What Should I Do When the Players LONG REST in a Dungeon? 🥴 Dungeons & Dragons 

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One time when they were abusing something similar to this I had another adventurer group show up and clear the dungeon. By the time the group came out everything was dead and looted. They eventually became rivals with this random group I created, and it became theme where they would try to out do each other. Both groups eventually came together to deal with the big bad, the NPC group I created sacrificed most of themselves holding off a large force of undead while the PC's worked their way through a liches lair. The only surviving member of the NPC group stayed in their keep, an old enemy became a long time friend.

You're gonna know that your players got the message on this one when they start casting Tiny Hut as a _decoy_ for the monsters in the dungeon.

DM Lair: How long you have DM'ed, is not necessarily an indication of how good you are. Also DM Lair: Hi. I'm Luke and I have been a DM since highschool. 😂

Definitely depends on the dungeon, obviously. Not every dungeon is occupied by intelligent beings, with organized patrols. Sometimes, one intelligent enemy sets up deep inside, and lets the rest fill with random denizens to deter unwanted guests. As for walking across the map, I’m a nerd. There’s always something happening in most of my world. They’ll stumble across something, no matter where they go.

One time, my players barricaded themselves in a room in a dungeon to take a rest. They blocked the doors with furniture from the room. Just to mess with them, when they woke up, the furniture was all stacked in a corner, the doors were all open, and their heads were freshly shaven. They never did learn quite how that all happened.

Wow the first/second idea while dealing with tiny hut is amazing 🤣 going to give that one a try for sure. “As a fresh new day sits upon the horizon, once all the party members have rested the magical hut containing the adventures slowly dissipates leaving a faint magical trail as it does.” -Entire dungeon off undead “Good morning”

I LOVE your point about travel over long distances...my players in my current game want to travel over a long distance that would take them anywhere between 6-8 months to get there and I love the point-to-point of interests suggestion.

Another option after the dungeon realizes that half the crew was slaughtered and there's a black dome in the kitchen, particularly if there's no other dungeon to call for aid, is to isolate them somehow. Collapse the room onto that dome or the doors that lead to it.

Idea: surround the hut with traps/hazards "As you wake up you look out and see a bright green hue surrounding the area. As the hut fades away your restful nest is flooded in acid."

Another great idea. Gelatinous cube envelops the dome while they sleep and roll to see if they wake up before the dome time is up. If they don’t, battier drops and the cube drops.

The long travel campaign can be legit a mini campaign of interests. That's pretty much how the first season of every action show works... Like 'monster a week'

In a dungeon, deep underground is the worst place to set up the tiny hut. If the boss is able to identify this and if the place isn't important... just bring in the explosives and burry the hut... Just give them enough wiggle room, after everything has collapsed, to teleport out of there or something.

Once had a city seige that the players took part in. A high level party leading a very small force against a much larger military force of a enemy city. To get past the wall the druid summoned a Bheur Hag to help deal with the masses of enemies. Wizard used a twinned irresistible dance on the elite squad and the paladin hasted themself and smited from the top down. After that they found the nearest place safe from chaos cast rope trick, then magnificent mansion and took a long rest. when they came back their side had lost most of their army because they were fighting a losing war against a superior force which has in it's employ an adult green dragon, for 17 hours without their greatest asset. The players. Players sometimes forget just how long a long rest is. You can only take one every 24 hours “we’ll wait” I have always done that very popular ruling of "you have to be in a 'safe place' as determined by the dm to take a long rest". I allow magnificent mansion, but that doesn't mean time doesn't pass. Just because a long rest is only 5 words at the table doesn't mean it's only 3 seconds in the world

Have the world move. Oh the players long rest? Ok. Thragg noticed his buddy Thork didnt come to play cards at dinner, so they go looking. Find the dead bodies. Thragg raises the alarm.. etc

When I get this question when I have a dungeon where they are not planned to long rest I ask the following "You can if I get to repopulate the entire dungeon with enemies that all know you are coming". It tend to resolve itself after that.

