# Resting While I like the sense of immersion, the realistic pace-setting, and the downtime opportunities of the ‘Gritty Realism’ rest system, it drastically slows down play and is just too much work. To balance the realism and roleplay style of ‘gritty realism’ with the ease and efficiency of the standard rest system, I've written a few options for resting. ## Option 1: The Adventure Rest While out adventuring you can benefit from a number of adventure rests equal to your proficiency bonus. An adventure rest takes 8 hours, 6 of which must include sleeping while 2 can include light activity such as keeping watch. Abilities, hit points, hit dice, etc., that recharge “on a long rest” according to published materials now recharge on an Adventure Rest. After using up your adventure rests, each rest period during an adventure does not restore hit points, hit dice, spell slots, or other abilities, even if you sleep for a full 8 hours. You can benefit from 2 short rests per Adventure rest. Adventure rests are only replenished after a long rest, which is a week of rest without adventuring. Long rests can occur in a town or city, or in an established camp. An established camp needs to include a fortified structure, wall tent, or similar edifice that protects you from the elements, provide ample space for downtime activities, provide ample food and water, and be safe from intrusion by enemies. This means hauling a wagon of gear to a base camp is a very good idea for extended trips. Some situations that require you to be outdoors or under light exertion, such as caravan travel, do not use up adventure rests as long as there is no strenuous activity or combat. For example, the party is travelling with a caravan for a week, and on the third day, they fight off some bandits attempting to raid the wagons. The rest of the travel is uneventful, meaning the characters only needed to use a single Adventure Rest during their travels. ## Option 2: Standard Rests with Reduced Efficiency **A short rest**: a 1 hour short rest refreshes short-rest class resources, and permits you to spend one or more hit die to heal. At least one ration must be consumed to heal this way. Resources and actions can be spent to augment a short rest, for example, a player that cooks the meal for you may grant advantage on an expended hit die. **A long rest** refreshes half your hit points, half your hit dice, half your class's long-rest resources, and spell slots. A player may use, an action or resource, such as Medicine or Cooking, to restore an additional hit die or other resource. **Full Rest:** If you take your entire long rest in a in a town, city, established camp, or other safe haven your Long Rest becomes a Full Rest; you instead restore all your hit points, hit dice, and all your long rest resources. ## Option 3: Gritty Realism This variant uses a short rest of 8 hours and a long rest of 7 days. This puts the brakes on the campaign, requiring the players to carefully judge the benefits and drawbacks of combat. Characters can’t afford to engage in too many battles in a row, and all adventuring requires careful planning ## Option 3: Semi-Gritty Realism Similar to gritty realism, but a long rest is reduced to 3 days if characters rest in a in a town, city, established camp, or other safe haven.