Short Rests cause a lot of grief for certain tables. They can seem unnatural, cause party arguments, and make characters feel underpowered if they depend on rests but never get them. The problem is that the game was designed around the idea of 6-8 encounters a day with about 2 Short Rests for every Long. For some classes and subclasses, these rests are vital to their usefulness. While others don't need them at all.
I hear a lot of common complaints about Short Rests - It doesn't make sense that there is a safe spot in every dungeon to rest. I don't need to rest, so why should they? The clock is ticking, there's no time to stop. We only have one fight a day. If you have time for a Short Rest, you have time for a Long. Etc.
While these are all legitimate concerns, it makes me a little sad to hear them because I feel like a lot of tables aren't getting the most out of the game. These are all issues that the DM can solve, without resorting to any house rules. It comes down to adventure design. And while it is a little more work, it can make the game more fulfilling and interesting for everyone. So I'm making this thread to share some of my experiences. Hopefully it will help inspire some of you to take a new look at the 6 encounter day.
1) Know your party - take a look at the characters you have in your group. If none of their characters recover any abilities on a Short Rest, it might appear that you are all set. But you do have some other concerns that these tips will still help with. Your characters will have too many resources to use them all in one fight. The wizards will still outshine the fighter when they have all their spells. Fighters are strongest in a marathon. Spellcasters slowly lose steam. So there is still a good case for wearing the party's resources down over time, no matter what they are
If your party has a mixture of recovery mechanics, you need to know who needs a Short Rest, and why. A Battle Master fighter recovers all of their combat abilities on a Short Rest. They need the rests, but only between combats. They can break down doors and climb sheer cliffs all day long. A Warlock has high Charisma, and can often deal with social encounters without the need for magic. But some choose spells to enhance social skills, and they still use their limited spells to fight, and to solve problems during exploration. A Monk might need to rest only after fights. A Bard might need to rest after any encounter where all of their Inspiration was needed. A Cleric might need to only rest if they've been using their Channel Divinity a lot. Understanding what your party recovers on a Short Rest is the first step.
2) Know your genre - You probably already have a good idea of what kind of game you are running, but take some time to consider what that means for encounter designs. A game centered around political intrigue will have different encounters and pacing than one based on dungeon crawls. Think about what kind of movie your game would look like if it was made. Think about how those kinds of movies are paced. How do they start, what happens in the middle, and how does it end? Consider how you can design encounters that mimic those ideas.
3) Everything is an Encounter - or perhaps more pertinent to this discussion, every encounter that uses resources is a meaningful encounter for the 6 encounter day. It doesn't have to all be combat. Every time the PCs talk to an NPC, explore some ruins, fall into a trap, or survive a storm, they can expend resources. The idea of a 6 encounter day is that these should expend enough resources by the end of the day that the party needs a Long Rest. They might go into the last fight with half of their resources still remaining, but that's a much more exciting fight than they would have had at full power. For characters that recover resources on a Short Rest, they should be expending most of those specific resources every 1-3 encounters.
4) Everything is a Dungeon - one complaint about Short Rests is that it either only works in dungeon crawls, or it never does. But the truth about DnD is that everything can be a dungeon. Dungeons are easy to picture as a map of connected rooms filled with traps and monsters. But a city is just a large version of the same thing. With buildings for rooms, and streets for halls. An warehouse is a dungeon with tunnels made of stacks of crates, and back rooms with bosses. A church is a dungeon with a nave, sanctuary, kitchen, and catacombs. Even the wilderness is a dungeon, with landmarks separated by trees or other natural obstacles.
5) The clock is ticking, but you set the alarm - The DM decides when to use a ticking clock to raise tension. But you also decide when time is up. If you tell the PCs that the villain is going to sacrifice someone in 1 hour, then they will obviously run to stop it and have no chance for a rest. But if you tell them the sacrifice happens tonight under the full moon, you have a whole day to fill with encounters. The PCs will still hurry towards the end goal, but they can now run into roadblocks along the way. Even action movies don't usually start with only 3 minutes left before the bomb goes off. That's saved for the climax. The rest of the movie is how you get to that tense final moment.
