At least one exploit I can think of is what Trirhabda mentioned about the fighter using Second Wind repetitively on the hour to heal rather than spending hit dice or taking a long rest.
It comes with the risk, however, of the ambush: the fighter's health hasn't been fully restored compared to others who spent hit dice.
The fighter can use hit dice in addition to second winds. A warlock multiclass to get healing spells can heal the party over a long rest. But in both of thoae cases, the party will heal at the and of rhe rest anyway, so it only helps in the night ambush scenario.
The circumstance he mentioned--if I'm fairly describing it--was the fighter trying to conserve hit dice by using Second Wind every hour instead of spending the dice to heal. I imagine this would be beneficial if the party were low on hit dice and had some reason to believe they wouldn't be able to complete the long rest.
Truthfully, the more I read the RAW on resting, I don't see a reason to forbid the practice. If the fighter completes a short rest, I can't find anything that explicitly prohibits the time from counting toward a long rest as well.
DxJxC, I think you're right about the consistency of it. If the first hour counts as a short rest, then every uninterrupted hour should count as well as another short rest. I'm also not really seeing anything all that awful about it.
More then second wind the main issue here is Action Surge. Take the following
Fighter uses action surge during the day, party start a long rest and party is attacked during the night.
Now there are 2 options here the way I see it.
Either the Fighter has regained the action surge due to completing a short rest at the start of the long rest and can use it during this ambush Or the fighter is not due to regain action surge until the end of the long rest.
If the Fighter has regained action surge at the start of the long rest and then uses it during the ambush do they then regain it again at the end of the long rest when they recover all long rest activities?
This may seem a small issue but it turns the difficult decisions that need to be made when ambushed over night in terms of what actions you reserve for the next day, and allows anyone with abilities that recover with a short rest to simply recharge when they go back to sleep.
I agree that this is one of the overlooked questions. It also has implications for spellcasters too and "Long Rest Reset" abilities.
1) A party is attacked as they begin their long rest ... the party just uses the abilities they have left since they haven't reset anything.
2) Half the party goes on a rest and the other half serves as the watch. The party is attacked two hours into this watch. ... The whole party gets "Short Rest Resets"?
2A) The party resumes resting, and then switches over so the other half receive a long rest. The party wakes up. ... Everyone has the benefit of a long rest?
3) Half the party has completed resting and is now one watch while the first bunch begins resting. The party is attacked two hours before they expect to begin their day. ... Everyone gets their "Short Rest Resets" and half the party is now working from their "Long Rest Resets"?
3A) The party resumes resting and then wakes up and gets ready for the new day (2 hours later). ... The party that rested first has expended some of their Long Rest abilities, but has the benefit of a short rest, and the rest of the party is fresh off a long rest?
It seems there are a lot of combinations that can impact where you begin in the morning.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
"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."
consider that they may have meant; an hour of walking "or" fighting of any kind "or" casting even one spell etc.
historically a rest was interrupted when combat began
"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."
consider that they may have meant; an hour of walking "or" fighting of any kind "or" casting even one spell etc.
historically a rest was interrupted when combat began
Grammatically this is not what this says, and it has been clarified before by the game designers that they mean an hour total activity be that walking, fighting, casting spells over the course of a long rest. Cant find the reference irritatingly.
What this means is that if you get woken up and have a combat for 5 mins that’s fine, if you wake up for 5 mins every hour that’s fine as well, but if you wake up for 10 mins of an 8 hour rest you lose the benefit a as it is a total of 80 mins. all of which makes sense, in real life you can wake up in the middle of the night spend 30-45 mins awake and then go back to sleep and still feel refreshed.
Thanks for finding that :) and it is one of the things that they really leave ambiguous, I get that DM's have freedom to interpret the rules, but some of the rules really need some clarity, or at least a list of examples to draw upon and decide in the situation presented in game what is the best way to rule the situation,
A short rest is "at least one hour" an interrupted long rest is just 1 short rest. If you rule that it counts as nothing then all that happens is you force your players to meta game and insist on a short rest before every long rest. Reap as you sow!
A short rest is 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.
A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Hit Points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.
As such, I would rule yes.
I was gonna say the ONLY part of a short rest that, as DM, I would rule no benefit from is regaining hit points from hit dice, since it happens "at the end of a short rest."
However, idk how you'd write that into the story. If you're "tending to wounds" during a short rest and get hit points from hit dice, surely you're doing something similar during a long rest if you regain all lost hit points. You didn't just go to sleep bleeding thinking "a good rest will clear this up." You wrapped the wounds, applied the herbs, and layed to rest. As a DM I'd probably rule like this. You're interrupted! You get to roll maybe 1/4 of your hit dice maximum, rounded down, minimum 1 hit dice per hour of rest you are into the long rest. To kind of issue a breakdown of a long rest as you gaining in 4 hours all your hit dice worth of hp (1/4 per hour) and the other 4 of the long rest justifiying why you healed to full without spending hit dice.
