Rest is an essential aspect of any adventurer’s journey in the world(s) of Dungeons & Dragons. It allows characters to recover from their trials, regain spell slots, and replenish hit points. However, as with any mechanic, there are potential issues and pitfalls. Let’s explore the challenges that arise from the use and overuse of long rests in 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.
One of the primary concerns with excessive long rests is the disruption of game balance. The design of any adventure assumes a certain number of encounters and a certain amount of resource management between long rests. If characters are allowed to frequently take long rests, the difficulty of encounters becomes skewed. Combat encounters that were designed to challenge the party’s resource management and strategic thinking may become trivial, and encounters intended to be deadly might become easy victories. This can lead to a less engaging and less rewarding gameplay experience.
The issues are not just mechanical, though. Long rests can undermine tension and narrative flow within a campaign; affecting the very structure of the game. If characters are able to easily recover from injuries and regain all their abilities with little consequence, the sense of danger and urgency diminishes. It becomes challenging to maintain a compelling story and create a sense of meaningful progression when characters are always fully rested and prepared for every encounter. Additionally, the need for resource management and the risk of running out of spell slots or limited-use abilities adds depth to decision-making and problem-solving during gameplay.
Excessive long rests can disrupt the sense of time and realism within a campaign. Characters who constantly take long rests may find themselves out of sync with the world around them. Time-sensitive quests, time-based events, and the passage of time lose their impact when characters can simply rest and reset the clock. This can diminish the immersive nature of the game world and detract from the sense of consequence and urgency.
This rest-spamming is very problematic. Players may feel tempted to take long rests after every minor encounter, effectively reducing the tension and challenge of the game. This behavior can disrupt the pacing and flow of the adventure and diminish the sense of accomplishment that comes from overcoming more significant challenges. From a roleplaying perspective, it’s also pretty odd to think about your character being awake for an hour, sleeping for eight, waking up for two, and then back to sleep for eight. It’s just an odd way to exist, that.
To address the issues surrounding long rests, it is important for players and Dungeon Masters to communicate and establish guidelines for rest frequency and availability. This could involve discussing the intended pacing of the campaign, establishing narrative and/or mechanical consequences for excessive resting, and potentially implementing alternative rest mechanics, such as gritty realism rules, that align better with the desired gameplay experience. Encouraging the use of short rests, which allow characters to recover some resources but not all, can also help maintain challenge and strategic decision-making.
I reckon there’s a lot to think about here in terms of keeping long rests meaningful, but not encouraging the sort of rest-spamming that frankly makes the game uninteresting. As usual in RPGs, it’s all about communication, and about everyone working together to make a good, positive experience.
No Rerolls 
“From a roleplaying perspective, it’s also pretty odd to think about your character being awake for an hour, sleeping for eight, waking up for two, and then back to sleep for eight.”
It’s actually worse, pacing-wise. Per the core book, you can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period. So, it’s get up, be active for one hour, then sit around for fifteen hours, sleep for eight, then back at it.
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hadn’t considered that, but you’re completely correct, yeah!
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While all this is strictly correct in the mechanics of the game, surely GMs are structuring their games such that this isn’t actually how the game is widely played? I’ll admit to being a very casual D&D player but my experience is that there is always a time pressure to catch fleeing foes, stop demonic rituals etc. Having the party stop for a day of rest in such a time would result in the GM saying ‘while you were sitting around resting, the baddies complete their plots and the adventure is over.’
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I agree that this is how a good DM would handle it.
Even then, the long rest is still something of a reset button, which is less than ideal to me.
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That’s fair but for me it’s kind of necessary to have a ‘heal everything’ between scenes to keep the fantasy of peerless mythic heroes. I think that there is a rules variant which makes things a bit grittier if you prefer that way… but at that point other systems might be a better fit anyway.
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Different games for different folks, I guess. I do like a bit of grit in m’porridge.
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Hmm, so I started with Basic/1e/2e and and am new to 5e. I’m finding there are quite a few differences in play. The DM was the all powerful god who dictated pretty much everything, sometimes including what characters you would be playing. It seems with 5e, that has changed a bit. I can’t imagine players having any say in 1e about how many long rests they are going to take and when. After all, if you camped out in 1e, you might get interrupted by random encounters.
We’ve been using the short and long rests in 5e and it certainly has lessened the lethality of low level characters. I’d say that’s a good thing, as the players are new to the game and quite young. The long rest hasn’t been a problem, since it’s only once per day and they are adventuring through the Caves of Chaos (Keep on the Borderlands module). They can usually find a place to camp after clearing out a part of the cave. They might on occasion get interrupted, but have been able to get a long rest in when needed.
If I was running them through something else, I would tailor the encounters based on full party strength. So a long rest isn’t so much of an issue, but if they are less than full health they are going to find things a challenge. Maybe that’s the wrong way to think about encounters though, as that might have changed since?
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Great points presented in the post and chat. One of the groups I run is on its fourth campaign with me. We have discussed and implemented various strategies towards long rests and I have found that the group will always find a way to rest after a couple encounters. This has also left a gap in PC efficacy as spellcasters could go hard, fully expecting a rest to come soon. And when rests were interrupted, sometimes a PC would die (which was not the goal!).
I have observed that players will sometimes push back a rest (typically by just one encounter) when something is on the line and time sensitive. It did add tension to the game (in a good way) and let the martial characters feel more impactful in combat.
I am about to run a campaign where long rests are not very effective and short rests do not exist. Restoration can only be achieved through certain items, restorative events. I have no idea how poorly balanced the new system is, but am excited to find out. Would love thoughts on the concept/rules though!
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