D&D 5E Do you allow long rests in the dungeon?

Do you allow long rests in the dungeon?

  • Yes

    Votes: 30 29.1%
  • No

    Votes: 13 12.6%
  • It depends

    Votes: 59 57.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 1.0%

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
This question came up in another thread about long rests, and I thought it was a big enough topic to merit its own discussion. Do you allow your players to take a long rest in a dungeon (or other non-dungeon adventure location)? What about during travel? If “yes,” what are the risks associated with resting in the dungeon at your table? If “no,” is that a hard no, or will you make an exception in certain circumstances and/or if the players take sufficient precautions, and what circumstances and/or precautions might qualify? If “it depends,” what does it depend on? If “other,” please share your unique perspective!
 

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Haha, now we both opened a thread. I'll delete mine.

On topic:

I think that the question is worded somewhat ambiguously though. Letting people try to rest in the dungeon is not equal to letting them go through with it.

I can see many DMs answering the posed question with yes. Because who wouldn't let the party try to rest.
Indirectly however they will disallow it by confronting them with consequences such as wandering monsters or worse.
Which in my book would be disallowing or making long rests highly improbable in dungeons.

I like to tell my party upfront that a long rest will be impossible in a dungeon, especially since I do 36h long rests.
They are meant to be taken in SAFE environments where the party can relax comfortably. A dungeon is almost guaranteed not a safe environment in my game.

A dungeon to me is meant to be a war of attrition, the deeper the PCs delve the better prepared they should be and also have resources to make their way back. I don't mind to have a reset button, i.e. a shrine or something that restores the parties HP / spells in large dungeons, but allowing them a long rest would certainly break the feel that I am aiming for.
 
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It is less about, "do I allow" and more about "how likely is it the party will be left alone for long enough." And, the answer to that is entirely situation dependent.

The group I play with (rather than GM for) just his weekend killed a major monster that was guarding an entrance to a dungeon area. Every critter in the dungeon knew the monster was there, and had locked the door between them and it, and never entered the area.

Having killed it... the area was pretty darned safe. Everyone still thought the monster was there, and wasn't going to come wandering in. So, while it was "in the dungeon", resting there was a safe bet.

Elsewhere in the dungeon that was actively lived-in? Even a short rest would have been risky.
 

I don't have a problem with allowing long rests during travel. Pull off the road and make camp, sure. Maybe there's territory that's so dangerous the party can't get a good night's sleep, but that's not something that's come up yet. I have allowed parties to take long rests in some relatively precarious positions, but I felt the situations allowed it (and in one case I kinda felt they needed the long rest to avoid a TPK).
 

For my part, I do allow long rests in dungeons and other adventure sites, as well as on the road. However, taking a long rest in a dungeon is extremely risky. I roll for complications every hour in adventure sites, plus additional rolls when the PCs attract attention to themselves. Taking an eight hour rest therefore carries an extremely high risk of interruption, which may result in being unable to finish the rest and receive its benefits. As well, the dungeon’s inhabitants are likely to take precautions against further assault by the PCs unless they are unaware of the PCs’ presence. But personally, I prefer to leave the option open to the players to take that risk, rather than outright telling them it’s impossible. Weighing risks and making those tough decisions is one of the key selling points of D&D for me.

During travel, it’s a bit of a different story. In travel mode, I roll that for complications once a day, and additional times when the PCs take risky actions like traveling through particularly dangerous territory, traveling at night, or resting without a watch posted. Accordingly, I end up rolling 1-3 times most travel days, and about twice as many times on days when the players are forced to trek across dangerous territory. Long rests are an expected part of each travel day, and assuming the PCs take their rests at night, it is the time complications are most likely to occur. So, again, there is a high risk of interruptions preventing the PCs from finishing their rest, but in that case the alternative is taking a forced march or going without rest, either of which risk gaining exhaustion levels. The risk of interruption can be minimized by resting during the day, but this will mean a greater risk of more encounters during the adventuring day, since traveling at night is more dangerous and triggers additional rolls for complications.
 

Case by case. For the most part I don't prevent players from long resting and I don't interrupt them just because.
Saying that, if they long rest to often I start reducing EXP gained and the world doesn't stop when the party does.
 



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