I'm glad you talked about this. There should definitely be a risk to resting in a dungeon! Don't forget they could dig underneath it or build a fire on top of it and bake them from the inside 😂🔥

I have a PC at my table freaking out with a threat that their room will get sealed and filled with water by an NPC. 8 hours is a long time for constructive races and diverting a river a doable task.

One possibility for the long resting in a dungeon I think is also interesting is the monsters attempting to parley with the party (depending on what they want). It could lead to a tense social encounter and (depending on how loyal the lackeys of the boss are/ how smart they are) could lead even to the party helping the monsters start a coup against their boss.

When my PCs camped in a dungeon for eight hours, I had the temple leader (a water elementalist) flood the dungeon with water to the ceiling. The party ended up in a tiny hut at the bottom of a flooded dungeon facing sharks and a dragon turtle. It made the rest of their dungeon delving much, much, harder than it needed to be.

Luke it might help you to know (so tiny hut isn't as op in your games) that spells can't be cast through it. Basically it's run as a dome where no one can do anything unless they leave the hut. This is also advice for other dms who deal with this. Also a strong note is the creatures have to be in the spell area when cast. So one player can't run away and cast it and the others then run into later. Very key with a turn by turn system.

The color of the leomund's tiny hut is decided by the caster . But yes it can't be seen through . But as usual Luke is spot on with solid DM/GM advice .

If I was a weak little Goblin , and I noticed this group literally slaughter an entire army. I would collapse the tunnel on that magical little hut , and run for my life. Or if I had the time and resources build a brick wall

I use to be fine with players long resting if they were smart about it. Some dungeons has safe rooms that were so horribly trapped or well hidden that the dungeons occupants decided it wasn't worth patrolling that room but when I discovered there were no options to stop players from using liamond tiny hut in the middle of a room they just had a loud combat in I needed this video to give me more ideas instead of just telling my players there were consequences and rolling off random tables that didn't really teach anything.

I spent 5-6, 3 hour with my players traveling from Pernast to Baldur's Gate. They loved the slow leisurely pace and had a few fun adventures, they got lost, backtracked and they loved every moment of it. They even met a character I had planned for them to meet later but the setup on the one day was just too perfect to let slip by.

I've been playing the pathfinder kingmaker game on pc and in many situatiions I've had to take a long rest inside a dungeon and been like "well, thank god THIS IS a video-game, cause this would not fly in a table game", ppl sometimes don't realize this

Tiny hut is opaque but can be any color. So while it being perfectly dome shaped might still cause problems, someone could certainly cast it in a place it is somewhat obscured. I'd rule that it would be a passive perception on the creatures or humanoids that are guarding the dungeon and it would be higher or lower depending on what the PCs do to conceal it before their rest.

I like the leave option. Bringing the full might of the dungeon down upon your players makes more sense, but also makes for salty players and less fun. If they want to be creative and hide the hut within the dungeon, thats fine, but I'm not going to go nuclear on them if they park it in a hallway. Maybe they have a surprise encounter that will make them think on it more next time, but I am not for overkill options that may get a TPK just because my players thought ths dungeon was static if they didn't move through it.

That explanation at the beginning is a cool hook for a dungeon coming up together despite their difference... and a good start to an adventure as dungeon monsters! Haha!

I always paint the dome as an artist character to look like the walls in a dark corner.

Some other alternatives - depending on the dungeon: - the bad guys collapse the roof on top of the tiny hut. That would mean the players would need to find some way of getting out of a collapsed cave instead of exploring a dungeon. - there are other adventurers who also explore the dungeon - those might take some or all of the treasure, while the party is wasting time sleeping. This one works really well in our current campaign, as it is already established that different adventurers guilds work in competition to each other and members of different guilds would definitly "steal" others loot like that - the bad guys fill the room with sleeping gas, construct some kind of cage around the hut or similar shenanigans like that. similar to what Luke said, but in addition the party will also be in a bad strategic situation on top of being swarmed by the entire dungeon. - the endboss of the dungeon will take care of this himself. This one works specifically well, if the endboss is something like a dragon which players would typically either avoid or fight under "their" conditions. Well, now they are fighting him well rested, but without any other advantages - good luck.

