As Plaguescarred quoted above. the RAI by JC's understanding is that a short or long rest has no requirement for consciousness and they've clarified in the new rules that this is the intent. However, if the character has used all their hit dice in previous short rests or with features (or the DM limits the number of possible short rests between long rests) then they will be unable to apply any for a guaranteed return to consciousness and regained HP. Of course, if the party healer also takes a short rest and regains a healing spell they didn't have previously, they can apply it.
The optional Massive Damage rule from the DMG only notes a couple of conditions where it simply causes the creature hit with Massive Damage to drop to 0 HP (which, of course, will cause them to fall unconscious), then the regular rules would apply.
On interruptions: Long rests note " 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." while short rests have no such allowance, suggesting if they are interrupted the characters miss the benefits since it specifies they must do "nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds" for at least 1 hour. Note also that characters must make exhaustion checks if they've not slept for 8 hours in a 24 hour period which is separate from the Short and Long Rests (So yes, you can Long Rest without sleeping or sleep without taking a Long Rest).
It's not a given rule but if the Long Rest lasted for at least 1 hour and they didn't perform any of the strenuous activity they're allowed to perform during a long rest, for at least 1 continuous hour of the duration they've been resting, they could likely argue for the benefits of a Short Rest. That would be DMs discretion of course.
DETAIL: There are quite a number of class features that specify a character regains abilities by performing actions at the end of a short or long rest. Arguably, if a Long rest is interrupted suddenly and the characters granted the other benefits of a short rest, they possibly have no chance to perform those actions to recover abilities unless they take actions now.
Obviously DMs can make their own rulings on things but those are the RAW as far as we have them.
That helps a lot thx. I think that’s everything cleared up. Thx y’all.
On interruptions: Long rests note " 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." while short rests have no such allowance, suggesting if they are interrupted the characters miss the benefits since it specifies they must do "nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds" for at least 1 hour. Note also that characters must make exhaustion checks if they've not slept for 8 hours in a 24 hour period which is separate from the Short and Long Rests (So yes, you can Long Rest without sleeping or sleep without taking a Long Rest).
Per the way the rule is written, there are two valid interpretations of the long rest rule:
At least one hour of:
walking
fighting
casting spells
similar activities
or if you prefer
at least one hour of walking
fighting
casting spells
similar activities
In the first case, fighting and casting spells are allowed as long as there is less than an hour of that activity. In the second interpretation, the hour only applies to walking and any fighting or spell casting interrupts the rest. For what it's worth (and here I go again with the One D&D stuff), the new play test rules clarify this as the second interpretation. So which is the correct answer for 5e? I really can't say. Both of those interpretations conform to the rules as written.
Hard to believe that fighting for 599 rounds don't need to begin the rest again ☺
True :) ... but should fighting for 30 seconds out of an 8 hour period where you spend 6 hours sleeping and an hour and 59 minutes doing less strenuous activity REALLY prevent the benefits of a long rest?
I think either extreme of the examples - a brief fight preventing a long rest, or a really really long fight that is still less than an hour NOT prevent an long rest - which are the two extremes of any fighting at all and at least an hour of fighting. There is a tweet out there by Mike Mearls that the original intent was an hour of any activity since it didn't make sense for any brief interruption to prevent a long rest. (e.g. cast a cantrip and you don't get a long rest - create bonfire, prestidigitation - you can't use those to start your camp fire or keep it going during the night since they are "casting a spell" ... if a single spell casting interrupts a long rest, it really makes no sense to me as a DM. Similarly, a brief fight doesn't make much sense to me in terms of invalidating the hours of rest and inactivity already accrued. Why would a fight just before breakfast mean the party has to spend the next 8 hours during the day, long resting again? Makes no sense to me).
Plaguescarred brings up a great point. I think the intention behind it was that a long rest needs no fewer than 7 hours of the 8-hour period being actual rest. They wanted to leave a little window in there for other things, but as you can see, there is still plenty of room for absurdity.
I'm not sure you can use the 6e playtest rules as evidence to support the intention of the 5e rules. It's entirely possible that the intention of the 5e rule is one way, but for 6e they want to make it the other way. I mean, they changed a lot already for the 6e playtest.
I think it is fairly persuasive, it's just not, like, hard proof.
