I’m not great at formal logic either, the sigh was more about my inability to get my point across, not anyone else’s failure to understand. Sorry for my tone, that wasn’t necessary of me.
But the relevance is, you can’t long rest without sleeping (or, without a feature that replaces sleeping). But, you can sleep without long resting (victim of a dream spell, sleeping for a second time within same 24 hours that you’ve already long rested). Sleep is necessary to long rest, but not sufficient to long rest.
So would you say that a human who sleeps for 8 hours doesn't gain the benefits of a long rest?
And I was a little worried up, too, so I tried to deflect with comedy.
I’m not great at formal logic either, the sigh was more about my inability to get my point across, not anyone else’s failure to understand. Sorry for my tone, that wasn’t necessary of me.
But the relevance is, you can’t long rest without sleeping (or, without a feature that replaces sleeping). But, you can sleep without long resting (victim of a dream spell, sleeping for a second time within same 24 hours that you’ve already long rested). Sleep is necessary to long rest, but not sufficient to long rest.
I followed. I have been abused by a DM and the dream spell before.
I’m not great at formal logic either, the sigh was more about my inability to get my point across, not anyone else’s failure to understand. Sorry for my tone, that wasn’t necessary of me.
But the relevance is, you can’t long rest without sleeping (or, without a feature that replaces sleeping). But, you can sleep without long resting (victim of a dream spell, sleeping for a second time within same 24 hours that you’ve already long rested). Sleep is necessary to long rest, but not sufficient to long rest.
Sleeping for less than six hours isn't sufficient for a long rest, but sleeping for eight hours is, by the definition of a long rest. If sleeping for eight hours is sufficient, then trancing for four hours is sufficient. The specific rule that an elf gains all the benefits of eight hours of sleep in four hours trumps the general rule than a long rest is a period eight hours long.
In all of your "sleep without long resting" examples, the human wouldn't gain the benefits of a long rest from their sleep, so an elf wouldn't from their trance under those same circumstances (they can't be the victim of a dream spell anyway, but the "second long rest" holds). But if a human just goes to sleep normally for at least eight hours, they do gain the benefits of a long rest, so the elf does as well under those same circumstances.
It's not complicated: if a human would get a long rest out of their eight hours, a similarly situated elf does in four. If the human wouldn't get a long rest, the elf wouldn't either, because a long rest is no longer one of the benefits of the human's eight hours of sleep.
That has a logic to it, but entirely fails to explain why elves are longresting in 4 hours while warlocks are twiddling their thumbs for 8 wide awake. If sleeping faster (or not at all) was intended to accelerate long rests, it would say so. THey had the opportunity to write that, didn't, published an errata, still didn't, and have continued to publish rules like Aspect of the Moon (Warlock), Undying Nature (Warlock), Sentry's Rest (Warforged), Revived Nature (Rogue), Potion of Watchful Rest which shorten or eliminate sleep while sometimes explicitly not shortening a long rest. And, fails to explain why it takes a human 8 hours to long rest if they only need to sleep for 6.
There is nothing wrong with the logic of "long rest is sleep, and sleeping faster means resting faster." Crawford's back and forth tweets show that at least some of the writers probably agreed with you at certain points along the way. It's just that that doesn't happen to be the system that was ultimately implemented RAW. Long rests are defined or referred to as being 8 hours in the multiple places in the core rulebooks, and there is not one single written passage referring to a shorter-than-8-hours long rest resulting from anything having to do with sleep cycles. Logical connections do not trump rules text when we're discussing RAW rules systems, though DMs are free to houserule faster restring rules for elves in their campaign.
The reason warlocks are twiddling their thumbs is that Aspect of the Moon doesn’t say they gain the benefits of eight hours of sleep in any amount of time. It says they gain the benefits of a long rest by chilling for eight hours.
The reason elves are longresting is, assuming the other conditions are met, a long rest IS one of the benefits of eight hours of sleep. It’s not that a long rest just IS sleep, it’s that sleep ENTAILS a long rest (again, assuming other conditions are met).
it definitely seems like the two features were written by different people, and inconsistent rules language has already been brought up as an issue in this thread, but in this case, though it does make the reader do a little bit more work, I don’t think it greatly obscures anything.
Guys we keep having this issue of the rules not being clear, but the the SAC makes a ruling one side disagrees with. Then one side will say the SAC opposes the RAW, and the other side will say the RAW always could have meant that and the SAC clarifies it. Then both sides repeat themselves for 8 pages and the conversation goes nowhere.
Both sides of the argument have been presented, the SAC and actual rules have been quoted. Lets just agree to move on before we all make asses of ourselves by doing exactly what I just predicted (again).
I think I agree with DxJxC on this. The Sage Advice Compendium (as it is presented here on DDB and on the WOTC website and not plain old SA columns or JC tweets or MM tweets) are official rulings: it says so right in the introduction. Not every unexpected rules interaction needs to have errata written for it; sometimes you just need an official ruling. As far as I am concerned, and as far as "rules and game mechanics" questions can be answered, an official ruling carries the weight of a rule.
Is it possible that Trance doesn't explicitly say that a 4 hour Trance is a long rest because isn't there an optional rule where a long rest is a week and a short rest is 8 hours? And instead of someone using that optional rule having to tweak every ability that gets changed - Trance just says it does in 4 hours what a human can do with 8 hours sleep.
