Many newer players can get confused by the "four hour long rest" thing, but it really is as simple as it sounds! Reborn, Elves, and to a lesser extent Warforged and Autognomes can all rest trick!
Huh never heard of this trick. Neat and as long as the DM is aware of it, I think it could be fine so long as the players aren't abusing it too much. Also this can be countered by encouraging the player to stick with the group. Cause well I would assume not all of the players are playing elves. (Unless they are.) So while they might be able to sleep only for 4hr. The others can't and they are also at the mercy of their rolls. So unless they feel lucky they are better off just waiting for the others and redoing the spells if needed.
Rules as Written: "A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits." (PHB p186)
@@doughmcn no one is talking about taking extra long rest. Often a caster will have most of those slots unused during a day of travel, so they stay up late, cast the spells at second watch, then rest for 4 hours. Then next day they can prepare their combat spells and head off into the dungeon bright and early.
@@chrisblake4198 fair enough, as long as there are spell slots from the previous day left. Also RAW you get everything back at the end of a long rest, and as long as you don't spend more than an hour casting spells you don't have to restart the long rest process. Take final watch or wake up an hour (or a few minutes) early, cast your remaining spell slots from the day before and hit "snooze" on your magical alarm or finish up the watch to get everything back with more duration remaining. Doesn't even require being a race with an abridged sleep time. "If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity-the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it." (PHB p186)
@chrisblake4198 fair enough, as long as there are spell slots from the previous day left. Also RAW you get everything back at the end of a long rest, and as long as you don't spend more than an hour casting spells you don't have to restart the long rest process. Take final watch or wake up an hour (or a few minutes) early, cast your remaining spell slots from the day before and hit "snooze" on your magical alarm or finish up the watch to get everything back with more duration remaining. Doesn't even require being a race with an abridged sleep time. "If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity-the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it." (PHB p186)
Divine sorcerers break it even further with their ability to naturally steal spells from the cleric list no multiclass required so you can extended aid, guardian of faith, DEATHWARD!
@@Starguardianbard Yeah, and Crawford ruled a lot of stupid stuff as well. So you really shouldn't take his words without a bag of salt anyway. When somebody says "just because you see the invisible creature, it doesn't mean the invisible condition doesn't apply against you anymore", then I am kinda starting to take other comments into question as well.
@@sebastienlecmpte3419 because it doesn't actually work RAW. RAW says it takes 8 hours to complete a long rest with non trance races needing 6 hours of sleep. So trance races need only 4 but they don't actually complete a long rest for the same reasons that other races can't complete a long rest after only 6 hours of sleep. Because RAW a long rest requires the rest + some time of light activity. Trance basically just let's you take more shifts of being on watch but doesn't actually let you complete a long rest in only 4 hours because RAW it takes 8 hour.
@Schilani except this was an actual thing errata'd into the PHB. So in this case you'd have to be saying the PHB itself is wrong and is not RAW somehow.
The infamous example of this is with Goodberry. Every single spell slot you did not use the day before can be turned into 10 hp of out of combat healing, without ever turning to shenanigans, as it has a 24 hour duration. There will be no such thing as an unused spell slot when you have that. Downtime is suddenly much more powerful, as all spell slots can be used to do this. (a lvl 5 druid will gain 90 hp worth of berry healing from a single downtime day)
Ah. So you use all your spellslots before you settle down for the night? Be a shame if something interrupted it. Say.....a small squad of goblin assassins taking regular potshots then slinking into the shadows? Also, there is a bit of home brew I like to inject into games: the goodberry shits. Too much of a good thing is bad for ya.
@@DamnDaimenI forgot which game it was, but there was a system that had rules for overeating. So a single goodberry feeds you as if its a days worth of food, and theres no problem there. Maybe even even if you eat 2 or 3. But 4 or 5? 9 or 10? Get ready for some intestinal distress.
"Sleep isnt the same thing as a long rest. Elves don't need sleep, but they do need downtime to regain their strength." Jeremy Crawford, January 6th, 2015 (Twitter)
It is now "Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness." Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (2022)
Jeremy Crawford has a host of poorly thought out answers to questions. By this point his answers have no authority whatsoever. Also as others have said, the language was clarified in later books. Funny how it went the exact opposite of what Crawford suggested, isn't it? Should tell you how reliable a source he is.
@@Unahim The language doesn't explicitly say that. It says "Trance. Elves do not sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 4 hours a day. The Common word for this meditation is "trance." While meditating, you dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive after years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep." It specifically says, human, as if to impart you are rested in the same way they are, as opposed to dwarves or whatever other race. It doesn't say mechanically that they benefit from a long rest. Tasha's also imparted rules to deal with the Coffee Lock scenario, indicating the difference between rest and sleep. I don't think the rewording of trance contacts Jeremy Crawford's ruling on the mechanics of long and short rests. As previously indicated, it doesn't matter because you can only take one long rest in a 24 hours period.
yeah, and if you want to do the extended metamagic thing it requires a very specific build, and resources that you might have needed the prior day. I mean forcing yourself to be an elf is already quite limiting (no variant human for example)
This is not a "I always have this on me at every day" kind of strategy. This is a "we know we're going to storm that BBEG's castle tomorrow morning, so we rest for today, you guys go to sleep for eight hours, in four hours I'll spend all my spellslots on non-concentration buff spells, then I'll go to sleep, or transe too" kind of strategy. It's good, but I would not say O.P. in any way.
You can actually do better than that, and without needing specific races. Note how spell slots refresh at the *end* of a long rest, and not the beginning. Also note that a long rest is only disrupted by "at least one hour of strenuous activity," with spellcasting explicitly listed as an example. This means, rules as written, you can use any combination of spells with a total casting time of less than one hour during a long rest, and then still get the slots back at the end. Time a Death Ward for the last few seconds of your rest, and you actually get the first eight hours of the adventuring day. Add on extended spell to that, and you've got sixteen hours, which is long enough to take another long rest! If you have enough slots and sorcery points, you can even stack multiple layers, since Death Ward doesn't require concentration.
Ok so your party wakes up at five AM. Skips breakfast cus gotta make the most of the pre-buffs! Heads out and... doesn't encounter enemies until two in the afternoon.. wait that can't be right.
True, but in the best case scenario the party is about to start a dungeon crawl or resting while expecting to fight or have an encounter. In which case it could prove powerful.
The most important part is the ending of this short anyway. Sure, it might be rules as written, but if you try that, just fuck off. Unless you are asked to do this kind of powerplay, just don't even try it.
@@SchilaniPowerplay? Firstly, the whole party has to also be elves, or it won't work. And then it will only work if they KNOW they're gonna get into trouble, at which point, it's not an exploit, it's just good preparation.
@@Nerobyrne Not the whole party. Just the person casting the buff. Sure, they're taking their 4 hour rest in the 2nd half of everyone else's 8 hours, but with the logic here they can still cast their spells halfway through the long rest and then take their own rest. At my table, I wouldn't call it an exploit. But also, I've seen the whole "Well it takes 2 hours of fighting to interrupt a long rest, so I can just cast these spells at the end of my rest- right before it finishes -and get my spell slots back" and I'm more pissed that I have to somehow cause a fight to drag on 2 hours to threaten their rest than I am about them "rest casting" their buff spells. To clarify, I am the DM at my table.
@@cameronlancefrii7356 sure, if the rest of the party doesn't wake up because you're casting a bunch of spells in the middle of the night. As someone who has rested before, it takes a lot less than 2 hours of fighting 🤣
There's also spells that last longer than 8h Any druid can spend all their remaining spellslots on Goodberries before a long rest The spell creates 10 berries, containing nutrients for a whole day, and healing 1 HP each, lasting 24h If you have 3 spellslots remaining, that's 30HP that can be healed out of combat the next day
@@rory8182 I disagree, the mechanic is very clear rules as written, it's not a 'bend the rules' combo, it's just effecient use of your class Doing this is not very different from just a high investment short rest though, and it requires you to save up spell slots the day before
@@Natural_Power and yet it is completely within the DMs rights to make any rules they like limiting goodberry, as obviously it is completely busted for a lvl 1 spell.
Most of these things are just something that no sensible player would try, and definitely not something any sensible DM would allow. The same as allowing the level 5 goodberry-life cleric to precast 60 goodberries, with 40 of them healing 4 hp each and 20 healing 5 hp each, for a total of 260 hp out of combat healing, just because there was a day of downtime where the cleric didn't use any spell slots.