It's worth pointing out that OneD&D playtest rule also only applies to the specific case where you have intentionally knocked a creature out, it doesn't apply to general unconsciousness; so if someone chokes you out with the intention of not killing you it will apply, but if you fall unconscious by any other means it won't apply, so a new inconsistency just waiting to happen.
In the 5e rules specifically I think the key part for me is that you "can take" a short or long rest, i.e- it's a conscious decision to rest which you simply cannot choose to do if you're not capable of making conscious decisions (one of the major drawbacks of being unconscious 😉).
Personally I'm not a fan of making rests automatic in any other circumstances, and it should be ruled on as pure DM fiat, i.e- "the guards knocked you out and dragged you to a cell, but they checked you were still alive, so I'll let you treat this as a short rest" vs. "a bandit knocked you out and threw you in a pit, you do not find the experience restful".
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You fall asleep. How do you consciously decide how well you sleep?
Sleeping is part of a long rest, so you choose to long rest before falling asleep, i.e- the long rest is going to bed, sleeping is just part of what happens.
If you somehow fall asleep outside of choosing to long rest then it's entirely up to the DM what benefits (if any) you receive for doing so. We've probably all experienced sleeping in odd places and how it can actually be worse than not sleeping at all. 😝
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You are not answering my question. When was the last time you decided, before going to bed, you were going to sleep well, and that mattered for anything?
I answered the question that I thought you'd asked; because apparently I foolishly thought you were asking about rules and game mechanics in the Rules & Game Mechanics forum. 😝 How well people actually sleep outside of a fantasy roleplaying game has precisely zero relevance to the rules query.
But even so my answer pretty much stands; you don't simply sleep, if you're doing it right you go to bed first, and that's what the long rest is, it's preparing for sleep, then (hopefully) doing it. Quality of sleep doesn't matter to the game in the slightest, all that matters is that you get 6 hours uninterrupted as part of a long rest, the only other quality of sleep is being interrupted and receiving neither the benefits of the long rest, nor the freedom from exhaustion that sleeping grants.
While massively simplified it's broadly similar to reality; as long as I get 6-8 hours of sleep I can function normally throughout the day.
Or are you asking about the possibility of a character being unable to sleep? Because your DM can definitely refuse to allow a long rest if your players only recently had one (so wouldn't be tired enough to sleep) or some other factor, but I don't see how that applies to unconsciousness? They can also have players suffer restless nights that deny them some or all of the benefits, or fully interrupt long rests if they want to pile on the pressure.
The simple fact is that unconsciousness in 5e doesn't trigger a rest, but triggering a rest can result in the (temporary) unconsciousness we call sleep, so being knocked unconscious won't give you the same benefits as choosing to do so because you're naturally tired.
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I would say that if a character spends a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds, then they have completed a short rest whether they meant to or not.
Personally I'm not a fan of making rests automatic in any other circumstances, and it should be ruled on as pure DM fiat, i.e- "the guards knocked you out and dragged you to a cell, but they checked you were still alive, so I'll let you treat this as a short rest" vs. "a bandit knocked you out and threw you in a pit, you do not find the experience restful".
I'm unsure why you would distinguish between the two scenarios. In both cases, your character is KO'd and dumped. Them checking your pulse doesn't change anything. Why should one be ruled valid for a short rest and the other not, beyond DM capriciousness?
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Adventurers, as well as other creatures, can take short rests in the midst of a day and a long rest to end it.
It doesn't say that it just happens, and it definitely doesn't say that falling unconscious triggers a rest, you must "take" a short or long rest, meaning it's supposed to be declared.
And should DMs insist that players not overtly saying that their characters are taking long rests before they camp for the night do not do so and therefore wake up exhausted?
We're not talking about characters making camp, we're talking about them being knocked unconscious, there is clearly a difference here; a DM is free to assume that when the players decided to camp for eight hours that they intended to long rest, but they could just as easily say "well you didn't say you were long resting". The latter would clearly be a dick move but inferring what players meant to declare doesn't bypass the fact that they were supposed to, and that it's clearly it's own thing in the rules.
Simply spending 8 hours in restful circumstances (which being knocked unconscious clearly isn't) doesn't automatically equate to a long rest, and nobody should want it to because there are reasons why you don't want to rest; number one being you can only long rest once in 24 hours, and short rests will interrupt certain spells, abilities etc.
