Rests, Wear & Wounds
Player reference. For table use, see Rests, Wear & Wounds — Table Reference.
At a Glance
- Long Rest: restores all Hit Points, spell slots, and class features normally.
- Resilience: your current maximum available Hit Dice. Only sanctuary rests normally restore it.
- Sanctuary: somewhere genuinely safe where nothing is hunting you—not merely a barred room or magical shelter in hostile territory.
- Exhaustion and Stress: seven-level conditions. A Long Rest normally reduces levels 1–6 by 1; level 7 needs special treatment.
- Alarm: a visible 0–7 Clock showing how strongly a hostile site is reacting to you.
- Camp: any Long Rest outside a sanctuary.
- Massive Wound: a lasting wound caused when a critical hit drops you to 0 Hit Points. Treat it within ten days to prevent permanence.
1. The Alarm Clock
In hostile territory, a visible (to the players, not the characters) Alarm Clock runs from 0 to 7. It starts at 0 when you enter.
It rises:
| Trigger | Alarm |
|---|---|
| You finish a Short Rest | +1 |
| You finish a Long Rest | +3 (+2 if someone Concealed the Camp) |
| An enemy escapes, survives to report, or is found | +1 |
| Something loud or obvious — a bashed door, a fireball, a blown group Stealth check | +1 |
It falls:
| Action | Alarm |
|---|---|
| Hide the bodies, clean up, shut what you broke; 10 minutes, DC 15 Stealth or Survival | −1 |
| Successful misdirection such as a disguise, a forged order, or a planted clue | −1 |
| Withdraw entirely and re-enter the area by an unconnected route | GM may reset to 0 |
Each reduction is once per situation.
At 7, the site Responds: patrols change, defenses harden, hunters deploy, objectives move, or the garrison musters. The Clock then resets to 2.
Standing down. While you are away, Alarm falls by 1 per week, to a floor equal to the number of Responses already triggered. Response consequences remain. This is book keeping for me, not you. It makes me sad.
2. Rests
Short Rest
One hour of light activity. You must have at least 1 Hit Point to begin.
- Spend available Hit Dice. Roll one at a time, adding your Constitution modifier to each.
- Short-rest features recharge as per RAW.
A Short Rest ends with no benefit if you roll Initiative, cast a spell other than a cantrip, or take any damage before the end of the rest period. Damage that only reduces your temporary Hit Points still counts as damage.
Long Rest
Eight hours, including at least six asleep and no more than two of light activity. You need at least 1 Hit Point, and 16 hours must have passed since your last Long Rest.
- All Hit Points restored.
- All spell slots and class features recharge on their normal timers.
- Ability scores restored if any were reduced.
- Spent Hit Dice return, up to your current Resilience — not up to your level. This differs from RAW.
- Exhaustion and Stress: each drops by 1 level if currently at level 1–6, except as noted under Camp. A Long Rest never clears level 7.
A Long Rest ends if you roll Initiative, cast a spell other than a cantrip, take any damage (including damage that only reduces temporary Hit Points), or spend an hour walking or otherwise exerting yourself. If you had rested an hour first, you gain a Short Rest instead.
You can resume a Long Rest immediately after an interruption. If you do so, the rest requires 1 additional hour per interruption to finish.
Long Rest in a Sanctuary
Taking a long rest in a sanctuary gives you everything above, and:
- Resilience increases by your Proficiency Bonus, up to its normal maximum. This is the only rest that restores Resilience; section 5 lists the two non-rest exceptions.
- Your active Stress rest count resets (see 7).
- No Camp, no rolls, no ambush.
These benefits apply each night. Deeply depleted characters may need several sanctuary nights to recover fully.
Your Bastion is a sanctuary, unless it’s under attack at the time.
3. Camp
A Long Rest taken outside a sanctuary is a Camp. Four steps.