Nothing here is against the rules, druid can stack goodberries with no "tricks", sorcerer can extended metamagic to get free effects for an extra 8 hours after the rest, which usually are a small increase in party HP with Aid, some death wards and etc.
"And just as you get up before anyone else, a random plank I absolutely didn't use as an anti fun measure falls on you, not damaging you but putting you back to sleep"
The way I understand the half rest feature is that it doesn't cut a long rest from 8 hours to 4, but rather only 4 /8 of those hours need to be sleeping / meditating, they still require 4 hours of down time to get the benefits of a long rest. This gives them time to do things like copy spells, be on watch, stitch and maintain gear, set up breakfast in the morning and so on. Its a lot more balanced this way.
I thought this too. Had to check, since the short doesn’t cite or link where this ruling comes from. Monsters of the Multiverse (2022) included a change to the Elf "Trance" feature that turns their 4 hours of meditation into a Long Rest in itself. I completely disagree with WotC's decision to make that change, and would not allow it in my own game. But, it is RAW, now.
It says they do not sleep, but trance for 4 hours instead and that "after resting in this way, you gain the same benefits a human does from sleeping 8 hours." A human who sleeps 8 hours gets a long rest, ergo... The rewrite in MotM is a clarification, not a change. Both versions are mechanically identical.
RAW you can cast spells during a long rest anyway! You don't need to be a certain race to do this and I don't think that preparing for the day is really a "trick" that I would discourage my players from doing
Party of elves: stays up all night, casts the spells around 10-12AM, rests for 4 hours to regain slots and remove exhaustion Dont let his poor wording trick you into thinking its not that broken. There is no rule that dictates when your party can take a long rest, other than that you cant take two within a 24 hour period. Yes, the fact that it’s only a few hours as opposed to all 8 is important, but those looking to take advantage of this will account for things like timing, usually. The only option a DM really has is to think “fine, then the enemy will wait four more hours before they attack” which is screwing over your party just to make sure things go how YOU planned it, which is being a railroad-y DM(valid, but not a very liked DM style) As in all things d&d, players and the DM need to communicate out of game to make sure everyone is on the same page. This is the only real solution to broken game mechanics that is fair to everyone
You can also be a Sorcerer and use metamagic to make 8-hour spells last 16 hours, so they'll be up after your long rest regardless of what race you're playing.
Or multiclass as a warlock, convert your warlock spell slots into sorcery points valid till next long rest, then get the spell slots back after a short rest, rinse and repeat for insane amount of sorcery points available for any spells. And then finally, take the invocation "aspect of the moon" from the pact of the Tome with your 3rd level as a warlock to negate any exhaustion from skipping long rest, so you will never have to lose those sorcery points! Congratulations! You made a coffeelock, the most broken build of the entire game and the DM hate you!
Our local munchkin asked me that, I said we're already abstracting 8 hour spells into adventuring day spells. I'm not going to nickel and dime minutes and hours to help an exploit for 1 player.
Very fair. Was wondering if a put out DM would just say, "okay, you walk there and it takes four hours. Also, this relies on having spell slots at the end of the day to spend upping yourself for all of the time between 7am and 11am. Honestly spell glyphs are already kind of this, if you've got the spare cash, so it feels more balanced.
@@MarkusAldawn Most DMs have no interest in tracking long lasting spells like that anyway. Not even shorter lasting spells. Like 10 minute duration just means, it's less than an hour. I won't try to keep track if you have been walking for 5 minutes or 15. It's all the same.
You can also do this kind of thing with any race through “rest casting.” If you cast spells for less than an hour, it actually doesn’t cancel the long rest. You can continue your long rest from where you left off. Using this method the spells last for nearly their full duration if rest cast just before finishing a long rest
Doing any of the following breaks a long rest An hour of walking Fighting Casting spells Or any similar adventuring activity You cast a spell, you dont rest
@@guyarmon9410 Incorrect it's specifically if you do it for an hour. "If the rest is interrupted by a *period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour* of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity-the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it."
@@RavixAryss It's one hour of walking not one hour of everything listed. One hour of fighting is 600 rounds, requiring one hour of fighting would be stupid.
@Quinnknights depends how much weight you place on Jerermy Crawfords rulings as he has said that a round of combat won't break a long rest, that it withstand an interruption upto 1hr
Older editions didn't have this trick. The time it took to recover spell slots was set. Elves may have shorter rest times to physically recover, but magic is magic... Actually a fun one for clerics that many people missed, is that they could elect a specified prayer time instead of rest. Such as praying to the first light of dawn. You get all your spells after that hour of prayer, but if you missed it, you had to go a full day without recovery. (having a noon prayer time is fun, getting a 'long rest' for spell slots mid day XD)
This is quite what rest tricking is but it’s an example of it. Rest tricking abuses the rule that you gain all your spell slots back and the ‘end of a long rest’ and so what you do is right before the rest ends, you cast all the spells you have left over so they last you into the next day. You don’t need to be an elf That said, my favorite way to abuse this particular idea of 4 hour rests is either divine soul or clockwork soul sorcerer. Grab extended spell meta magic and you can grab stuff like extended aid, death ward, mage armor, tiny servant, etc (death ward and tiny servant are mutually exclusive). You get these effects to last for 12 hours into the adventuring day! For Dungeon crawls I’ve personally become particular towards divine soul with the benefit of a 20 minute spirit guardians and a 2 minute aura of vitality boosted by a 1 level dip in life domain cleric. You hopefully won’t need it but when you do, 240 hp of healing in 2 minutes should do the job
you are confusing rest tricking and rest casting. rest tricking is casting the spells before the long rest. rest casting is casting the spells at the end of the long rest. rest casting works as long as you don't spend more than an hour casting. rest tricking doesn't have that limitation.
@@whytewolf2 that’s interesting, I’ve never heard of a distinction between the two, though that’s a useful detail. I guess what makes it a trick? Is the trick casting before resting? Rest Casting just seems like a clearer term. I appreciate the clarification
@@starat2645 I honestly am not sure what makes it a trick. just one of my previous dm's back in the 2nd edition days made sure there was a distinction between them. since they do operate differently within the mechanics. but every table could be different.
All races can do this because you get spell slots back as you finish a long rest so when a party member wakes you up for say last watch you can cast the spell while you're long rest has two hours left to go and since the book even clarifies that you only need six hours of sleep but need to spend two hours of light activity like eating or preparing spells I always let my players use this feature rules as written because why not it's fun and leads to interesting game play interactions.
First of all, good on you for running the game the way you like. Second is that i usually go by the written rules that say any of the following breaks the rest An hour of walking Fighting Casting spell or a similar adventuring activity
@@jessemartinez9158 It's one hour of WALKING, not spell casting. Just because there is a comma after walking doesn't mean the time frame applies to the second part of the list. It's pretty clear they only meant the walking needs to be a duration of 1hr. Stop misinterpreting the rules to pull bs
@@knightofcarrion7358Untrue. That is not how the English language works, and the developers have explicitly stated that it’s 1 hour of all the listed actions. You’re the only one misinterpreting the rules. If you think otherwise, answer this question. A feature says “You have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws.” Does a character with this feature have advantage on just Wisdom saving throws, or all saving throws?
You can't really stop it from happening even accidentally unless you bend the rules. For example, Goodberry lasts 24 hours, meaning that the time you cast it is the time the berry becomes ineffective the next day. Literally anyone who has cast Goodberry and had berries left over when they rested has done this supposedly cheesy trick, they just never realised.
I mean, there's a difference between 'oh I cast goodberry yesterday and have some berries this morning' and 'On my rest day I produce 90 goodberries for today's adventuring day' Rest Tricking is supported RaW, but it's just not fun for a GM to have to deal with. Casters are already so much more powerful then martials that having to also deal with them having a bunch of extra resources at their level the game doesn't really account for is another headache.
Don’t forget that casting spells is something you can even do on a long rest without interrupting it since you’re permitted 1 hour of adventuring activity without breaking the long rest. This means any race can easily do this and have even longer durations into the day if you just cast these at the very end of the long rest to get all those slots back
It's easier than that. Ask one of the last players keeping watch to wake you up. When they do, cast the spells and go back to sleep. You didn't spend 1 hour casting spells, so you still get the benefits of the long rest.
Rules as written & intended (as I recall), casting a spell during your long rest causes your long rest to fail, regardless of how long it takes (rituals & cantrips are perhaps the only exceptions, since they don't cost spell slots).