I'm unsure why you would distinguish between the two scenarios. In both cases, your character is KO'd and dumped. Them checking your pulse doesn't change anything. Why should one be ruled valid for a short rest and the other not, beyond DM capriciousness?
Guards want you to stay alive and put you in a cell vs. bandits throw you in a pit is exactly the same to you?
To whom are you responding on that? These rules have no connection; being unconscious doesn't currently trigger rests, but the OneD&D playtest is currently threatening to make that happen which is what I don't like, I prefer to leave it to the DM to override when they want to, rather than it being established in RAW that being knocked out in the Forgotten Realms (and beyond) is somehow a "restful" experience.
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What makes you say that short rests have a trigger at all? RAW tells us what a short rest is, and it is simply a period of time in which conditions for completing it are either met or not. Short rests are passive. They do not require action or intention on the part of the resting creature. When a player tells the DM they wish to "take a short rest" they are verbalizing that their character intends to cease performing the activities that prevent a rest from happening, and they wish to do so for a period that satisfies the rest's requirement.
EDIT: To simplify, here's how you can tell if a creature had a short rest:
Did at least an hour go by?
During that time, did the creature do nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds?
If the answers to both questions are yes, then congratulations, the creature has completed a short rest.
Adventurers, as well as other creatures, can take short rests in the midst of a day and a long rest to end it.
It doesn't say that it just happens, and it definitely doesn't say that falling unconscious triggers a rest, you must "take" a short or long rest, meaning it's supposed to be declared.
And should DMs insist that players not overtly saying that their characters are taking long rests before they camp for the night do not do so and therefore wake up exhausted?
We're not talking about characters making camp, we're talking about them being knocked unconscious, there is clearly a difference here; a DM is free to assume that when the players decided to camp for eight hours that they intended to long rest, but they could just as easily say "well you didn't say you were long resting". The latter would clearly be a dick move but inferring what players meant to declare doesn't bypass the fact that they were supposed to, and that it's clearly it's own thing in the rules.
Simply spending 8 hours in restful circumstances (which being knocked unconscious clearly isn't) doesn't automatically equate to a long rest, and nobody should want it to because there are reasons why you don't want to rest; number one being you can only long rest once in 24 hours, and short rests will interrupt certain spells, abilities etc.
I'm unsure why you would distinguish between the two scenarios. In both cases, your character is KO'd and dumped. Them checking your pulse doesn't change anything. Why should one be ruled valid for a short rest and the other not, beyond DM capriciousness?
Guards want you to stay alive and put you in a cell vs. bandits throw you in a pit is exactly the same to you?
To whom are you responding on that? These rules have no connection; being unconscious doesn't currently trigger rests, but the OneD&D playtest is currently threatening to make that happen which is what I don't like, I prefer to leave it to the DM to override when they want to, rather than it being established in RAW that being knocked out in the Forgotten Realms (and beyond) is somehow a "restful" experience.
You seem to partially confusing reality with game rules. You are free to rule things on the basis of how you see reality but you might also want to realize that isn't what the rules say. (Personally, I agree that being unconscious from damage is quite different from being unconscious due to sleeping but the rules as written don't distinguish the two.)
The game says a creature who is stable at zero hit points is unconscious. The game also says that someone who is sleeping is unconscious. The game uses the exact same condition for both. RAW, can an unconscious creature benefit from a rest? Obviously yes, since sleeping is part of a rest and sleeping causes the unconscious condition.
On your other question, does "taking" a rest need to be a conscious decision stated to the DM? No. If the characters decide to chill in a bar, have a meal and a few drinks waiting for a contact to show up, and that wait happens to take more than an hour then the party receives the benefit of the short rest. Do the characters call out to some being "I am taking a short rest now!" ... obviously not. Short and Long rests are again game mechanics. In the game world, the characters just decide to take it easy/chill/go to bed and if the restful experience fits the description for a short or long rest, the character receives the benefits.
If a DM wants to be confrontational (and run a game I would never play in) they could decide to say "ha ha, you players didn't say the characters were resting, so nothing happens" .. even though the characters just spent 8 hours resting. Nope. Not the way I or anyone I would play with would run it. If the character actions fill the requirements for a short or long rest then the characters receive the benefits BECAUSE the characters just rested and not because the players said "We take a long rest". A player statement that the party is taking a rest is a short form to the DM for saying that the characters will only take actions consistent with resting, it isn't required but it makes sure there is no confusion between the players and DM about resting activities.
