As a professional writer, the wording of the rule as stated could've been clearer as it can be interpreted two ways:
1 hour of walking. 1 hour of fighting. 1 hour of casting spells...
1 hour of walking. Any fighting. Any casting of spells.
BUT the thing that helps one determine which of those is correct is this phrase: a period of strenuous activity. I think we all believe that fighting of any kind is strenuous. Anyone try a single round of wrestling (1 minute)? Welcome to sweat city. And likely most would say the same about spellcasting. So what about WALKING?
IF you consider walking, fighting and casting spells to be equally strenuous, then it's 1 hour each. However, if you don't think a walk around the block is strenuous then you have to read that the strenuous activity equates to:
1 hour of walking.
ANY fighting
ANY spellcasting. etc.
"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. At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points."
Sounds like a whole lot of crap about the English language. I came to get a ruling before I spring the next phase of our campaign. Lvl 10 gods they are enough spells to demolish a city, enough hit points to swan dive from low orbit, AC for days, +10 to hit, +10 to initiative, and more abilities than a poorly written TV series hero. They split the party and fought the whole dungeon. 14 rounds of combat, 6 hours of game play, and all over three weeks. So, I guess I'll just tell the players it interrupts their long rest. If they start playing this "the English language" game I'll give them the option of a lost long rest and continueing the adventure or being swarmed by 8000 Kobolds each attacking 50 seconds apart for the next six days. That way they can murder hobo themselves into terminal fatigue. I don't think that is what the rules intended but, if that's how it's written so be it. Although based on the votes at the top I think the community agrees combat ends the long rest regardless of the time.
Edit: after much reading. It appears that the developers of 5e are sadistic. The only way to interrupt a long rest is to send unending waves of creatures at the party. So, if you are looking to interrupt the long rest you have to smash the party with 84600 cr 1/4 creatures. Bring on the rats baby. You can make all adventures time critical. I've done this by telling the party the BBEG will escape in 20 rounds of combat, or more than one hour of rest. The tension gets high as we pass round 15. These are 20 cumulative rounds not one encounter for 20 rounds mind you. This gives them time to search the dungeon and do all the fun adventure stuffs, but no time to regain spells. You can smell the brains smoking as the PCs try to conserve spells and abilities.
That rule has been living rent free in my head. It's essentially Ralph the Viking of DnD.
The way I homebrewed is: Any combat interrupts long rest for the participating character. After the combat the long rest resets, but is shortned by half of the time they rested before the battle. Example: Combat begins after 4 hours of rest; After the combat the new long rest takes the participants 6 hours (4 + 4/2).
You are incorrect. RAI and RAW are clear. Any strenuous activity disrupts a long rest. The examples given are;
An hour of walking
Fighting
Casting spells
Or any similar adventuring activity
There is no ambiguity here. Anyone taking this to mean that you need to fight for an hour for a long rest to be interrupted are either mistaken (this is ok), or talking a poorly worded rule and deliberately misinterpreting it (this is not ok).
If you need any further convincing, see the new, updated, wording of the rule in the 1D&D playtest doc;
"A Long Rest is a period of extended downtime—at least 8 hours long—during which a creature sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch
INTERRUPTING THE REST If a Long Rest is interrupted by combat or by 1 hour of walking, casting Spells, or similar activity, the rest confers no benefit and must be restarted; however, if the rest was at least 1 hour long before the interruption, the creature gains the benefits of a Short Rest."
Not true. The rule states "a period of strenuous activity" interrupts a long rest. The "period" is defined as 1 hour, and "strenuous activity" is defined as "walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity."
One D&D playtests are not relevant to the RAW of 5e.
Sounds like a whole lot of crap about the English language. I came to get a ruling before I spring the next phase of our campaign. Lvl 10 gods they are enough spells to demolish a city, enough hit points to swan dive from low orbit, AC for days, +10 to hit, +10 to initiative, and more abilities than a poorly written TV series hero. They split the party and fought the whole dungeon. 14 rounds of combat, 6 hours of game play, and all over three weeks. So, I guess I'll just tell the players it interrupts their long rest. If they start playing this "the English language" game I'll give them the option of a lost long rest and continueing the adventure or being swarmed by 8000 Kobolds each attacking 50 seconds apart for the next six days. That way they can murder hobo themselves into terminal fatigue. I don't think that is what the rules intended but, if that's how it's written so be it. Although based on the votes at the top I think the community agrees combat ends the long rest regardless of the time.
