Revised Resting Rules
Short Rest
Length:
10 Minutes (minimum)
Benefits:
Spend Hit Dice as per Rules as Written (RAW).
Caveats:
Maximum 2 Short Rests per Long Rest.
The equivalent of taking a breather, can be done anywhere including dungeons as long as the party is at an uneventful location.
Long Rest
Length:
Four hours of no activity and two hours of light activity.
Benefits:
Spend Hit Dice to regain HP. Regain 1/2 of Hit Dice pool at the end of the first four hours. Regain all spell slots at the end of the sixth hour. Long Rest cooldowns are reset.
Caveats:
Maximum 1 Long Rest per day. Resets on a new day.
Three hours of light activity can be anything that the player intends to do, such as crafting, foraging, reading a book or more during their long rest.
A player may choose to perform their light activity first and then rest in the last 4 hours, in this case you may only use and regain your hit dice during your sixth hour. That being said, the party can mix and match (such as who will go on watch first).
Full Rest
Length:
24 hours to one week.
Benefits:
Regain all dice in the Hit Die pool, recover all spell slots, and recover from points of exhaustion (1 point of exhaustion / 24 hours rested). Long Rest cooldowns reset.
Caveats:
Must be done in a place of safety, undisturbed, usually with a bed.
Full Rests can be done in tandem with downtime activities.
Addendum
Long rests and Full rests have various cooldowns associated with it, such as spell slots being reset and many other things, some will be highlighted and clarified as they may conflict with RAW due to their vagueness:
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While Full Resting the character has 8 hours of Light Activity available each day. The party can declare if they want to work beyond the allotted period but they will no longer recover from any points of exhaustion that day and any other rules such as overworking tied to that specific activity will apply.
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While Full Resting, performing an activity beyond 16 hours of having done any activity will confer a level of exhaustion.
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Elves with the Trance ability can long rest for 3 hours and are allowed 3 hours of light activity.
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A short rest is 10 minutes minimum and can be extended up to an hour.
Change Log
v1.0
- Revised resting rules released
v1.1
- Typos fixed
- Changed the 24 hour cooldown for Long Rests to 18 hours.
v1.2
- Added Addendum
v1.3
- Long Rest cooldown resets upon dawn / new day. So the party can immediately long rest after midnight.
- Long Rest is now 4 hours of no activity, and 2 hours of light activity.
- Elves with the Trance ability can long rest for 3 hours and have 3 hours of light activity.