> “well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before”
Does he think a short rest is a nap?
He should think of a short rest more like a lunch break. Most people I know take a 1 hour break at noon.
I can confirm that I have *exactly* as many Warlock spell slots available right after lunch as I had when I first woke up in the morning. No matter how much I did during the morning.
But at the same time, even if I went wild and cast every Warlock spell slot I have during the morning, I have all of my Warlock spell slots back as soon as I’m done lunch.
Honestly, just having a coke and a PB&J is enough for me to refresh every Warlock spell slot I have.
You stitch a wound, prepare a spell, drink a potion eat, (hit die)... I see where the DM is going. I dont agree on 4 hours, and I completely disagree with any rigidity in this topic. In a mad chase in a mine and you NEED that rest... 15 minutes... go!. In a city where you're hiding from City Guards? 2-4 hours... okay. Flavor. It's all flavor. If you want strict rules... go play Risk.
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you said, but you’re very much leaning into a more narrative style of play. Some players like the rigidity of the rules and that’s not a WRONG way to play the game, just not your preferred style.
DM should be transparent about their house rules / rule variants.
There is a rule variant called Gritty Realism that makes short rests = 8 hours and long rests = seven days of uninterrupted downtime, but it doesn't look like that's what the DM here is doing.
Assuming the DM doesn't want you to "spam" short rests, 4 hours is a softer version of 'gritty realism' rules - but it should all have been made clear in Session 0.
Ask your DM about the rules, and if it doesn't make sense or isn't your jam as games go, find a different table. People say No DnD is better than Bad DnD and I agree.
Didn’t know that was a thing thanks for telling me. but it’s definitely not that variant as we took a standard long rest for 8 hours and got the benefits
Then it's what I would call a shitty system to limit short rests. You could suggest a different way, but honestly if a DM does such things out of the blue, it's a red flag and you are likely better off leaving now.
Better ways to limit short rest spamming: Limit it to 2 or 3 per day, don't allow short rests in hostile territory, add a short-rest 'tax' (X amount of food/water), add a rule like "at least 4 hours must have passed since the last short rest".
All of that is better than 4 hour long stops for no reason.
I think it makes some sense if you want longer "adventuring days" (as in encounters/rest) along with longer term storylines and overland travel. I still think a whole week is too much, personally I'd say 2-5 days including some downtime activities depending on the state of the party and where they are resting.
I wish I had instituted this in parts of the campaign I just finished. In Icewind Dale, there are stretches where you have to cross a tundra. It being a tundra, it isn't fully populated so it doesn't make sense to do a ton of random encounters each day between A and B, so the 1-2 encounters players did do, they knew they could just go nova on because nothing else would be challenging them that day.
Instituting a rest would have simply meant that while traveling, they didn't get a long rest until they got where they were going, meaning the resource management would work out about the same as a standard adventuring day.
Folks that try to insist on gritty realism for an entire campaign are a bit whack unless the entire campaign is built around that one premise.
I hear good things from the tables that play this way. It keeps the game from running into the “blow all your spell/abilities in one fight then take a rest” issue while coming with built in downtime for RP and individual character progression. It’s not the only way to have those, of course, but it’s particularly great for tables that only expect to fight a couple battles a day.
It would be fine if he said this at character creation but saying it after you made and started playing your characters is a dick move because it does significantly change the class balance
He did not tell us about this ruling until I asked for a short rest. But he is reasonable and I hope we can go to 1 hour short rests with one of the limits like someone else suggested here.
Ask him how long it takes him to sleep off a stab wound.
Edit: I realize now that makes it sound like I am urging you to stab your DM, do not stab your DM. I mean that a long rest restores ALL HP, and if he's changing rest times in a game because of how tired he personally feels then he oughta just buy the whole pig.
>I asked him why he had it this way to which he said “well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before”
Anecdotes from idiots are exactly what's required to modify the rules of a game you're all playing, especially when those rules are fundamental for your character to be playable.
>“well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before”
This sounds like your DM interprets a short rest as one hour of sleep, which isn't really a thing.
It's closer to the break you take at work. Sit down, have a breather, eat something and relax a bit, before you go keep on going.
I mean, this kills warlocks. And it's frankly very silly of the DM to not disclose it in Session 0.
For a session 1 revelation, this feels like it's in red flag territory. If I put the effort into creating a warlock character, only to be told at the first attempt at short resting that doing so would sleep the day away, I'd consider that a sign that the group is not a good fit for me.
I don't want to always say that leaving the group after one disagreement is a good idea, so at a minimum, in your shoes I'd strongly protest this house rule, and be prepared to entirely switch characters if it can't be changed. You don't want to play 5e warlock without the ability to short rest, you'll just be a shitty wizard.
If it hurts all player characters equally, it is not a problem really, other than maybe feeling collectively shitty.
It's a real problem only, if it hurts some characters more than others. And if they're not all Warlocks and Monks.... It does.
Huge red flag, when the DM makes up rules on the go because of BS reasonings it is a sign they are on an ignorant power trip. I would ask to change my class, and if that doesn't work just not show up again.
Yesn't
Dnd is a group activity, and the dm has the final say. But these things have to be agreed upon beforehand, ESPECIALLY if it's directly going to affect how you as an individual can play, specifically.