I think I agree with DxJxC on this. The Sage Advice Compendium (as it is presented here on DDB and on the WOTC website and not plain old SA columns or JC tweets or MM tweets) are official rulings: it says so right in the introduction. Not every unexpected rules interaction needs to have errata written for it; sometimes you just need an official ruling. As far as I am concerned, and as far as "rules and game mechanics" questions can be answered, an official ruling carries the weight of a rule.
There. Now we can just cite to a different thread whenever this argument comes up. Rulings aren't rules, they never will be, and I think it's extremely problematic that you are all so eager to shut down conversations in a Rules forum by essentially saying "why even bother exercising independent thought and critical analysis, when we could instead just parrot the unexplained and often internally-inconsistent conclusions drawn by somebody else?"
But hey, that's an argument for another thread (the one linked) ;)
So would you say that a human who sleeps for 8 hours doesn't gain the benefits of a long rest?
And I was a little worried up, too, so I tried to deflect with comedy.
I followed. I have been abused by a DM and the dream spell before.
Blank
Sleeping for less than six hours isn't sufficient for a long rest, but sleeping for eight hours is, by the definition of a long rest. If sleeping for eight hours is sufficient, then trancing for four hours is sufficient. The specific rule that an elf gains all the benefits of eight hours of sleep in four hours trumps the general rule than a long rest is a period eight hours long.
In all of your "sleep without long resting" examples, the human wouldn't gain the benefits of a long rest from their sleep, so an elf wouldn't from their trance under those same circumstances (they can't be the victim of a dream spell anyway, but the "second long rest" holds). But if a human just goes to sleep normally for at least eight hours, they do gain the benefits of a long rest, so the elf does as well under those same circumstances.
It's not complicated: if a human would get a long rest out of their eight hours, a similarly situated elf does in four. If the human wouldn't get a long rest, the elf wouldn't either, because a long rest is no longer one of the benefits of the human's eight hours of sleep.
That has a logic to it, but entirely fails to explain why elves are longresting in 4 hours while warlocks are twiddling their thumbs for 8 wide awake. If sleeping faster (or not at all) was intended to accelerate long rests, it would say so. THey had the opportunity to write that, didn't, published an errata, still didn't, and have continued to publish rules like Aspect of the Moon (Warlock), Undying Nature (Warlock), Sentry's Rest (Warforged), Revived Nature (Rogue), Potion of Watchful Rest which shorten or eliminate sleep while sometimes explicitly not shortening a long rest. And, fails to explain why it takes a human 8 hours to long rest if they only need to sleep for 6.
There is nothing wrong with the logic of "long rest is sleep, and sleeping faster means resting faster." Crawford's back and forth tweets show that at least some of the writers probably agreed with you at certain points along the way. It's just that that doesn't happen to be the system that was ultimately implemented RAW. Long rests are defined or referred to as being 8 hours in the multiple places in the core rulebooks, and there is not one single written passage referring to a shorter-than-8-hours long rest resulting from anything having to do with sleep cycles. Logical connections do not trump rules text when we're discussing RAW rules systems, though DMs are free to houserule faster restring rules for elves in their campaign.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The reason warlocks are twiddling their thumbs is that Aspect of the Moon doesn’t say they gain the benefits of eight hours of sleep in any amount of time. It says they gain the benefits of a long rest by chilling for eight hours.
The reason elves are longresting is, assuming the other conditions are met, a long rest IS one of the benefits of eight hours of sleep. It’s not that a long rest just IS sleep, it’s that sleep ENTAILS a long rest (again, assuming other conditions are met).
it definitely seems like the two features were written by different people, and inconsistent rules language has already been brought up as an issue in this thread, but in this case, though it does make the reader do a little bit more work, I don’t think it greatly obscures anything.
Guys we keep having this issue of the rules not being clear, but the the SAC makes a ruling one side disagrees with. Then one side will say the SAC opposes the RAW, and the other side will say the RAW always could have meant that and the SAC clarifies it. Then both sides repeat themselves for 8 pages and the conversation goes nowhere.
Both sides of the argument have been presented, the SAC and actual rules have been quoted. Lets just agree to move on before we all make asses of ourselves by doing exactly what I just predicted (again).
I think I agree with DxJxC on this. The Sage Advice Compendium (as it is presented here on DDB and on the WOTC website and not plain old SA columns or JC tweets or MM tweets) are official rulings: it says so right in the introduction. Not every unexpected rules interaction needs to have errata written for it; sometimes you just need an official ruling. As far as I am concerned, and as far as "rules and game mechanics" questions can be answered, an official ruling carries the weight of a rule.
Is it possible that Trance doesn't explicitly say that a 4 hour Trance is a long rest because isn't there an optional rule where a long rest is a week and a short rest is 8 hours? And instead of someone using that optional rule having to tweak every ability that gets changed - Trance just says it does in 4 hours what a human can do with 8 hours sleep.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Really it's just another case of annoyingly ambiguous wording in the rules.
The intent and ruling are clear, so if you're playing in any official capacity, Trance counts as a long rest. If you're not, do whatever you prefer.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/50948-what-are-rules
There. Now we can just cite to a different thread whenever this argument comes up. Rulings aren't rules, they never will be, and I think it's extremely problematic that you are all so eager to shut down conversations in a Rules forum by essentially saying "why even bother exercising independent thought and critical analysis, when we could instead just parrot the unexplained and often internally-inconsistent conclusions drawn by somebody else?"
But hey, that's an argument for another thread (the one linked) ;)
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.