Short Rests Are a Myth -  D&D Expertise Episode 11
Channel: DiceCold
Date: 2022-02-14

The Adventuring Day as described in official 5e rules is laughable and rarer than a Vorpal Sword. Players just want to go nova on a target and then sleep it off so they can do it again tomorrow.

Music is “Rule Book” by Ketsa, courtesy of Freemusicarchive.org

The content of this video is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)



Video transcript:

Hi, I’m Casey Grey - or so I’m told - and this is D&D Expertise, Episode 11.

If you’re playing a character with a lot of “once per long rest” powers I’ve got some great news for you; the “Standard Adventuring Day” the game designers thought people would follow gets tossed straight out the window in most actual games, alongside encumbrance and counting ammunition. 

The core rules of 5e tell you that “assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day.” This isn’t technically a lie, the party can handle that many encounters, but there’s a near-zero chance they’re going to. The reason for this is that most modern groups focus on plot and narrative, and asking the DM to come up with reasons to get into that many fights is legally prohibited as a form of harassment. 

If the party is on a monster hunt for a dangerous werewolf who the hell else are they going to fight that day? Rolling up some random encounters in the book provides you with adversaries, but no explanation for where or why that fight is taking place. A dungeon master has to really go out of their way to challenge a party with eight encounters worth encountering in a single day, and it’s by no means the norm.

Some tables don’t allow the benefits of a long rest when you’re within the wilderness or a dungeon even if you fully secure the area, but then you have to tell your players “no, your cool power that you’re excited to use isn’t available yet and won’t be until you finish this adventure.”