Love this. My players have taken to throwing up the Tiny Hut as an active battle site. Step out, attack, step back in. Love the idea of setting up traps nearby, where there were none before. Ambushing the party should be fun as well LOL

For long distances I wonder about, with the group's permission, playing the board game Tokaido. It's like a old historical Japanese road trip - you and your companions compete in a way to relax, be entertained, consume the best local food, and meet interesting people. Distribute some XP and loot for players describing how they fight off bandits, what temple they visit, and the memories and souvenirs they picked up along the way. Drop in some locations or NPCs that might come up later, or develop some based on the players descriptions. Who wouldn't want to go back to that tavern with the challenge of eating a giant steak within an hour and it's free?

This is exactly the video I needed for next session, which ended with the party tanking and nearly dying to 3 fireballs in a row, barricading themselves in another room, and long resting.

1. Surprise attacks while they are casting the hut. Cause they usually do that as a ritual. 2. Have them roll wis or con saves every watch due to strange sounds and nerves during their rest time. If they fail then they don't get any rest and if they fail REAL bad then they get exhaustion. 3. Like someone else further down said, the dungeon lives on while they sleep. Change encounters, bolster the minions, set new traps, etc.

I like that idea you mentioned, a tower that randomly teleports to a new position in the world. Perhaps it could even be the basis for a whole campaign. Maybe it doesn't move every day, but after some random time, (e.g. up to a month or so). There could be some evil NPC(s) living in the tower who send minions out to pillage the surrounding area, perhaps some minions get left behind when the tower moves, and the more important ones have to use spells or magic items to catch up with the tower. Or maybe there is some kind of countdown or advance warning just before it moves, allowing the minions to be recalled. You could start the campaign with the party hearing reports of a strange tower appearing in a forest nearby, and foul creatures spilling out and going on the rampage. The party could be sent to investigate. Maybe partway through the campaign, the tower relocates itself and the party finds themselves in a hostile area and under siege. The goal of the campaign could be either to disable the tower's teleport ability, destroy it, or take control of it for themselves.

My favorite thing to do is literally something I implemented in mines of phandelver. If they set up camp halfway through a dungeon and not xovering your tracks or intelligently taking care of any signs of entry/assault, and word gets back to the shotcaller. Then the shot caller decides, okay, every except our penal group, the soldiers or adventurers we've captured and their third strongest creature leaves with all the supplies and any artifacts. The prisoners are dressed in enemy garb and left bound in place for the players to come up behind. Almost always ends up they snuff the target and don't notice anything. If they loot the body, make it a mark of about a 19 to notice its a prisoner and not an enemy unit. They left behind just enough scrap and their old stuff that they might have looted a new location to replace or repair. Make it seem inhabited but as though the party is being successfully stealthy/catching the enemy off guard with an occasional group of two enemies ordered to patrol the site in case of animals entering the dungeon, villains in my games often lie to their pawns in order to deceive adventurers, if they have questionable moral goals, they won't care much about losing any troops that showed insubordination previously with what would appear to be a vacation in terms of whatever work they were in charge of before. And at the end, the third strongest unit knows his job is to point the enemy in the wrong direction. If they don't confirm anything their targets say or just assume shit. They've pretty much lost every thread to the actual threat. And they will have to contact their guild or spy network after they figure it out. Villains might have more units/troops or more power by the time time heroes figure it out. .

Thank you for putting this out there! I've been struggling to figure out a good punishment for my group taking long rests after a few easy encounters because they want to waste spell slots.

Love your content, man. Keep it coming.

Have sappers build a large fire on top of and around the dome, the start casting dispel magic until dome goes away.

