If you're taking long rests in a dungeon, monsters aren't typically going to just sit in their rooms. They'll find the bodies you left on the way in and then they'll start sounding the alarm. Expect traps to be set, doors to be barricaded, and reinforcements to be summoned. Instead of being spread out, they'll arrange themselves into stronger groups at choke points and defensive fortifications with traps set in rooms you'd previously cleared out and would therefore assume to be safe.
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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.
Oh? Because I just wrapped a campaign for 13th level PCs who absolutely used short rests for healing.
This was a discussion about long rests. If you have spells left but no hit dice, you can use things like Prayer of Healing or Aura of Life, so it's not really that crippling. If you have hit dice left but no spells...
I'd like to re-comment and offer a suggestion, after re-reading your initial question in more detail and from a different angle.
You asked if you should let them recover hit dice if they don't explicitly state they want to take a short rest. I say no, with a condition. At times when you, as DM recognize a Short rest might be a good idea for the party to bind a few wounds, recover some stuff maybe (Monks, Warlocks, Fighters for sure, likely others I don't remember) all get a few things back on Short rests. You can offer the party, "So do you want to take a few minutes to rest a bit and recover some before pressing on?" You can give them as little as 30 minutes if you want (Monk states you must take 20 minutes of meditation to recover Ki) They can spend a couple hit dice, recover some HP and resources and be ready to roll. Promoting and offering opportunities for Short rests by you might go a long way towards them making good use of them.
Tactic to promote Short Rest use and reward them for doing so. There is a timeline on some evil foe hauling ass out of town and taking his ill-gotten goods with him. If they employ good use of the Short rests and allow the campaign to gain some momentum and pace, they CATCH him in the middle of packing up to go. Couple sweet magical trinkets in the loot, with the DM pointing out that they got there too fast for the Bad Guy to get himself sorted and gone. Point out that by NOT sleeping 14 hours of every 24 they not only caught the bad guys, but got his SUFF too. STUFF is a great incentive for parties, kind of like bacon for a food driven dog. Encourage good behavior with rewards. The party I DM for is pretty good and the one time I put a semi-tight timeline on something, they ran in with the Wizard down to 2 spell slots, the Paladin with one and the Ranger and Rogue both around 3/4 HP. I almost had to fudge a roll to prevent a wipe, but the Paladin landed a timely crit that settled it. I added a single Legendary to the loot as reward for such reckless abandon to ensure they got there in time.
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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.
Oh? Because I just wrapped a campaign for 13th level PCs who absolutely used short rests for healing.
This was a discussion about long rests. If you have spells left but no hit dice, you can use things like Prayer of Healing or Aura of Life, so it's not really that crippling. If you have hit dice left but no spells...
But if Hit Dice refreshed fully on a long rest but only half your HP refreshed it encourages multiple short rests throughout the day and saves spell slots throughout the day. It shifts the balance between short and long rests and encourages saving long rests until absolutely needed.
I am with IamSposta on this. You do not need to reduce the effectiveness of the long rest or modify it in any way. Additionally, I would not recommend refusing to allow short rest hit point recovery if they fulfilled the requirements of a short rest because that can feel like retaliation and you do not want to invite a DM vs player dynamic.
Instead, I would encourage you to reinforce the concept of a living world. Things happen while resting and the players need to make strategic decisions on when they rest while out adventuring. The BBEG might get away, or that smuggling shipment might get smuggled, or any number of things that happen in the hours that short/long rests occur. I also encourage you to share this change with them beforehand rather than springing a failure on them too.
BBEG getting away is a SOLID, well-established theme here. Watch the movies, the cartoons, read the books and comics...the bad guy gets away a LOT.
Especially if they're smart (which most BBEGs should be or else how did they rise to the title of BBEG?). I surprised the Wizard of our party (and a long-time D&D vet who seemed to know every spell by heart) by having a Contingency set for Healing and then Teleport to a secret location. I wish I had an 8x10 color glossy of the look on his face...
To get back to the main topic: I've encountered this a lot and I don't like using the same mechanics all the time so I switch it up. On the party's next outing, they can rest where and when they want (gives a false sense of security). After that, the mission (given to them by the king of the real) has a time pressure (save my daughter before the cultists sacrifice her etc). After that, they can't take LR while inside the creepy temple because the evil spirits grant them no rests other than SRs. The next time, they're in a race against some natural even like a volcanic eruption or flood.
Something that I STRONGLY recommend though is that you write down the time frames for all of this as well as alert the party to the fact that there is a time pressure. Let them know that there will be consequences if they're not done within the time frame (and no, don't tell them what that time frame is). Have the first event or consequence be minor, as a reminder that they need to keep moving.
The best way to deal with excessive resting is time pressure. It also, in my opinion, time pressure also makes for a better game. Make sure the players know the deadline, however, its a bit sucky to be surprised by this.