@@DBArtsCreators there's tons of debate on it. In onednd, casting a leveled spell means you have to rest one more hour to get the benefit of a long rest. That's a rule I've adopted. Same with combat - ANY combat adds an hour to the rest (b/c what combat lasts for 1 hour?). For the rule to have any impact, though, you have to have a ticking clock. A rest caster must be forced to weight the benefits and risks of casting 1, 2, 3, or more leveled spells right before the end of a rest, as each cast will delay them getting slots back by an hour. In my (somewhat limited) experience, consistently coming up with ticking clocks that are that tight is both difficult and often incredulous/unbelievable. (but i'm trying to improve)
@@this_epic_name Eh, I'd just go with the easier "if you expend a spell slot during your long rest, your long rest fails/must be restarted". Cuts the bull down at the outset, and it doesn't hurt any players nor the game. They can do their spell bull before the rest. Alternatively: each "high effort activity" stacks towards a threshold. Hit the threshold & the rest fails. * Each round of combat ticks a small bit towards the threshold * Each leveled spell cast is equal to a round of combat * Taking damage is equal to a round of combat + the damage taken ect, ect...
@@DBArtsCreators it comes from people reading it wrong lol they read "one hour of walking, combat, spell casting, etc" and thinks the one hour means everything on that list when it's only referring to the walking. That would mean you would need your combats to be 600 turns or the combat encounter doesn't break a long rest. It's ridiculous the lengths people will misinterpret rules just so they can ruin the fun of a game by pulling bs
@@DBArtsCreators I'm sure that's wiser. Luckily, it hasn't been a problem at my tables (which don't really have power gamers...just folks interested in a story and character development). The low-level group I have struggles a bit with it when nighttime combat happens and they want to recover afterward (b/c we use slow natural healing).
Here’s an idea for a mad lad playing a high level caster: every day for 23 days you will cast wish, replicating the effects of glyph of warding, which will store the spell enlarge reduce (namely the enlarge portion), storing all these in a notebook with the trigger words Robert J Oppenheimer. You then cast delayed blast fireball, creating the bead, utter the trigger words having the target be the bead of fire, and the 20 ft radius suddenly becomes 126 million ft, engulfing the world in a fiery rebirth :D
It's worst than that. You don't need to be an Elf for this, and you can get the full spell duration. According to Jeremy Crawford, "If you spend a spell slot during a long rest and finish the rest, you do get the slot back." Meaning that any class can cast spells during that very last hour of rest (since you can do stuff for 2 hours during a long rest), and recover the spell slots, meaning you got several spells for free with the full duration intact.
@@sharingheart13 why not? It's not like lvl2 Wizard having 13 AC in first 8 hours of the day without losing one of his 3 1st level spell slots is much of an exploit.
@@tapurate638 Because if it can be allowed for the level 2 Wizard to cast the 1st level spell Mage Armor, then it must be allowed for the level 7 Cleric to cast the 4th level spell Death Ward, and for the level 17 Sorcerer to cast the 9th level spell Wish, and so on, all without losing spell slots.
Just another of Crawford's rulings that I am going to ignore. I mean, this guy also wants to tell us, that "See Invisible" means you still attack the invisible creature, that you now see clearly, with disadvantage, because "invisible" is a condition and "See invisible" doesn't get rid of the condition.
I've seen this elf thing, and I know that it's official, but I don't allow it in my games because nothing in the rules ties long rests to sleep. We don't need a broken class to be more broken with the elf, thx.
@BrimstoneBlade Technically, I said that there's no rule tying long rest to sleep, so one could just rest and paint some minis. You got a problem with my Barbarian painting minis? Before you answer, just consider how a half orc gets their reds.
You don't need to be an elf. Long rest would only be interrupted if you spent an hour or more casting spells. You could literally wake up 1 minute before the rest ends and cast like 10 spells before the slots reset.
@@harrybarrylarryiii "Elves don't need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. If you meditate during a long rest, you finish the rest after only 4 hours. You otherwise obey all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed."
I’ve been creating a set of homebrew rules to address this and other timekeeping problems. The only spell durations are instantaneous, one round, one encounter, until your next short rest, until your next long rest, or permanent until dispelled. Instead of casting times, spells have a casting environment: the most dangerous situation it would still be appropriate to cast the spell. Casting environments are combat (split into action, bonus action, and reaction casting times), dungeon, wilderness, in-town, and bastion. This also fixes issues like casting forbiddance on a dungeon to kill everything inside since that’s now a “bastion” spell that can only be cast while in your home base.
It does not, in fact, work like that. Elves only meditate for 4 hours for the benefit of a human sleeping for 8 hours. However, humans are only sleeping for 6 hours of the long rest. It balatantly states in the Elf ability that they meditate for four hours of a long rest and engage in light activity for the other 4. A long rest is always 8 hours. The way rest tricking WILL work, is that anything that interrupts the long rest for less than an hour does not disrupt it significantly enough to deny you the benefits of it, and you regain your spell slots at the end of the long rest. So anyone can get this benefit, they just cast the spells in question shortly before the end of the long rest, then they get all the slots back.
Shadar-kai trance of Monsters of the Multiverse "You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness."... the same goes for the eladrin and any other elf who was recently published or updated
Rules as Written: "A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits." (PHB p186)
That has nothing to do with the video though, there’s only 1 long rest happening it’s just that spells are cast before the long rest begins and last until after the long rest ends.
Thanks for the clarification. I've had players try to rest 4 hours, spell trick, then try to rest a second time in the same 8 hour window their allies need to get their spells back again.
@@doughmcn to my memory that long rest rule is from XGTE and is an optional rule meaning that if you don’t have that book you might not be aware of it nor would every table be running it so depending on the GM and their books that would be a legal interaction. You can just throw something at them to interrupt their long rest if they did but it is a legal interaction.
This is why I play it as "elves require only 4 hours of SLEEP. They still need to use the rest of the 4 hours resting, but they have more time for minor activities
I have to disagree here. Elves gain the benefit of an 8 hour sleep by just trancing for 4 hours. However... a Long Rest is defined in the PHB as "a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch." So while an Elf only needs to sleep for 4 hours, they still need to spend 4 more hours doing light activity like standing watch in order to finish the Long Rest. You can not complete a Long Rest in less than 8 hours because it requires for the rest to be "At Least 8 Hours"
You're using the old version of the wording, the updated version of the ability is fortunately extremely clear: "You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation." - You complete the long rest in 4 hours, no doubt about it (you can rule otherwise in your games ofc, but RAW this is how it works!)
@@DnDShorts Ah I didn't know they updated the rules. I was going off the old ruling and under that, you can't long rest without spending 8 hours. So now I have to ask... WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU UPDATE THE RULING AND BREAK SOMETHING THAT WASN'T BROKEN. adksjlfhEWJGSHGHGLKH;AG
Or as a race that sleeps the standard 8 hours, you can just play as a Sorcerer. Extended spell doubles the duration of spells that have a duration of 1 minute or longer. This is exactly what you’d want to do! Extend spell on your long duration buffs like Mage Armor if you have spare spell slots at the end of the day then take your long rest. You still have 8 hours of duration going into the next morning which could very likely cover an entire’s day adventure (12 hours if you run a race that has 4 hour long rests, but then you’re waiting on your party if they need more time). To me, this is best used with Divine Soul Sorcerers. They get access to the entire Cleric spell list, so they are able to make more use of this combo: Mage Armor, Aid, and Death Ward.
There’s also rest casting. Which I believe is getting changed in 5.5, but it basically thing but you can cast them at the end of your rest. Its wording is a bit less clear, but at long as you don’t count casting a spell as strenuous activity, you can spend your two hours per long rest just casting spells.
That's too bad if it's changed. My groups have liked rest-casting as method for preparing for big battles and not getting fomo when they don't get through all their spell slots for a day.
Even if you do count it as strenuous activity, you only extend your rest by the casting time of the spells (unless it totals more than an hour, in which case you'd have to start over). A few one-action spells and a ten-minute one, cast beginning at 7:59:00 into a short rest, still only requires one more minute of light activity to complete the long rest by strict current RAW.
Most groups I've played in don't allow spell slots to be regained until the spells have expired (or the caster chooses to end them). I also wrote that into my house rules for games that I ran; the only exception being spells with a duration of "permanent".
