In earlier editions, there were no rests. But, veterans know that it’s actually it’s a relatively recent addition. To new players, “taking a rest” is a fundamental aspect of the D&D experience. Can rest become a viable option in roleplaying and storytelling? And if so, how do we do that? How Rest Became a Thing Players Choose There must be a better way to run short/long rests in D&D 5e. This results in a less organic game, and ultimately a less compelling narrative. We tend to reduce rests to a mechanical tool that can be skipped over, diminishing D&D to a game of pure numbers. We play out the combat, exploration, and roleplaying a lot of the time, and summarize some of the time.Īnd yet…I can’t imagine anyone enjoying a game where the DM hand-waves a large percentage of exploring a dungeon or defeating a lich.īut that is exactly what we do for nearly all of our rests: we refuse to slow down and see what happens. Part of the DM’s role is summarizing important moments to make a good story. Rests have the potential to make the whole game betterĮvery rest is a chance for the party to slow down, reflect, and discuss whatever life-or-death situations they just experienced.Īdmittedly, no one wants to roleplay every moment of a weeks-long voyage or roll to look under every rock. With the snap of a finger, the players are back to exploring, adventuring, and fighting. When a rest does happen, players usually just roll hit dice and swap out some spells, while the actual downtime during a rest is usually just skipped over.
It seems players in D&D only ever want three things from their DM: leveling up, magic items, and rests.Īfter every combat, at least one player will ask: “can we take a short rest?”, no matter how inconvenient or dangerous their surroundings may be. Rests have the potential to make the whole game better.It’s a good option for campaigns that emphasize intrigue, politics, and interactions among other NPCs, and in which combat is rare or something to be avoided rather than rushed into. This approach encourages the characters to spend time out of the dungeon. and all adventuring requires careful planning.
Characters can’t afford to engage in too many battles in a row. This puts the brakes on the campaign, requiring the players to carefully judge the benefits and drawbacks of combat. This variant uses a short rest of 8 hours and a long rest of 7 days.
SHORT REST TIME 5E FULL
Only a full 8-hour rest will allow a spellcaster to restore all spell slots and to regain spell slots of 6th level or higher. Consider allowing spellcasters to restore expended spell slots equal to only half their maximum spell slots (rounded down) at the end of a long rest, and to limit spell slots restored to 5th level or lower. Spellcasters using this system can afford to burn through spell slots quickly, especially at higher levels. You might want to make combat encounters more difficult to compensate.
This change makes combat more routine, since characters can easily recover from every battle. This variant uses a short rest of 5 minutes and a long rest of 1 hour. If this approach doesn’t fit your campaign, consider the following variants. Characters can go toe-to-toe with deadly foes, take damage to within an inch of their lives, yet still be ready to fight again the next day. The rules for short and long rests presented in chapter 8 of the Player’s Handbook work well for a heroic-style campaign. Rest Variants Home Collapse All Rest Variants