I have done the hut in the dungeon rest several times. I always expect to be ambushed when I do. I will usually color it to match the wall color and I will block the doorway to a room if possible which gives us a room to plan the next fight from and teases the DM about having hidden passages in the room. I can also recast it before it fails to maintain the hut and at that point it gives my party members to come up with a different plan than what I have. depending on my spells I may be able to fabricate a way out of the room. I could look for a way to block off the bottleneck route or even conjure a bigger threat than us to distract with. these are a couple of my thoughts on it but that is mainly because I do expect to be attacked in every rest.

Villains vs hut.... fire. Stack hay/wood around the hut, light it, smoke'em out.

My players, yesterday during our session, decided to long rest when they could hear enemies in the next room over. Those enemies went into the final room, activated the weird machine that served as the boss for the dungeon. The boss killed those enemies and then went on patrol, noticing the players, a fight ensues. It was fun.

My group in Pathfinder Kingmaker actually put in the time and money to create a wondrous item called Leomund's Instant Cabin (Think Daern's Instant Fortress, but like, a comfortable looking cabin). They did a lot of this in Kingmaker, like the boots of the Winter Wilderness Stride (Now called the Boots of the Winter Wonderland Stride due to mispronunciations of the players). Cross between Boots of the Winterland, Boots of Wilderness Stride, and boot of Springing and Striding. Springing and Striding was a late addition to the mix because, and I'm not kidding here, one of their horses almost gotten taken out, and they were scared I was going to kill off their horses, so they wanted to move faster, so they could laves the horses stabled (They also began breeding horses later). Kingmaker has a lot more downtime than most campaigns, being built as a sandbox, and the group used it to their absurd advantage. Nothing really broken, but like, they got really into comfort items, like making a magical spice rack that they could use at will (They literally didn't want the rest of the prestidigitation effects on there, JUST the spicing food and drink part. they were incredibly insistent about that part). a "Folding Sofa" modeled after the folding boat item, I suddenly started laughing hysterically at one point, and no one could figure out what I found so funny. Okay, here we have these ragged, tough adventurers who have decimated a troll army, killed a black dragon, and we suddenly cut to them sitting in a precious little cabin in the woods, the wizard laid out on the sofa reading, while the Barbarian, Druid, and Ranger relax in squashy armchairs by the fire. The Bard is making dinner in the kitchen, while everyone is drinking mulled wine, a little tune being played by the Bard's floating player-instruments. Every one of them are wearing their warm comfy shoes.

This is old, but Luke, there's a few things you missed when discussing Leomund's Tiny Hut. 1) You can't cast spells out of it either. You can shoot arrows/bolts/normal projectiles and the like out so long as they were in the dome when the dome was made. 2) What it looks like on the outside is up to the casters, you can try to camouflage it into the dungeon if you do it right. Here's the spell info: A 10-foot-radius immobile dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains stationary for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area. Nine creatures of Medium size or smaller can fit inside the dome with you. The spell fails if its area includes a larger creature or more than nine creatures. Creatures and objects within the dome when you cast this spell can move through it freely. All other creatures and objects are barred from passing through it. *Spells and other magical effects can’t extend through the dome or be cast through it* . The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside. Until the spell ends, you can command the interior to become dimly lit or dark. The dome is opaque from the outside, *of any color you choose* , but it is transparent from the inside.

Why I love Runehammers active timer's, break out some dice give them roll and now you have a living world not a static game.

Thank you for the solution on gathering the entire dungeon around the hut, you help me confirm that I am making the right decisions. Players usually expect that I give them a break for whatever they do, no matter how illogical it appears to me. Sometimes they make something like this that just alerts the entire dungeon of their presence and afterward they get upset with me saying: maybe don't swarm us with creatures next time. For me, it is just the logical thing to do. I like my games with logic. I hate to watch a movie or series and see the script go bunker and illogical. It is a challenge for me to sacrifice logic for fun on the table. I love to have fun and I look to make all experiences fun for everyone, yet players steal a wizard's spellbook and get upset if they are pursued by the said wizard and constantly ambushed by him. One time players went to attack a goblin tribe fortress that was protecting a green hag they were having problems with (this was at level 5) and they got upset that one player died. But guess what, the goblins were nurtured by this hag for a long time and they were very well organized. Not only that, but the players just marched in front of the fortress demanding that they delivered the hag. Well... it didn't go as they planned. The player that died was a fighter who found his fate after jumping the wall alone after a few rounds of combat (which they were winning; level 5 after all) to face a few remaining hobgoblins, bugbears, and two ogres surrounding him.