To play devil's advocate, though:
Interrupted rest is just that, and you get nothing. Think of 1 long rest being broken up 4, 5 or 6 times on the hour, and a player like a warlock or druid can use all their spells or wild shapes respectively in each fight, just seems broken. Granted something like this is never gonna happen unless the DM really hates you, gotta push it to the limit to see rules for what they are.
IRL example: you meant to take a 20-30 minute nap, got your bed situated, maybe threw on som pajamas and read some of a book to relax you, takes about an hour. Boom, short rest.
If you did all that and overslept, like 2 and 1/2 hours, you wake up groggy and the "nap" actually did more harm than good.
"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."
consider that they may have meant; an hour of walking "or" fighting of any kind "or" casting even one spell etc.
historically a rest was interrupted when combat began
I am 100% firmly in this camp. I actually find it baffling how many people really think that it should be interpreted the other way, regardless of what the developers may have said on the matter. The only reason why you are allowed to walk for up to an hour is to make it physically possible to be in a normal camping environment without invalidating the long rest. If you aren't even allowed to walk from the dinner table to your bedroll then things get pretty strange. But no fighting, no casting spells and no other similar adventuring activity is allowed.
One clue that we have that this is the correct interpretation is that the sentence starts out by saying that the rest is interrupted "by a period of strenuous activity" and then provides some examples. This implies that the "period" of time will vary depending on the type of activity. Otherwise, it would have been written as: "the rest is interrupted by at least 1 hour of strenuous activity" if that was what was meant.
Using this interpretation also instantly solves the other "problems" that have been brought up in this thread. Someone wants to use Second Wind? Sorry, that falls under the "similar Adventuring activity" category of being too strenuous -- long rest is interrupted by using Second Wind. Done. Easy Game.
As for whether or not to allow the beginning of a Long Rest to satisfy the requirement for completing a Short Rest -- this probably should be allowed but given the above interpretation it shouldn't make much of a difference (in fact, it's just one hour different). However, I think that the DM should make a point of asking the players ahead of time how many Hit Dice they want to use when their short rest(s) completes before they even begin the long rest. Or, more precisely, let them actually roll as many Hit Dice as they want but have them wait until you confirm that they've actually completed their short rest before they add the hit points to their character sheet. That way, there is no metagaming possible if and when an encounter takes place -- they've already had their opportunity to use their Hit Dice (assuming the encounter happens after the short rest completed). Doing it that way also makes it so that it actually makes no mechanical difference at all if there was only one short rest or several short rests in a row -- all hit dice usage has already been declared.
A rest, short or long, isn't even an "action" that players get to decide to take. It is simply a list of benefits you get when the conditions are met.
If your players are lounging around or RPing or whatever for an hour. You the DM should just tell them when the benefits of the rest should be applied. That's not even something they should need to actively be trying to do.
So the question baffles me a little. If they've completed 3 hours of a long rests requirements before getting ambushed... they obviously already completed 3 short rests.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
In case anyone (like me) stumbles upon this thread while desperately seeking knowledge about The Many Mysteries of Resting, they updated this in the 2024 Basic Rules:
Interrupting the Rest. A Long Rest is stopped by the following interruptions:
More then second wind the main issue here is Action Surge. Take the following
Fighter uses action surge during the day, party start a long rest and party is attacked during the night.
Now there are 2 options here the way I see it.
Either the Fighter has regained the action surge due to completing a short rest at the start of the long rest and can use it during this ambush
Or the fighter is not due to regain action surge until the end of the long rest.
If the Fighter has regained action surge at the start of the long rest and then uses it during the ambush do they then regain it again at the end of the long rest when they recover all long rest activities?
This may seem a small issue but it turns the difficult decisions that need to be made when ambushed over night in terms of what actions you reserve for the next day, and allows anyone with abilities that recover with a short rest to simply recharge when they go back to sleep.
I agree that this is one of the overlooked questions. It also has implications for spellcasters too and "Long Rest Reset" abilities.
1) A party is attacked as they begin their long rest ... the party just uses the abilities they have left since they haven't reset anything.
2) Half the party goes on a rest and the other half serves as the watch. The party is attacked two hours into this watch. ... The whole party gets "Short Rest Resets"?
2A) The party resumes resting, and then switches over so the other half receive a long rest. The party wakes up. ... Everyone has the benefit of a long rest?
3) Half the party has completed resting and is now one watch while the first bunch begins resting. The party is attacked two hours before they expect to begin their day. ... Everyone gets their "Short Rest Resets" and half the party is now working from their "Long Rest Resets"?
3A) The party resumes resting and then wakes up and gets ready for the new day (2 hours later). ... The party that rested first has expended some of their Long Rest abilities, but has the benefit of a short rest, and the rest of the party is fresh off a long rest?
It seems there are a lot of combinations that can impact where you begin in the morning.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
regarding the interpretation of
long rest:
"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."
consider that they may have meant; an hour of walking "or" fighting of any kind "or" casting even one spell etc.
historically a rest was interrupted when combat began
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
Grammatically this is not what this says, and it has been clarified before by the game designers that they mean an hour total activity be that walking, fighting, casting spells over the course of a long rest. Cant find the reference irritatingly.