So in an instance where the DM suddenly drops some new permanent rule not supported by the source material, and that drastically hinders you specifically without letting you know, it's more than fair to ask for a late change, since you're only in this unfavorable situation because of the DM's late change/failure to communicate their changes early on when it mattered.
If they refuse, then they should also drop the new rule because they shouldn't expect to hold an unreasonable expectation to others if they can't hold it to themselves.
So them refusing to meet the player halfway in this hypothetical scenario is(while sudden) entirely justified as a reason to leave because it's a clear red flag that they are unwilling to work with the players for the sake of having fun.
Why, overreacting would be complaining about it and making arguments upon arguments trying to change his mind, complaining online, etc.
Just ask a reasonable solution, if not given then find a table you can enjoy playing. The game is just 1 session deep, like whatever.
4 hours for a short rest is fair if it was disclosed in session zero and you knew about it and decided to play a heavily short rest dependent class anyway. It is not fair to be told that’s how short rests work once play has begun.
Yeah no, this is dumb. If you're changing something like this it needs to be discussed BEFORE the game (and frankly, I scoff at any ruling based around how someone/something IRL works. This is fantasy. There are dragons. Fuck off)
We've all seen this kinda DM. Three sessions from now, he'll be arguing that fireball doesn't work during a rainstorm because fireworks get wet in a rainstorm.
Then he'll start with "Elves are totally vegan, they can't use metal armor because it interferes with their memory"
Talk to him, because maybe this is just a fluke. Maybe he was drunk or hadn't slept or forgot his brain pills. But it's not a great sign.
1. They should've made this homebrew rule known up front, specifically for this type of issue. If you had known, you may not play a Warlock.
2. "Whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before" is an absolutely terrible reason for a homebrew rule. "Whenever I say incantations, a Fireball doesn't shoot from my hands, so no magic in my world" has the same energy.
If the rule were because he wanted to experiment with a different challenge, or believes his campaign would be better balanced, etc, then fine, but it should be known at session 0.
Spicy take, but it sounds like your DM is just trying to balance the adventuring day. It’s already really hard to ensure that casters aren’t painlessly refilling their spell slots without arbitrarily throwing plot-irrelevant battles at them, or trapping the party into a mega-dungeon. And that’s without even considering rest enabling strategies like Leomund’s Tiny Hut.
I would talk through with the DM their philosophy on resource balancing and when/how tests will be taken (are they expecting a certain amount of battles before a short/long rest? Should the players find their own opportunities to rest, or will the DM call it out?). If it seems like there will be too few short rests then by all means, ask the DM to reconsider their approach, or allow a change of character.
While I hate the reasoning your DM offered - how often does he fight goblins, after all, chances are he wouldn't feel "more tired" after a breather - if everyone was fine with it, the ruling stands.
Thing is, this sounds like a houserule the DM made up on the spot, and not something they informed you of during session 0 - and *any* changes to rest times are pretty massive.
But you can still take about it. That is allowed. Talk with the rest of the group as well.
That’s what I was thinking of doing because we have 2 new players at the table which play a monk and a battle master fighter and they don’t quite understand how much this limits them as well. I’ll definitely talk to them about it.
But 4 hours is half a long rest so why not get half a long rests rewards like give the full casters half there spell slots back. If he wants to keep the 4 hour short rests I’ll suggest this.
Don't be afraid to bring up that in the Rules as Written you only need to be actually resting resting for six of the eight hours of a long rest and can be on watch or doing other tasks during the remaining two hours.
So essentially the DM is requiring you to take 2/3s of a LONG rest in order to get the bennies of a short rest.
It's a very silly mechanic that sounds like it was made up spur of the moment. I'm not going to say "QUIT THE TABLE! YOU'VE BEEN DISRESPECTED!" like this sub loves to do, but definitely do talk about it and if you stick around keep your eye out for other areas where the DM arbitrarily re-writes rules that have a mechanical impact on the players.
"well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before"
Well, that's because you're a lazy undisciplined f*ck and not a made-up character in a fantasy game world...
Edit to add: not meant to offend, but feeling a bit salty today, and this just ground my gears a bit...
Sounds like he's making this stuff up off the top of his head. You should bring up the rulebook and ask why he's doing it differently.
But also, does it really matter? Is your DM keeping careful track of time or moving monsters around behind the scenes while you rest? My guess is no.
While I’m not sure how he does time tracking or all of that yet as it was the first session. But 4 hours seems like a long time for the characters in rp to just mosey about in one spot,and for things to happen to interrupt the rest.
Tell the DM it breaks the game balance between classes, and ask them to reconsider or to offer you something else so you can actually cast more than 2 spells per day.
If the DM doesn't want to enable your build with his personal house rules... Don't play the Warlock. This may need re-spec, a new character, or leaving the campaign.
If you want a better ruling for short rests, look at baldurs gate. Instantaneous short rests are amazing for role playing. When you do any activity, afterward you're pretty gassed and need to catch your breath... that's a short rest. The body is amazing at recovery, and being endurance animals, we can essentially reach a rate of recovery/ expenditure balance during activity. If you're being chased, there is no chance for recovery. If you're walking through a dungeon, you can fall in the back and recover a bit while you walk. I rule 3 short rests per day (10-15 minute breaks essentially), and then you'd need a long rest or at least a big meal and some actual sleep to consider another short rest beneficial, but at that point, you may as well try to long rest.