6) The PCs only know what you tell them - If you find your PCs keep speedrunning to the final fight, it's because they know exactly how to get there, and they know that they need to do it fast. If they have all the information up front, there is no reason for them to slow down. But if they have to do some investigation, exploration, and socializing first, you are giving them more interesting encounters in their quest. Knowing that the villain is going to sacrifice someone at midnight should take work to find out. Learning where exactly it is going to happen is an opportunity for another encounter. Getting the party there is another. And every step of the journey has chances for combats along the way.
7) Safe places to rest are where you find them - Sure, it doesn't make sense for a cave full of orcs to wait patiently behind the door for you to take a nap. But that doesn't mean the PCs can't find safer places to rest. And you as the DM can help them by planning ahead. You can hide secret rooms, have abandoned tunnels that are rarely used, or safe groves in the woods. Even a dark alley can be a safe place to rest if the villains don't know the PCs are there. These safe spots can be locked behind skill checks or spells to make the players work for them. A Ranger might make a survival roll to find a hidden rock to camp under. A Warlock might read an old inscription to learn the password for a locked door that leads to an empty room the orcs never discovered. All of these things make the world more interesting and the players feel more useful, while also providing an important mechanical function of facilitating a rest.
8) Encounters are not all built equally - Not every encounter drains the same resources for the same PCs, nor to the same degree. A locked door takes nothing but a roll for a Rogue to bypass. But a wizard might need to cast Knock. A 5' pit trap takes nothing from the party if they don't fall in. But a 20' hallway lined with pits and blades will probably be harder to escape without expending some resources for someone. Your PCs will make short work of encounters they are skilled at dealing with. Give them some easy wins, but also find other ways to challenge their brains and their resources.
9) The party is stronger when everyone is strong - help you players understand that some characters need the rests. They will all be more successful and have more fun if those characters get the chance every now and then. Don't punish them for taking a rest except in rare situations where you have warned them clearly of the danger beforehand. If there is a ticking clock at the end of the day, give signals that they are running out of time. If the place they chose to rest is dangerous, let them hear the sound of approaching guards first and give them time to escape. But don't interrupt them so often that they never feel safe. Let them succeed at resting more than they fail. The guards can always approach at the end of the rest to maintain realism but still give them a chance.
10) Don't make rests time consuming in real life - players who don't need Short Rests might get bored if they take too long. Time is passing for the characters, but it doesn't have to for players. Give your Short Rest players tools to update their abilities quickly and keep the game moving. Rolling some hit dice to heal and resetting ki points doesn't have to take long. There is no need to RP every short rest unless the players really enjoy it. Save that for Long Rests after the day is done.
With all of these in mind, you can start planning adventures with 6-8 encounters a day. I'll end with one sample adventure outline as an example, and one final tip.
The Old Map
Encounter 1) The party hears a rumor that a local Lord has an old leather map for sale that leads to sunken treasure. They first have to convince his guards that they are no threat, and of good standing in society. Once inside, the Lord will part with the map, on the condition the party brings him any books they find in the treasure. He also gives them a old family locket with a crystal encircled with gold. He only knows that it is important to be kept with the map. He can be persuaded to help with provisions if the party uses the right social skill rolls or spells.
Encounter 2) The map can only be read under the light of the midday sun on a hill outside of town, so they better get moving. On the exact center of the top of the hill, they find a ruined tower that is now the home of some giant spiders lurking in the shadows of its tumbling walls. The spiders will fight the PCs if they try to enter. The party can see an old platform on top of the tower, that would be perfect for reading the map of they can just reach it.
SR) Short Rest after the fight
Encounter 3) Reaching the top of the crumbling tower is difficult to do safely without magic. Once they reach the roof, the sun is directly overhead. If they look through the crystal locket in its light, it reveals writing in a long forgotten language they will have to decipher with skills or spells. It shows a path through the wilderness to a lost temple of some sort near a river. It also reveals a drawing that shows the map is hiding more secrets, if they can view it in the temple under the full moon tonight.
