In Dungeons and Dragons, resting serves as both a narrative pause and a crucial game mechanic. The game has two types of rests: long rests and short rests. Short rests are generally the same, with all spells being restored after a long rest and none after a short rest. However, some classes regain some or all spells with a short rest.
In most scenarios, players should only take short rests in dungeons. Warlocks can regain all spell slots after either a long or short rest (at least 1 hour), with no requirements. Wizards can use a feature similar to a Druid, but some classes can also recover spell slots without taking a long rest.
Warlocks can recover all slots on short rest too, while all spellcasters regain spell slots during a long rest, except for the DnD Warlock. They can also regain all expended spell slots when they finish a long rest. To recharge abilities and spells, recover hit points with natural healing, and handle certain tasks like identifying magic items, players must prepare the list of cleric spells available for them to cast.
Warlocks have their spell slots fully replenished after a short rest, while all other spellcasting classes need a Long Rest to completely recharge their spells. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a short or long rest.
In 5e, by default, players rest for 8 hours and get all their spell slots back. This encourages the novanova>rest> repeat, which makes the cost of spells more manageable. A character regains hit points equal to the total, and the player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll.
In summary, resting is a crucial game mechanic in Dungeons and Dragons, with short rests and long rests playing a significant role in the game’s mechanics.
📹 Rest casting in Dnd 5e
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Does long rest restore spell slots?
Cantrips are spells that can be used anytime without expending spell slots, making them a reliable option in early games. Gale uses Firebolt and Frost Ray as cantrips, which can be used freely without worrying about rest. Resting is crucial for refilling slots, with up to 2 Short Rests per Long Rest. A short rest refills Warlock’s spells and 50 of your health, but should be used sparingly. Long Rest refills full health and all spell slots for your party, but should be avoided during quests as it can pass time and slow the story. Some classes can use “Spell Slot Restoration” to refill spells once per Long Rest, but avoiding Long Resting can help avoid frequent use.
Can you change spells after a long rest?
Druids are permitted to modify their prepared spells following a period of rest, which must be at least one minute in duration for each additional spell level. It should be noted, however, that this does not apply to cantrips, which remain fixed at the chosen cantrips as the druid’s level increases.
What do you regain on a short rest?
A character can reclaim HP by rolling a number of their hit dies after an uninterrupted short rest, which can be used to quickly regain lost health after a long fight. Some classes, such as Warlocks and Fighters, can reclaim their key class features by completing a short rest, unlike other spellcasters. Warlocks can reclaim their spell slots by completing a short rest, while Fighters can regain their Action Surge feature by concluding a short rest.
Does short rest heal spell slots?
A Warlock does not require a full rest to recover used spell slots, but a short rest can refill spells and a Monk’s Ki points if they spend at least 30 minutes in meditation. A long rest is 8 hours, with no interruptions for more than an hour. All HP and spell slots are restored at the end. Hit dice do not fully recharge on a long rest, but you gain half of your level back in hit dice. For example, a level 6 warlock would restore 3 hit dice after resting, bringing them back to their max of 6. However, if they use all 6 hit dice on their short rest, they would only have 3 hit dice until their next rest.
How to get spells back in 5e?
Wizards may replenish expended spell slots through the use of Arcane Recovery, a process that can be completed once per long rest. In contrast, sorcerers have the option of converting their Sorcery points into 5th level or lower spell slots or transforming them into sorcery points. Both of these conversions are accompanied by a long rest.
What do you get back on a short rest?
A character can spend Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to their maximum number, which is equal to their level. For each Hit Die spent, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier, regaining hit points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity for no more than 2 hours.
If interrupted by strenuous activity, the character must restart the rest to gain any benefits. At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points and spent Hit Dice, up to half of their total number (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, they can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.
Do druids get spells back after a short rest?
Starting at 2nd level, druids can regain magical energy through meditation and nature communication. They can choose expended spell slots during a short rest, with a combined level equal to or less than half their druid level. These slots cannot be 6th level or higher. A 4th-level druid can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. Circle spells, infused with a mystical connection to the land, can be accessed at 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level.
Do you regain all expended spell slots when you finish a short or long rest?
The Short Rest Spell Slots table provides a numerical representation of the number of Spell Slots at a specific level. All slots are restored after a period of rest lasting at least 8 hours. The regaining of slots may be accomplished through the utilization of black numbers, which can only be reclaimed following a long rest, or through the use of red numbers, which can be reclaimed once per long rest and once per short rest. One slot of a given level can be reclaimed through this method.
Who regains spells on short rest?
Warlock classes have the capacity to recuperate spell slots through a number of methods, including the completion of a brief rest period, the utilization of Arcane Recovery, and the employment of a Druid with a Circle of the Land. It should be noted, however, that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by extensions or browsers that do not support cookies.
Who regains spell slots on short rest?
It should be noted that certain classes, such as Warlock and Wizard, are able to recuperate spell slots without undertaking a lengthy period of rest. Furthermore, all slots may be recovered during a short rest. It should be noted, however, that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by extensions or browsers that do not support cookies.
How do spell slots regenerate?
Spell slots return when you rest, providing energy for spell casters and martial fighters. After a long rest, all expended spell slots are restored, allowing mages to cast again. Warlocks, on the other hand, return their spell slots after a short rest, allowing them to excel in long adventuring days or dungeon crawls. Class-specific ways to return spell slots include sorcerers exchanging sorcery points for spell slots and wizards using Arcane Recovery.
📹 A long rest fixes everything in D&D – Long Rest
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I also didn’t realize (and had a hard time believing) that the 1 hour applied to the entire list and not just walking. I can understand that casting a spell likely shouldn’t stop a long rest (though concentrating on a spell for an hour certainly would be), but I didn’t realize that it would take an hour of fighting. I think the reason that most people initially think the “at least 1 hour of” part refers to just walking is because on hour of combat sounds ridiculous. I can’t even imagine a combat lasting 600 rounds.
As a DM, the way I handle the request to rest cast is I subtract two hours from the duration of the spell. I presume that the caster is casting the spell at the start of breakfast, then praying, meditating, studying their spell book, or what have you, as the martials are breaking camp. So by the time the party heads out, two hours since the casting has passed. My players have always felt like this is a good compromise.