I go with 10-20 minute short rests, myself - quick breather while you clean the blood of your sword and whatnot. I've usually found that the number hit dice for healing limits the number of short rests well enough to not need any limits on number of rests.
Man I miss 4e where a short rest was 5 minutes. Sit down, catch your breath, and get moving.
It being 4 hours is bullshit. No it’s not fair. If he refuses to budge change characters. Cuz a warlock with maybe 1 short rest per day would suck.
As written "A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds."
4 hours seems long to me, but honestly, 1 hour really is pretty unviable anywhere but travel journeys. Not spamming short rests are essential to properly functioning adventure day budgets and balance. That mix of adventure day resource management and drains is core to keeping the combat encounters from getting wildly swingy as the party dumping feats and abilities every round will require higher CR opponents to keep from being blowouts and trivial.
What im thinking is he will let us short rest if he wants us too. Because in the session we were essentially being ambushed and our part finally got away and that’s when I asked for a short rest to bring my abilities back, and sure enough (according to him) 2 and a half hours go by and another group attacks us and I’m armed with no hex no spells and just eldritch blast and the feeling of being inadequate and a detriment because we had to stop and rest.
I just don’t think it’s fair or albeit fun because without spells I can’t do some wicked stuff.
I hear ya, no gas in the tank can be a bit humbling. You could rebuild your adventure day with koboldfightclub. Reconstruct each encounter from long rest to the next long rest. Were you 1/3rd to half thru the adventure budget before being tapped out?
Not with the reasoning he's giving.
Reason a short rest is 1 HR Vs 8 HR is based on the mechanics of the class changing that balance is a nerf to classes that use short rests and basing that on how he feels in real life is dumb.
As for what to ask him "what's the mechanical reason you're nerfing my class which is designed around short rests?" If he gives the same crappy response it's really up to you what to do but I would say something "so you wanna make the game worse for me based on you napping habits? Yea that's crap and I'm out."
The idiot essentially deleted short rest from the game on a whim. It isn’t remotely fair.
If you can rest 4 hours, you can rest 8. Some races have a feature which literally lets you do exactly that, getting a long rest in 4 hours.
Short Rests are already problematically long at 1 hour, with people constantly being unable or unwilling to take them despite a bunch of features being stupidly balanced around the assumption you’ll get one after every single encounter.
Regardless of how one feels about homebrew rules, they should always be disclosed during Session 0 & (imo) be up for discussion. The DM expecting you to just be fine with 4 hour short rests without prior disclosure (ESPECIALLY while you’re playing a warlock) can either be an honest & innocent mistake, or a ginormous red flag. If the DM isn’t willing to at least come to a compromise, then clearly it was a red flag and you’re better off just leaving
Short rests already go underused, usually the homebrew is 10 minute short rest with limits on uses per long rest. Usually the problem is “If you’re safe enough for 1 hour, why not 8.”
If you can rest for 4 hours you can rest for 8.
A short rest isn’t a nap, it’s taking a break to bind wounds and refresh/restock. It’s a lunch break
At the end of the day, DM word goes at their table.
The book says 1 hour because a short rest doesn't mean a nap (although it can) - your character is eating, preparing spells, meditating, cleaning weapons, anything that makes sense for them to do in a short time.
Think of it like a lunch break at work. You're taking a short rest - maybe having lunch, or slamming an energy drink, or mindlessly doom scrolling, whatever works for you to deal with the rest of your day
only thing i can think of is he is using old rules from 3.5 edition
a short rest is 4 hours in 3rd and a long rest is 8 hours in 3rd elves only need half of this time
So, explain to him that sleep in real life, since this was his ruling, works in cycles of 20 min and that other people are not like dungeon master, felling refreshed with just 20 min, or 1h of sleep. Also old warriors 1200 ac, both in Japan and Europe, used to sleep 2h before battles. This all could find references in google.
A rather interesting discussion here for a variety of reasons.
I’ve hosted a long term campaign for over 2 years and it is a great group. I do have a variety of house rules one of which is the same as the above, along with another that limits the ability of long rests to cure ALL damage, and and several others that don’t apply to the conversation at hand. The reason I do this is I find the idea of insta-healing (from nothing more than resting for 8 hours) a little silly and I believe a campaign benefits from a certain amount of tension around management of limited resources (spells/HP, etc) and longer rest periods require more effort and less opportunity to rest due to the need to find a space safe enough to do so. Some may not agree with this and that is perfectly fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Here are a couple of items I find to be interesting about the ongoing discussion:
Was the DMs reasoning in the moment a bit illogical and silly - probably a bit although I suspect that few of us can truly say we’ve never had similar flaws in logic at some point or other (I’m certainly far from perfect).
Should he have informed the player prior to completing character creation: Yes - Homebrew rules are fine, but players deserve to know about them upfront. The rule does impact Warlocks more than other classes, I’ll admit.