Encounter 4) The party tries to follow the path through dense woods without getting lost. Once they reach the river, they find that it is wide and moving very fast. The the party is at at the top of an enormous waterfall. Unfortunately their treasure is at the bottom. They can just make out the signs of a crumbling stone structure through the mists. They need to find a way down without falling. This is made harder when they are attacked halfway down by hungry flying griffons.
SR) Short Rest at the bottom of the waterfall after the fight
Encounter 5) Most of the old temple has been swallowed by the waterfall. It will be hard to get inside. Beyond the raging water, the party finds a deep cavern worn away by the years. They can see more of the temple buried below, if they can just reach it. Finding their way down the dark slippery rocks, they reach a lower floor. Here, some nasty oozes or other cavern dwellers attack.
Encounter 6) The lower floor contains traps and warnings in the old tongue. This is a holy place. The walls bear markings carved in the stone that resemble the Lord's own family crest. The party must navigate the traps safely and solve the riddles that seal the doors that block their way forward.
SR) There might be time for one more short rest if needed, but the moon must surely be getting high
Encounter 7) In the last room, the party finds the Lord's family crypt. The souls of the departed rise from their tombs to fight the intruders. After the skeletons/wraiths/etc fight for a few rounds, a stately ghost appears and demands them to leave. If they show him the locket and the map, and they explain who sent them, he calls off the attack.
Encounter 8) Beyond the crypt is the final room. The ceiling is made of crystal, and the light of the moon shines down through the water of the river overhead. The party can use the locket to read the map by it one last time, revealing the secret words to open the family treasure vault. Inside, they get their reward. And they also find one old book with a magic lock that is surely the one the Lord wanted. They are safe here to sleep until morning and find their way back home.
Hopefully this helps inspire someone to find ways to write more rests naturally into adventures. Feel free to use these tips and this adventure any way you wish. If all else fails, you can always just cheat the system a little. Leave a magic fountain in their path that gives them the benefit of a Short Rest if they drink from it. Or give your Monk a magic sash that let's them recover ki points twice a day. It's your world, have fun with it!
I think the key here is: if you want short rests, put sufficient physical distance between encounters that being able to rest for an hour without someone noticing the carnage is reasonable, and put a time limit that's long enough to allow short rests but insufficient for long rests.
This will rarely be a dungeon, because dungeons are too small.
I think the key here is: if you want short rests, put sufficient physical distance between encounters that being able to rest for an hour without someone noticing the carnage is reasonable, and put a time limit that's long enough to allow short rests but insufficient for long rests.
This will rarely be a dungeon, because dungeons are too small.
Yes, good advice. Distance and time are very important. I think most parties are more eager to push forward rather than take a lot of long rests in strange places. And long rests do come with additional risks. But it is all dependant on the players and the plot pressure. I agree though, ideally you give a little time pressure but not too much until the end.
Distance isn't nearly as hard to do when you are making your own dungeons, or using larger areas like a forest or a city for a dungeon. But yeah, I have noticed that many pre-made dungeons cover very small areas. Both in official releases and free stuff you can find online.
Some of them try to take that into account. The first goblin cave in LMoP say that the sound of the water conceals fighting noises, containing all combats to their own rooms for the most part. And the goblins ignore the barking of the wolves. That's pretty good design. It only starts to get silly if you leave the caves halfway through and go back to town for a long rest. Short Rests are pretty easy there.
If using small pre-made dungeons, I would try to extend the lengths of some tunnels where I could. Or add in one or two secret places the party could hide away for a short time. Maybe a hidden room the local inhabitants don't know about. Or a section they are superstitious of entering. Or a concealed empty space that's hard to get to - at the top of a cliff, or under a ledge, or through a flooded tunnel. Orcs might patrol their normal halls regularly, but ignore sections of the dungeon that are in ruins.
The characters might also just have to get sneaker. Moving more quietly. Hiding the damage they've done as best the can. Wedging doors shut with iron spikes. Old school dungeoneering. A short rest might still put some of the dungeon on alert. The monsters might know something happened, without knowing exactly where the PCs are. That can build tension and add some risk without taking the benefits of the rest away entirely.