OR, because spell slots come back after a long rest, you can just cast the spells you want 1 minute before the long rest ends and then have the affects for (nearly) the whole 8 hours, regardless of race. As long as you don't spend more than an hour doing this, you don't have to restart the long rest. It isn't exactly fabricating extra spell slots either, it just changes the question of "do i want to cast mage armor now or save the spell slot for sleep later in the day?" to "do i want to cast sleep now or save the slot to use it for mage armor tomorrow?", which is an easier question to answer because you have more insight on the encounter and can more easily judge if you need to cast sleep to survive.
Two things to note: 1)You can’t gain the benefits of a long rest more than once in a 24-hour period (PHB 186). 2) Unless the whole party decides to play races that only need 4 hours to get a long rest, this offers little mechanical benefit since the party has to wait for each player to finish a long rest before adventuring. Sure an elf can be a good lookout during a long rest, but the elf can’t just go off by itself because splitting the party is really risky. If a party wanted to pick races that could finish a long rest in 4 hours just for this exploit, I think the DM would turn it down.
3.5 did actually came out of the gate with a solution to this that 5e decided was too many words for it. In the magic chapter of the phb, and I'm fairly certain under the race's ability traits that talk about how and how much rest the creature gets (such as the classic elves meditate for 4 hours and that's the equivalent of an 8 hour rest) it clarifies that even if the caster of a rave that needs less or no rest, they must still take a full 8 hours in order to prepare their spells, minds, reagents, ect. For example, elven wizards only need to meditate for 4 hours to get a full nights' rest, but the effort and energy required for spellcasting takes a toll on the body that requires a full 8 hours to recover from and prepare for
I allow rest casting for basically every spell but certain summon spells. Bonus points for a high elf divine soul sorcerer either rest casting or casting right before their 4 hour sleep using extended cast to have upcasted aid and death wards aplenty for the whole party. Very effective combo
I use Tiny Servant to act as a guard while the party rests. It lasts 8 hours and it can guard as one of its commands. So cast it before resting and you need one less guard for your camp during the night. Then when you wake up the spell slot you used to set it up is refreshed.
“Your reputation for vanquishing mighty foes despite your inexperience catches the attention of a local guild leader whose notice would otherwise have drifted over you as insignificant. As someone who could potentially thwart his plans, he’s put a bounty on your head. Expect to be visited by amateur and professional hunters alike…and all armed with the knowledge that you’re most vulnerable during the short window in which you rest”
That's just the mechanics of elves and similarly fast-resting races. No "trick" or "glitch" just RAW&RAI. Now if you really want a truck, Pack Tactics has a lovely video on *actually* abusing RAW/RAI for casting during a long rest.
They still need the full 8 hours they just can do “light activity” aka not sleeping but if you start doing anything more than light exercise(like casting a spell) rest over. Edit: you can still use things like Extended spell meta magic to get more bang for buck tho.
"Spell duration is reset when resting. You are currently mundane again until you re-cast them." This is how it works in every video game that is D&D, and it's one that keeps the casters down and closer to martial mundanes. Alternatively, you could forego the slots entirely and give casters infinite casts if you want the opposite effect.
I used to do this in Pathfinder 1e with a high level arcanist. That system has a lot of hours/level buffs. So using metamagic Extend Spell, you could cast 16 hr buffs before bed at level 8. My Arcanist just lived with Overland Flight up at all times and tied himself down while sleeping.
I sometimes think about an optional rule along the lines of: You cannot regain a spell slot if the last (non-permenent) spell cast with it is still active. (i.e. if you've cast Darkvision before the 4-hour rest, that's one 2nd Level Spell Slot you won't regain) Feel like it needs some specific rulings still, but could be a good start
I brought this up to my DM. He held back the cursing but was a no. When thr fighter brought it up I quickly said, "No." Paused, "I already asked and we agreed it won't work like that."
A character gains the benefits so long as it’s not interrupted by more than an hour of strenuous activity, such as combat. (But who’s going to fight for 600 rounds, right?) With that in mind you can theoretically wake up after 6 hours during your long rest, spend all of your spell slots on long duration buff spells, and then sleep for the remainder of the duration to gain the benefits of a long rest.
Many newer players can get confused by the "four hour long rest" thing, but it really is as simple as it sounds! Reborn, Elves, and to a lesser extent Warforged and Autognomes can all rest trick!
Huh never heard of this trick. Neat and as long as the DM is aware of it, I think it could be fine so long as the players aren't abusing it too much.
Also this can be countered by encouraging the player to stick with the group. Cause well I would assume not all of the players are playing elves. (Unless they are.)
So while they might be able to sleep only for 4hr. The others can't and they are also at the mercy of their rolls. So unless they feel lucky they are better off just waiting for the others and redoing the spells if needed.
Rules as Written:
"A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits." (PHB p186)
@@doughmcn no one is talking about taking extra long rest. Often a caster will have most of those slots unused during a day of travel, so they stay up late, cast the spells at second watch, then rest for 4 hours. Then next day they can prepare their combat spells and head off into the dungeon bright and early.
@@chrisblake4198 fair enough, as long as there are spell slots from the previous day left.
Also RAW you get everything back at the end of a long rest, and as long as you don't spend more than an hour casting spells you don't have to restart the long rest process. Take final watch or wake up an hour (or a few minutes) early, cast your remaining spell slots from the day before and hit "snooze" on your magical alarm or finish up the watch to get everything back with more duration remaining. Doesn't even require being a race with an abridged sleep time.
"If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity-the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it." (PHB p186)
@chrisblake4198 fair enough, as long as there are spell slots from the previous day left.
Also RAW you get everything back at the end of a long rest, and as long as you don't spend more than an hour casting spells you don't have to restart the long rest process. Take final watch or wake up an hour (or a few minutes) early, cast your remaining spell slots from the day before and hit "snooze" on your magical alarm or finish up the watch to get everything back with more duration remaining. Doesn't even require being a race with an abridged sleep time.
"If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity-the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it." (PHB p186)
Extended Spell Metamagic breaks this even further. Mage armor now lasts 16 hours.
and the sorcery points you used for it also come back with a long rest. its actually insane.
oh no not mage armor having universal application
Yep, I had a sorcerer doing that with mage armor and an up cast darkvision on the humans in the party.
My armor of shadows warlock: wait, mage armor goes away?
Divine sorcerers break it even further with their ability to naturally steal spells from the cleric list no multiclass required so you can extended aid, guardian of faith, DEATHWARD!
The first 4 hours of your day are uneventful. At the 5th hour 3d6 Ancient Red Dragons appear.
I hope I roll low each time. 3 Dragons only.
Okay? Then use another spell slot to re-up the spell. It's not that big of a deal. 😂
@@imjustwolfthe whole point of rest tricking is to have all your spell slots and be buffed to the nine hells for combat
@@imjustwolf like you should and it cost a resource. Not cheesing for free spells
@@imjustwolf no, you are now in combat and all those spells take an action to cast
"Can I do it in our game? Fuck no!" is pretty much this channel's catchphrase.😅
No this channel's real catch phrase is "was this already debunked by Crawford years ago? Yes? Damn"
@@Starguardianbard Yeah, and Crawford ruled a lot of stupid stuff as well. So you really shouldn't take his words without a bag of salt anyway.
When somebody says "just because you see the invisible creature, it doesn't mean the invisible condition doesn't apply against you anymore", then I am kinda starting to take other comments into question as well.
@@Starguardianbard yet this one here in this video, by RAW works. Why are people saying it does not?
@@sebastienlecmpte3419 because it doesn't actually work RAW. RAW says it takes 8 hours to complete a long rest with non trance races needing 6 hours of sleep. So trance races need only 4 but they don't actually complete a long rest for the same reasons that other races can't complete a long rest after only 6 hours of sleep. Because RAW a long rest requires the rest + some time of light activity. Trance basically just let's you take more shifts of being on watch but doesn't actually let you complete a long rest in only 4 hours because RAW it takes 8 hour.
@Schilani except this was an actual thing errata'd into the PHB. So in this case you'd have to be saying the PHB itself is wrong and is not RAW somehow.
The infamous example of this is with Goodberry. Every single spell slot you did not use the day before can be turned into 10 hp of out of combat healing, without ever turning to shenanigans, as it has a 24 hour duration.