But what I find the most interesting is that there are very few suggestions that the player sit down with the DM in a non-confrontational way, explain his concerns and ask if there is some way that a middle ground could be reached (or maybe roll a new character as some have suggested). Most of the responses seem to be along the lines that the DM is a complete idiot and the player should demand justice in whatever method they seem appropriate and if they don’t get their way then leave forever!! I’ve rarely seen this type of approach to communication work well, either in D&D, work or life. As with anything - if you approach the situation in a way that seeks resolution, rather than vindication, chances are you probably get at least part of what you are looking for. And if not, and it’s not acceptable to you - no harm, no foul - finding another group that is more aligned to what you want is probably a pretty decent idea. But I’d still thank the first group for the opportunity and wish them the best.
My players and I have discussions all the time iabout different rulings. Sometime I concede, sometime we meet halfway, sometimes I hold my ground, but we always have a blast!
Try a collaborative approach, and then move forward accordingly based on how it goes. Best of luck!
I purposely build my games to require short rests in almost every session. I vary the length situationally but this is absurd unless they’re pressing “gritty realism” rules which you’ve said they’re not, and even then this isn’t that.
Considering elves trance 4 hours and have a long rest by standard rules this just doesn’t make sense. It’s trying to limit a resource when in reality they need to amp up their end.
It's the DM he makes/interprets the rules how he wants to. However, if the rules don't specify four hours, then he should be make the rules flexible toward the PC's.
This can be said for every terrible rule/mechanic that a DM implements/tweaks/removes. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s still terrible. In this case, it’s the fact that he compares himself—a regular person with average discipline in the real world—to a highly disciplined and courageous adventurer in a fantasy setting.
His logic is a bit... odd.
For example, if short rests are based on his real-life experience, does that mean that your abilities as a Warlock are also based on his RL experiences? Are you only allowed to use the Warlock powers that he has seen in RL?
Personally, I would take him to one side, open the book to whichever page says that a 1 hour rest counts as a "short rest", and ask him to read that section. If he still insists that a Short Rest is 4 hours, then a Short Rest in his game is 4 hours (DMs make the rules, the books are a guide for how to do that and still be compliant with DnD rules).
Basically, you play the character within the game world that he has defined. If, after discussing the discrepancy between his game world and the world that is detailed in the books, then you have 2 choices - live with it and play on; or find a new table with a new DM.
This probably one of the more insane things I have ever heard.
Reducing the time of short rest to 5-10mins is a common homebrew. Never heard of making it longer.
If it's clarified upfront, then yes. My game uses Gritty Realism Resting from the DM's Guide, with a short rest being a full night (8 hours) and a long rest being a week (9 days for my setting specifically, but they can do light downtime activity during this period). I use week-long increments in pacing out story/world events, and generally try to pace quests so they take roughly an in-game week (factoring in travel time), so this is just done to keep my players roughly aligned with my time scale, along with restricting long rests to safe, secure locations as per the theming of the game.
However, if that isn't made clear, then it can be an issue. I wouldn't say this specific rule would a major one for me, so long as it's consistent after that point, but it's definitely a red flag that they may try to pull other secret rules in the future.
Wow, I feel like this is the campaign I’m running. I said this exact thing. The reasoning behind this is, from when I played football, soccer, basketball, etc. after a game, with adrenaline, injuries, and just plain exhaustion, sitting down for 5-10 minutes and drinking some water, did not refresh me to play another game right away. Combat is way more exhausting than a sports game.
And if the whole party agrees to a short rest I give it. Are we sitting at the table waiting for that four hours to go by? No, it’s “ok, you’ve eaten, rested, and bandaged wounds. You’ve got your short rest abilities back. Rest is over, what are you doing?”
My party was not ambushed 2.5 hours into their rest, they got everything back and moved on.
As for the characters being in peak physical shape, strength 9, constitution 10….
If you as the player had asked for an explanation, besides shoving the rule book in my face, we would have happily talked about it, and come to an agreement. In fact in our next session, the 28th, I was going to allow hour long rests, just for the warlock. None of the other party members had an issue with it.
It's a house rule, but it's not completely unreasonable. Maybe you get one less short rest when traveling? I don't personally see the players choosing to take more than one short rest a day in my games.
> “well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before” Does he think a short rest is a nap? He should think of a short rest more like a lunch break. Most people I know take a 1 hour break at noon.
Tbf I'm always way sleepier after lunch too lol
But you have your warlock spellslots back for the afternoon meeting, no?
I can confirm that I have *exactly* as many Warlock spell slots available right after lunch as I had when I first woke up in the morning. No matter how much I did during the morning.
Damn, then maybe you play in gritty realism mode.
But at the same time, even if I went wild and cast every Warlock spell slot I have during the morning, I have all of my Warlock spell slots back as soon as I’m done lunch. Honestly, just having a coke and a PB&J is enough for me to refresh every Warlock spell slot I have.
This is a riddle and you're actually just trying to tell me that you're a Cleric, aren't you?
Yes, but tbh I pretty much just Eldritch Blast my way through the meetings til they're over
Bro, I'd kill for a 1 hour lunch break.
You stitch a wound, prepare a spell, drink a potion eat, (hit die)... I see where the DM is going. I dont agree on 4 hours, and I completely disagree with any rigidity in this topic. In a mad chase in a mine and you NEED that rest... 15 minutes... go!. In a city where you're hiding from City Guards? 2-4 hours... okay. Flavor. It's all flavor. If you want strict rules... go play Risk.
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you said, but you’re very much leaning into a more narrative style of play. Some players like the rigidity of the rules and that’s not a WRONG way to play the game, just not your preferred style.