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Short Rests cause a lot of grief for certain tables. They can seem unnatural, cause party arguments, and make characters feel underpowered if they depend on rests but never get them. The problem is that the game was designed around the idea of 6-8 encounters a day with about 2 Short Rests for every Long. For some classes and subclasses, these rests are vital to their usefulness. While others don't need them at all.
I hear a lot of common complaints about Short Rests - It doesn't make sense that there is a safe spot in every dungeon to rest. I don't need to rest, so why should they? The clock is ticking, there's no time to stop. We only have one fight a day. If you have time for a Short Rest, you have time for a Long. Etc.
While these are all legitimate concerns, it makes me a little sad to hear them because I feel like a lot of tables aren't getting the most out of the game. These are all issues that the DM can solve, without resorting to any house rules. It comes down to adventure design. And while it is a little more work, it can make the game more fulfilling and interesting for everyone. So I'm making this thread to share some of my experiences. Hopefully it will help inspire some of you to take a new look at the 6 encounter day.
1) Know your party - take a look at the characters you have in your group. If none of their characters recover any abilities on a Short Rest, it might appear that you are all set. But you do have some other concerns that these tips will still help with. Your characters will have too many resources to use them all in one fight. The wizards will still outshine the fighter when they have all their spells. Fighters are strongest in a marathon. Spellcasters slowly lose steam. So there is still a good case for wearing the party's resources down over time, no matter what they are
If your party has a mixture of recovery mechanics, you need to know who needs a Short Rest, and why. A Battle Master fighter recovers all of their combat abilities on a Short Rest. They need the rests, but only between combats. They can break down doors and climb sheer cliffs all day long. A Warlock has high Charisma, and can often deal with social encounters without the need for magic. But some choose spells to enhance social skills, and they still use their limited spells to fight, and to solve problems during exploration. A Monk might need to rest only after fights. A Bard might need to rest after any encounter where all of their Inspiration was needed. A Cleric might need to only rest if they've been using their Channel Divinity a lot. Understanding what your party recovers on a Short Rest is the first step.
2) Know your genre - You probably already have a good idea of what kind of game you are running, but take some time to consider what that means for encounter designs. A game centered around political intrigue will have different encounters and pacing than one based on dungeon crawls. Think about what kind of movie your game would look like if it was made. Think about how those kinds of movies are paced. How do they start, what happens in the middle, and how does it end? Consider how you can design encounters that mimic those ideas.
3) Everything is an Encounter - or perhaps more pertinent to this discussion, every encounter that uses resources is a meaningful encounter for the 6 encounter day. It doesn't have to all be combat. Every time the PCs talk to an NPC, explore some ruins, fall into a trap, or survive a storm, they can expend resources. The idea of a 6 encounter day is that these should expend enough resources by the end of the day that the party needs a Long Rest. They might go into the last fight with half of their resources still remaining, but that's a much more exciting fight than they would have had at full power. For characters that recover resources on a Short Rest, they should be expending most of those specific resources every 1-3 encounters.
4) Everything is a Dungeon - one complaint about Short Rests is that it either only works in dungeon crawls, or it never does. But the truth about DnD is that everything can be a dungeon. Dungeons are easy to picture as a map of connected rooms filled with traps and monsters. But a city is just a large version of the same thing. With buildings for rooms, and streets for halls. An warehouse is a dungeon with tunnels made of stacks of crates, and back rooms with bosses. A church is a dungeon with a nave, sanctuary, kitchen, and catacombs. Even the wilderness is a dungeon, with landmarks separated by trees or other natural obstacles.
5) The clock is ticking, but you set the alarm - The DM decides when to use a ticking clock to raise tension. But you also decide when time is up. If you tell the PCs that the villain is going to sacrifice someone in 1 hour, then they will obviously run to stop it and have no chance for a rest. But if you tell them the sacrifice happens tonight under the full moon, you have a whole day to fill with encounters. The PCs will still hurry towards the end goal, but they can now run into roadblocks along the way. Even action movies don't usually start with only 3 minutes left before the bomb goes off. That's saved for the climax. The rest of the movie is how you get to that tense final moment.