With any of these legal but slightly-exploity-feeling things, the most OP thing is good communication. Discuss with the DM, and try to be fairly modest. One Mage Armor is probably a lot more palatable than three Death Wards. Meanwhile, a better approach for a DM than a preemptive ban is to just not let folks get extra rest days most of the time by making sure there’s enough urgency in the campaign. I mean Sam and Frodo didn’t get to take a pair of long rests after escaping Cirith Ungol—only one long rest. Rest casting is great when it’s about resource management.
Actually funny enough on my westmarch server, Tales of the Twilight Realms, people do this thing pretty frequently. Death ward and aid are great, and at high levels mind blank and foresight, but also if your DM is the type to allow you to buy anything priced in the shop there are some pretty cool items like the oil of slipperiness that give you an 8 hour freedom of movement
I didnt ever interpret it this way, but as druid I have always made goodberries out of all of my remaining low level slots before rest. They last 24 hours so we typically have them left over. Having 40+ hp worth of perfectly distributable healing on hand for when combat finishes is very handy. We have tended to rely on them significantly though, and have realized just how much of a crutch it was to have that healing when we got hit with an antimagic field and they all turned to raisins.
The big problem with rest casting is that It’s terribly immersion breaking. The optimal play is to wait up to almost the end of the long rest to blow all of your excess spell slots into restcasted spells. When a druid after the end of a long rest (and resting is supposed to slowly recover your capacities, that’s why it takes 8 hours) blows all of his slots on aids and goodberries to immediatly gain them back in the course of 3 minutes you are painfully aware that this isn’t how it was supposed to work. I’ve seen people ban it, and while I consider it unnecessary it’s not that big of a deal. makes extended spell much better. I’ve seen people trying to recontextualize the mechanic as a setting detail. I’ve done it myself. It’s a nice solution. As of latelly I housruled all of the 8 hours spells to be 24 hours duration because I feel like it just makes the game better in general. Kills two birds with one stone.
and here is my DM: “a single round of combat ends long rest, casting anything more than a cantrips ends long rest. Also you roll 4 encounters for the 8 hours, in the 2 hour intervals that you stand guard” EDIT: I dont know what you mean by all the likes, are they sympathy likes or “yea he’s right” likes? EDIT 2: “roll 4 encounters” seems to mislead some people? 1 encounter table with “holes”, roll 4 times over 8 ingame hours
Rest casting makes casters very strong. Most dnd games will have 2-3 encounters each long rest, which isn’t enough to drain a tier2+ caster’s slots. Thus, they’re always fighting at full power. This is fine, but they’re tuned so that they’re stronger than martials but run out of resources much more quickly. Giving casters more resources feels bad for martials, who are already relatively underpowered
Love your work Kobold. Would love to see you do an in depth article on Animate Object. I’ve already figured out that Tiny objects are better than Small objects, but I feel that there is so much more to consider and things that I don’t understand about it. Like “are the attacks that the objects make magical? If not, can I at least use silver coins so the attacks are silvered? When would be a better time to get fewer but larger objects? How high is to high for up-casting?” I’m asking because I’ve heard it’s one of the most powerful spells in the game and in looking at it, I can see why. But I’m also curious if I’m missing something, if other spells (for example the summoning spells) are a better choice. All that being said keep up the good work. I’ve yet to play a more rules heavy game but when I do, I’ll take your suggestions into serious consideration.
Something you could do as a wizard (or I believe druids can do this too) would be to: 1. Take a short rest, use that wizard ability where you can recover slots 2. Take a long rest, rest-cast some spell with that slot you got back 3. Congrats, you just gave yourself the benefit of that spell for the next day, with no cost but a 10% longer long rest.
As a DM I rarely paid attention to what the casters slots are hr durations and what not, to busy making the martials feel powerful while nearly killing everyone. I love it when my PCs get ‘over powered’, means I don’t have to worry as much about killing them with standard monsters. I run a very magic/tech heavy setting so even gnolls have access to 1st lvl spells or magic weapons (kobolds and goblins are player races so I try not to have them be monsters)
Can I ask where the “during which a character sleeps *for at least 6 hours*” part comes from? I don’t see it in the PHB or on Roll20. You would think it is a natural consequence of being able to do up to 2 hours of light activity and the rest needing to last 8 hours, but it does change things. I can’t find anywhere that the 6 hours of sleep is explicitly written out except in this article here.
I would allow it, but it won’t fly at most tables I play. The wording of “1 hour of (…) fighting” means nightime suprise attacks would not break a long rest and I know few DMs, who would agree to that. The “1 hour of walking or any fighting or any casting…” would be a DM’s interpretation for sure.
Its amazing how many people comment without either perusal the article or if they watch it they don’t seem to absorb the information. It is both RAI and RAW, hardly game breaking. It helps the lower tiers of play more than upper which 90% of games never get to. Deathward is like being a 1/2 orc, hardly a game breaking ability. Very few spells can use this anyway. If a high level party can be challenged by a random night time encounter, then that party really really sucks…..(That is Teir 1 or 2 play not 3 or 4) They only real challenge to a high level party are 1 of 2 things: ONE – Remembering all the abilities, spells, and items you have and what they can do and what we did at last weeks gaming session…. TWO – An enemy with resources, power, intel about the party to either defend against or attack the party. The hardest part of DMing that is rewriting the awful spell choices and remaking a high level NPC bc most designers suck at optimizing, and then remembering what said NPC can actually do once the combat starts…. game balance means casters are always better than non-casters powerwise and anything players can do DMs can do too. Random unprepared encounters should not be a threat or even noticed by a high level party and the point is moot anyway because only a very very tiny % of games occur past Tier 2, so its not an issue for almost any game and again is RAI and RAW. Next weeks article Lost Opportunity Cost..