I kinda like the idea of low level grunt forces walking on up, investigating it, they roll an arcana check, realize its Leomunds tiny hut with a DC of 13 (10 + level of spell), know that the party inside can see them but the creature can't see them. The minions then leave for a bit, come back with either a large tarp, or preferably boiling tar to then coat and toss over the dome to then cut off the players abilities to see. If its Tar it would probably cool and leave the party a dome they have to consider what might be on the other side, but for a tarp, it could be weighted down with chains and when the dome goes down, the tarp and chains come down and trap the party

I really would love my players to use the Tiny Hut, especially if monster are around which can burrow. Tiny hut is a dome not a sphere. It would be really sweet to catch the party off guard during their sleep.

Dispel Magic solves so many of these kinds of problems, and its a fairly common spell for some encounters to logically have at this point. I had players get rudely awakened one evening when their Magnificent Mansion door got dispelled in the middle of the night, dropping them in to the middle of an ambush. It's 3rd level. It's reasonable to be commonly available. It's not over powered. It's so nice to clean up these things. You can even create one-off disposable magic items with this spell. Like a Bead of Dispel Magic. You say the magic word, and throw it (ranged touch attack on a target that tries to dodge). Whatever it hits first gets Dispel Magic cast on it as if it used a third level spell slot, and the bead crumbles to dust. This lets you control how many exist in the world (players can even get a small number) while creating something that could have a reasonable chance to counter these kinds of things if used by the BBEG's minions. Remember, you're allowed to be creative, too.

I see a few other overland travel options 1. Don't allow such long trips. Blow up the map and have the campaign take place in a smaller area. I typically keep things in the same province or country, such that day (or weekly) hand waving is fine. It saves issues with this. 2. Shorten the travel time and remove encounters. If they need to make a trip that long, put them on a ship which moves faster (so many only 2 sessions while something happens on the ship or during city stops), or flying mounts, or a wizard's guild to teleport them there. Long travel causes issues. It seems odd in your starting village you have massive adventures, but you hand wave through thousands of miles of wilderness, roads, big cities, etc. Even if you assume those areas are safe, you still need to describe the people, architecture, roads, and have some encounters. Likewise, 2-5 sessions of actual encounters makes the big encounter to the south really boring. I tends to keep it small, do day-by-day recaps of travel (people, stays, inn names, scenery, language, etc.) and then speed it up if they have travelled over it. Small saves so many problems.

When my players did this they decided to barracade a room for safety. The room opened into a corner of a hallway. The Boss Villain had set up barricades in the hallway and had his minions hiding behind them ready to turn anything that showed itself into a pin cushion (party was Lv 4 and didn't have access to Tiny Hut, yet). Turned their long rest into a chokepoint battle that they didn't know was coming.

my party's wizard decided to steal a relic level spellbook (specifically the Grimoire Infinitus) from an archmage, this allowed me to teach my party a lesson in being to reliant on tiny hut, before this they had taken to not even bothering to set a watch once they got to the level that they had tiny hut available to them, but after the spellbook had been stolen the archmage decided to send some of his apprentices and some mecernaries to recover it, and it only took one ambush encounter with spellcasters that had all the time to set up magical traps and be able to dispel the hut to ambush the party in their sleep for everyone to realize that the tiny hut wasn't the perfect shield they thought it was

In all the dungeon crawls I run I keep a few random encounters on-hand in case of long rests. If they use Tiny Hut, I have the random encounter arrive, the creatures investigate the hut, and then they leave. I then add those NPCs to the next encounter, and they alert the next group that something is up, and to be ready (aka, the enemies cannot be surprised, as they are already on alert). If there are more than one random encounter that should happen, all of those groups repeat this, and all are added to the next encounter. You'd be surprised how many "first encounters of the day" result in, "can we take one of our two short rests" because they opted to get a safe long rest. It adds a level of strategy to spell selection, because they know that they are making the dungeon harder. Bonus advantage of this system: these are random encounters, so even if they win, they aren't draining any of the actual NPCs who guard the dungeon. They're just extra NPCs. So if they do win the encounter they haven't slaughtered everyone else in the dungeon. They just upped a difficulty for themselves.