There will be no such thing as an unused spell slot when you have that. Downtime is suddenly much more powerful, as all spell slots can be used to do this. (a lvl 5 druid will gain 90 hp worth of berry healing from a single downtime day)
Ah. So you use all your spellslots before you settle down for the night? Be a shame if something interrupted it.
Say.....a small squad of goblin assassins taking regular potshots then slinking into the shadows?
Also, there is a bit of home brew I like to inject into games: the goodberry shits. Too much of a good thing is bad for ya.
@DamnDaimen bro that is fantastic
@@DamnDaimenI forgot which game it was, but there was a system that had rules for overeating.
So a single goodberry feeds you as if its a days worth of food, and theres no problem there. Maybe even even if you eat 2 or 3.
But 4 or 5? 9 or 10? Get ready for some intestinal distress.
If a live Cleric has this spell, each berry heals 4 hp instead of 1.
1 + 2 + the spells level (1)
@@yamato9753 I recall there has been alot of debate on that, but I believe the official answer from the designers was,yes, that does in fact work.
"Can I do it in our game?"
"Ah ha ha, fuck no."
This is how every single one of this guy's videos should end.
"Sleep isnt the same thing as a long rest. Elves don't need sleep, but they do need downtime to regain their strength."
Jeremy Crawford, January 6th, 2015 (Twitter)
It is now "Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness."
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (2022)
also you can only take one long rest per day raw. So even if they could, they couldnt take a nother long rest for another 24 hours
Jeremy Crawford has a host of poorly thought out answers to questions. By this point his answers have no authority whatsoever. Also as others have said, the language was clarified in later books. Funny how it went the exact opposite of what Crawford suggested, isn't it? Should tell you how reliable a source he is.
@@Unahim The language doesn't explicitly say that. It says "Trance. Elves do not sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 4 hours a day. The Common word for this meditation is "trance." While meditating, you dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive after years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep." It specifically says, human, as if to impart you are rested in the same way they are, as opposed to dwarves or whatever other race. It doesn't say mechanically that they benefit from a long rest. Tasha's also imparted rules to deal with the Coffee Lock scenario, indicating the difference between rest and sleep. I don't think the rewording of trance contacts Jeremy Crawford's ruling on the mechanics of long and short rests. As previously indicated, it doesn't matter because you can only take one long rest in a 24 hours period.
For the first 4 hours of the adventuring day...that's the important part right there.
yeah, and if you want to do the extended metamagic thing it requires a very specific build, and resources that you might have needed the prior day. I mean forcing yourself to be an elf is already quite limiting (no variant human for example)
This is not a "I always have this on me at every day" kind of strategy. This is a "we know we're going to storm that BBEG's castle tomorrow morning, so we rest for today, you guys go to sleep for eight hours, in four hours I'll spend all my spellslots on non-concentration buff spells, then I'll go to sleep, or transe too" kind of strategy.
It's good, but I would not say O.P. in any way.
You can actually do better than that, and without needing specific races. Note how spell slots refresh at the *end* of a long rest, and not the beginning. Also note that a long rest is only disrupted by "at least one hour of strenuous activity," with spellcasting explicitly listed as an example.
This means, rules as written, you can use any combination of spells with a total casting time of less than one hour during a long rest, and then still get the slots back at the end. Time a Death Ward for the last few seconds of your rest, and you actually get the first eight hours of the adventuring day.
Add on extended spell to that, and you've got sixteen hours, which is long enough to take another long rest! If you have enough slots and sorcery points, you can even stack multiple layers, since Death Ward doesn't require concentration.
Ok so your party wakes up at five AM.
Skips breakfast cus gotta make the most of the pre-buffs!
Heads out and... doesn't encounter enemies until two in the afternoon.. wait that can't be right.
True, but in the best case scenario the party is about to start a dungeon crawl or resting while expecting to fight or have an encounter. In which case it could prove powerful.
The most important part is the ending of this short anyway. Sure, it might be rules as written, but if you try that, just fuck off. Unless you are asked to do this kind of powerplay, just don't even try it.
@@SchilaniPowerplay?
Firstly, the whole party has to also be elves, or it won't work.
And then it will only work if they KNOW they're gonna get into trouble, at which point, it's not an exploit, it's just good preparation.
@@Nerobyrne Not the whole party. Just the person casting the buff. Sure, they're taking their 4 hour rest in the 2nd half of everyone else's 8 hours, but with the logic here they can still cast their spells halfway through the long rest and then take their own rest.
At my table, I wouldn't call it an exploit. But also, I've seen the whole "Well it takes 2 hours of fighting to interrupt a long rest, so I can just cast these spells at the end of my rest- right before it finishes -and get my spell slots back" and I'm more pissed that I have to somehow cause a fight to drag on 2 hours to threaten their rest than I am about them "rest casting" their buff spells.
To clarify, I am the DM at my table.
@@cameronlancefrii7356 sure, if the rest of the party doesn't wake up because you're casting a bunch of spells in the middle of the night.
As someone who has rested before, it takes a lot less than 2 hours of fighting 🤣
There's also spells that last longer than 8h
Any druid can spend all their remaining spellslots on Goodberries before a long rest
The spell creates 10 berries, containing nutrients for a whole day, and healing 1 HP each, lasting 24h
If you have 3 spellslots remaining, that's 30HP that can be healed out of combat the next day
And it’s even more with life berry. 40 no per 1st level spell slot, and 10 more hp every spell slot up.
yeah, that would likely require a discussion with the DM, and have some kind of limiter on it, to keep the narritive going
@@rory8182 I disagree, the mechanic is very clear rules as written, it's not a 'bend the rules' combo, it's just effecient use of your class
Doing this is not very different from just a high investment short rest though, and it requires you to save up spell slots the day before
I'm that kinda DM, the one where a goodberry is ok, 2 is ok. But 10 might just give you rear end problems.
@@Natural_Power and yet it is completely within the DMs rights to make any rules they like limiting goodberry, as obviously it is completely busted for a lvl 1 spell.
I feel like the ending is how many of these situations play out. Like "aww neat, but you will not be doing that at this table...
Most of these things are just something that no sensible player would try, and definitely not something any sensible DM would allow. The same as allowing the level 5 goodberry-life cleric to precast 60 goodberries, with 40 of them healing 4 hp each and 20 healing 5 hp each, for a total of 260 hp out of combat healing, just because there was a day of downtime where the cleric didn't use any spell slots.
Nothing here is against the rules, druid can stack goodberries with no "tricks", sorcerer can extended metamagic to get free effects for an extra 8 hours after the rest, which usually are a small increase in party HP with Aid, some death wards and etc.
"And just as you get up before anyone else, a random plank I absolutely didn't use as an anti fun measure falls on you, not damaging you but putting you back to sleep"
they would go to sleep after everyone else instead and wake up at the same time
Sorcerer with Extend Spell metamagic and Tiny Servants are gonna riggedy riggedy wreck your foes with hand crossbows.
The way I understand the half rest feature is that it doesn't cut a long rest from 8 hours to 4, but rather only 4 /8 of those hours need to be sleeping / meditating, they still require 4 hours of down time to get the benefits of a long rest. This gives them time to do things like copy spells, be on watch, stitch and maintain gear, set up breakfast in the morning and so on. Its a lot more balanced this way.
This
This is correct according to the rules, and normal races sleep 6 hours during an 8 hour rest
I thought this too. Had to check, since the short doesn’t cite or link where this ruling comes from.
Monsters of the Multiverse (2022) included a change to the Elf "Trance" feature that turns their 4 hours of meditation into a Long Rest in itself.
I completely disagree with WotC's decision to make that change, and would not allow it in my own game. But, it is RAW, now.
@@gentlemankiwi5319 Personally, I would only apply the Trance changes to fantastical races from MoM.
It says they do not sleep, but trance for 4 hours instead and that "after resting in this way, you gain the same benefits a human does from sleeping 8 hours." A human who sleeps 8 hours gets a long rest, ergo...
The rewrite in MotM is a clarification, not a change. Both versions are mechanically identical.
RAW you can cast spells during a long rest anyway! You don't need to be a certain race to do this and I don't think that preparing for the day is really a "trick" that I would discourage my players from doing
Also elves don't have 4 hour long rests, they just have 4 hours sleep. Elf long rest is the same length as everyone else
Elves dont sleep. Theyre still conscious @@NatashaZooks
@@Gallacant oh right true! anyway my point is that their long rests are still 8 hours
@@NatashaZooks After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep.