Huh. What a weird way to word the rule, especially because it implies an hour of fighting breaks the rest, but less than that doesn’t, and it had to be clarified in a Tweet that that is not the case. Like, I can see why people would think casting a spell breaks a rest, given the order those things were put in. Probably should’ve simplified with “one hour of walking or similar adventuring activity, or a single fight.”
looks like a lot of these loopholes have been closes in newest addendums. handy if you can extend durations (tho metamagic ain’t what it used to be now that almost everyone casts like a classic edition sorc) but otherwise you cast and you interrupt your rest period. that or the DM just has you travelling for the first few hours of the day (if trance-race)
i once found a homebrew called Camp Actions and one of the CA you can do while doing a long rest is literally “Preparation” (it gives you an extra die for a skill you choose), so it would be perfectly fitting if a character could also cast a spell (limited to some spells maybe) during their awake time while the party is resting
So at level 5 as long as they have a cleric with the spell, a party of up to six people gets a quasi permanent +10 to their HP Spellcasters and the fact that if you don’t run a combat focussed campaign you will usually not drain them of their resources are a sore enough spot, this seems like an extremely bad idea
I’m seeing a lot of variation in responses in the comments, so I might as well throw this around. Not focusing on RAI or RAW, but rather, in-universe logic! See, I think any amount of serious fighting would count as strenuous enough to break a long rest, and not just A FULL HOUR of it. But this is about casting spells. I think it’s possible, nay, PROBABLE that this would happen. In fact, we humans used to use a biphasic sleep cycle of two 4-hour periods before we figured out how to make a lightbulb. It makes sense that the in-between period would be used for small tasks for adventuring. Granted, the duration will only last so long in the morning since time passed after going back to sleep, but if you’ve got something hitting you in the morning, it makes sense for this to be STANDARD PRACTICE! The only question is how strenuous is spellcasting itself? And that’s a fair question worth talking to a DM about! It could be dependent on the spell slot or somethin, I donno. If it is the case that it would be too much, then disregard everything I said. If your DM wants to balance AROUND this, the answer is simple! Make your enemies practice it too! A spellcaster BBEG leading an army in the morning could be bringing in buffs while on full slots! It’s ridiculously simple, but I suppose it only is helpful if we’re talking about going up against caster enemies.
So basically what you are saying is that if my hot bird bard man were to cast Glyph of Warding and make it a spell glyph on something like a pretty looking stone and say “When someone says pee pee poo poo to the rock, this will make them invisible for an hour.” and then make like maybe 1-2 per long rest. You’d have something like a pocket spell for the rouge right? And the spell says it has to be no larger that 10 feet diameter, but doesn’t say how small it can be. Also these things last until they are dispelled or triggered. And it doesn’t have to be just a spell, it can be practically put onto something like a pebble that would explode when I say “Explodie” it does lets say 5d8 fire damage, basically making it a magical c4. You’re saying that’s allowed pretty much?
I think rest tricking is an abuse of the system. It may be legal and this is a game. But for realism, I dislike the concept of “at exactly 8hrs, slots reset”. I feel the rule is there to not punish casters for being woken up by an ambush, but so at 7hrs and 55min the wizard casts 3 spells and then sits and sips coffee for 5 minutes and gets back those slots and 3 spells with only 5min missing from their duration.
Reading the rule and the tweet about casting spells during rests it isn’t talking about the tech of 8 hour spells specifically and it was probably designed with the intent of combat not interrupting a rest if ambushed. Reading the DMG advice for designing spells the design intent of an 8 hour spell is that you benefit from it the day you spend the resources. If this were intended spells that last 8 hours would Just last 24 hours. Although RAW, Calling this tech rai is a bit of a stretch and it’s certainly not healthy for the game since it only increases the discrepancy wizards and clerics has, and also invalidates a meta magic (extended spell)
Right from day one, all of my groups adopted the ruling that casting a spell, making an attack roll, or needing to roll initiative during a rest always automatically prevents you from gaining any benefit from the rest. You need to start it over. This was universally seen as a clarification and simplification of the exact text of the rules presented here, not a revision on them. Basically, it seemed abundantly clear to everyone that the idea of expending limited use features (like spell slots) during the activity that is designed to replenish them was way too cheesy and invited lots of combinations and exploits (not just Coffeelocks) that obviously weren’t intended to be allowed. We didn’t consider anything about this to be a house ruling, just standard, and didn’t learn even half of this “controversy” until years later, at which point nobody had any interest in changing.
For lower level games this could work well but at higher end campaigns this WILL unbalance things. Especially if there are not many casters in the party. If a spell caster gets several free spells which can easily last 8 hours or more that’s kind of poor game design. Mind blank, foresight, wish just to name a few balancing bending ones.
Talked about implementing this on our game. Talked it out and other players let the casters handle the decision if they want this to be implemented, DM seems reluctant and argued that everything needs to be timed to a T if ever this was to be implemented. DM was like you have to eat breakfast, thats about how many minutes? then cackles. I dunno feels like this way was being spiteful even though we talked about it, DM could’ve just told us a firm no.
I don’t agree with the call on long rest and the 1 hour combat rule. 1 hour of combat? That is an obscene amount of fighting. A single round is 6 seconds. After 10 rounds, that’s only a minute. Are we really going to say that you can be in combat all the way up to 60 entire rounds before a long rest is interrupted?! That makes absolutely no sense at all. By that logic, you could start a long rest, get into a big fight, then finish the long rest and be fully recovered.
Hey Kobold, can you answer me this one question? It gets a bit of connection with the Familiar/Artificer article, but, can you put magic items to Attunement on the Steel Defender? Specifically those which doesn’t have restrictions? There is this Crawford tweet where he says that the Steel Defender is apt to use some magical items, and, in theory, Spell Storing Item or something like the Blast Scepter are items in which, according to RAW, doesn’t need Components to cast spell unless said other wise, but when I discussed with my friends, they said it was probably RAW/RAI abuse, so it got to my head, and since you mentioned something similar about RAW and RAI abuse, so it brought that question back into my mind. I say it mainly because the Steel Defender doesnt get much use after T2 of play since everything is too much dangerous for it in the frontline, at best using Deflect Attack while the Artificer concentrates on Web + Sharpshooter/Fire Bolt
Yep, I do this all the time. Also, the fighting thing is another area where Crawford is dumb. That’s not what the rules say, and if he wanted them to say that, he should have written them that way. Sage Advice, as always, is basically just one DMs personal interpretations. Sometimes it’s right and sometimes it’s not.
I personally like using this with goodberry, particularly if im packing the life cleric dip or have some other boost to healing. Yes, its not a great in-combat heal, but out of combat you can get a Ton of healing points to spread out among the team as needed and without waste, or to have rations and minor healing to give out or trade to npcs that you encounter.
