Can an interrupted long rest be treated as a short rest?

[xroads]

So let's say you're playing a monk that's burned through all of his ki. Your party decides to camp for the night and your shift isn't til later in the evening. So your character meditates then goes to sleep.

But a couple hours after he's asleep, the party is ambushed. Does your character have all of his ki points back? And if he spends them to counter the ambush, does he still regain them after completing his long rest?

This is probably a basic question, but it's never come up. So I'm actually not sure of the answer.

[History_buff]

Regardless of what the rules say, it SHOULD be. But I’m interested to see answers here as well.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

I would say he gets the benefits of a short rest but if he goes back to sleep he gets the full long rest. It really depends on the amount of time asleep.

[the_brazenburn]

I would say he gets the benefits of a short rest but if he goes back to sleep he gets the full long rest. It really depends on the amount of time asleep.

I think he's right. If you get 8 hours of sleep total, you gain the benefits of a long rest, regardless of whether it was interrupted or not. During the interruption, he's got a short rest's benefit.

[Contrast]

I don't think most people play this way but technically any period of an hour where you're not doing strenuous activity constitutes a short rest (you character doesn't announce they are now entering a short rest mode - they just start taking things easy) so I'd certainly count it.

And if he spends them to counter the ambush, does he still regain them after completing his long rest?

For clarity 4 hours, then a combat, then another 4 hours of rest is not a long rest - if it gets interrupted then they would need to start the long rest again to gain the long rest benefits. So if he rested for another 8 hours, yeah sure he'd get them back. Or he could just gain the benefits of a short rest by taking a break of at least an hour after the fight and carry on without the long rest.

That said this is something that is likely to depend heavily on how exactly the DM and table runs and uses the resting mechanics so...ask you DM is always the best advice

[xroads]

For clarity 4 hours, then a combat, then another 4 hours of rest is not a long rest - if it gets interrupted then they would need to start the long rest again to gain the long rest benefits. So if he rested for another 8 hours, yeah sure he'd get them back. Or he could just gain the benefits of a short rest by taking a break of at least an hour after the fight and carry on without the long rest.

Interesting. Our group runs under a different understanding. As long the interruption doesn't last more than an hour, the long rest is still effective.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The rules are not clear (for good reason). Resting is not a "do X" checklist--you gain the benefits of a rest when the DM says you do, assuming you've met the specified conditions.

For sure, I'd give a short rest's benefit in those cases. But then I'm a little more flexible with rests than some--I play fast and loose with the time requirements when it makes sense (5 minute short rests sometimes, boons that give a long rest without time spent, etc).

[tieren]

Rules say (PhB 186) that if the long rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity "at LEAST 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or other adventuring activity" [emphasis added] the PC's have to begin the rest again.

Most combats last less than 1 minute so would not count as an strenuous interruption because they don't last at least an hour.

[Demonslayer666]

I would have to say that they are separate rests because they allow different things during each of them. Long rests count as short rests for regaining abilities (I don't know if any that are short rest only), but only once it's completed. And multiple short rests do not add up to along rest, as in 8 short rests do not gain you the benefits of a long rest.

All that said, if I as a DM ran into that situation, I would allow you to gain back your Ki points and allow anything a short rest would allow as long as it was at least an hour into it. The long rest was interrupted, so it would have to be taken again.

[Demonslayer666]

Rules say (PhB 186) that if the long rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity "at LEAST 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or other adventuring activity" [emphasis added] the PC's have to begin the rest again.

Most combats last less than 1 minute so would not count as an strenuous interruption because they don't last at least an hour.

It's any period of strenuous activity, which includes 1 hour of walking, or any amount of fighting.

[Tiadoppler]

Playing devil's advocate:

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.

could refer to

At least 1 hour of (walking or fighting or casting spells or similar adventuring activity) - so you can have a mini-adventure during "sleep time" without interrupting your sleep.

OR

(at least 1 hour of walking) or (fighting) or (casting spells) or (similar adventuring activity) - so any spellcasting/fighting interrupts it


Similarly, if you declare you're taking a long rest, and it is interrupted, "the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it." There is no benefit from an interrupted long rest.



