A short rest is an important game mechanic in Dungeons & Dragons that allows characters to recover some resources during an adventure without taking a long rest. Understanding how short rests work is key to managing resources and ensuring your party is in top shape when they need to be.
What is a short rest?
A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, where characters do light activity such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. A short rest allows a character to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points, regain the use of some expended features that recharge on a short rest, and gain other benefits based on their class.
A short rest contrasts with a long rest, which is a period of extended downtime that lasts for 8 hours. Long rests allow for more significant recovery, like regaining all lost hit points and recovering most expended resources. Short rests take less time but provide more limited recovery.
When can you take a short rest?
A short rest can be taken whenever the party has at least 1 hour of downtime and is not engaged in strenuous activity like fighting, casting spells, or traveling. The environment also needs to be relatively safe and comfortable enough to allow light activity.
Parties will often take short rests in between fights when exploring a dungeon, or while camping or staying at an inn. Short rests usually won’t be possible in the midst of a tense or dangerous situation.
What happens during a short rest?
Each character can undertake light activity during the short rest to help themselves recover. Some common short rest activities include:
- Eating food and drinking water
- Reading books or studying spells
- Tending to wounds and applying first aid
- Meditating or praying
- Standing watch and keeping a lookout
- Discussing plans with allies
The short rest is interrupted if a character does anything more strenuous than light activity. Fighting, casting spells, traveling, or doing anything else that isn’t light activity ends the short rest immediately.
Recovering Hit Points
The primary benefit of a short rest is that it allows characters to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points. Each character can spend any number of their own Hit Dice up to their maximum. For each Hit Die spent, the character regains hit points equal to the die roll + their Constitution modifier.
For example, a fighter with 10d10 Hit Dice who has a +3 Constitution modifier can spend up to 10 Hit Dice during a short rest. For each d10 rolled, they would regain that roll + 3 hit points. If they rolled a 6 and a 4 on two Hit Dice, they would recover 9 and 7 hit points respectively.
Any Hit Dice spent during a short rest are then unavailable until the character takes a long rest. So characters need to carefully manage their Hit Dice usage between short and long rests.
Recovering Class and Other Features
In addition to recovering hit points, a short rest allows characters to regain the use of some expended class and racial features that recharge on a short rest. The specifics depend on the character’s classes, racial traits, feats, and other features.
Some examples of features that commonly recharge on a short rest include:
- A fighter’s Second Wind and Action Surge
- A monk’s Ki points and their associated abilities like Flurry of Blows
- A warlock’s spell slots and Mystic Arcanum
- A wizard’s Arcane Recovery
- Racial traits like a dragonborn’s Breath Weapon
These and other short rest recharging features will specify that they recharge on a short rest in their description. If the description doesn’t say a feature recharges on a short rest, then it will only come back after a long rest.
Gaining Inspiration
Finally, the DM can choose to award Inspiration to one or more characters who roleplay well during a short rest. Inspiration is a metagame rule that allows a player to gain advantage on a later ability check, attack roll, or saving throw by spending their Inspiration. Awarding it periodically encourages good roleplaying and engagement.
Short Rest Benefits by Class
While every character benefits from short rests in some way, some classes gain more than others. Here’s a breakdown of how impactful short rests are for each class:
| Class | Short Rest Benefits |
|---|---|
| Barbarian | • Some Primal Path features |
| Bard | • Song of Rest inspiration |
| Cleric | • Channel Divinity |
| Druid | • Wild Shape uses |
| Fighter | • Second Wind • Action Surge • Superiority Dice |
| Monk | • Ki points • Martial arts abilities |
| Paladin | • Channel Divinity • Lay on Hands pool |
| Ranger | • Primeval Awareness uses |
| Rogue | • Cunning Action • Uncanny Dodge |
| Sorcerer | • Sorcery Points (Font of Magic) |
| Warlock | • Spell slots • Mystic Arcanum • Pact Magic abilities |
| Wizard | • Arcane Recovery |
As you can see, martial classes like fighters, monks, and warlocks tend to get the most benefits from short rests since they regain limited resources like superiority dice, ki points, and spell slots. Spellcasters generally benefit the least, except for warlocks who rely on spell slot regeneration for their Pact Magic.
Managing Short Rests
Trying to take a short rest whenever possible maximizes the rate at which characters can recover class resources. However, short resting after every fight isn’t always feasible due to time constraints and the narrative. Dungeon masters should try to strike a balance so short rests are available when needed but not overused.
In general, limiting short rests to 1-2 between long rests allows for recovery without negating the attrition of resources over an adventuring day. Fewer short rests favor spellcasters with more long rest resources, while more short rests benefit classes who regain features on short rests.
Variant Rest Rules
Some DMs use variant rest rules to change the frequency and benefits of short rests. Common variants include:
- 8 hour short rest – Short rests take 8 hours like a long rest, but don’t restore as many resources.
- No long rests – Long rests are removed entirely and characters just take short rests.
- Gritty Realism – Short rests take 8 hours and long rests take 7 days.
These variants can extend the adventuring day, make resource management more interesting, or reinforce a higher level of realism. But they also fundamentally change class balance, so DMs should use them carefully.
Conclusion
The short rest is a key feature of D&D 5e that allows parties to recover without taking a full overnight long rest. It provides an opportunity for characters to catch their breath, tend to wounds, regain some resources, and roleplay downtime. Understanding how to effectively use short rests – and how they interact with your class – will help you adventure efficiently and make the most of your character’s abilities.