For once, Kobold, I’m way ahead of you. I realized this was possible a little over a year ago and told the casters in the campaign I was in about it (I was playing barbarian at the time and couldn’t take advantage of it myself). The wizard ended up not caring too much, but the sorcerer ended up using it all the time.
“Rest casting doesn’t give you more spells” Mechanically incorrect, it definitively gives you more spells in a 24 hour time frame. Party of 4 level 10 players takes a long rest, cleric takes last watch. In the last hour of the long rest, casts 4 death wards and a level 5 aid on the 3 lowest hp members. Last hour ends and all of a sudden those 5 spell slots just come back? This adds up to 22 total spell levels of spell slots the party benefits from for free. That’s 3 level 4 spell slots and 2 level 5 spell slots that the party will benefit from for 8 hours but not have to pay for.
If a spell/effect were to last until “the end of your NEXT long rest”, would you be able to rest cast it? “end of your next long rest” implies it isn’t the end of the current long rest, which makes sense since this clause is basically saying “lasts until tomorrow”. If you could rest cast this, alchemist artificer would be pretty strong…
From the point of view of an outsider, this sounds like a loophole from the limitations of the system. The rules need to be simple so they can spend more time playing and less time doing computations and tracking data. A article game which can track resources with arbitrary amounts of granularity would probably just have a timer to next spell slot regained and resting would speed the timer up. DnD instead has the results of a long rest be all or nothing and all at once. The result is as written you can apparently have the last watch wake you right before the rest ends and cast all your spells then when the rest ends you instantly get all your resources back.
Why is this controversial? Its just a part of 5e that you get all your stuff back at the end of a long rest, so why shouldn’t you spend whatever you have left over from the day before? How does doing something that takes 6 seconds to do make so the sleep you got last night no longer counts? I kinda get a concentration spell maybe making an issue, but just an action ability seems extreme to limit. Its not like an extra spell slot of each level you didn’t burn all the way through would break the game.
It’s not “Rules as Written” It’s “The Rules Don’t Say I Can’t”. The rules certainly do not say that you can cast spells during a long rest and get those spell slots back (and the rules even imply that you can’t, depending on how you interpret the “1 hour of” to apply to the rest of the sentence). I think most DMs would object to this.
Some people are saying this is still an exploit or this exists to not punish casters for ambushes (despite them already likely having little to no spell slots.) They are wrong. The reason the long rest requirement exists is so casters don’t stop after everything for 1 hour yet this mechanic still exists. If at 1 hour of rest you got back a level 1 slot you’d be able to use a lv1 Mage Armor for 7 hours. If at 2 hours of rest you got back a level 2 slot you’d be able to use a lv2 Mage Armor for 6 hours. If at 7 hours of rest you got back a level 7 slot you’d be able to use a lv7 Mage Armor for 1 hour. It is working perfectly as intended no exploits or meta gaming things.
Pack Tactics: “This doesn’t break anything anyway.” Also Pack Tactics: Literally just suggested casting some of the best long term utility spells in the game, with no impact on your daily resources. ….sure. Look, you can interpret the rules how you like. If its fun for everyone at your table and doesn’t annoy the DM, go for it. But this is neither balanced, nor does it make sense for a combat to not break a rest if it lasts less than an hour. RAW, the walking is the only thing that applies to the 1 hour, everything else is any. I’m fine with my players casting some cantrips or a couple of roleplay spells, but anything thats this level of power-gaming/rules-lawyering is no longer in the realm of just optimization (and im the biggest power gamer at my table).
Rest casting: the legal way to completely negate the one disadvantage of being a wizard (having to choose between good defense and having lots of open spell slots)! I don’t deny this application of the game for the table and understand the logic behind it. But don’t tell me it makes sense that you’re sitting there sleeping for 6 hours, then, one minute before the spell slots reset for the day, you cast Mage Armor and the 54 seconds later the slot just pops back in – don’t tell me that makes sense. Cause it’s just silly. So I won’t tell players who don’t know, but I won’t block the behavior. It may not violate rules as intended but it certainly doesn’t feel like it fits the spirit of what spell slots represent – a limitation on caster resources. If you really want to let rest casting be a thing in your game, I’d say you may as well just let Mage Armor be a ritual spell and remove rest casting from the game. Which IMO while undeniably a buff, at least makes way more sense.
I think this feels cheesier than it actually is. It’s taking advantage of rules put in place to ensure that the casters aren’t completely fucked over by getting attacked in the night to squeak out an extra spell slot or two, and I mean fair enough it works and doesn’t break the game, but it calls attention to that mechanic in the world in a way that I don’t like as a GM. A good compromise would be to just have those spells last until you finish another long rest if they truly bother you so much, technically a buff but overall I don’t think most tables really check if it’s been 8 hours since you last cast mage armor anyway.
Or just use the number of spell slots each day that you earned at your level as designed instead of jumping through all of these hoops to justify your exploit that is clearly a loophole in RAW. My understanding is earlier editions had careful wording that prevented this. As a DM, if my player made an effort to roleplay the scenario of them waking up early, casting a spell and going back to sleep for some justifiable reason, I’d allow it. If they expected to be able to do it because of articles like this, I’d disallow it. You can hack and exploit a article game and it’s not able to see what you’re doing and prevent it. A DM is, and that’s why TTRPG’s can be as great or as shite as you’re able to make it. “Slots” aren’t even supposed to exist in the minds of a character. If they end a day with “unused slots”, that’s unexpended magic within their body that they have the fortune of retaining. They’re not aware of the quantity of it. They can guesstimate having “a spell or two left in me”, but nor specifically rationing out 1 slot. If the Player wants to do that, fine, it’s expected to a degree, but if it crosses over into total disregard for roleplay, lore, immersion and gameplay experience for other players, then it’s totally justifiable to disallow it. Players here who don’t agree maybe haven’t been DM’s, because most DM’s agree. You are thinking about how best to run your characters and their abilities but DM’s are thinking about how best to run THE GAME and EXPERIENCE. DM’s are constantly hearing what players want to do and making judgement calls over whether a thing is possible, impossible or possible with a roll of a certain DC.