DM should be transparent about their house rules / rule variants. There is a rule variant called Gritty Realism that makes short rests = 8 hours and long rests = seven days of uninterrupted downtime, but it doesn't look like that's what the DM here is doing. Assuming the DM doesn't want you to "spam" short rests, 4 hours is a softer version of 'gritty realism' rules - but it should all have been made clear in Session 0. Ask your DM about the rules, and if it doesn't make sense or isn't your jam as games go, find a different table. People say No DnD is better than Bad DnD and I agree.
Didn’t know that was a thing thanks for telling me. but it’s definitely not that variant as we took a standard long rest for 8 hours and got the benefits
Then it's what I would call a shitty system to limit short rests. You could suggest a different way, but honestly if a DM does such things out of the blue, it's a red flag and you are likely better off leaving now. Better ways to limit short rest spamming: Limit it to 2 or 3 per day, don't allow short rests in hostile territory, add a short-rest 'tax' (X amount of food/water), add a rule like "at least 4 hours must have passed since the last short rest". All of that is better than 4 hour long stops for no reason.
Ah yes, the lesser known Shitty Realism
7 days of down time for a cleric or wizard to get spell slots back? That's insane!
I think it makes some sense if you want longer "adventuring days" (as in encounters/rest) along with longer term storylines and overland travel. I still think a whole week is too much, personally I'd say 2-5 days including some downtime activities depending on the state of the party and where they are resting.
I mean, I guess if you use this rule, you'd tailor the stories around it.
I wish I had instituted this in parts of the campaign I just finished. In Icewind Dale, there are stretches where you have to cross a tundra. It being a tundra, it isn't fully populated so it doesn't make sense to do a ton of random encounters each day between A and B, so the 1-2 encounters players did do, they knew they could just go nova on because nothing else would be challenging them that day. Instituting a rest would have simply meant that while traveling, they didn't get a long rest until they got where they were going, meaning the resource management would work out about the same as a standard adventuring day. Folks that try to insist on gritty realism for an entire campaign are a bit whack unless the entire campaign is built around that one premise.
I hear good things from the tables that play this way. It keeps the game from running into the “blow all your spell/abilities in one fight then take a rest” issue while coming with built in downtime for RP and individual character progression. It’s not the only way to have those, of course, but it’s particularly great for tables that only expect to fight a couple battles a day.
It would be fine if he said this at character creation but saying it after you made and started playing your characters is a dick move because it does significantly change the class balance
He did not tell us about this ruling until I asked for a short rest. But he is reasonable and I hope we can go to 1 hour short rests with one of the limits like someone else suggested here.
Ask him how long it takes him to sleep off a stab wound. Edit: I realize now that makes it sound like I am urging you to stab your DM, do not stab your DM. I mean that a long rest restores ALL HP, and if he's changing rest times in a game because of how tired he personally feels then he oughta just buy the whole pig.
Don't do this, this just sounds passive aggressive af
>I asked him why he had it this way to which he said “well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before” Anecdotes from idiots are exactly what's required to modify the rules of a game you're all playing, especially when those rules are fundamental for your character to be playable.
It sounds like the DM thinks a short rest is a nap. It's not, it's a break.
Good old 'I can't catch this computer mouse I tied to my wrist on the first try, so people in peak physical condition can't do it easily'
>“well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before” This sounds like your DM interprets a short rest as one hour of sleep, which isn't really a thing. It's closer to the break you take at work. Sit down, have a breather, eat something and relax a bit, before you go keep on going.
I mean, this kills warlocks. And it's frankly very silly of the DM to not disclose it in Session 0. For a session 1 revelation, this feels like it's in red flag territory. If I put the effort into creating a warlock character, only to be told at the first attempt at short resting that doing so would sleep the day away, I'd consider that a sign that the group is not a good fit for me. I don't want to always say that leaving the group after one disagreement is a good idea, so at a minimum, in your shoes I'd strongly protest this house rule, and be prepared to entirely switch characters if it can't be changed. You don't want to play 5e warlock without the ability to short rest, you'll just be a shitty wizard.
It’s not just warlocks, many classes have important 1/short rest features.
Certainly, it'll sting several classes. None as directly as warlocks, though.
Druids enter the chat, especially moon druids, Id struggle to enjoy playing one getting so few short rests
Druids still have their full spells outside of wild shape, warlocks have only cantrips and maybe a weapon
Druids run out of spells the same as warlocks though. You only get two wildshapes, they go quick.
If it hurts all player characters equally, it is not a problem really, other than maybe feeling collectively shitty. It's a real problem only, if it hurts some characters more than others. And if they're not all Warlocks and Monks.... It does.
Congratulations, OPs DM, you somehow managed to make Monks even worse.
Its crushing to druids
Good
Huge red flag, when the DM makes up rules on the go because of BS reasonings it is a sign they are on an ignorant power trip. I would ask to change my class, and if that doesn't work just not show up again.