@@Gallacant the wording is very confusing, but "sleep" and "long rest" are different things in 5e
Just make sure all combats take place in the afternoon.
Party of elves: stays up all night, casts the spells around 10-12AM, rests for 4 hours to regain slots and remove exhaustion
Dont let his poor wording trick you into thinking its not that broken. There is no rule that dictates when your party can take a long rest, other than that you cant take two within a 24 hour period.
Yes, the fact that it’s only a few hours as opposed to all 8 is important, but those looking to take advantage of this will account for things like timing, usually.
The only option a DM really has is to think “fine, then the enemy will wait four more hours before they attack” which is screwing over your party just to make sure things go how YOU planned it, which is being a railroad-y DM(valid, but not a very liked DM style)
As in all things d&d, players and the DM need to communicate out of game to make sure everyone is on the same page. This is the only real solution to broken game mechanics that is fair to everyone
Or during their long rest.
You can also be a Sorcerer and use metamagic to make 8-hour spells last 16 hours, so they'll be up after your long rest regardless of what race you're playing.
Or multiclass as a warlock, convert your warlock spell slots into sorcery points valid till next long rest, then get the spell slots back after a short rest, rinse and repeat for insane amount of sorcery points available for any spells. And then finally, take the invocation "aspect of the moon" from the pact of the Tome with your 3rd level as a warlock to negate any exhaustion from skipping long rest, so you will never have to lose those sorcery points!
Congratulations! You made a coffeelock, the most broken build of the entire game and the DM hate you!
@@Deziar28 you cant have more metamagic points than what you have by default
Our local munchkin asked me that, I said we're already abstracting 8 hour spells into adventuring day spells. I'm not going to nickel and dime minutes and hours to help an exploit for 1 player.
Ah, the Baldur's Gate 3 approach
Very fair. Was wondering if a put out DM would just say, "okay, you walk there and it takes four hours.
Also, this relies on having spell slots at the end of the day to spend upping yourself for all of the time between 7am and 11am.
Honestly spell glyphs are already kind of this, if you've got the spare cash, so it feels more balanced.
@@MarkusAldawn Most DMs have no interest in tracking long lasting spells like that anyway. Not even shorter lasting spells. Like 10 minute duration just means, it's less than an hour. I won't try to keep track if you have been walking for 5 minutes or 15. It's all the same.
@@MarkusAldawn i would say that a 4 hours' walk from any dangerous location is a safe minimum to not get ambushed during a long rest
You can also do this kind of thing with any race through “rest casting.” If you cast spells for less than an hour, it actually doesn’t cancel the long rest. You can continue your long rest from where you left off. Using this method the spells last for nearly their full duration if rest cast just before finishing a long rest
Doing any of the following breaks a long rest
An hour of walking
Fighting
Casting spells
Or any similar adventuring activity
You cast a spell, you dont rest
@@guyarmon9410 Incorrect it's specifically if you do it for an hour.
"If the rest is interrupted by a *period of strenuous activity-at least 1 hour* of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity-the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it."
@@RavixAryss that means : fighting, casting spells or 1 hour + of walking ( or other such activities etc)
@@RavixAryss It's one hour of walking not one hour of everything listed. One hour of fighting is 600 rounds, requiring one hour of fighting would be stupid.
@Quinnknights depends how much weight you place on Jerermy Crawfords rulings as he has said that a round of combat won't break a long rest, that it withstand an interruption upto 1hr
Another excellent example of why a human DM remains a key part of applying rules to a game of unlimited imaginary scenarios!
Older editions didn't have this trick. The time it took to recover spell slots was set. Elves may have shorter rest times to physically recover, but magic is magic...
Actually a fun one for clerics that many people missed, is that they could elect a specified prayer time instead of rest. Such as praying to the first light of dawn. You get all your spells after that hour of prayer, but if you missed it, you had to go a full day without recovery. (having a noon prayer time is fun, getting a 'long rest' for spell slots mid day XD)
This is quite what rest tricking is but it’s an example of it. Rest tricking abuses the rule that you gain all your spell slots back and the ‘end of a long rest’ and so what you do is right before the rest ends, you cast all the spells you have left over so they last you into the next day. You don’t need to be an elf
That said, my favorite way to abuse this particular idea of 4 hour rests is either divine soul or clockwork soul sorcerer. Grab extended spell meta magic and you can grab stuff like extended aid, death ward, mage armor, tiny servant, etc (death ward and tiny servant are mutually exclusive). You get these effects to last for 12 hours into the adventuring day! For Dungeon crawls I’ve personally become particular towards divine soul with the benefit of a 20 minute spirit guardians and a 2 minute aura of vitality boosted by a 1 level dip in life domain cleric. You hopefully won’t need it but when you do, 240 hp of healing in 2 minutes should do the job
you are confusing rest tricking and rest casting. rest tricking is casting the spells before the long rest. rest casting is casting the spells at the end of the long rest.
rest casting works as long as you don't spend more than an hour casting. rest tricking doesn't have that limitation.
@@whytewolf2 that’s interesting, I’ve never heard of a distinction between the two, though that’s a useful detail. I guess what makes it a trick? Is the trick casting before resting? Rest Casting just seems like a clearer term. I appreciate the clarification
@@starat2645 I honestly am not sure what makes it a trick. just one of my previous dm's back in the 2nd edition days made sure there was a distinction between them. since they do operate differently within the mechanics.
but every table could be different.
"Can I do it in our games?" "Haha! F*CK NO!" Hahaha! Literally made me laugh out loud.
Excellent, the enemy lair is a five hour hike away from the town your party stayed the night in. 😊
All races can do this because you get spell slots back as you finish a long rest so when a party member wakes you up for say last watch you can cast the spell while you're long rest has two hours left to go and since the book even clarifies that you only need six hours of sleep but need to spend two hours of light activity like eating or preparing spells I always let my players use this feature rules as written because why not it's fun and leads to interesting game play interactions.
First of all, good on you for running the game the way you like.
Second is that i usually go by the written rules that say any of the following breaks the rest
An hour of walking
Fighting
Casting spell or
a similar adventuring activity
@@guyarmon9410 well the rule is 1 hour of casting a spell interupts, not just casting a spell. If you want to play Raw
@@jessemartinez9158 It's one hour of WALKING, not spell casting. Just because there is a comma after walking doesn't mean the time frame applies to the second part of the list. It's pretty clear they only meant the walking needs to be a duration of 1hr. Stop misinterpreting the rules to pull bs
@@knightofcarrion7358Untrue. That is not how the English language works, and the developers have explicitly stated that it’s 1 hour of all the listed actions. You’re the only one misinterpreting the rules.
If you think otherwise, answer this question.
A feature says “You have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws.”
Does a character with this feature have advantage on just Wisdom saving throws, or all saving throws?
The whole party can be just elves, and be called "The high crew"
You can't really stop it from happening even accidentally unless you bend the rules. For example, Goodberry lasts 24 hours, meaning that the time you cast it is the time the berry becomes ineffective the next day. Literally anyone who has cast Goodberry and had berries left over when they rested has done this supposedly cheesy trick, they just never realised.
I mean, there's a difference between 'oh I cast goodberry yesterday and have some berries this morning' and 'On my rest day I produce 90 goodberries for today's adventuring day'
Rest Tricking is supported RaW, but it's just not fun for a GM to have to deal with. Casters are already so much more powerful then martials that having to also deal with them having a bunch of extra resources at their level the game doesn't really account for is another headache.
Even worse than Goodberry, IMO, is having Mind Blank on this list. What utter horsesh.
Warlocks: Look at what they use to mimic a fraction of our power!
Don’t forget that casting spells is something you can even do on a long rest without interrupting it since you’re permitted 1 hour of adventuring activity without breaking the long rest.
This means any race can easily do this and have even longer durations into the day if you just cast these at the very end of the long rest to get all those slots back
Now that's a healthy DM / player dynamic
It's easier than that. Ask one of the last players keeping watch to wake you up. When they do, cast the spells and go back to sleep. You didn't spend 1 hour casting spells, so you still get the benefits of the long rest.
Rules as written & intended (as I recall), casting a spell during your long rest causes your long rest to fail, regardless of how long it takes (rituals & cantrips are perhaps the only exceptions, since they don't cost spell slots).
@@DBArtsCreators there's tons of debate on it. In onednd, casting a leveled spell means you have to rest one more hour to get the benefit of a long rest. That's a rule I've adopted. Same with combat - ANY combat adds an hour to the rest (b/c what combat lasts for 1 hour?).
