Long Rest doesn’t necessarily mean 8 hours sleep. As long as there’s no significant activity, you still gain the benefits. Light activity is allowed, and no more than two hours of watch in the eight hour period.

So (I’ll add times for this hypothetical): If you are eating, reading, talking for two hours (8-10pm), then go to bed for four (10pm-2am), then watch for four (2am-6am), you gain the benefits of a long rest: Eight hours (from 8pm-4am) of sleep or light activity assuming nothing happened during those first two hours of watch. 

That could be coupled with a different player’s (or players’) shift of Watch from (10pm-2am), sleep (2am-6am), eat, read, talk (6am-8am). They would gain a long rest from 12am-8am. 

This would mean that camp takes twelve hours each day, which is reasonable since we probably won’t be traveling more than 12 hours per day most of the time.

I suggest we have about half the party on each shift.

An elf still has to have 8 hours of light activity and trance to gain full benefits of a long rest. That was ruled by Jeremy Crawford in 2015. 

No more question yout honor ;) 

No, seriously, I agree with that.

I hope you guys don't mind me testing something here. I'm trying to see exactly how the image editor on imgur works. It will help me with future encounter designs.

No worries, do it for science!

NOPE! Imgur's brushes are too big to create a dynamic encounter map.

Just a quick check, we should be sitting at 35 xp total right? I don't think I missed anything...

Yes. 35 XP is what you guys should have.

If I am ever inactive, Gendan’s default action during combat is to get to the front lines and swing her short sword. 

Attack [ roll]1d20+5[/roll] for [ roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+3[/roll]

Haha, my sorry initiative modifier got bested by Folki’s Nat 1!! The dice giveth and the dice taketh away. 

Northwest, I won't stop you from setting default actions but I'd like to warn you that combat in this campaign may be less frequent than others but it is highly tactical. Setting default actions may result in character death.

I'm just happy I got Nat 20 on the attack and Nat 1 on initiative rather than the other way around. 

It feels like Nat 1 initiative should just be automatic last, or something happens to stop slow you down (eg folkis axe gets stuck in shield it smashed through or the body and you then have to choose to use your bonus to wrench it free or leave it and switch weapons) 

Nah. Even with nat1 your total was higher.

Yeah, it feels that way. Technically (RAW), there are no critical failures except for attack rolls and death saves. 

((When I DM, I usually honor crits, success or fail, on ability checks, including Initiative. Not rules as written, though. ))

Quote from ZulkRS >>

Northwest, I won't stop you from setting default actions but I'd like to warn you that combat in this campaign may be less frequent than others but it is highly tactical. Setting default actions may result in character death.

I know how you feel man. I'm in a similar situation in a different campaign.

I edited the last post in the game thread. Just writing it here In case anyone missed it.

Is the game still in 'combat'. I always get confused about when it ends 

Depends on where you want to take it. Even in combat, you can make RP type things like interrogating someone even when it isn't your turn (In this campaign anyway). Right now, unless Gendan wants to kill the Goblin, it is not in combat.

Was the spike trap too severe?

Maybe a little without a chance to perceive it first. But now we know to be on the lookout for them.