I’ve seen some people say that it breaks their immersion, but that depends on how you do your immersion I guess. The wizard spends the last watch shift preparing for the day ahead, in addition to keeping an eye for danger. He knows this puts a slightly higher risk of ambush on the party, but the day ahead is bound to be a challenging one. He starts a small fire so the leftover pig the ranger caught last night can be used for bacon to supplement the otherwise unpalatable rations. Once the fire is started he puts on some tea, he takes his time to carefully construct an abjuration ward around himself for the perils of the day ahead. The kettle begins to cry out, so he rushes back to the fire to silence it before it wakes his companions; he makes his tea, careful to collect the used leaves for divination purposes later. He cracks open his spell book and begins memorizing and practicing the spells he suspects he’ll need today, as the troll’s cave is now just a few short hours away. “Fire spells should do,” he mutters to himself. That’s not immersion breaking to me; in fact, the only thing breaking immersion here is that the ranger didn’t rest cast Goodberry. The wizard got Mage Armor sorted as he’s doing his last watch, and as it was narrated it can even be in the last half hour or so, which is negligible for an 8 hour spell. Only the stickler Meeseeks DMs actually track 8 hour spells during longer adventuring days anyways, in my experience.
Yeah, as a DM, I wouldn’t allow this; spells take energy and rest restores energy. If players are casting spells after they’ve finished a portion of their rest, then that’s depleting from their energy for the next day. That aside too, just the spirit of it makes me not like it either; it feels too much like trying to game the system.
I think that the fact this mechanic interrupts the assumption that everyone is slowly regaining their HP, slots, etc is what prevents me from using it in my games. (As a player, mind you.) If I were to rewrite the rule, I’d either say you can’t use your highest level slot(s), or that you must rest at least 2-4 hours after casting or taking damage, even if it would bring your rest over 8 hours. Helps keep the immersion in check.
This system is also nice, because it allows a DM to put more stress on night time ambushes. I feel like a lot of DMs I know pull their punches before or during a rest, and a big reason is the thought that an ambush will reset your long rest. Night time ambushes are perilous. It puts more emphasis on characters who thrive without armor and it gives casters more reasons to pick up precautionary spells for safe traveling and refuge. Make the threat of ambush real, and make the monsters smart! The party is resting in a magical structure or a secure tower and you cannot enter? Move out of the party’s range, into a nearby wood line, crags, or ruins and wait in cover. Surround the party and spread out. If the party notices this while trying to rest then they have more incentive to engage so that they don’t waste resources the following adventuring day.
This is the kind of thing that will end up with the DM saying: yeah, no. I’ve read a lot of posts from Tabletop Builds and they use these “Tech” strategies in almost every build. This kind of thing is the one that will make your DM start throwing encounters during long rests and it will hurt more in the long run. Now the Wizard has Mage Armor on, the Druid has like 30 Goodberries and the martials are fighting without armor during the night.
Lol, I can see “rest casting” becoming very game breaking from reading the comments below (and maybe above depending on when you read this 🤷🤷♂️). I can see DM’s giving spell slots back if the party has an encounter during a long rest, so not to punish the party and keep the story going, but the player doesn’t get them if they “rest camp.”
I disagree that this is RAW. A lvl 20 wizard could easily cast all 22 of their spellslots within an hour if they have a casting time of a minute or less. Are you implying that doing so wouldn’t be strenuous? If your reading is legit, than so too is sleeping for 6 hours, getting up and casting all of your spells, then performing some light chores – how in the world is that restful? Any DM would inform you that doing this negates a long rest. And if there’s no difference between casting one spell in an hour vs casting all of them, which your reading implies, casting a spell during a long rest interrupts the long rest.
If players long rest, and with 1 minute to spare, use a spell slot to teleport into danger, then get into a fight for a few rounds, then less than a minute later they all suddenly are restored to full hit points and gain all their spell slots back? Combat and spellcasting absolutely should interrupt a long rest. If you start to allow what you suggest, then you just lead to clear abuse of the rules. So while I would allow some situations for spell casting during a rest, but certainly wouldnt allow any spell casting to abuse the technicality of the rules.
I don’t really like that reading. If the intention were to be able to cast a spell during the long rest to have a morning buff, those spells would not use a spell slot and it would be described like that. Actually, having a “daily buffs” similar to how eldritch invocations work would be actually pretty cool.
If you rule, that you would need one hour of “casting a spell” to break long rest, tge same reading would rule that you need 1 hour of fighting to break long rest. I have never seen a fight go over 600 rounds, therefore any fight thats less than 1 hour should not break the longrest! Iiiii Im gonna start longresting during my bossfights now…..
This is one of those things that’s technically legal, but it’s cheesy as hell. This is sort of optimized gaming that walks the edge of meta gaming in a bad way. The player will always be able to argue good faith, but the action itself is literally just trying to get away with something extra for free. It’s your table, run it your way. And yes, this is a small exploit. But allowing players to exploit the game cheapens it for others. Something I wish optimizers would understand and/or respect more.
so just cast every buff at 7:59 and get all spell slots back at 8 o clock. Im sure this was how the game was supposed to work lmao. exploiting technicalities to brake the game, ahh I tell you every time players try this cap to solve the problem dm just needs to have enemy npcs employ the same tactics as well.
Despite Crawford’s assertion to the contrary, it’s ridiculous that 1 hour of spellcasting or fighting is needed to interrupt a long rest. My current campaign is about 6 months old and considering combat rounds are 6 seconds long, the characters haven’t been through 1 cumulative hour of combat for their entire lives.
If 1 hour of walk breaks a long rest, then conjuring a fire bolt strong enough to instantly kill a commoner out of nothing will also do that. Only someone who has never fought before would think that 30 min of fighting between 2 long naps would not break a long rest. I’ve done a lot of boxing and 20 min in a ring will exhaust most amateur athlete for at least one level. Besides, interpreting the rules this way makes for a better dungeon crawling experience imo. It’s about resource management people. RAI > RAW
I wouldn’t let players use Spellslots during a longrest, just like I wouldn’t let a Barbarian rage during a long rest. In other words spellcasters would be limited to Cantrips during that time. Spellcasters are very powerful throughout the day, it’s alright for Rogues and Fighters to shine more at guard duty.