Once the players know the evil cultists are sacrificing the duke's son at dawn tomorrow, say 20 hours from now, they now have to make meaningful choices - a core part of an RPG. They can make plans, and decide when/if they rest and for how long. They can budget out their resources. They can live with the consequences of their choices. If they fail, they failed because of their plan - they won't feel ripped off by a game for giving them no chance to succeed.
If there is no time pressure, then rests aren't an issue. Each encounter will be started with full health and full resources, and will be dealt with by multiple alpha strikes. That's OK, it's fun to just stomp all over an encounter and feel like badasses. Just not every encounter - that's boring.
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If you're taking long rests in a dungeon, monsters aren't typically going to just sit in their rooms. They'll find the bodies you left on the way in and then they'll start sounding the alarm. Expect traps to be set, doors to be barricaded, and reinforcements to be summoned. Instead of being spread out, they'll arrange themselves into stronger groups at choke points and defensive fortifications with traps set in rooms you'd previously cleared out and would therefore assume to be safe.
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.
This was a discussion about long rests. If you have spells left but no hit dice, you can use things like Prayer of Healing or Aura of Life, so it's not really that crippling. If you have hit dice left but no spells...
I'd like to re-comment and offer a suggestion, after re-reading your initial question in more detail and from a different angle.
You asked if you should let them recover hit dice if they don't explicitly state they want to take a short rest. I say no, with a condition. At times when you, as DM recognize a Short rest might be a good idea for the party to bind a few wounds, recover some stuff maybe (Monks, Warlocks, Fighters for sure, likely others I don't remember) all get a few things back on Short rests. You can offer the party, "So do you want to take a few minutes to rest a bit and recover some before pressing on?" You can give them as little as 30 minutes if you want (Monk states you must take 20 minutes of meditation to recover Ki) They can spend a couple hit dice, recover some HP and resources and be ready to roll. Promoting and offering opportunities for Short rests by you might go a long way towards them making good use of them.
Tactic to promote Short Rest use and reward them for doing so. There is a timeline on some evil foe hauling ass out of town and taking his ill-gotten goods with him. If they employ good use of the Short rests and allow the campaign to gain some momentum and pace, they CATCH him in the middle of packing up to go. Couple sweet magical trinkets in the loot, with the DM pointing out that they got there too fast for the Bad Guy to get himself sorted and gone. Point out that by NOT sleeping 14 hours of every 24 they not only caught the bad guys, but got his SUFF too. STUFF is a great incentive for parties, kind of like bacon for a food driven dog. Encourage good behavior with rewards. The party I DM for is pretty good and the one time I put a semi-tight timeline on something, they ran in with the Wizard down to 2 spell slots, the Paladin with one and the Ranger and Rogue both around 3/4 HP. I almost had to fudge a roll to prevent a wipe, but the Paladin landed a timely crit that settled it. I added a single Legendary to the loot as reward for such reckless abandon to ensure they got there in time.
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.
But if Hit Dice refreshed fully on a long rest but only half your HP refreshed it encourages multiple short rests throughout the day and saves spell slots throughout the day. It shifts the balance between short and long rests and encourages saving long rests until absolutely needed.
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Dear Players this is table top GAME. Not a Video Game. You don't have to alpha strike everything. You will not be able to long rest when you want too.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
BBEG getting away is a SOLID, well-established theme here. Watch the movies, the cartoons, read the books and comics...the bad guy gets away a LOT.
Especially if they're smart (which most BBEGs should be or else how did they rise to the title of BBEG?). I surprised the Wizard of our party (and a long-time D&D vet who seemed to know every spell by heart) by having a Contingency set for Healing and then Teleport to a secret location. I wish I had an 8x10 color glossy of the look on his face...
To get back to the main topic: I've encountered this a lot and I don't like using the same mechanics all the time so I switch it up. On the party's next outing, they can rest where and when they want (gives a false sense of security). After that, the mission (given to them by the king of the real) has a time pressure (save my daughter before the cultists sacrifice her etc). After that, they can't take LR while inside the creepy temple because the evil spirits grant them no rests other than SRs. The next time, they're in a race against some natural even like a volcanic eruption or flood.
Something that I STRONGLY recommend though is that you write down the time frames for all of this as well as alert the party to the fact that there is a time pressure. Let them know that there will be consequences if they're not done within the time frame (and no, don't tell them what that time frame is). Have the first event or consequence be minor, as a reminder that they need to keep moving.
The best way to deal with excessive resting is time pressure. It also, in my opinion, time pressure also makes for a better game. Make sure the players know the deadline, however, its a bit sucky to be surprised by this.
Once the players know the evil cultists are sacrificing the duke's son at dawn tomorrow, say 20 hours from now, they now have to make meaningful choices - a core part of an RPG. They can make plans, and decide when/if they rest and for how long. They can budget out their resources. They can live with the consequences of their choices. If they fail, they failed because of their plan - they won't feel ripped off by a game for giving them no chance to succeed.
If there is no time pressure, then rests aren't an issue. Each encounter will be started with full health and full resources, and will be dealt with by multiple alpha strikes. That's OK, it's fun to just stomp all over an encounter and feel like badasses. Just not every encounter - that's boring.