6) The PCs only know what you tell them - If you find your PCs keep speedrunning to the final fight, it's because they know exactly how to get there, and they know that they need to do it fast. If they have all the information up front, there is no reason for them to slow down. But if they have to do some investigation, exploration, and socializing first, you are giving them more interesting encounters in their quest. Knowing that the villain is going to sacrifice someone at midnight should take work to find out. Learning where exactly it is going to happen is an opportunity for another encounter. Getting the party there is another. And every step of the journey has chances for combats along the way.
7) Safe places to rest are where you find them - Sure, it doesn't make sense for a cave full of orcs to wait patiently behind the door for you to take a nap. But that doesn't mean the PCs can't find safer places to rest. And you as the DM can help them by planning ahead. You can hide secret rooms, have abandoned tunnels that are rarely used, or safe groves in the woods. Even a dark alley can be a safe place to rest if the villains don't know the PCs are there. These safe spots can be locked behind skill checks or spells to make the players work for them. A Ranger might make a survival roll to find a hidden rock to camp under. A Warlock might read an old inscription to learn the password for a locked door that leads to an empty room the orcs never discovered. All of these things make the world more interesting and the players feel more useful, while also providing an important mechanical function of facilitating a rest.
8) Encounters are not all built equally - Not every encounter drains the same resources for the same PCs, nor to the same degree. A locked door takes nothing but a roll for a Rogue to bypass. But a wizard might need to cast Knock. A 5' pit trap takes nothing from the party if they don't fall in. But a 20' hallway lined with pits and blades will probably be harder to escape without expending some resources for someone. Your PCs will make short work of encounters they are skilled at dealing with. Give them some easy wins, but also find other ways to challenge their brains and their resources.
9) The party is stronger when everyone is strong - help you players understand that some characters need the rests. They will all be more successful and have more fun if those characters get the chance every now and then. Don't punish them for taking a rest except in rare situations where you have warned them clearly of the danger beforehand. If there is a ticking clock at the end of the day, give signals that they are running out of time. If the place they chose to rest is dangerous, let them hear the sound of approaching guards first and give them time to escape. But don't interrupt them so often that they never feel safe. Let them succeed at resting more than they fail. The guards can always approach at the end of the rest to maintain realism but still give them a chance.
10) Don't make rests time consuming in real life - players who don't need Short Rests might get bored if they take too long. Time is passing for the characters, but it doesn't have to for players. Give your Short Rest players tools to update their abilities quickly and keep the game moving. Rolling some hit dice to heal and resetting ki points doesn't have to take long. There is no need to RP every short rest unless the players really enjoy it. Save that for Long Rests after the day is done.
With all of these in mind, you can start planning adventures with 6-8 encounters a day. I'll end with one sample adventure outline as an example, and one final tip.
The Old Map
Encounter 1) The party hears a rumor that a local Lord has an old leather map for sale that leads to sunken treasure. They first have to convince his guards that they are no threat, and of good standing in society. Once inside, the Lord will part with the map, on the condition the party brings him any books they find in the treasure. He also gives them a old family locket with a crystal encircled with gold. He only knows that it is important to be kept with the map. He can be persuaded to help with provisions if the party uses the right social skill rolls or spells.
Encounter 2) The map can only be read under the light of the midday sun on a hill outside of town, so they better get moving. On the exact center of the top of the hill, they find a ruined tower that is now the home of some giant spiders lurking in the shadows of its tumbling walls. The spiders will fight the PCs if they try to enter. The party can see an old platform on top of the tower, that would be perfect for reading the map of they can just reach it.
SR) Short Rest after the fight
Encounter 3) Reaching the top of the crumbling tower is difficult to do safely without magic. Once they reach the roof, the sun is directly overhead. If they look through the crystal locket in its light, it reveals writing in a long forgotten language they will have to decipher with skills or spells. It shows a path through the wilderness to a lost temple of some sort near a river. It also reveals a drawing that shows the map is hiding more secrets, if they can view it in the temple under the full moon tonight.