Step 1 — Make Camp
One character rolls Wisdom (Survival), or another justified skill or tool. Roll with disadvantage if the party has no bedrolls or tent.
| DC | Conditions |
|---|---|
| 10 | A defensible space — a cleared room, a door that bars, dry ground |
| 15 | Exposed, damp, or uneven; no real barrier between you and the corridor |
| 20 | No cover at all, extreme conditions, or a place patrols pass through |
This roll sets the Camp Activity DC — the number every other roll tonight is made against.
- Success = a good camp. The Camp Activity DC is 10.
- Failure = a rough camp. The Camp Activity DC is 15, and nobody clears Exhaustion or Stress tonight except through Tend the Wounded (Step 3).
Step 2 — The Lookout
One character makes an Intelligence (Survival) check against the Camp Activity DC, with advantage from traps, bells, or alarm. Intelligence represents planning positions and coverage; Wisdom (Perception) is used later to notice an actual intruder.
- Success: the camp’s weak spots are covered.
- Failure: the whole party has disadvantage on Perception checks against intruders tonight.
The lookout performs no camp activity.
Step 3 — Camp Activities
Everyone except the lookout performs one, rolling against the Camp Activity DC. A failed activity wastes whatever it consumed.
A character can’t receive the same activity twice in one camp. Multiple medics must tend different characters. The lookout performs no activity but may receive one. Productive activities such as Forage can be attempted by multiple characters.
These are examples, not a menu. Describe any other useful plan. A specific solution can outperform the standard activities or Alarm reductions.
| Activity | Requires | On a success |
|---|---|---|
| Conceal the camp | Stealth or Survival | This Long Rest raises the Alarm by +2 instead of +3 |
| Forage | Survival or Nature | Produce 1d4 Supply. Not available in dungeons and other structures, or on blighted ground. Living underground wilderness, such as the Underdark, is fine. |
| Tend the wounded | Healer’s kit (1 charge); Medicine if you have it | One character, which may be you, reduces Exhaustion or Stress by one level. In a rough camp this is the only reduction anyone gets that night. In a good camp it stacks with the ordinary one, so that character sheds two levels. Never clears level 7. |
| Repair | Appropriate tools | Restore one damaged or broken item to working order |
| Story, song, or a game | Performance, or Arcana/History/Religion, or a gaming set | One other character gains Inspiration |
If you have a feat or class feature that grants a benefit for preparing food or drink, you may spend your camp activity using it, and it works as that feature describes. There is no general benefit for cooking or brewing beyond what such a feature provides.
Step 4 — Ambush
If something approaches, the lookout rolls Wisdom (Perception) against its Stealth. On a success the party is roused with time to don light armour. On a failure you are surprised. Surprise means Disadvantage on the Initiative check. But in this case, it also means you are likely without your armor.
Magical Shelter
Magical shelters are useful, but not sanctuaries: the expedition and enemy activity continue while you rest.
What a magical shelter does give you:
- An automatic good camp. No Make Camp roll, no rough camp, no Step 4.
- Near-silence on the Alarm. A warded shelter raises it by +1 instead of +3. A fully extradimensional one — Magnificent Mansion, Demiplane — raises it by nothing, because you were not there.
- It pauses an active Stress rest count. The night doesn’t count toward the third consecutive rest. Hot food and a real bed genuinely are respite from the weight of the place, even mid-job.
Skip Make Camp, Lookout, and Ambush (Steps 1, 2, and 4). Every character may perform one camp activity.
The shelter must last all night. Recasting a non-cantrip interrupts the rest, so Rope Trick normally covers only a Short Rest.
Magical shelter never restores Resilience.
Shelters can still be discovered. Visibility, detect magic, enemy awareness, and the specific spell may alter the Alarm benefit; the GM will explain any exception.
Baleful Ground
The GM declares baleful ground when you enter it.
In a baleful place, a Long Rest reduces Exhaustion or Stress, your choice, not both.
Everything else works normally. Tend the Wounded can reduce the other track for one character.
4. Supply
One Supply is one character’s food and water for one day. Standard rations cost 5 sp.