Edit: after much reading. It appears that the developers of 5e are sadistic. The only way to interrupt a long rest is to send unending waves of creatures at the party. So, if you are looking to interrupt the long rest you have to smash the party with 84600 cr 1/4 creatures. Bring on the rats baby. You can make all adventures time critical. I've done this by telling the party the BBEG will escape in 20 rounds of combat, or more than one hour of rest. The tension gets high as we pass round 15. These are 20 cumulative rounds not one encounter for 20 rounds mind you. This gives them time to search the dungeon and do all the fun adventure stuffs, but no time to regain spells. You can smell the brains smoking as the PCs try to conserve spells and abilities.
As a professional writer, the wording of the rule as stated could've been clearer as it can be interpreted two ways:
1 hour of walking. 1 hour of fighting. 1 hour of casting spells...
1 hour of walking. Any fighting. Any casting of spells.
BUT the thing that helps one determine which of those is correct is this phrase: a period of strenuous activity. I think we all believe that fighting of any kind is strenuous. Anyone try a single round of wrestling (1 minute)? Welcome to sweat city. And likely most would say the same about spellcasting. So what about WALKING?
IF you consider walking, fighting and casting spells to be equally strenuous, then it's 1 hour each. However, if you don't think a walk around the block is strenuous then you have to read that the strenuous activity equates to:
1 hour of walking.
ANY fighting
ANY spellcasting. etc.
"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. At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points."
As a professional writer, the wording of the rule as stated could've been clearer as it can be interpreted two ways:
1 hour of walking. 1 hour of fighting. 1 hour of casting spells...
1 hour of walking. Any fighting. Any casting of spells.
BUT the thing that helps one determine which of those is correct is this phrase: a period of strenuous activity. I think we all believe that fighting of any kind is strenuous. Anyone try a single round of wrestling (1 minute)? Welcome to sweat city. And likely most would say the same about spellcasting. So what about WALKING?
IF you consider walking, fighting and casting spells to be equally strenuous, then it's 1 hour each. However, if you don't think a walk around the block is strenuous then you have to read that the strenuous activity equates to:
1 hour of walking.
ANY fighting
ANY spellcasting. etc.
"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. At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points."
They don't need to be equally strenuous, nor are they ever implied to be equally strenuous. They just need to be strenuous.
In what way is the language unclear for you? I know you love to argue for its own sake but if this is genuine confusion, I will do my best to clarify using rules of the English language.
The English language does not have operator precedence rules. Whether 'one hour' applies to 'walking' or applies to 'walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity' cannot be determined based on the rules of grammar.
Okay, then assume there's a feature that says this: "You have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws."
Now, does advantage apply to just Wisdom saving throws, or all saving throws?
In what way is the language unclear for you? I know you love to argue for its own sake but if this is genuine confusion, I will do my best to clarify using rules of the English language.
The English language does not have operator precedence rules. Whether 'one hour' applies to 'walking' or applies to 'walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity' cannot be determined based on the rules of grammar.
Okay, then assume there's a feature that says this: "You have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws."
Now, does advantage apply to just Wisdom saving throws, or all saving throws?
The English language does not have operator precedence rules. Whether 'wisdom' is a restriction on 'ability checks' or 'ability checks and saving throws' cannot be determined based on the rules of grammar.
@dmgpunkHope you're having a restful night. Speaking of rest, will participating in 1 round of combat break a short/long rest?
@JeremyECrawford Any amount of fighting breaks a short rest. A long rest can withstand an interruption of up to 1 hour.
For what it is worth ... only SOME of the devs :) ... assuming one is interested in listening to any of them ...
Mearls said the opposite when the PHB first came out. (July 14, 2014).
These comments were made after the 5e play test just before the PHB official release when, presumably, the design intent would be as clear as possible.
In this case, Mearls was listed first with JC second as D&D lead designers in the PHB. So, at least as an indication of design intent at the time the game was released, I think these comments probably represent the most accurate interpretation of what the designers (at least some of them) intended when those sentences were written.