Encounter 4) The party tries to follow the path through dense woods without getting lost. Once they reach the river, they find that it is wide and moving very fast. The the party is at at the top of an enormous waterfall. Unfortunately their treasure is at the bottom. They can just make out the signs of a crumbling stone structure through the mists. They need to find a way down without falling. This is made harder when they are attacked halfway down by hungry flying griffons.
SR) Short Rest at the bottom of the waterfall after the fight
Encounter 5) Most of the old temple has been swallowed by the waterfall. It will be hard to get inside. Beyond the raging water, the party finds a deep cavern worn away by the years. They can see more of the temple buried below, if they can just reach it. Finding their way down the dark slippery rocks, they reach a lower floor. Here, some nasty oozes or other cavern dwellers attack.
Encounter 6) The lower floor contains traps and warnings in the old tongue. This is a holy place. The walls bear markings carved in the stone that resemble the Lord's own family crest. The party must navigate the traps safely and solve the riddles that seal the doors that block their way forward.
SR) There might be time for one more short rest if needed, but the moon must surely be getting high
Encounter 7) In the last room, the party finds the Lord's family crypt. The souls of the departed rise from their tombs to fight the intruders. After the skeletons/wraiths/etc fight for a few rounds, a stately ghost appears and demands them to leave. If they show him the locket and the map, and they explain who sent them, he calls off the attack.
Encounter 8) Beyond the crypt is the final room. The ceiling is made of crystal, and the light of the moon shines down through the water of the river overhead. The party can use the locket to read the map by it one last time, revealing the secret words to open the family treasure vault. Inside, they get their reward. And they also find one old book with a magic lock that is surely the one the Lord wanted. They are safe here to sleep until morning and find their way back home.
Hopefully this helps inspire someone to find ways to write more rests naturally into adventures. Feel free to use these tips and this adventure any way you wish. If all else fails, you can always just cheat the system a little. Leave a magic fountain in their path that gives them the benefit of a Short Rest if they drink from it. Or give your Monk a magic sash that let's them recover ki points twice a day. It's your world, have fun with it!
Good luck in all your DM journeys.
I think the key here is: if you want short rests, put sufficient physical distance between encounters that being able to rest for an hour without someone noticing the carnage is reasonable, and put a time limit that's long enough to allow short rests but insufficient for long rests.
This will rarely be a dungeon, because dungeons are too small.
Yes, good advice. Distance and time are very important. I think most parties are more eager to push forward rather than take a lot of long rests in strange places. And long rests do come with additional risks. But it is all dependant on the players and the plot pressure. I agree though, ideally you give a little time pressure but not too much until the end.
Distance isn't nearly as hard to do when you are making your own dungeons, or using larger areas like a forest or a city for a dungeon. But yeah, I have noticed that many pre-made dungeons cover very small areas. Both in official releases and free stuff you can find online.
Some of them try to take that into account. The first goblin cave in LMoP say that the sound of the water conceals fighting noises, containing all combats to their own rooms for the most part. And the goblins ignore the barking of the wolves. That's pretty good design. It only starts to get silly if you leave the caves halfway through and go back to town for a long rest. Short Rests are pretty easy there.
If using small pre-made dungeons, I would try to extend the lengths of some tunnels where I could. Or add in one or two secret places the party could hide away for a short time. Maybe a hidden room the local inhabitants don't know about. Or a section they are superstitious of entering. Or a concealed empty space that's hard to get to - at the top of a cliff, or under a ledge, or through a flooded tunnel. Orcs might patrol their normal halls regularly, but ignore sections of the dungeon that are in ruins.
The characters might also just have to get sneaker. Moving more quietly. Hiding the damage they've done as best the can. Wedging doors shut with iron spikes. Old school dungeoneering. A short rest might still put some of the dungeon on alert. The monsters might know something happened, without knowing exactly where the PCs are. That can build tension and add some risk without taking the benefits of the rest away entirely.