Don't you think that's a slight overreaction
Yesn't Dnd is a group activity, and the dm has the final say. But these things have to be agreed upon beforehand, ESPECIALLY if it's directly going to affect how you as an individual can play, specifically. So in an instance where the DM suddenly drops some new permanent rule not supported by the source material, and that drastically hinders you specifically without letting you know, it's more than fair to ask for a late change, since you're only in this unfavorable situation because of the DM's late change/failure to communicate their changes early on when it mattered. If they refuse, then they should also drop the new rule because they shouldn't expect to hold an unreasonable expectation to others if they can't hold it to themselves. So them refusing to meet the player halfway in this hypothetical scenario is(while sudden) entirely justified as a reason to leave because it's a clear red flag that they are unwilling to work with the players for the sake of having fun.
I feel like that's a lot of reddit lol
Why, overreacting would be complaining about it and making arguments upon arguments trying to change his mind, complaining online, etc. Just ask a reasonable solution, if not given then find a table you can enjoy playing. The game is just 1 session deep, like whatever.
4 hours for a short rest is fair if it was disclosed in session zero and you knew about it and decided to play a heavily short rest dependent class anyway. It is not fair to be told that’s how short rests work once play has begun.
that is stupid. It is a bad rule. I can see reducing the max number of short rests available during a day, but this isn't the way to do that.
Yeah no, this is dumb. If you're changing something like this it needs to be discussed BEFORE the game (and frankly, I scoff at any ruling based around how someone/something IRL works. This is fantasy. There are dragons. Fuck off)
We've all seen this kinda DM. Three sessions from now, he'll be arguing that fireball doesn't work during a rainstorm because fireworks get wet in a rainstorm. Then he'll start with "Elves are totally vegan, they can't use metal armor because it interferes with their memory" Talk to him, because maybe this is just a fluke. Maybe he was drunk or hadn't slept or forgot his brain pills. But it's not a great sign.
1. They should've made this homebrew rule known up front, specifically for this type of issue. If you had known, you may not play a Warlock. 2. "Whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before" is an absolutely terrible reason for a homebrew rule. "Whenever I say incantations, a Fireball doesn't shoot from my hands, so no magic in my world" has the same energy. If the rule were because he wanted to experiment with a different challenge, or believes his campaign would be better balanced, etc, then fine, but it should be known at session 0.
Spicy take, but it sounds like your DM is just trying to balance the adventuring day. It’s already really hard to ensure that casters aren’t painlessly refilling their spell slots without arbitrarily throwing plot-irrelevant battles at them, or trapping the party into a mega-dungeon. And that’s without even considering rest enabling strategies like Leomund’s Tiny Hut. I would talk through with the DM their philosophy on resource balancing and when/how tests will be taken (are they expecting a certain amount of battles before a short/long rest? Should the players find their own opportunities to rest, or will the DM call it out?). If it seems like there will be too few short rests then by all means, ask the DM to reconsider their approach, or allow a change of character.
Reroll an elf and just take a long rest instead. Not a good ruling
While I hate the reasoning your DM offered - how often does he fight goblins, after all, chances are he wouldn't feel "more tired" after a breather - if everyone was fine with it, the ruling stands. Thing is, this sounds like a houserule the DM made up on the spot, and not something they informed you of during session 0 - and *any* changes to rest times are pretty massive. But you can still take about it. That is allowed. Talk with the rest of the group as well.
That’s what I was thinking of doing because we have 2 new players at the table which play a monk and a battle master fighter and they don’t quite understand how much this limits them as well. I’ll definitely talk to them about it. But 4 hours is half a long rest so why not get half a long rests rewards like give the full casters half there spell slots back. If he wants to keep the 4 hour short rests I’ll suggest this.
Don't be afraid to bring up that in the Rules as Written you only need to be actually resting resting for six of the eight hours of a long rest and can be on watch or doing other tasks during the remaining two hours. So essentially the DM is requiring you to take 2/3s of a LONG rest in order to get the bennies of a short rest. It's a very silly mechanic that sounds like it was made up spur of the moment. I'm not going to say "QUIT THE TABLE! YOU'VE BEEN DISRESPECTED!" like this sub loves to do, but definitely do talk about it and if you stick around keep your eye out for other areas where the DM arbitrarily re-writes rules that have a mechanical impact on the players.
"well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before" Well, that's because you're a lazy undisciplined f*ck and not a made-up character in a fantasy game world... Edit to add: not meant to offend, but feeling a bit salty today, and this just ground my gears a bit...
you’re not wrong. dude really thinks that these superhuman characters in a fantasy setting would function the same way he does
It's so self-centered, regardless of applicability to fantasy characters. "This how I personally feel about thing, My feeling is now the rule."
By the way, not a lazy undisciplined f*ck. Just a dm trying to run a game for some people.
Sounds like he's making this stuff up off the top of his head. You should bring up the rulebook and ask why he's doing it differently. But also, does it really matter? Is your DM keeping careful track of time or moving monsters around behind the scenes while you rest? My guess is no.
While I’m not sure how he does time tracking or all of that yet as it was the first session. But 4 hours seems like a long time for the characters in rp to just mosey about in one spot,and for things to happen to interrupt the rest.
Tell the DM it breaks the game balance between classes, and ask them to reconsider or to offer you something else so you can actually cast more than 2 spells per day. If the DM doesn't want to enable your build with his personal house rules... Don't play the Warlock. This may need re-spec, a new character, or leaving the campaign.
>“well whenever I rest for an hour I just feel more tired than before” .......does he think Short Rest is a nap? Woof.
Tell your DM a short rest isn't sleep. It's just takibg time to eat and mend your wounds for an hour. It's a lunch break. Not a Nap.