P.S. If an unconscious character lies on the ground for an hour, and the player decides to expend a hit die, they will wake up after an hour likely with a splitting headache. If they don't spend a hit die, they will wake up naturally in 1-4 hours with one hit point. RAW, that is how it works though a DM could rule that a character requires at least 1 hit point at the start of a short rest to benefit from one but that would be a house rule.
The rule is already in place for a long rest:
"A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits."
However, this does mean that an unconscious character could spend an hour unconscious, spend a hit die to have >0 hit points, then immediately take a long rest which effectively just increases the time for a long rest by an hour which isn't really significant.
Personally I agree with Haravikk as usually you don’t wake up feeling refreshed after being beaten unconscious. I feel that it should be voluntary even though it doesn’t actually state that anywhere in the rules.
What makes you say that short rests have a trigger at all? RAW tells us what a short rest is, and it is simply a period of time in which conditions for completing it are either met or not. Short rests are passive. They do not require action or intention on the part of the resting creature.
As I have quoted the rules for resting specifically state that you "take" a short or long rest; at no point do the short rest rules override this. If the act of resting is all that is required then there is no need to "take" a short or long rest at all, rest is already a verb.
They do not state that any time you spend an hour lounging about a short rest automatically happens, nor should players want it to, otherwise you'll end up with the ridiculous case of the player who must perform strenuous activity 16 hours a day from the moment they wake up in order to avoid accidentally short resting and causing an effect to end, or the party that must avoid at all costs spending too long waiting for some later event or risk wasting their one long rest a day by triggering it accidentally.
Put another way, the rules state what a short rest or a long rest are, they do not state that the reverse is true. Even though a short rest can consist of sitting down and reading for an hour, that does not mean that sitting down and reading for an hour automatically unconditionally triggers a forced short rest.
You seem to partially confusing reality with game rules. You are free to rule things on the basis of how you see reality but you might also want to realize that isn't what the rules say. (Personally, I agree that being unconscious from damage is quite different from being unconscious due to sleeping but the rules as written don't distinguish the two.)
I've quoted the rule that I'm referring to and given my reasoning, so please don't accuse me of not following what the rules say.
The game says a creature who is stable at zero hit points is unconscious. The game also says that someone who is sleeping is unconscious. The game uses the exact same condition for both. RAW, can an unconscious creature benefit from a rest? Obviously yes, since sleeping is part of a rest and sleeping causes the unconscious condition.
This doesn't follow. RAW a creature that is resting can become unconscious while doing so, but the rules never establish that a creature that is unconscious can initiate a rest.
The paralyzed, stunned and unconscious conditions all cause a creature to be incapacitated, but these conditions are not interchangeable; being paralyzed does not mean you get to choose to be stunned instead.
On your other question, does "taking" a rest need to be a conscious decision stated to the DM? No. If the characters decide to chill in a bar, have a meal and a few drinks waiting for a contact to show up, and that wait happens to take more than an hour then the party receives the benefit of the short rest. Do the characters call out to some being "I am taking a short rest now!" ... obviously not.
Obviously not? Citation please! Because this is a game in which players must call attacks, which spells and abilities they're seeking to use etc., a DM is of course always free to take a described action and apply mechanics on their player's behalf ("I climb the wall", "Please make an athletics check") etc. but if what you want to do is short rest then that needs to be made clear or be obvious that that's what you are doing.
While a DM might reasonably assume that when a player chooses to read for an hour that a short rest is what they mean, that's dependent upon the situation, the player and the DM; sitting down and reading for an hour is not automatically triggering a short rest, the player's description is causing the DM to assume that that's what they mean and applying those rules. Unless they're certain the DM should at the very least confirm that's what they meant "So you're taking a short rest?" or "Will you be spending any hit dice" or whatever needs to be considered.
Lying face down borderline drowning in your own drool after being hit over the head with a chair is not "obviously" choosing to "take" a short rest, especially when the fact that you are unconscious means that the character cannot actually choose to do anything.