But kobold. Jeremy Crawfords opnions are not official and offensive batship crazy and contradict sage advice some times. (Real talk nothing wrong with using it here I just felt like saying it cause many new player treat it on the same level as sage advice, errata and official. He may be a designer of te but is no the only he’s contradicted official before and I think he just more gives his opinions on wording than gives 5es
The way its written, its like a list of options so, “at least 1 hour of walking, Fighting, casting Spells, or similar Adventuring activity” is “at least 1 hour of walking OR Fighting OR casting Spells OR or similar Adventuring activity” And not “at least 1 hour of walking or 1 hour of Fighting or 1 hour of casting Spells, or similar Adventuring activity” More than the way its written (RAW) I think its clear by design that a new day is supposed to have a clean slate, meaning, unless you have non concentration spells that last longer than the long rest does, they’re gone. It’s a minor thing, I don’t think having mage armor early in the day is going to break the game…. but goodberry might, or the alchemist potions, or I’m sure, numerous other spells that otherwise wouldn’t last through a long rest you can now burn all your spell slots on before you take a nap
for anyone who doesn’t dm let me lay it out for you. the key issue here is that this is a rolling snowballing effect. if the party rests in a absolutely safe zone, like a town, or a spell effect like rope trick, tiny hut, magnificent mansion, there is no way to make this hurt them in the spell slot resource game. eventually, the high level party is getting more and more long term buffs and effects than game balance can handle. it pulls that undefeatable by normal book monsters cr number down even further than it was. it’s hard enough to beat a level 17 party that is fully buffed every day anyway. but this could drag that issue all the down to level 7. constant death wards, every long term buff under the sun, and you can’t stop them. because tiny hut will last the entire time now. unless you literally have a enemy spell caster show up every day that you want a night-time encounter, this will then always happen. the game is not balanced around this. the game is already heavily tilted towards the players anyway, and I have no problem with that. but this takes that scale and makes the player side hit the floor under the table.
It’s a lovely twist how it’s the raging berserker that’s the sane straight man of the party. He nails the combination of confusion and frustration of being someone who lives in our reality being stuck in the world of DnD. BlankGrim getting his arse kicked is the cherry on the comedic cake as always. 😁🍒🎂 Interestingly enough. A good 8 hours of sleep does have incredible health benefits.
One of the things Pathfinder does right, you recover VERY little health after a long rest. (Unless you’re using the the Stamina rules, but that frames the Stamina as “Expended energy” rather than wounds, and the Hit Points section that reflects wounds still takes a long time to recover without magic.)
In D&D it kind of makes sense as Hit Points are not Health Points, they are considered an abstract representation of life-force, health, endurance, luck and the sort of favoritism that follows main protagonists and antagonists in fictional stories. If they were strictly health points then it would also not make sense that creature with max 200HP fights with same power and ability when it is at 1HP.
Funny Story: in a campaign my dm was really set on only giving out the rest benefits if you were able to sleep a total of 8 ours irp. This eventually led to a pretty interesting situation in which after a massive fight a member of our party decided to spend a few more extra hours partying in an inn as everyone else slept. The next day he had no spell slots and 12 HP whilst everyone else set off to fight the BBEG. It did eventually lead to him Deus Ex Machinaning the fight 3 hours late of course.
Hahaaaaa this is so on point with my DnD session from Saturday! We were passing a legendary T-Rex, and my druid had no spell slots, no wild shape, was on half HP to start… and naturally the Bard had a reason to fight it, so he lurred it TO US with a damn illusion… So he just says, “Oh, guess we’ll kill it now…” One gruelling fight later (and we did succeed) but I literally spent 4 turns in it’s mouth being chewed, and I was incapped for quite a bit of it and only just survived, and the bard FINALLY puts a single level-1 cure wounds on me, and then I continue playing dead, and coughing, and spluttering, and using my arms to drag me across the floor to rest against a tree, and he says, “Being a bit over-dramatic aren’t you? I healed you already…” Like yeah.. thanks.. I’m sure that cure wounds fixed the countless knife-like wounds and crushed bones I have from being chewed on by a T-Rex for nearly 30 seconds of continual time… Naturally, not a single person asked if I was all right after the fight. They just walked by and continued on like nothing happened… haha
0:05 * Sees Hargram lying on the bottom, looking dead. Waits for one of his identical brothers to appear. * Wait, Adam’s character calls him Wargrim. How many died since the last episode? (Also, last episode he calls himself Hargrim, but the official subtitles call him Hargram. Miner inconsistencies.) 🙁 If we ignore the “Hargram” subtitle mistake: 1. Fargrim > Targrim 2. Targrim > Hargrim 3. Wargrim Hargrim died between episodes 2 and 3 …
I guess that’s one way of misinterpreting wounds in D&D. I always misinterpret it the way that they do in Nathan Drake games. Where the HP is actually your players luck and ability to slightly defend vital areas so over the course of the fight the PC becomes more tired until eventually the HP reaches zero meaning that fatal wound is finally landed and the player has to start a death roll.
At the risk of sounding like a fun killing psycho, in dnd hit points are an abstraction. They don’t represent your ability to get stabbed through the chest with a greatsword and live. That’s pretty lethal. Rather they represent your characters ability to turn a direct hit into a glancing blow. They are stamina, reflexes, luck, skill, divine intervention. When a character is “hit’ They don’t actually suffer a full blow, rather they through the above manage to turn with effort a fatal a blow into one that doesn’t matter. So a character with low hp isn’t fubard, they’re just so exhausted/their luck has been spent that they really can’t defend against legitimately dangerous attacks.
DM Tip: Instead of having injuries disappear upon resting, use them to flavour things further down the line. The PC misses an attack? They put too much weight on their injured leg and stumble. They roll extremely low damage? The pain from that blow to the ribs yesterday flared up, causing them to instinctively weaken their swing. This allows you to make injuries feel more impactful, while not actually making the game more difficult and/or turning it into a ‘survival game’ experience, like a lot of homebrew injury mechanics will.