Just to be clear, I would not rule by RAW in this situation. I think that's pretty unfair. Personally, if there's combat that interrupts a long rest after at least an hour, I call it one or more short rests, and require that the long rest restart to gain benefit.

[tieren]

It's any period of strenuous activity, which includes 1 hour of walking, or any amount of fighting.

I find this interpretation to be nonsensical.

If you are on watch, weapons ready, and a lone goblin wanders into view, you draw your bow and kill it in a single shot, you now have to get an extra 4 hours of sleep to get the same rest as your buddy on watch who didn't take 6 seconds to fire his bow?

[MaxWilson]

So let's say you're playing a monk that's burned through all of his ki. Your party decides to camp for the night and your shift isn't til later in the evening. So your character meditates then goes to sleep.

But a couple hours after he's asleep, the party is ambushed. Does your character have all of his ki points back? And if he spends them to counter the ambush, does he still regain them after completing his long rest?

This is probably a basic question, but it's never come up. So I'm actually not sure of the answer.

If you're looking for a ruling:

Combat ends a rest. [My ruling--by strict RAW you can fight for up an hour without interrupting a rest, but that's stupid because it results in dilemmas like the one that's giving you problems.] If the rest was at least an hour long but not eight hours long, it counts as a short rest. The monk has all of his ki back, but the party will have to sleep/rest for another eight hours afterward to get a long rest.

If one of the PCs manages to spend the whole combat asleep (e.g. a druid who's melded into stone and doesn't hear everyone else fighting) or otherwise still resting, he is not interrupted and will only take six more hours to complete his long rest.

I find this interpretation to be nonsensical.

If you are on watch, weapons ready, and a lone goblin wanders into view, you draw your bow and kill it in a single shot, you now have to get an extra 4 hours of sleep to get the same rest as your buddy on watch who didn't take 6 seconds to fire his bow?

Consider it an adrenaline surge which makes you jumpy for the next half hour as you look for more goblins, which messes up your sleep cycle. It takes some time to settle back down physiologically. Anyone who was asleep, not on watch, and didn't notice the goblin is not affected in the same visceral way.

[Tanarii]

If you spend at least one hour resting without doing nothing more strenuous than the short rest listed stuff, it's a short rest. If you spend at least 8 hours resting, it includes 6 hours of sleep, and doesn't include the listed strenuous activity for long rests, then it's a long rest. (Edit: for the six hours of sleep requirement, see PHB errata here: http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/do.../PH-Errata.pdf
It's not in the basic rules v3.)

So yeah, if you've done the hour or more of nothing more strenuous than X stuff, and there's suddenly a sudden combat, you get the benefits of a short rest for that combat.

[Aett_Thorn]

I find this interpretation to be nonsensical.

If you are on watch, weapons ready, and a lone goblin wanders into view, you draw your bow and kill it in a single shot, you now have to get an extra 4 hours of sleep to get the same rest as your buddy on watch who didn't take 6 seconds to fire his bow?

It makes sense when you think about the facts that combats aren't usually that simple.

It's poor grammar for the point that they are trying to make (the "at least one hour of walking" should come last in the list), but given the other criteria, it makes sense to read it as "at least one hour of walking, or fighting, or casting a spell." Fighting almost never takes more than a full minute, let alone an hour, so why would they make that distinction? Similarly, casting a spell almost never takes more than an action, or maybe a minute. Only a few rare spells take a significant amount of time to cast, so why would you need to cast spells for more than an hour before you're out?

Taken to a logical conclusion, saying that a long rest can't be interrupted by 59 minutes of combat or casting, why wouldn't players just announce that they're taking a long rest right before every combat? If they're fighting for less than an hour, they'd still get the benefits!

[Demonslayer666]

Playing devil's advocate:
could refer to

At least 1 hour of (walking or fighting or casting spells or similar adventuring activity) - so you can have a mini-adventure during "sleep time" without interrupting your sleep.