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What makes you say that short rests have a trigger at all? RAW tells us what a short rest is, and it is simply a period of time in which conditions for completing it are either met or not. Short rests are passive. They do not require action or intention on the part of the resting creature.
As I have quoted the rules for resting specifically state that you "take" a short or long rest; at no point do the short rest rules override this. If the act of resting is all that is required then there is no need to "take" a short or long rest at all, rest is already a verb.
Even if a short rest is somehow a thing that has to be intentionally taken (it isn't), a short rest does not require a creature to move, speak, or take any actions to gain its benefits. By your own standard, "taking a rest" could still be done while a creature is unconscious and incapacitated.
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That helps a lot thx. I think that’s everything cleared up. Thx y’all.
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Per the way the rule is written, there are two valid interpretations of the long rest rule:
At least one hour of:
or if you prefer
In the first case, fighting and casting spells are allowed as long as there is less than an hour of that activity. In the second interpretation, the hour only applies to walking and any fighting or spell casting interrupts the rest. For what it's worth (and here I go again with the One D&D stuff), the new play test rules clarify this as the second interpretation. So which is the correct answer for 5e? I really can't say. Both of those interpretations conform to the rules as written.
haha right? :)
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Hard to believe that fighting for 599 rounds don't need to begin the rest again ☺
True :) ... but should fighting for 30 seconds out of an 8 hour period where you spend 6 hours sleeping and an hour and 59 minutes doing less strenuous activity REALLY prevent the benefits of a long rest?
I think either extreme of the examples - a brief fight preventing a long rest, or a really really long fight that is still less than an hour NOT prevent an long rest - which are the two extremes of any fighting at all and at least an hour of fighting. There is a tweet out there by Mike Mearls that the original intent was an hour of any activity since it didn't make sense for any brief interruption to prevent a long rest. (e.g. cast a cantrip and you don't get a long rest - create bonfire, prestidigitation - you can't use those to start your camp fire or keep it going during the night since they are "casting a spell" ... if a single spell casting interrupts a long rest, it really makes no sense to me as a DM. Similarly, a brief fight doesn't make much sense to me in terms of invalidating the hours of rest and inactivity already accrued. Why would a fight just before breakfast mean the party has to spend the next 8 hours during the day, long resting again? Makes no sense to me).
https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/487280500902342656
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/42123/does-a-short-combat-or-casting-one-spell-interrupt-a-long-rest
Plaguescarred brings up a great point. I think the intention behind it was that a long rest needs no fewer than 7 hours of the 8-hour period being actual rest. They wanted to leave a little window in there for other things, but as you can see, there is still plenty of room for absurdity.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
So basically you can take a long rest, have a 1 hour fight against a dragon or something go back to sleep and there isn’t an interruption?
Characters (Links!):
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I'm not sure you can use the 6e playtest rules as evidence to support the intention of the 5e rules. It's entirely possible that the intention of the 5e rule is one way, but for 6e they want to make it the other way. I mean, they changed a lot already for the 6e playtest.
I think it is fairly persuasive, it's just not, like, hard proof.
It's worth pointing out that OneD&D playtest rule also only applies to the specific case where you have intentionally knocked a creature out, it doesn't apply to general unconsciousness; so if someone chokes you out with the intention of not killing you it will apply, but if you fall unconscious by any other means it won't apply, so a new inconsistency just waiting to happen.
In the 5e rules specifically I think the key part for me is that you "can take" a short or long rest, i.e- it's a conscious decision to rest which you simply cannot choose to do if you're not capable of making conscious decisions (one of the major drawbacks of being unconscious 😉).
Personally I'm not a fan of making rests automatic in any other circumstances, and it should be ruled on as pure DM fiat, i.e- "the guards knocked you out and dragged you to a cell, but they checked you were still alive, so I'll let you treat this as a short rest" vs. "a bandit knocked you out and threw you in a pit, you do not find the experience restful".
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Sleeping is part of a long rest, so you choose to long rest before falling asleep, i.e- the long rest is going to bed, sleeping is just part of what happens.
If you somehow fall asleep outside of choosing to long rest then it's entirely up to the DM what benefits (if any) you receive for doing so. We've probably all experienced sleeping in odd places and how it can actually be worse than not sleeping at all. 😝
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I answered the question that I thought you'd asked; because apparently I foolishly thought you were asking about rules and game mechanics in the Rules & Game Mechanics forum. 😝
How well people actually sleep outside of a fantasy roleplaying game has precisely zero relevance to the rules query.