What this means is that if you get woken up and have a combat for 5 mins that’s fine, if you wake up for 5 mins every hour that’s fine as well, but if you wake up for 10 mins of an 8 hour rest you lose the benefit a as it is a total of 80 mins. all of which makes sense, in real life you can wake up in the middle of the night spend 30-45 mins awake and then go back to sleep and still feel refreshed.
well it is a shame they left that so ambiguous
here is a ref to JC
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
Thanks for finding that :) and it is one of the things that they really leave ambiguous, I get that DM's have freedom to interpret the rules, but some of the rules really need some clarity, or at least a list of examples to draw upon and decide in the situation presented in game what is the best way to rule the situation,
A short rest is "at least one hour" an interrupted long rest is just 1 short rest. If you rule that it counts as nothing then all that happens is you force your players to meta game and insist on a short rest before every long rest. Reap as you sow!
I was gonna say the ONLY part of a short rest that, as DM, I would rule no benefit from is regaining hit points from hit dice, since it happens "at the end of a short rest."
However, idk how you'd write that into the story. If you're "tending to wounds" during a short rest and get hit points from hit dice, surely you're doing something similar during a long rest if you regain all lost hit points. You didn't just go to sleep bleeding thinking "a good rest will clear this up." You wrapped the wounds, applied the herbs, and layed to rest. As a DM I'd probably rule like this. You're interrupted! You get to roll maybe 1/4 of your hit dice maximum, rounded down, minimum 1 hit dice per hour of rest you are into the long rest. To kind of issue a breakdown of a long rest as you gaining in 4 hours all your hit dice worth of hp (1/4 per hour) and the other 4 of the long rest justifiying why you healed to full without spending hit dice.
To play devil's advocate, though:
Interrupted rest is just that, and you get nothing. Think of 1 long rest being broken up 4, 5 or 6 times on the hour, and a player like a warlock or druid can use all their spells or wild shapes respectively in each fight, just seems broken. Granted something like this is never gonna happen unless the DM really hates you, gotta push it to the limit to see rules for what they are.
IRL example: you meant to take a 20-30 minute nap, got your bed situated, maybe threw on som pajamas and read some of a book to relax you, takes about an hour. Boom, short rest.
If you did all that and overslept, like 2 and 1/2 hours, you wake up groggy and the "nap" actually did more harm than good.
I am 100% firmly in this camp. I actually find it baffling how many people really think that it should be interpreted the other way, regardless of what the developers may have said on the matter. The only reason why you are allowed to walk for up to an hour is to make it physically possible to be in a normal camping environment without invalidating the long rest. If you aren't even allowed to walk from the dinner table to your bedroll then things get pretty strange. But no fighting, no casting spells and no other similar adventuring activity is allowed.
One clue that we have that this is the correct interpretation is that the sentence starts out by saying that the rest is interrupted "by a period of strenuous activity" and then provides some examples. This implies that the "period" of time will vary depending on the type of activity. Otherwise, it would have been written as: "the rest is interrupted by at least 1 hour of strenuous activity" if that was what was meant.
Using this interpretation also instantly solves the other "problems" that have been brought up in this thread. Someone wants to use Second Wind? Sorry, that falls under the "similar Adventuring activity" category of being too strenuous -- long rest is interrupted by using Second Wind. Done. Easy Game.
As for whether or not to allow the beginning of a Long Rest to satisfy the requirement for completing a Short Rest -- this probably should be allowed but given the above interpretation it shouldn't make much of a difference (in fact, it's just one hour different). However, I think that the DM should make a point of asking the players ahead of time how many Hit Dice they want to use when their short rest(s) completes before they even begin the long rest. Or, more precisely, let them actually roll as many Hit Dice as they want but have them wait until you confirm that they've actually completed their short rest before they add the hit points to their character sheet. That way, there is no metagaming possible if and when an encounter takes place -- they've already had their opportunity to use their Hit Dice (assuming the encounter happens after the short rest completed). Doing it that way also makes it so that it actually makes no mechanical difference at all if there was only one short rest or several short rests in a row -- all hit dice usage has already been declared.
A rest, short or long, isn't even an "action" that players get to decide to take. It is simply a list of benefits you get when the conditions are met.
If your players are lounging around or RPing or whatever for an hour. You the DM should just tell them when the benefits of the rest should be applied. That's not even something they should need to actively be trying to do.
So the question baffles me a little. If they've completed 3 hours of a long rests requirements before getting ambushed... they obviously already completed 3 short rests.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
In case anyone (like me) stumbles upon this thread while desperately seeking knowledge about The Many Mysteries of Resting, they updated this in the 2024 Basic Rules:
Interrupting the Rest. A Long Rest is stopped by the following interruptions:
If you rested at least 1 hour before the interruption, you gain the benefits of a Short Rest. See also “Short Rest.”
You can resume a Long Rest immediately after an interruption. If you do so, the rest requires 1 additional hour per interruption to finish.