OR

(at least 1 hour of walking) or (fighting) or (casting spells) or (similar adventuring activity) - so any spellcasting/fighting interrupts it


...

I disagree. All ambiguity was erased by the hyphen starting the list, making "at least 1 hour of walking" the first element in the list, eliminating any possibility of the "1 hour of" transposing itself onto the other elements in the list.

I find this interpretation to be nonsensical.

If you are on watch, weapons ready, and a lone goblin wanders into view, you draw your bow and kill it in a single shot, you now have to get an extra 4 hours of sleep to get the same rest as your buddy on watch who didn't take 6 seconds to fire his bow?

That's not really fighting now, is it? More like target practice.

[Angelalex242]

on topic: Yes, an interrupted long rest counts as a short rest.

How important is it if the long rest is interrupted or not? Well, unless there's a 'doom clock' of some kind that causes mission failure, it doesn't ultimately matter if the PCs wake up at 7 am or 11 am.

[DivisibleByZero]

I disagree. All ambiguity was erased by the hyphen starting the list, making "at least 1 hour of walking" the first element in the list, eliminating any possibility of the "1 hour of" transposing itself onto the other elements in the list.

You might think that, but you could be wrong.
That's the problem with trying to parse language in a rules situation. You miss the forest for the trees.
If you read all of the rules, and take it all in context, you clearly see that it includes any amount of strenuous activity.

R esting
H eroic though they might be, adventurers can’t spend every hour o f the day in the thick of exploration, social interaction, and combat. They need rest—time to sleep and eat, tend their wounds, refresh their minds and spirits for spellcasting, and brace themselves for further adventure.
Adventurers can take short rests in the midst of an adventuring day and a long rest to end the day.
S h o r t R e s t
A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing m ore strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds. A character can spend one or m ore Hit D ice 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 som e spent Hit D ice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.
L o n g R e s t
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during w hich a character sleeps or perform s light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no m ore than 2 hours. 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.
At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them. For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit D ice upon finishing a long rest.
A character can’t benefit from m ore than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.

A short rest in interrupted by doing ANYTHING more strenuous than "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds." You'll notice there is not time limit here.
A long rest is exactly the same, but also allows standing watch (for no more than 2 hours). It then goes on to specifically state that a rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity (even though that is absolutely, completely, and unmistakably obvious, to the point where even typing that was redundant, because they have already laid out exactly what you're allowed to do on a rest....), and then lists some specific things which interrupt said long rest.
That list includes:
-- at least 1 hour of walking
--fighting
--casting spells
-- any similar adventuring activity

Read things in context.
It's quite clear.

[Matrix_Walker]

Jeremy Crawford has a relevant tweet. You can fight and cast spells and not interrupt your long rest if the activity does not exceed an hour.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/08/20...hortlong-rest/


As for the OP, I do not think the RAW is explicit, but my interpretation is that if you get an hour of rest, you have taken a short rest regardless of whether you were declaring it a short rest or not.

[tieren]

Jeremy Crawford has a relevant tweet. You can fight and cast spells and not interrupt your long rest if the activity does not exceed an hour.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/08/20...hortlong-rest/


As for the OP, I do not think the RAW is explicit, but my interpretation is that if you get an hour of rest, you have taken a short rest regardless of whether you were declaring it a short rest or not.

Thanks for the answer.

[Thrudd]

You might think that, but you could be wrong.
That's the problem with trying to parse language in a rules situation. You miss the forest for the trees.
If you read all of the rules, and take it all in context, you clearly see that it includes any amount of strenuous activity.



A short rest in interrupted by doing ANYTHING more strenuous than "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds." You'll notice there is not time limit here.
A long rest is exactly the same, but also allows standing watch (for no more than 2 hours). It then goes on to specifically state that a rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity (even though that is absolutely, completely, and unmistakably obvious, to the point where even typing that was redundant, because they have already laid out exactly what you're allowed to do on a rest....), and then lists some specific things which interrupt said long rest.
That list includes:
-- at least 1 hour of walking
--fighting
--casting spells
-- any similar adventuring activity

Read things in context.
It's quite clear.