Supply replaces the 2024 rules’ Malnutrition and Dehydration hazards. Don’t apply both. Supply is harsher on the first missed day, because it bundles water in with food, and simpler, because it has no saving throw.
- Consume 1 Supply during a Long Rest or gain 1 level of Exhaustion.
- A Long Rest without Supply does not reduce Exhaustion. It can still reduce Stress normally.
- Three consecutive Long Rests without Supply also cost you 1 Resilience.
You can forage while travelling or as a camp activity. You can’t forage in dungeons and other structures, or on blighted ground.
Underground wilderness is the exception. Deep caverns with a living ecosystem, such as the Underdark’s fungus forests, cave lichens and blind fish, and creatures that are gross but edible, can be foraged like any other wild place. Your average dungeon can’t. The GM will tell you which you’re in.
5. Resilience
Resilience is your current maximum available Hit Dice. It starts equal to your level. Long Rests return Hit Dice only up to Resilience; Hit Points still return in full.
- Floor: Resilience never drops below 1.
- At the floor, any further depletion gives you 1 level of Exhaustion instead.
Depletion
You lose 1 Resilience each time you:
- survive Massive Damage (below)
- roll a natural 1 on a death saving throw
- take an effect that would reduce your Hit Point maximum. It reduces Resilience instead, at most once per encounter. If that effect would have ended on its own, as most do on a Long Rest, the Resilience point returns when it would have. Only permanent drains cost you permanently.
- finish a third consecutive Long Rest without Supply (see 4)
In addition, each untreated Massive Wound costs you 1 Resilience for as long as it goes untreated.
Massive Damage
When a single hit reduces you to 0 Hit Points and deals 20 + (3 × your level) or more damage, make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. Count the whole hit, including any damage your temporary Hit Points absorbed.
- Success: you survive at 0 Hit Points as normal, and lose 1 Resilience.
- Failure: the same, and you also take one death saving throw failure.
If this is your first knockdown of the encounter, it also costs 1 Exhaustion. Massive Damage and its consequences still apply on later knockdowns.
Instant death remains separate and unchanged: if the damage remaining after you reach 0 equals or exceeds your Hit Point maximum, you die.
Recovery
- A Long Rest in a sanctuary restores Resilience equal to your Proficiency Bonus, up to your normal maximum.
- Treating a Massive Wound immediately restores the point that wound was costing you.
- Greater Restoration or better can restore 1 Resilience, once per creature per Long Rest. Each casting provides only one benefit from this rules system: restore 1 Resilience, remove 1 Exhaustion, remove 1 Stress, or treat one Massive Wound.
- Nothing else restores Resilience. A Long Rest outside a sanctuary does not.
6. Exhaustion
Exhaustion has seven levels and is cumulative: you suffer your current level’s effect and every lower level’s effect at once. You have a level of Exhaustion, not multiple instances of it.
| Level | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | You can’t Dash |
| 2 | Disadvantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks |
| 3 | Speed halved; you can’t maintain a fast travel pace |
| 4 | Disadvantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution attack rolls and saving throws; you can’t maintain a normal travel pace |
| 5 | You can’t take Reactions |
| 6 | Speed reduced to 5 feet; you can’t maintain even a slow travel pace |
| 7 | Doomed. You die in 13 (2d12) hours, or at a time the GM chooses, and stay doomed after death. Only regenerate, resurrection, true resurrection, or wish can undo it. |
Causes
- Falling unconscious at 0 Hit Points during an encounter. Gain 1 Exhaustion the first time this happens to you in that encounter. Later knockdowns in the same encounter do not add Exhaustion, though other causes still can.
- Taking a critical hit while at 0 Hit Points.
- Shrugging off a critical hit. When a critical hit strikes you, you may use your reaction to make it a normal hit instead and gain 1 level of Exhaustion. Once per Short or Long Rest.
- Rolling a natural 1 on a death saving throw.
- Finishing a Long Rest without Supply.
Recovery
- Any Long Rest with Supply, anywhere: −1 at levels 1–6. A rough camp reduces nothing; on baleful ground you choose Exhaustion or Stress, not both.