For the rule to have any impact, though, you have to have a ticking clock. A rest caster must be forced to weight the benefits and risks of casting 1, 2, 3, or more leveled spells right before the end of a rest, as each cast will delay them getting slots back by an hour. In my (somewhat limited) experience, consistently coming up with ticking clocks that are that tight is both difficult and often incredulous/unbelievable. (but i'm trying to improve)
@@this_epic_name
Eh, I'd just go with the easier "if you expend a spell slot during your long rest, your long rest fails/must be restarted". Cuts the bull down at the outset, and it doesn't hurt any players nor the game.
They can do their spell bull before the rest.
Alternatively: each "high effort activity" stacks towards a threshold. Hit the threshold & the rest fails.
* Each round of combat ticks a small bit towards the threshold
* Each leveled spell cast is equal to a round of combat
* Taking damage is equal to a round of combat + the damage taken
ect, ect...
@@DBArtsCreators it comes from people reading it wrong lol they read "one hour of walking, combat, spell casting, etc" and thinks the one hour means everything on that list when it's only referring to the walking. That would mean you would need your combats to be 600 turns or the combat encounter doesn't break a long rest. It's ridiculous the lengths people will misinterpret rules just so they can ruin the fun of a game by pulling bs
@@DBArtsCreators I'm sure that's wiser. Luckily, it hasn't been a problem at my tables (which don't really have power gamers...just folks interested in a story and character development).
The low-level group I have struggles a bit with it when nighttime combat happens and they want to recover afterward (b/c we use slow natural healing).
Here’s an idea for a mad lad playing a high level caster: every day for 23 days you will cast wish, replicating the effects of glyph of warding, which will store the spell enlarge reduce (namely the enlarge portion), storing all these in a notebook with the trigger words Robert J Oppenheimer. You then cast delayed blast fireball, creating the bead, utter the trigger words having the target be the bead of fire, and the 20 ft radius suddenly becomes 126 million ft, engulfing the world in a fiery rebirth :D
It's worst than that. You don't need to be an Elf for this, and you can get the full spell duration. According to Jeremy Crawford, "If you spend a spell slot during a long rest and finish the rest, you do get the slot back." Meaning that any class can cast spells during that very last hour of rest (since you can do stuff for 2 hours during a long rest), and recover the spell slots, meaning you got several spells for free with the full duration intact.
What do you mean "worse"?
@@tapurate638 More exploitable, and most likely something the DM won't allow even though it is both RAW and RAI.
@@sharingheart13 why not? It's not like lvl2 Wizard having 13 AC in first 8 hours of the day without losing one of his 3 1st level spell slots is much of an exploit.
@@tapurate638 Because if it can be allowed for the level 2 Wizard to cast the 1st level spell Mage Armor, then it must be allowed for the level 7 Cleric to cast the 4th level spell Death Ward, and for the level 17 Sorcerer to cast the 9th level spell Wish, and so on, all without losing spell slots.
Just another of Crawford's rulings that I am going to ignore. I mean, this guy also wants to tell us, that "See Invisible" means you still attack the invisible creature, that you now see clearly, with disadvantage, because "invisible" is a condition and "See invisible" doesn't get rid of the condition.
"Imma do that"
"YOU WERE AMBUSHED DURING YOUR REST"
I've seen this elf thing, and I know that it's official, but I don't allow it in my games because nothing in the rules ties long rests to sleep. We don't need a broken class to be more broken with the elf, thx.
It’s actually not official. The rule is that a LR is 8 hours, no matter what. Like you said, sleep is a part of it, light activity fills the rest.
@BrimstoneBlade Technically, I said that there's no rule tying long rest to sleep, so one could just rest and paint some minis.
You got a problem with my Barbarian painting minis? Before you answer, just consider how a half orc gets their reds.
You don't need to be an elf. Long rest would only be interrupted if you spent an hour or more casting spells. You could literally wake up 1 minute before the rest ends and cast like 10 spells before the slots reset.
@@3of6mylove sure, and we're talking about the duration of a long rest, not which activities one can do during one.
@@harrybarrylarryiii
"Elves don't need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
If you meditate during a long rest, you finish the rest after only 4 hours. You otherwise obey all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed."
I’ve been creating a set of homebrew rules to address this and other timekeeping problems. The only spell durations are instantaneous, one round, one encounter, until your next short rest, until your next long rest, or permanent until dispelled. Instead of casting times, spells have a casting environment: the most dangerous situation it would still be appropriate to cast the spell. Casting environments are combat (split into action, bonus action, and reaction casting times), dungeon, wilderness, in-town, and bastion. This also fixes issues like casting forbiddance on a dungeon to kill everything inside since that’s now a “bastion” spell that can only be cast while in your home base.
It does not, in fact, work like that. Elves only meditate for 4 hours for the benefit of a human sleeping for 8 hours. However, humans are only sleeping for 6 hours of the long rest. It balatantly states in the Elf ability that they meditate for four hours of a long rest and engage in light activity for the other 4. A long rest is always 8 hours. The way rest tricking WILL work, is that anything that interrupts the long rest for less than an hour does not disrupt it significantly enough to deny you the benefits of it, and you regain your spell slots at the end of the long rest. So anyone can get this benefit, they just cast the spells in question shortly before the end of the long rest, then they get all the slots back.
Shadar-kai trance of Monsters of the Multiverse "You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness."... the same goes for the eladrin and any other elf who was recently published or updated
Player: Can I do that in our games?
DM: If you can finish a long rest, sure!
Rules as Written:
"A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits." (PHB p186)
That has nothing to do with the video though, there’s only 1 long rest happening it’s just that spells are cast before the long rest begins and last until after the long rest ends.
I feel like you may have misunderstood the combo somewhere as you don't need to long rest more than once in a 24 hour period to rest trick!
Thanks for the clarification.
I've had players try to rest 4 hours, spell trick, then try to rest a second time in the same 8 hour window their allies need to get their spells back again.
@@doughmcn to my memory that long rest rule is from XGTE and is an optional rule meaning that if you don’t have that book you might not be aware of it nor would every table be running it so depending on the GM and their books that would be a legal interaction. You can just throw something at them to interrupt their long rest if they did but it is a legal interaction.
@@AtelierGod PHB 186, not XTE
This is why I play it as "elves require only 4 hours of SLEEP. They still need to use the rest of the 4 hours resting, but they have more time for minor activities
That’s why I ignore this errata lol. Sleep and long rest are not the same in my games.
"So you start your day traveling to the city, which is 4 hours away from where you rested for the night..."
I have to disagree here. Elves gain the benefit of an 8 hour sleep by just trancing for 4 hours. However... a Long Rest is defined in the PHB as "a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch."
So while an Elf only needs to sleep for 4 hours, they still need to spend 4 more hours doing light activity like standing watch in order to finish the Long Rest. You can not complete a Long Rest in less than 8 hours because it requires for the rest to be "At Least 8 Hours"
You're using the old version of the wording, the updated version of the ability is fortunately extremely clear: "You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation." - You complete the long rest in 4 hours, no doubt about it (you can rule otherwise in your games ofc, but RAW this is how it works!)
The feature litterally says that you gain the benefit of an 8 hour long rest with 4 hours of being in a trance lol
@@DnDShorts Ah I didn't know they updated the rules. I was going off the old ruling and under that, you can't long rest without spending 8 hours.
So now I have to ask... WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU UPDATE THE RULING AND BREAK SOMETHING THAT WASN'T BROKEN. adksjlfhEWJGSHGHGLKH;AG
Casting a spell is light activity and these spells typically only have an action of cast time.
Or as a race that sleeps the standard 8 hours, you can just play as a Sorcerer. Extended spell doubles the duration of spells that have a duration of 1 minute or longer. This is exactly what you’d want to do! Extend spell on your long duration buffs like Mage Armor if you have spare spell slots at the end of the day then take your long rest. You still have 8 hours of duration going into the next morning which could very likely cover an entire’s day adventure (12 hours if you run a race that has 4 hour long rests, but then you’re waiting on your party if they need more time).
To me, this is best used with Divine Soul Sorcerers. They get access to the entire Cleric spell list, so they are able to make more use of this combo: Mage Armor, Aid, and Death Ward.