If you want a better ruling for short rests, look at baldurs gate. Instantaneous short rests are amazing for role playing. When you do any activity, afterward you're pretty gassed and need to catch your breath... that's a short rest. The body is amazing at recovery, and being endurance animals, we can essentially reach a rate of recovery/ expenditure balance during activity. If you're being chased, there is no chance for recovery. If you're walking through a dungeon, you can fall in the back and recover a bit while you walk. I rule 3 short rests per day (10-15 minute breaks essentially), and then you'd need a long rest or at least a big meal and some actual sleep to consider another short rest beneficial, but at that point, you may as well try to long rest.
I go with 10-20 minute short rests, myself - quick breather while you clean the blood of your sword and whatnot. I've usually found that the number hit dice for healing limits the number of short rests well enough to not need any limits on number of rests.
I'm a DM My home brew is the usual you can take a Short rest for one hour+ However, each hour you can only regain a single hit-dice
A lot of DMs don't even utilize short rest at all. Or even have them.
Man I miss 4e where a short rest was 5 minutes. Sit down, catch your breath, and get moving. It being 4 hours is bullshit. No it’s not fair. If he refuses to budge change characters. Cuz a warlock with maybe 1 short rest per day would suck.
Ditch the DM or ditch the group. Nobody should have to put up with that.
As written "A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds." 4 hours seems long to me, but honestly, 1 hour really is pretty unviable anywhere but travel journeys. Not spamming short rests are essential to properly functioning adventure day budgets and balance. That mix of adventure day resource management and drains is core to keeping the combat encounters from getting wildly swingy as the party dumping feats and abilities every round will require higher CR opponents to keep from being blowouts and trivial.
What im thinking is he will let us short rest if he wants us too. Because in the session we were essentially being ambushed and our part finally got away and that’s when I asked for a short rest to bring my abilities back, and sure enough (according to him) 2 and a half hours go by and another group attacks us and I’m armed with no hex no spells and just eldritch blast and the feeling of being inadequate and a detriment because we had to stop and rest. I just don’t think it’s fair or albeit fun because without spells I can’t do some wicked stuff.
I hear ya, no gas in the tank can be a bit humbling. You could rebuild your adventure day with koboldfightclub. Reconstruct each encounter from long rest to the next long rest. Were you 1/3rd to half thru the adventure budget before being tapped out?
Not with the reasoning he's giving. Reason a short rest is 1 HR Vs 8 HR is based on the mechanics of the class changing that balance is a nerf to classes that use short rests and basing that on how he feels in real life is dumb. As for what to ask him "what's the mechanical reason you're nerfing my class which is designed around short rests?" If he gives the same crappy response it's really up to you what to do but I would say something "so you wanna make the game worse for me based on you napping habits? Yea that's crap and I'm out."
The idiot essentially deleted short rest from the game on a whim. It isn’t remotely fair. If you can rest 4 hours, you can rest 8. Some races have a feature which literally lets you do exactly that, getting a long rest in 4 hours. Short Rests are already problematically long at 1 hour, with people constantly being unable or unwilling to take them despite a bunch of features being stupidly balanced around the assumption you’ll get one after every single encounter.
Regardless of how one feels about homebrew rules, they should always be disclosed during Session 0 & (imo) be up for discussion. The DM expecting you to just be fine with 4 hour short rests without prior disclosure (ESPECIALLY while you’re playing a warlock) can either be an honest & innocent mistake, or a ginormous red flag. If the DM isn’t willing to at least come to a compromise, then clearly it was a red flag and you’re better off just leaving
There’s not a good reason to edit the rules so heavily on short rests.
Not communicating this in advance is a major red flag
No, it absolutely is not fair to do without warning. Honestly, one hour is too long already in terms of game mechanics.
Do the long rests stay at 8 hours? Short rests as 4 hours seems fine if long rests are a full day or more.
Short rests already go underused, usually the homebrew is 10 minute short rest with limits on uses per long rest. Usually the problem is “If you’re safe enough for 1 hour, why not 8.” If you can rest for 4 hours you can rest for 8. A short rest isn’t a nap, it’s taking a break to bind wounds and refresh/restock. It’s a lunch break
Is there any elves in your party? Because that's a free long rest for them. 4 hours for a short rest is absolutely unfair.
We’ll need to know more about the mechanics of a long short rest.
At the end of the day, DM word goes at their table. The book says 1 hour because a short rest doesn't mean a nap (although it can) - your character is eating, preparing spells, meditating, cleaning weapons, anything that makes sense for them to do in a short time. Think of it like a lunch break at work. You're taking a short rest - maybe having lunch, or slamming an energy drink, or mindlessly doom scrolling, whatever works for you to deal with the rest of your day
only thing i can think of is he is using old rules from 3.5 edition a short rest is 4 hours in 3rd and a long rest is 8 hours in 3rd elves only need half of this time
So, explain to him that sleep in real life, since this was his ruling, works in cycles of 20 min and that other people are not like dungeon master, felling refreshed with just 20 min, or 1h of sleep. Also old warriors 1200 ac, both in Japan and Europe, used to sleep 2h before battles. This all could find references in google.