There’s two ways to imagine hit points. 1 is that each hit isn’t an actual damaging hit until the character drops to zero HP and then that last hit is the real one, all the other HP represents your ability to dodge/block incoming attacks or your “luck” at avoiding grievous wounds. The second way of looking at HP is that e ery hit is an actual hit, your HP represents your physical condition and that when you long rest you are basically Wolverine healing after a fight. I personally like the latter idea that everyone in D&D worlds basically have a healing factor such that so long as you don’t kill them outright they otherwise only die of old age or diseases, not wear and tear. It kinda helps explain how you’ll have settlers in an area beset by Trolls and goblins and dragons and undead and yet they are just there carving out their homestead, tilling the fields, complaining about the ogre raid last Thursday as if it was as routine as a hail storm.
The makeup & effects teams really killing it (HA) in this episode! Some nicely gory battle wounds. It’s a good thing Wargrim’s identical brothers aren’t appearing alphabetically! I’m not really sure what a DM would do after exhausting all options. Throw a random ‘a’ on the end and introduce Targrima, Targrim’s identical twin sister? Emmett is sooo great as Keothi! Him picking up Lavinia to give her a little shake is brill! And I love the exchange of looks between Aaron & Damakos, like ‘Wtf is he on about?!’ All the little details really elevate this series! ❤️💙
Well, in real life something in between makes sense. Half way through a journey, you are probably a day away from anyone after a day of walking. resting and tending to First Aid is the best option, taking inventory of the alive and mostly dead, and the retiring to town only after you fashion a proper mode of transport for the unwalkables. This takes a while, usually a few hours, but will save the lives of your party IRL. A rest and measured return is best option.
Well, Gary Gygax once explained that hit points don’t represent physical damage but are a combination of luck and combat expertise. A character doesn’t actually gain the ability to take as much physical damage as an elephant. But, he does have the luck and ability to avoid attacks that an untrained person could not. Instead the character gets knicked or bruised, slowing him down and using up some “luck”. Heal wounds spells “rejuvenants” the character’s strength and energy, it doesn’t close gashes or mend broken bones ( because the charcter would probably not survive that in combat, instead he is at “death’s door”). Constitution bonuses to hit points do represent actual physical stamina of the character, but only his stamina for strenuous combat and exertion, and to a lesser degree the ability to withstand desease and the effects of poisons, etc. “Death’s door” is more clinically like being incapcitated by exhaustion, fainting from blood loss or stress, knocked unconscious, maybe a cracked rib or disjointed shoulder that makes fighting impossible. I allow constitution checks to see if a character at “death’s door” is still able to talk or is still conscious, but is unable to fight, move, or cast spells.
To be fair, the 5e manual explains HP as a combination of stamina, luck and endurance, it’s not until you fall to 0 HP that you suffer an actual direct hit, so most of the time, being low on HP just means you’re full of small bruises and a bit tired. So recovering on a rest makes actual sense. But since too many DMs are a bit too lazy to role play a hit and just say “the bandit hits you, you take 7 slashing damage”, there is this preconception that characters are superhuman behemoth who can withstand a building falling onto them and recover after a nap.
I explain it followingly, assuming there’s at least one magical-healing-capable character in the team (Cleric, Druid, Bard, Level 2+ Ranger, Paladin) During a long rest healers can magically accelerate and protect healing processes of their team without expending resources. Because while the rulebooks explain HP as mostly morale, luck, stamina, depleting plot armor etc, there’s no way a room engulfing poisonous cloud or explosion didn’t hit them very physically for example. Also this way the common peasants make sense for needing long recovery periods for wounds, and why healers are treated as being sacred, since they can just waltz into a village and overnight heal damn near everyone
In my games I narrate a short/long rest as recovering from fatigue. If my players suffer a grievous injury say from rolling a nat 1 or someone rolling a nat 20 on them, then they still need use of other skills such as a healers kit with field surgical supplies (by someone trained in its use) or to go see a doctor before they are considered in full health again. In the meantime affected characters would have to deal with effects like reduced maximum health or reduced max speed, etc. The other exception would be from a divine healer like a cleric or paladin as I narrate it as them “performing a miracle” when they heal, leaving no scar or aftereffect of the injury. Arcane healing like the use of a healing potion or a herbalist kits medicine would leave aftereffects like scars, stiffness, random spasms etc. DISCLAIMER This is simply my DM style and my players enjoy the narration and added challenge, makes it more immersive and adds a realism to their choices. This DM style is not for everyone and that is perfectly fine, as there are countless tables that players may choose from.
Every Edition of D&D since the very first: HP is an abstraction, representing not only wounds, but stamina, luck, and a myriad other factors. Much like a character in a fantasy novel fights, most “hits” are glancing blows, nicks and cuts, or last moment parries that strain them, only when a character loses their last few are they actually taking telling blows. Players: Why can my high level character survive stabbed through the chest 10 times or more? So unrealistic.
Even within the logic of D&D, at least one point the Goliath makes is logical. They are in the forest with open wounds, and some wild predators would be attracted by the smell of blood. That can potentially mean a night where not everyone gets their mandatory 8-hour uninterrupted nappy time. Now, would a pack of wolves (or a similar group of predators) risk themselves in a camp with lit campfires and a fairly large group of armed individuals? As a “seasoned” DM (been DMing on-and-off for about 17 years), I would say it depends on how hungry and large the pack is. Hunger removes a few primordial fears. And that’s assuming that wolves are the most dangerous breed of predators existing in this forest. I would like to see this group deal with displacer beasts, blinking dogs, or any other blood-hungry supernatural predators. And even outside of beasts, what happens if their recent victims died violently with anger in their hearts? I don’t see any of the adventurers commit any religious activity to send their victims’ souls to rest. If I was feeling especially cheeky, a few ghosts could make the players think twice about resting in the same place they kill. And weren’t they halfway to a dungeon place? If the specific dungeon is not sealed before entry, who’s to say some of the terrifying monsters residing within could not wander nightly in the surrounding area? Just saying: there’s a lot of ground for imagination when it comes to interrupt your group’s camping time. That’s the usefulness of communities (villages, cities): less chance of a “random” encounter replacing your 8-hour panacea by a 6-hour no-healing waste of time.
My personal theory as a DM on how long rest works is that it doesn’t miraculously heal your wounds (you still treat yourself during a long rest)… But rather that after a long rest you got the vigor to push through to another day… but not happily. . Adventurers are made of sterner stuff than we are.