There’s also rest casting. Which I believe is getting changed in 5.5, but it basically thing but you can cast them at the end of your rest. Its wording is a bit less clear, but at long as you don’t count casting a spell as strenuous activity, you can spend your two hours per long rest just casting spells.
That's too bad if it's changed. My groups have liked rest-casting as method for preparing for big battles and not getting fomo when they don't get through all their spell slots for a day.
Even if you do count it as strenuous activity, you only extend your rest by the casting time of the spells (unless it totals more than an hour, in which case you'd have to start over). A few one-action spells and a ten-minute one, cast beginning at 7:59:00 into a short rest, still only requires one more minute of light activity to complete the long rest by strict current RAW.
"And for that question will the next game be in gritty realism."
This does make a lot of sense for a wizard as their whole thing is prepping before battle
And then the party cam across a foe with detect magic, and dispel magic.
And it woke them up before they were fully rested
@@Nesseight By dispelling the magic they had cast upon themselves.
"Lets rest for 4 hours". "As you are resting at the third hour you are awoken by a load roar inside the camp..."
Extended spell meta magic makes this loophole even better 😂
Most groups I've played in don't allow spell slots to be regained until the spells have expired (or the caster chooses to end them). I also wrote that into my house rules for games that I ran; the only exception being spells with a duration of "permanent".
And that is (one reason) why very long duration spells in Pathfinder have a duration of "Until your next daily preparations"
'you cannot rest now, a limited duration spell is active'
OR, because spell slots come back after a long rest, you can just cast the spells you want 1 minute before the long rest ends and then have the affects for (nearly) the whole 8 hours, regardless of race. As long as you don't spend more than an hour doing this, you don't have to restart the long rest. It isn't exactly fabricating extra spell slots either, it just changes the question of "do i want to cast mage armor now or save the spell slot for sleep later in the day?" to "do i want to cast sleep now or save the slot to use it for mage armor tomorrow?", which is an easier question to answer because you have more insight on the encounter and can more easily judge if you need to cast sleep to survive.
I never thought I’d hear of a glitch in a *table-top rpg* but here we are.
Thats why i love the little by law in phb talking how dm ultimatky decides rules
Wizard: Casts a whole load of spells
Wizard: Alright, I'll take a nap, see you all at sunrise
At sunrise
Wizard: Alright, time to go crazy.
Thats why you make sure they have stuff to do the day before their big plan
Thats when you take the mid shift watch and pretend to sense a threat in the night
This is why i homebrew baulders gate for those spells, until long rest
being a high level wizard and using Mind Blank and Foresight is amazing for crazy combats
In my campaign I would be like "Yes, but who's to say there won't be something in the night that kills you in your sleep"
This reminded me of rebuffing in EverQuest then camping out to come back the next day and begin play, fully leet buffed. I miss EQ
Two things to note:
1)You can’t gain the benefits of a long rest more than once in a 24-hour period (PHB 186).
2) Unless the whole party decides to play races that only need 4 hours to get a long rest, this offers little mechanical benefit since the party has to wait for each player to finish a long rest before adventuring. Sure an elf can be a good lookout during a long rest, but the elf can’t just go off by itself because splitting the party is really risky.
If a party wanted to pick races that could finish a long rest in 4 hours just for this exploit, I think the DM would turn it down.
**sits there for another 4 hours waiting for everyone else to wake up from their long rest**
Ahhh, yes Darkvision, the best use case of this thing of an elf ...
Just wait untill this man learns about goodberries
Player: "Can I do it in our games?"
DM: "You can try! Just know that there are always risks when taking a Long Rest!"
3.5 did actually came out of the gate with a solution to this that 5e decided was too many words for it. In the magic chapter of the phb, and I'm fairly certain under the race's ability traits that talk about how and how much rest the creature gets (such as the classic elves meditate for 4 hours and that's the equivalent of an 8 hour rest) it clarifies that even if the caster of a rave that needs less or no rest, they must still take a full 8 hours in order to prepare their spells, minds, reagents, ect. For example, elven wizards only need to meditate for 4 hours to get a full nights' rest, but the effort and energy required for spellcasting takes a toll on the body that requires a full 8 hours to recover from and prepare for
I allow rest casting for basically every spell but certain summon spells. Bonus points for a high elf divine soul sorcerer either rest casting or casting right before their 4 hour sleep using extended cast to have upcasted aid and death wards aplenty for the whole party. Very effective combo
Mage armor is especially useful for preventing bug bites while you sleep!
I'd allow it. Congratulations, for breakfast, you're a demi-god. It'll all wear off before you get to do anything with it.
Kinda reminds me of the coffeelock, the pact of the tome with an invocation that makes it so you never need sleep and stuff. Only ever short rest.
That's an easy one. "Just as you feel the last of the magic fade away there is a thundering quake in the ground nearby. . . "
There's also the couple minutes of interruptions allowed in the long rest if you aren't a race that gets shorter long rests
I use Tiny Servant to act as a guard while the party rests. It lasts 8 hours and it can guard as one of its commands. So cast it before resting and you need one less guard for your camp during the night. Then when you wake up the spell slot you used to set it up is refreshed.
To do that your whole party must be of such races
Me, an intelectual: Let me introduce you my favorite friend, Rest Casting
"It takes more than 4 hours to get to the part of the day when adventuring happens"
Problem solved.
Seems like a sound tactic to employ the day before a big battle.
In my games a long rest is 24 hours of uninterrupted relaxation
"Have extra AC, Telepathy"
Calm down Dr Seuss
Meanwhile I just started a bard high moon elf. Let the shenanigans begin
My first character is an eladrin sorcerer/bard and I realised this pretty quickly (alongside extended metamagic), it's fun
"When you play a race that can finish a long rest in only 4 hours, like an elf."
> Frieren begs to differ
I have an Astral Elf Divine Soul Sorcerer built with this trick in mind.
“Your reputation for vanquishing mighty foes despite your inexperience catches the attention of a local guild leader whose notice would otherwise have drifted over you as insignificant. As someone who could potentially thwart his plans, he’s put a bounty on your head. Expect to be visited by amateur and professional hunters alike…and all armed with the knowledge that you’re most vulnerable during the short window in which you rest”
That's just the mechanics of elves and similarly fast-resting races. No "trick" or "glitch" just RAW&RAI. Now if you really want a truck, Pack Tactics has a lovely video on *actually* abusing RAW/RAI for casting during a long rest.
The most important part is still the ending. No sensible DM will let you do this. And no sensible player should try this.
We used to do this back in 3.5 all the time. It gets really fun when you play a race that doesn't even need to rest.
"Can I do it in our game?"
"You can try"
_Slides random encounter table out and starts rolling_
They still need the full 8 hours they just can do “light activity” aka not sleeping but if you start doing anything more than light exercise(like casting a spell) rest over.
Edit: you can still use things like Extended spell meta magic to get more bang for buck tho.
"Spell duration is reset when resting. You are currently mundane again until you re-cast them." This is how it works in every video game that is D&D, and it's one that keeps the casters down and closer to martial mundanes. Alternatively, you could forego the slots entirely and give casters infinite casts if you want the opposite effect.
*_You wake up feeling like a god_*
I used to do this in Pathfinder 1e with a high level arcanist. That system has a lot of hours/level buffs. So using metamagic Extend Spell, you could cast 16 hr buffs before bed at level 8. My Arcanist just lived with Overland Flight up at all times and tied himself down while sleeping.
I sometimes think about an optional rule along the lines of: You cannot regain a spell slot if the last (non-permenent) spell cast with it is still active. (i.e. if you've cast Darkvision before the 4-hour rest, that's one 2nd Level Spell Slot you won't regain)
Feel like it needs some specific rulings still, but could be a good start
Rest tricking is useful for Necromancers who want to keep their undead minions under control. It's almost a requirement.
I brought this up to my DM. He held back the cursing but was a no. When thr fighter brought it up I quickly said, "No." Paused, "I already asked and we agreed it won't work like that."
A character gains the benefits so long as it’s not interrupted by more than an hour of strenuous activity, such as combat. (But who’s going to fight for 600 rounds, right?)
With that in mind you can theoretically wake up after 6 hours during your long rest, spend all of your spell slots on long duration buff spells, and then sleep for the remainder of the duration to gain the benefits of a long rest.
Metamagic adept: extend spell
And ofc, "one long rest per day, like in real life you cant put yourself to sleep as soon as you woke up"
New house rule, when you finish a long rest all spells cast before the long rest dissipate unless otherwise stated (like days long spells).