Yes. It makes sense for game play as well. Being too lax with long rests results in trivializing a lot of challenges in which resource management is and should be a major consideration. Long rest ought to be a thing that you can only reliably accomplish in "safe places" like a town or a well guarded camp. Traveling in wilderness or dungeon should be accompanied by a strong chance of random encounters that interrupt long periods being stationary.

[Tanarii]

Yes. It makes sense for game play as well. Being too lax with long rests results in trivializing a lot of challenges in which resource management is and should be a major consideration. Long rest ought to be a thing that you can only reliably accomplish in "safe places" like a town or a well guarded camp. Traveling in wilderness or dungeon should be accompanied by a strong chance of random encounters that interrupt long periods being stationary.

That's a pretty big assumption about how the players want resting to work. I mean, that's my approach & thinking too, but not every table will want the assumption that a long rest requires a town or well guarded camp.

[Malifice]

So let's say you're playing a monk that's burned through all of his ki. Your party decides to camp for the night and your shift isn't til later in the evening. So your character meditates then goes to sleep.

But a couple hours after he's asleep, the party is ambushed. Does your character have all of his ki points back? And if he spends them to counter the ambush, does he still regain them after completing his long rest?

This is probably a basic question, but it's never come up. So I'm actually not sure of the answer.

Youve rested for 1 or more hours. It's a short rest.

[Vogie]

I understand what they're going for here.

Personally, I would have worded it

If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—fighting, casting spells, similar adventuring activity or up to 1 hour of walking—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

However since it is

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.

You run into this issue:

Most combats last less than 1 minute so would not count as an strenuous interruption because they don't last at least an hour.

If you're travelling by any means other than walking, and have encounters within that period that don't total to 1 hour... You're technically always having a long rest. A bunch of short social encounters on a train? Long rest. Stay at your post, shooing away sirens from your zeppelin? Long rest. Non-encounter Trip to Disney World involving long queues? The characters must begin the rest again.

[Matrix_Walker]

I understand what they're going for here.

You seem to be describing the opposite, as your interruption can take any form, and as long as it is less than an hour, your long rest is not interrupted.

I linked the clarification tweet above. The RAI has been revealed, and the RAW's potential ambiguity cleared up.

If you play with any interruption of less than an hour costing the party it's long rest, then you are playing homebrew.

[Thrudd]

That's a pretty big assumption about how the players want resting to work. I mean, that's my approach & thinking too, but not every table will want the assumption that a long rest requires a town or well guarded camp.

I think It's more the assumption of the game. What players want doesn't come into it- they can house rule away this assumption, or blatantly misread the rules, but it doesn't change how it's designed to work.

The fact is, the only reason for there to be time requirements on resting, or on anything, is for that requirement to have some strategic consequence. You get greater benefit for resting longer, so there must be a downside to resting longer and/or it must be more difficult to achieve. If not, there's no point in making the distinction between short and long. You'd basically be resetting every ability and healing after every fight (which is the way some people play, but not how the game is actually meant to be played.)

[History_buff]

It’s important to note that one can only benefit from a long rest once per day.

[Tanarii]

I think It's more the assumption of the game. What players want doesn't come into it- they can house rule away this assumption, or blatantly misread the rules, but it doesn't change how it's designed to work.

Im going to guess you and I are thinking of different things when you said "a well guarded camp". I was envisioning a roman legion fortification. Did you just mean not finding a corner room in the dungeon and jamming a piton to lock the door while you rested?

Which btw is a time honored way to rest and recover resources in D&D dungeons. So I'm not sure someone as old-school conscious as Mearls would have been intending to rule that out either.

[Malifice]

It’s important to note that one can only benefit from a long rest once per day.

If players are attempting to spam long rests to the point this is an issue, then you have bigger problems at your table!

[LeonBH]

Yes, it can, provided the time they had already rested fulfills the requirements of a short rest.

But also note that the interruption needs to last for at least 1 hour, or 600 rounds of combat, to interrupt a long rest. If the party fights, the fight is over in 18 seconds, and they go back to sleep, that is still part of the same long rest.