were just a roll of the Random Encounter Table, and I didn't have a good reason for delaying the party, I would only mention it for "game spice". If the characters couldn't be reasonably expected to break a sweat , they didn't break their long rest. Use the game mechanics to tell the story, don't tell the story with game mechanics.
Just a old, crazy Dungeon Master building a realm one brick at a time...
You are ignoring the "at least" part of that statement. I always play it that if they have a scrap for 3/4 rounds then it doesn't interrupt their long rest because it is less than 1 hour.