Transformation Potion – For when the Player wants a Different Race, but keep the Same Character. Characters are on the run from a powerful gang in the middle of the city. The strongest members are literally carrying the cleric, druid, and the other healers of the party. The party barges into a shop, and spot the owner. Owner: What’s the problem? Rogue: Someone cheated in a drinking contest. (Pointing at the dwarf.) Dwarf: Not my fault I tell you! Owner: That doesn’t tell much. Barbarian: The ones he cheated belong to a large and powerful gang. They knocked out our healers. We had to run away. Fighter: We’re out of healing potions. Do you have any? Owner: No. Ranger: We’ve got trouble coming. Owner: But, my Transformation Potions can heal those who drink them – but be warned, they will be transformed into another race, unless it’s a transformation potion of the same race as the drinker. Fighter: Then get one for a Firbolg and a Half-Orc. Owner: Very well. That will be- (Gets hit with a Random Sleep Spell, and falls unconscious.) Dwarf: Oops! Sorry! Rogue: Idiot! (Heads over to the potions. All have strange symbols on them – looking eerily like different types of people). Which one is which? (Enemy starts breaking the doors.) Barbarian: (Bracing the door.) Grab any of them! Rogue: (Grabs potions, rushes over, and pours contents down Cleric’s throat.) Cleric: (Gasps as he wakes up, fully energized.) Remind me to beat that dwarf senseless! Rogue: Get in line. (Pours second potion down Druid’s throat.
The real confusion here is when players think that Hit Points are Meat Points and getting hit is means getting wounded. Hit Points are more of an abstract concept of stamina and the capability to fight on. Getting hit most of the time means more like your armor getting hit but you still feel the blunt force coming thru, or that the effort of taking and or avoiding it is akin to cardiadic training. Like in Boxing, moving quick all the time is really hard in itself, even if you just punch stuff without getting hit.
I remember playing baldurs gate and my party was pretty beaten up, so i decided to rest. At the end it would show how long you rested for, a few hours or days or even weeks. When o looked at how long it had been… 1 year and 4 months! What the hell have you been doing for a whole year in the same place???
It comes down to how you imagine hitpoints. I see hitpoints more as luck than (getting stabbed). Barbiarns, Fighters, Rangers and Palaidins all are natural fighters (forgive the pun) and are more likely to avoid serious injury where as bards, warlocks are more like everymen who even when hit, don’t suffer extreme damage and well. Wizards are Sorcerors are what happen when you put actual nerds out in the woods. When a charcter hits 0 hitpoints that is when they recieve thier first real injury, something that is actually dangerous. Healing magic, medical kits, or even just some good luck are enough to get past that. As for the 8 hrs = full hitpoints, its the difference between entering battle fresh vs. fighting for periods of time. If you look at it that way it is more immersive rather than Oh no Radi the Bard just got stabbed by 6 longswords! Eh dont worry a healing word to avoid death saves and 8 hours of rest means he is good to go.
To be fair, a lot of DMs don’t properly use the rest and recovery rules. Even a full day’s recovery doesn’t heal you beyond what your CON will allow. Broken bones, scars, poison effects, etc. won’t heal properly if not either treated by magic or successful heal check. Regenerate is an expensive spell for a reason.
I’ve read someone saying that HP should be considered more as “stress points” than actual health (i.e.: instead of getting his entrails spilled on the floor, your character just barely managed to parry the last hit, leaving him severely fatigued, ecc…) This should help de-bug the long rest miracle and also the Death Saves
Hey, I played D&D 20 years ago, back in 3rd edition. You healed your level per day, 2x your level if you limited yourself to light activity for a whole day, or 3x if restricted to pure bed rest. Therefore, a 1st level character would heal only 1 HP per day! Even at higher levels, natural healing was essentially useless. The result is that magical healing was a necessity for every party, and clerics were reduced to being healbots to keep the party going. Nobody wanted to play the healbot, and many DMs created houserule workarounds.
Hm, have they lampshaded terrible hit boxes in RPGs yet? Like how you’re trying to hit the enemy in melee, are clearly facing them, but if an ally is right next to you you end up hitting them instead? Would make a great Epic NPC Man episode considering how often that happens in an Elder Scrolls game.
If they would have went back to town, and ‘long rest’ on the streets from fatigue (thus not making into the hospital), their rest would always be interrupted by the town guards, and told to find a tavern. Baldur’s Gate taught me that! Friggin Flaming Fist guards didn’t let me rest 8 hours on the street…I try to save the land, you stupid knight/guard!!!
first of all: great article second of all: thats why i HBed rests in my campaign :V short rests are the same, but they last only 10 minutes; long rests lasts 6 hours, recover half of you lost HP, and only your level’s worth of spell slots (basicly a buffed wizards arcane recovery); full rest, works like a regular long rest, but in order to so, you need to be in an enviroment free of dangers, so you pretty much can only do it in cities (if you have Magnificent Mansion works as well :V)
That’s less about how it’s a goofy rule…and more about how players, and DMs in particular, very much universally misconstrue what Hit Points are, and what “damage” actually is. They think a really good hit with a high damage roll equals almost cleaving off an arm…when in reality it’s still technically a miss, or a glancing blow. It’s something that forces the character to dig deep to NOT get taken out. And as the fight progresses, they lose more and more of that finite capacity to push ahead. When they run out, that’s when they’ve finally taken a blow that actually injures them, and they lie there at risk of death until they finally croak or not. DMs should be describing such blows as severely tiring, sapping the character’s vigor and morale until at extremely low HP, they finally get struck and are dropped to the ground. Because in reality, hardly anyone takes multiple blows from a real weapon designed to kill. Almost any successful hit drops pretty much everyone. Then, save the really theatrical melodramatic battle damage descriptions for things like that dropping hit, or any coup de grace that is used.
Yeah, this is because D&D combat is very simple. It’s just hit points and there’s no differentiation between injuries. If you want something more realistic, play Rolemaster. You’ll actually get things like pulled muscles, broken bone, deep cuts, etc. and all those will have different amounts of recovery time. You can even get things like your hands/arms/feet/legs chapped off, your eye gouged out, your nose chopped off, etc.