I evaluate it this way. If the party is having fun, I let a lot of things like this slide. They are just making use of what resources they have. The party still has watches even under the dome. The party has always holed up. The wizard used Mold Earth to dig a burrow at 1st level. (I ruled that it took 10 minutes to excavate the 10' dome space, yeah, I'm nice) Then they bought an extended duration Rope Trick magic item. They used that until they got Leomunds Hut. They color the dome to match the terrain. They still have encounters as they are snoozing in their dome home. Again... If you as DM are tired of the hut messing up your encounter ideas, just have it get dispelled and continue with your planned encounter. Regarding overland travel... My players "hand walk" 20 miles a day everywhere. The random die roll encounters have created so many plot points that I will always prefer the slow road. Get creative with the things they come across. Every idea you can come up with can make the game more intense than you would expect and the long road can be enjoyable as well.

The Dungeon Moves. That's how I see the six days between game sessions: time for the dungeon to make its move. As for the wilderness, I find the Tiny Hut comes along at about the moment I've gotten what I can get out of a hungry owlbear jumping the party at night. So I'm as grateful for it as they are. We're moving on to other things by then.

Concerning the travel. I can recommend the adventures in middleearth 5e rules. They basically combine luke‘s middle way with a ruleset incorporating the preparation the players take.

Keep in mind, just because you can't be attacked for 8 hours doesn't mean you get the benefits of a long rest. Long rest says you sleep during it. But how can you sleep when you hear drums echoing in the walls and snarls in the dark. All ready to pounce on you as soon as the magic of the hut ends!

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

So... on the tiny hut. 1) There's no floor to this hut, according to Jeremy Crawford, so you are free to burrow under. 2) Nowhere in the 5e description does it say the hut is invulnerable, simply immobile. Take, as an example, Wall of Force- also a force effect, but it specifically says it's immune to all damage. Since it is not expressly invulnerable, while objects can't pass through, there's nothing to stop the baddies from attacking the hut itself until the spell collapses. As it's a second level spell, we usually give it 20hp + the modifier of the caster. The hut is designed as a convenience, not a defense.

Love the "lets get out of here decenario"

5e Leomund's: " around and above you" + "fails if its area includes a larger creature or more than nine creatures." I ruled that the phrasing implies that the floor is open. So Dire Wolves smelled the party from before they cast the tent then started digging. As soon as one managed to squeeze inside, "poof", the tent disappears.

I like that you added that caveat "unless I planned it to take longer than a day" (paraphrasing)... If we want to instill a sense of realism we have to have that in mind when we have expectations on our players as well. Sending them into a dungeon that is basically just a Mad Mage maze of rooms with dangers, and expecting them to go on for days without resting because it would be unrealistic to rest anywhere is bad planning. In that case I think it is better to have rooms or sections of the dungeon that are unpopulated or scarcely populated that they can find and utilize - low risk zones if you will. Perhaps have a monster occupy a section that the other baddies avoid. If the monster find them there it's a lower stake because they don't alert the whole crew of bad guys they are after, if they get spotted or need to fight their way out in the morning.

My favorite is the Time Limit restriction. If I know my players are prone to Long Resting in dungeons and will almost certainly try to do it, I'll try to set it up so that resting for 8 hours just won't work out. Whether they're trying to get an artifact before another group, or perhaps a ritual is taking place and they know they have maybe an hour or two at most.