Mike Mearls @mikemearls 10:01 AM - 10 July 2014 @sevensideddie interruption needs to be a full hour. Testers: "We rest 7 hours, a kobold knocks on the door, and now we have to start over?
The Seven-Sided Die @sevensideddie 10:04 AM - 10 July 2014 .@mikemearls Oh. But that means combat will never interrupt rest, since a 600-round combat is unheard of. Why list it at all then?
Mike Mearls @mikemearls 10:05 AM - 10 July 2014 @sevensideddie there could be cases where it's valid - fight starts, now you need to leave the dungeon
The Seven-Sided Die @sevensideddie 10:07 AM - 10 July 2014 @mikemearls Ah, so it’s meant to be fairly rare, more “we’ve given up resting for now,” not just attacks on the camp.
Thankfully, 1D&D provided a more sane set of rules long rests with much clearer language, so thankfully this will not be an issue going forward. (And people can stop claiming that 600 rounds of consecutive combat is an intended design, which is frankly just silly, no matter what the designers tweeted back in 2014.)
Thankfully, 1D&D provided a more sane set of rules long rests with much clearer language, so thankfully this will not be an issue going forward. (And people can stop claiming that 600 rounds of consecutive combat is an intended design, which is frankly just silly, no matter what the designers tweeted back in 2014.)
I think the point the original designers were making was
"Does it make sense that less than 60 seconds of exertion will prevent a character from benefiting from 6 hours of sleep and 1 hour and 59 minutes of resting?"
Personally, I don't consider 60 seconds of challenging exertion and adrenaline to be much of an issue for a group of people trained to travel the wilds, seeking adventure, danger, excitement and involved in deadly combat on a daily basis. In my opinion, it is ludicrous to suggest that 18-> 30 seconds of fighting (the length of a typical combat) would have any impact at all on the ability of those characters to benefit from hours of rest.
How much exertion would be required to prevent the benefits of resting?
Again, I don't really have an issue with the idea that it would take an hour of hard exertion to really make it impossible for the characters to benefit from a rest and force them to start over.
Is a combat of 600 rounds ever going to happen? No. However, it is that level of exertion that I think would be required to properly interrupt a long rest.
Certainly, in my opinion, it makes no sense that casting ONE spell, or less than a minute of combat would require a character to start their resting all over again.
Sad that a party that sleeps 6 hours, spends an hour and 59 minutes resting/eating/chatting and is then attacked in the last minute taking less than 30 seconds to deal with the kobolds that interrupted their breakfast must then spend another 8 hours immediately long resting in order to obtain the benefits.
Folks can read it as requiring any amount of combat or casting to interrupt a long rest but personally, requiring long periods of exertion (an hour even) to prevent a long rest, makes far more sense to me.
Never, unless a war battle is going on.
But that is irrelevant to the RAW wording of when a Long Rest is broken.
Actually, it isn't. Unlike formal language, natural language does include an element of "parse in a way that produces a sensible result".
As a professional writer, the wording of the rule as stated could've been clearer as it can be interpreted two ways:
BUT the thing that helps one determine which of those is correct is this phrase: a period of strenuous activity. I think we all believe that fighting of any kind is strenuous. Anyone try a single round of wrestling (1 minute)? Welcome to sweat city. And likely most would say the same about spellcasting. So what about WALKING?
IF you consider walking, fighting and casting spells to be equally strenuous, then it's 1 hour each. However, if you don't think a walk around the block is strenuous then you have to read that the strenuous activity equates to:
Your reading is also the opinion of the Devs;
Sounds like a whole lot of crap about the English language. I came to get a ruling before I spring the next phase of our campaign. Lvl 10 gods they are enough spells to demolish a city, enough hit points to swan dive from low orbit, AC for days, +10 to hit, +10 to initiative, and more abilities than a poorly written TV series hero. They split the party and fought the whole dungeon. 14 rounds of combat, 6 hours of game play, and all over three weeks. So, I guess I'll just tell the players it interrupts their long rest. If they start playing this "the English language" game I'll give them the option of a lost long rest and continueing the adventure or being swarmed by 8000 Kobolds each attacking 50 seconds apart for the next six days. That way they can murder hobo themselves into terminal fatigue. I don't think that is what the rules intended but, if that's how it's written so be it. Although based on the votes at the top I think the community agrees combat ends the long rest regardless of the time.