But even so my answer pretty much stands; you don't simply sleep, if you're doing it right you go to bed first, and that's what the long rest is, it's preparing for sleep, then (hopefully) doing it. Quality of sleep doesn't matter to the game in the slightest, all that matters is that you get 6 hours uninterrupted as part of a long rest, the only other quality of sleep is being interrupted and receiving neither the benefits of the long rest, nor the freedom from exhaustion that sleeping grants.
While massively simplified it's broadly similar to reality; as long as I get 6-8 hours of sleep I can function normally throughout the day.
Or are you asking about the possibility of a character being unable to sleep? Because your DM can definitely refuse to allow a long rest if your players only recently had one (so wouldn't be tired enough to sleep) or some other factor, but I don't see how that applies to unconsciousness? They can also have players suffer restless nights that deny them some or all of the benefits, or fully interrupt long rests if they want to pile on the pressure.
The simple fact is that unconsciousness in 5e doesn't trigger a rest, but triggering a rest can result in the (temporary) unconsciousness we call sleep, so being knocked unconscious won't give you the same benefits as choosing to do so because you're naturally tired.
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I would say that if a character spends a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds, then they have completed a short rest whether they meant to or not.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I'm unsure why you would distinguish between the two scenarios. In both cases, your character is KO'd and dumped. Them checking your pulse doesn't change anything. Why should one be ruled valid for a short rest and the other not, beyond DM capriciousness?
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We do not need DM fiat because there is RAW for being knocked unconscious, the unconscious condition, and taking a short rest. It shouldn't be hard to determine which interactions are compatible.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
The resting rules state:
It doesn't say that it just happens, and it definitely doesn't say that falling unconscious triggers a rest, you must "take" a short or long rest, meaning it's supposed to be declared.
We're not talking about characters making camp, we're talking about them being knocked unconscious, there is clearly a difference here; a DM is free to assume that when the players decided to camp for eight hours that they intended to long rest, but they could just as easily say "well you didn't say you were long resting". The latter would clearly be a dick move but inferring what players meant to declare doesn't bypass the fact that they were supposed to, and that it's clearly it's own thing in the rules.
Simply spending 8 hours in restful circumstances (which being knocked unconscious clearly isn't) doesn't automatically equate to a long rest, and nobody should want it to because there are reasons why you don't want to rest; number one being you can only long rest once in 24 hours, and short rests will interrupt certain spells, abilities etc.
Guards want you to stay alive and put you in a cell vs. bandits throw you in a pit is exactly the same to you?
To whom are you responding on that? These rules have no connection; being unconscious doesn't currently trigger rests, but the OneD&D playtest is currently threatening to make that happen which is what I don't like, I prefer to leave it to the DM to override when they want to, rather than it being established in RAW that being knocked out in the Forgotten Realms (and beyond) is somehow a "restful" experience.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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What makes you say that short rests have a trigger at all? RAW tells us what a short rest is, and it is simply a period of time in which conditions for completing it are either met or not. Short rests are passive. They do not require action or intention on the part of the resting creature. When a player tells the DM they wish to "take a short rest" they are verbalizing that their character intends to cease performing the activities that prevent a rest from happening, and they wish to do so for a period that satisfies the rest's requirement.
EDIT: To simplify, here's how you can tell if a creature had a short rest:
If the answers to both questions are yes, then congratulations, the creature has completed a short rest.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You seem to partially confusing reality with game rules. You are free to rule things on the basis of how you see reality but you might also want to realize that isn't what the rules say. (Personally, I agree that being unconscious from damage is quite different from being unconscious due to sleeping but the rules as written don't distinguish the two.)
The game says a creature who is stable at zero hit points is unconscious. The game also says that someone who is sleeping is unconscious. The game uses the exact same condition for both. RAW, can an unconscious creature benefit from a rest? Obviously yes, since sleeping is part of a rest and sleeping causes the unconscious condition.
On your other question, does "taking" a rest need to be a conscious decision stated to the DM? No. If the characters decide to chill in a bar, have a meal and a few drinks waiting for a contact to show up, and that wait happens to take more than an hour then the party receives the benefit of the short rest. Do the characters call out to some being "I am taking a short rest now!" ... obviously not. Short and Long rests are again game mechanics. In the game world, the characters just decide to take it easy/chill/go to bed and if the restful experience fits the description for a short or long rest, the character receives the benefits.