- Tend the wounded in camp: a further −1, for one character. This is what rescues you on a night the camp went badly, and what lets someone dig out of a spike faster than one level a night.
- Greater Restoration or better: 1 level, anywhere — but not level 7, which needs regenerate, resurrection, true resurrection, or wish.
- Level 7 cannot be cleared by rest, by a healer, or by Greater Restoration.
7. Stress
Stress has seven levels and is cumulative in the same way as Exhaustion.
Direct Stress triggers apply everywhere. The GM may also declare a location or story arc oppressive when its sustained supernatural or psychological pressure matters. Only then does the passive rest count below run. The count resets when you reach a sanctuary or leave that location or arc.
| Level | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | Disadvantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks |
| 2 | Disadvantage on concentration checks |
| 3 | A random short-term Breaking Point effect, lasting 1d6 days on its own timer |
| 4 | Disadvantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma attack rolls and saving throws |
| 5 | You take an action or a bonus action each turn, not both |
| 6 | You can’t cast spells. Cantrips still work. |
| 7 | A lasting mental break, chosen or rolled by the GM. |
Causes
- Your third consecutive Long Rest outside a sanctuary while the passive count is active. Then begin counting again.
- Watching an ally die — not merely drop to 0.
- Failing a saving throw against a fear, madness, or domination effect.
- Being dominated or charmed into acting against your own party.
- Failing an Intelligence saving throw against an overwhelming or otherworldly effect.
- Exposure to genuine horror or an oppressive evil presence.
- Anything that says it causes Stress.
If a rest both raises and reduces Stress, gain it first, then reduce it.
Recovery
- Any Long Rest, anywhere: −1 at levels 1–6. A rough camp reduces nothing; on baleful ground you choose Exhaustion or Stress, not both.
- Tend the wounded in camp: a further −1, for one character.
- Greater Restoration or better: 1 level, anywhere, including level 7. Clearing level 7 also ends its lasting mental break.
- Level 7 cannot be cleared by rest or Tend the Wounded. It needs Greater Restoration or better, or a resolution the table agrees fits.
8. Massive Wounds
A Massive Wound happens when the attack that drops you to 0 Hit Points is a critical hit. Roll d10.
| d10 | Wound | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arm | You can’t hold anything with two hands, and only one object at a time |
| 2 | Hand | You can’t use two-handed weapons or a shield with that hand; disadvantage on checks needing two free hands |
| 3 | Leg | Speed halved; you need a cane, crutch, or peg leg or you fall prone after Dashing; disadvantage on Dexterity checks to balance |
| 4 | Foot | Speed reduced by 10 feet; disadvantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks involving balance |
| 5 | Eye | Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight and on ranged attack rolls. Both eyes: Blinded. |
| 6 | Toe | No mechanical effect |
| 7 | Finger | Disadvantage on checks needing fine manual dexterity with that hand |
| 8 | A scarring wound | Disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion); advantage on Charisma (Intimidation) |
| 9 | An internal injury | Disadvantage on Constitution saving throws, including to maintain Concentration |
| 10 | Half your teeth | No mechanical effect |
The Ten-Day Clock
The effect applies immediately, but the limb is mangled, not lost.
- Treated within 10 days: the wound heals with no lasting effect.
- Not treated within 10 days: it becomes permanent, and needs a Prosthesis or magic.
- While untreated, the wound costs you 1 Resilience.
Treatment
- Medical Aid — during a Long Rest in a real settlement, the treating character expends one healer’s-kit charge and succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
- Magic — Greater Restoration or equivalent. This is the casting’s one chosen benefit from this rules system.
- Prosthesis — a device replacing what was lost. Only for a wound that became permanent. Ordinary equipment, bought with gold rather than found as treasure; costs, weights and what each one does are in Prosthetics.
Once a wound is treated it stops applying any penalty, and the Resilience point that wound was costing you is restored immediately, by any of the three methods above, wherever you are, without waiting for a sanctuary.