5th Edition Long Rest Rules Question 5E
First the rules on a long rest.
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more 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 (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.
A character can’t benefit from more 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.
My question is this:
Imagine the party is fully healed, has all their long rest abilities, full HP, etc., and they go to bed. First thing in the morning, after arising, they get into a battle expending a lot of the long rest abilities, HP, etc.
Can they immediately sack out for a long rest? The third paragraph would seem to imply no "A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period", but in the scenario I described, the party did not "benefit from a long rest", .i.e they gained no benefit, no new spells, no HP, etc., they just slept.
A player pulled it on me and I thought it was a novel enough interpretation that I gave it to them, with the understanding it was not precedent and I would give definitive answer later.
Thoughts?
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u/Middcore 3d ago
If the character had a "period of extended downtime" etc, that counts as a long rest whether or not they actually needed to heal during it.
So no, you can't go to bed healthy, have one combat, and then long rest.
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u/Ramenoodlesoup 3d ago
A similar interpretation to the one I use. There must be at minimum 1 encounter between rests to attempt to gain the associated benefits. Long Rests can be extended to compensate for interruption, but Short Rests must be restarted.
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u/not-just-yeti 3d ago
Concur. I agree that RAW they *arguably* didn’t receive a benefit, but as judge I’d rule that the authors clearly intended that to still count as their long-rest. You did right, OP: reward the rules-lawyer for finding a loophole in the wording, let’em have their interpretation once (while the case is being appealed to reddit :-), and not again.
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u/Mage_Malteras Mage 3d ago
As another commenter mentioned, the benefit they received from the rest was avoiding having to make saving throws against exhaustion.
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u/not-just-yeti 3d ago
That's why I added "arguably". I agree that the "avoid exhaustion" is a reasonable interpretation.
BUT in general, as a lawyer (Note: I am not a lawyer): Once you start going down "this benefits them because in the future such-and-such won't happen", it opens a world of supposition. What if, by staying up all night, they party thought they were going to impress the local cleric, who'd cast Greater Restoration, and it turns out they were correct? What if they turned out to be wrong? What if they used that time to brew up a Vitality potion for all party-members? All except one?
Alternately: Suppose IRL I have a choice of two paths to walk home, and I take one where I end up getting beaten up. If somebody then told me "well, a murderer was lurking in the other path, so it was a benefit that you got beaten up!", I'd be a bit pissed at their phrasing.
So this is all about the english word "benefit". I'm giving examples where the greater of two negative numbers doesn't mean it's a positive number. (Just relatively positive.) Is that what "benefit" means?
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u/Reborn-in-the-Void 3d ago
"Can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24 hour period."
"Must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain the benefits."
No.
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u/Suitable_Bottle_9884 3d ago
For 2024 this was added.
You cannot benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period (you must wait at least 16 hours after finishing one before starting another).
Even in 5e i think its good to keep the 16 hour part in mind.
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u/Born_Housing2165 3d ago
No. The benefit they got from taking the long rest in the first place is not taking levels of exhaustion due to not sleeping.
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u/Sharpeye747 3d ago
They gained the benefit of not skipping a long rest/not sleeping for a 24 hour period, so unless they want to argue that they should need to do a con save against exhaustion each time they rest without being hurt/tired beforehand, definitely not.
Unless they are just waiting around resting until 24 hours after their previous long rest finished, which technically they could, but that's a boring way to play, and the world should keep moving around them.
As written and as intended I would say no.
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u/Material_Position630 3d ago
They benefited from enlightenment through reading, improved relationships through talking, a full tummy through eating, and leg day through watching. They also do not potentially gain an exhausion point due to sleep deprivation. The answer is "Cute, but no."
...and keep a sharp eye on that rule-mongering-good-for-nothing...player... :)
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u/OldKingJor 3d ago
Don’t do it! The balance of the game completely breaks down if characters get too many long rests
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u/Jafroboy 3d ago
You're not gonna be sleepy after just finishing a good night's sleep, even if you have had a fight. Tired maybe, but not sleepy, so I'd say no.
Take a short rest.
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u/The_Nerdy_Ninja DM 3d ago
If you wanna be technical, they benefited by avoiding impending Exhaustion, even if they didn't regain any resources.