If a DM wants to be confrontational (and run a game I would never play in) they could decide to say "ha ha, you players didn't say the characters were resting, so nothing happens" .. even though the characters just spent 8 hours resting. Nope. Not the way I or anyone I would play with would run it. If the character actions fill the requirements for a short or long rest then the characters receive the benefits BECAUSE the characters just rested and not because the players said "We take a long rest". A player statement that the party is taking a rest is a short form to the DM for saying that the characters will only take actions consistent with resting, it isn't required but it makes sure there is no confusion between the players and DM about resting activities.
P.S. If an unconscious character lies on the ground for an hour, and the player decides to expend a hit die, they will wake up after an hour likely with a splitting headache. If they don't spend a hit die, they will wake up naturally in 1-4 hours with one hit point. RAW, that is how it works though a DM could rule that a character requires at least 1 hit point at the start of a short rest to benefit from one but that would be a house rule.
The rule is already in place for a long rest:
"A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits."
However, this does mean that an unconscious character could spend an hour unconscious, spend a hit die to have >0 hit points, then immediately take a long rest which effectively just increases the time for a long rest by an hour which isn't really significant.
Personally I agree with Haravikk as usually you don’t wake up feeling refreshed after being beaten unconscious. I feel that it should be voluntary even though it doesn’t actually state that anywhere in the rules.
Characters (Links!):
Faelin Nighthollow - 7th Sojourn
As I have quoted the rules for resting specifically state that you "take" a short or long rest; at no point do the short rest rules override this. If the act of resting is all that is required then there is no need to "take" a short or long rest at all, rest is already a verb.
They do not state that any time you spend an hour lounging about a short rest automatically happens, nor should players want it to, otherwise you'll end up with the ridiculous case of the player who must perform strenuous activity 16 hours a day from the moment they wake up in order to avoid accidentally short resting and causing an effect to end, or the party that must avoid at all costs spending too long waiting for some later event or risk wasting their one long rest a day by triggering it accidentally.
Put another way, the rules state what a short rest or a long rest are, they do not state that the reverse is true. Even though a short rest can consist of sitting down and reading for an hour, that does not mean that sitting down and reading for an hour automatically unconditionally triggers a forced short rest.
I've quoted the rule that I'm referring to and given my reasoning, so please don't accuse me of not following what the rules say.
This doesn't follow. RAW a creature that is resting can become unconscious while doing so, but the rules never establish that a creature that is unconscious can initiate a rest.
The paralyzed, stunned and unconscious conditions all cause a creature to be incapacitated, but these conditions are not interchangeable; being paralyzed does not mean you get to choose to be stunned instead.
Obviously not? Citation please! Because this is a game in which players must call attacks, which spells and abilities they're seeking to use etc., a DM is of course always free to take a described action and apply mechanics on their player's behalf ("I climb the wall", "Please make an athletics check") etc. but if what you want to do is short rest then that needs to be made clear or be obvious that that's what you are doing.
While a DM might reasonably assume that when a player chooses to read for an hour that a short rest is what they mean, that's dependent upon the situation, the player and the DM; sitting down and reading for an hour is not automatically triggering a short rest, the player's description is causing the DM to assume that that's what they mean and applying those rules. Unless they're certain the DM should at the very least confirm that's what they meant "So you're taking a short rest?" or "Will you be spending any hit dice" or whatever needs to be considered.
Lying face down borderline drowning in your own drool after being hit over the head with a chair is not "obviously" choosing to "take" a short rest, especially when the fact that you are unconscious means that the character cannot actually choose to do anything.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The rules state that a short rest is a period of downtime where they don’t do anything strenuous. The definition for downtime is:
Not sure about you guys but being smacked unconscious is generally not that relaxing.
Characters (Links!):
Faelin Nighthollow - 7th Sojourn
Even if a short rest is somehow a thing that has to be intentionally taken (it isn't), a short rest does not require a creature to move, speak, or take any actions to gain its benefits. By your own standard, "taking a rest" could still be done while a creature is unconscious and incapacitated.
"Not all those who wander are lost"