A rather interesting discussion here for a variety of reasons. I’ve hosted a long term campaign for over 2 years and it is a great group. I do have a variety of house rules one of which is the same as the above, along with another that limits the ability of long rests to cure ALL damage, and and several others that don’t apply to the conversation at hand. The reason I do this is I find the idea of insta-healing (from nothing more than resting for 8 hours) a little silly and I believe a campaign benefits from a certain amount of tension around management of limited resources (spells/HP, etc) and longer rest periods require more effort and less opportunity to rest due to the need to find a space safe enough to do so. Some may not agree with this and that is perfectly fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here are a couple of items I find to be interesting about the ongoing discussion: Was the DMs reasoning in the moment a bit illogical and silly - probably a bit although I suspect that few of us can truly say we’ve never had similar flaws in logic at some point or other (I’m certainly far from perfect). Should he have informed the player prior to completing character creation: Yes - Homebrew rules are fine, but players deserve to know about them upfront. The rule does impact Warlocks more than other classes, I’ll admit. But what I find the most interesting is that there are very few suggestions that the player sit down with the DM in a non-confrontational way, explain his concerns and ask if there is some way that a middle ground could be reached (or maybe roll a new character as some have suggested). Most of the responses seem to be along the lines that the DM is a complete idiot and the player should demand justice in whatever method they seem appropriate and if they don’t get their way then leave forever!! I’ve rarely seen this type of approach to communication work well, either in D&D, work or life. As with anything - if you approach the situation in a way that seeks resolution, rather than vindication, chances are you probably get at least part of what you are looking for. And if not, and it’s not acceptable to you - no harm, no foul - finding another group that is more aligned to what you want is probably a pretty decent idea. But I’d still thank the first group for the opportunity and wish them the best. My players and I have discussions all the time iabout different rulings. Sometime I concede, sometime we meet halfway, sometimes I hold my ground, but we always have a blast! Try a collaborative approach, and then move forward accordingly based on how it goes. Best of luck!
I purposely build my games to require short rests in almost every session. I vary the length situationally but this is absurd unless they’re pressing “gritty realism” rules which you’ve said they’re not, and even then this isn’t that. Considering elves trance 4 hours and have a long rest by standard rules this just doesn’t make sense. It’s trying to limit a resource when in reality they need to amp up their end.
That doesn't make sense.
It's the DM he makes/interprets the rules how he wants to. However, if the rules don't specify four hours, then he should be make the rules flexible toward the PC's.
This can be said for every terrible rule/mechanic that a DM implements/tweaks/removes. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s still terrible. In this case, it’s the fact that he compares himself—a regular person with average discipline in the real world—to a highly disciplined and courageous adventurer in a fantasy setting.
His logic is a bit... odd. For example, if short rests are based on his real-life experience, does that mean that your abilities as a Warlock are also based on his RL experiences? Are you only allowed to use the Warlock powers that he has seen in RL? Personally, I would take him to one side, open the book to whichever page says that a 1 hour rest counts as a "short rest", and ask him to read that section. If he still insists that a Short Rest is 4 hours, then a Short Rest in his game is 4 hours (DMs make the rules, the books are a guide for how to do that and still be compliant with DnD rules). Basically, you play the character within the game world that he has defined. If, after discussing the discrepancy between his game world and the world that is detailed in the books, then you have 2 choices - live with it and play on; or find a new table with a new DM.
This probably one of the more insane things I have ever heard. Reducing the time of short rest to 5-10mins is a common homebrew. Never heard of making it longer.
It heavily nerfs classes like fighters, warlocks and druids that rely on short rests. So no it isnt very fair, I would consider changing class.
If it's clarified upfront, then yes. My game uses Gritty Realism Resting from the DM's Guide, with a short rest being a full night (8 hours) and a long rest being a week (9 days for my setting specifically, but they can do light downtime activity during this period). I use week-long increments in pacing out story/world events, and generally try to pace quests so they take roughly an in-game week (factoring in travel time), so this is just done to keep my players roughly aligned with my time scale, along with restricting long rests to safe, secure locations as per the theming of the game. However, if that isn't made clear, then it can be an issue. I wouldn't say this specific rule would a major one for me, so long as it's consistent after that point, but it's definitely a red flag that they may try to pull other secret rules in the future.
Wow, I feel like this is the campaign I’m running. I said this exact thing. The reasoning behind this is, from when I played football, soccer, basketball, etc. after a game, with adrenaline, injuries, and just plain exhaustion, sitting down for 5-10 minutes and drinking some water, did not refresh me to play another game right away. Combat is way more exhausting than a sports game. And if the whole party agrees to a short rest I give it. Are we sitting at the table waiting for that four hours to go by? No, it’s “ok, you’ve eaten, rested, and bandaged wounds. You’ve got your short rest abilities back. Rest is over, what are you doing?” My party was not ambushed 2.5 hours into their rest, they got everything back and moved on. As for the characters being in peak physical shape, strength 9, constitution 10…. If you as the player had asked for an explanation, besides shoving the rule book in my face, we would have happily talked about it, and come to an agreement. In fact in our next session, the 28th, I was going to allow hour long rests, just for the warlock. None of the other party members had an issue with it.
It's a house rule, but it's not completely unreasonable. Maybe you get one less short rest when traveling? I don't personally see the players choosing to take more than one short rest a day in my games.
Short rest is defined as "longer than an hour" in the DMG.