Edit: after much reading. It appears that the developers of 5e are sadistic. The only way to interrupt a long rest is to send unending waves of creatures at the party. So, if you are looking to interrupt the long rest you have to smash the party with 84600 cr 1/4 creatures. Bring on the rats baby. You can make all adventures time critical. I've done this by telling the party the BBEG will escape in 20 rounds of combat, or more than one hour of rest. The tension gets high as we pass round 15. These are 20 cumulative rounds not one encounter for 20 rounds mind you. This gives them time to search the dungeon and do all the fun adventure stuffs, but no time to regain spells. You can smell the brains smoking as the PCs try to conserve spells and abilities.
The 1D&D Beyond rules have clarified that long rests work as described in #2.
It's also the only interpretation that makes any sense.
That rule has been living rent free in my head. It's essentially Ralph the Viking of DnD.
The way I homebrewed is: Any combat interrupts long rest for the participating character. After the combat the long rest resets, but is shortned by half of the time they rested before the battle. Example: Combat begins after 4 hours of rest; After the combat the new long rest takes the participants 6 hours (4 + 4/2).
Not true. The rule states "a period of strenuous activity" interrupts a long rest. The "period" is defined as 1 hour, and "strenuous activity" is defined as "walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity."
One D&D playtests are not relevant to the RAW of 5e.
Nested Tiny Huts.
They don't need to be equally strenuous, nor are they ever implied to be equally strenuous. They just need to be strenuous.
Okay, then assume there's a feature that says this: "You have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws."
Now, does advantage apply to just Wisdom saving throws, or all saving throws?
The English language does not have operator precedence rules. Whether 'wisdom' is a restriction on 'ability checks' or 'ability checks and saving throws' cannot be determined based on the rules of grammar.
For what it is worth ... only SOME of the devs :) ... assuming one is interested in listening to any of them ...
Mearls said the opposite when the PHB first came out. (July 14, 2014).
These comments were made after the 5e play test just before the PHB official release when, presumably, the design intent would be as clear as possible.
In this case, Mearls was listed first with JC second as D&D lead designers in the PHB. So, at least as an indication of design intent at the time the game was released, I think these comments probably represent the most accurate interpretation of what the designers (at least some of them) intended when those sentences were written.
"Mike Mearls clarified this on twitter:
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/42123/does-a-short-combat-or-casting-one-spell-interrupt-a-long-rest
https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/487280500902342656
Thankfully, 1D&D provided a more sane set of rules long rests with much clearer language, so thankfully this will not be an issue going forward. (And people can stop claiming that 600 rounds of consecutive combat is an intended design, which is frankly just silly, no matter what the designers tweeted back in 2014.)
I think the point the original designers were making was
"Does it make sense that less than 60 seconds of exertion will prevent a character from benefiting from 6 hours of sleep and 1 hour and 59 minutes of resting?"
Personally, I don't consider 60 seconds of challenging exertion and adrenaline to be much of an issue for a group of people trained to travel the wilds, seeking adventure, danger, excitement and involved in deadly combat on a daily basis. In my opinion, it is ludicrous to suggest that 18-> 30 seconds of fighting (the length of a typical combat) would have any impact at all on the ability of those characters to benefit from hours of rest.
How much exertion would be required to prevent the benefits of resting?
Again, I don't really have an issue with the idea that it would take an hour of hard exertion to really make it impossible for the characters to benefit from a rest and force them to start over.
Is a combat of 600 rounds ever going to happen? No. However, it is that level of exertion that I think would be required to properly interrupt a long rest.
Certainly, in my opinion, it makes no sense that casting ONE spell, or less than a minute of combat would require a character to start their resting all over again.
Sad that a party that sleeps 6 hours, spends an hour and 59 minutes resting/eating/chatting and is then attacked in the last minute taking less than 30 seconds to deal with the kobolds that interrupted their breakfast must then spend another 8 hours immediately long resting in order to obtain the benefits.
Folks can read it as requiring any amount of combat or casting to interrupt a long rest but personally, requiring long periods of exertion (an hour even) to prevent a long rest, makes far more sense to me.
The original designers weren't making a point, they just wrote the rule badly.