Another way to deal with long rests in dungeons: add a "ticking clock." Just pulling this off the top of my head, but maybe the dungeon boss is a powerful warlock who is conducting a ritual to open a portal to the abyss. The ritual takes 8 hours, and the PCs are informed that the warlock has recently begun casting. It gives them more than enough time to complete the dungeon without worrying about a time limit, but it makes it very clear to them (upfront) that a long rest is something they don't have time for.

Excellent advice as always. Your intellect rises into the sky and you bestow upon us wisdom of the ages that helps us run our games in a way that we could’ve never imagined. We bow before your insight.

One time I was in an Against The Giants campaign and we tried to long rest. When the giants found the tiny hut, they started piling rocks on top of it so we'd be crushed as soon as the hut disappeared. It was an amazing "oh shit" moment.

My group took a long rest in the Cragmaw cave but only after we cleared out all the goblins. But just in case, the elf wizard stood watch in shifts with the cleric. After all I did allow for them to prod the bodies of the defeated goblins to see if one was alive ssf o they could interrogate him to learn where the Cragmaw castle was. Then we tied him up and we're taking him with us.

Good advice in this video. I'd just add that the "ticking clock" is a super helpful narrative advice. With the exception of one-shots (sometimes), dungeons don't exist in a narrative vacuum. Usually, the adventurers are diving into the cave / lair / hideout / ruins / etc. because they need to stop the evil ritual, rescue the hostages, or what have you. Even if it is more of a side-quest dungeon... what about the main plot? What are the main baddies doing? What is going on back in town? Or in the surrounding region? A lot can happen in ~8 hours. Things that they left dangling might be resolved in ways they don't like. As with the other tips, you don't need to do this every time. But doing it occasionally, when it makes sense, will at least make the players think twice. I don't think the goal should be to prevent every single unplanned or "extra" long rest. That is railroady. But spending time for long rests when the action is happening (i.e., not downtime) _should_ be a strategic decision, rather than a no-brainer.

For overland travel, there should be ways for the players to take long rests. The top two that I can think of are finding a cave and set up security measures and taking watch (the whole point of sleep 6 hours and 2 hours of light activity), of find small huts that merchants would have set up so that their merchandise would not be destroyed while being moved between locations. The whole 2 hours of light activities to keep watch should be considered for long rests.

I think it depends largely on the context of what's up in the dungeon. If there's a BBEG in there, and the *entire* dungeon is minions in his service, then yeah. They'd probably be discovered, the BBEG and his elite guard fortify and prepare in the most fortified sanctum of his dungeon. A scout party stays behind to figure out what the attackers are, and then run to report to the BBEG when hut goes down. However, if you're hunting... I dunno, an evil warlock with a minotaur captain, and he's hiding in the caves of the nearby mountains... Well not everything in those caves know or care about the warlock. So unless the party is the warlock's portion of the caves, they may go entirely unnoticed. They may have fought through a tribe of goblins and a family of bulettes, but they just happened to live there also, and so the warlock has no idea and doesn't police the entire cave network. I mean, your imagination is really your only limitation.

So, I was running a 1st level teaching session. Party set off a thunderstone trap, and took the night off in the next room without scouting out the next room at the end of the hallway. I advised them to make sure that where they were sleeping was actually safe. I said, "You are in a dark room with multiple hallways leading off. You just set off a trap. Maybe someone heard you. "They listened to the "Veteran" player, with a whole two campaigns under his belt, instead." There were two kobold scouts sitting there in the next room having their lunch. They heard the thunderstone, and hit the deck. They, having darkvision, could peek out and see them moving around. The players fail their perception/listen checks(I gave them active checks with a minimum of taking a ten). The kobolds scamper off and alert the boss. The 15 odd kobold warriors with their chief then sneak up on the party. The Party didn't set a watch, just passed out wherever they could. I gave them active checks minimum of ten, but applied a -5 because they were asleep. The party failed. The Kobolds just performed a Coup-de-Grace maneuver(I gave another chance to listen). So, after the tpk, I asked them if they would like to continue or rewind to a point. They rewound the clock, so when the 5 kobolds entered the room, one of them knocked over a bit of lumber, so the party woke up, killed the 5, the fighter and barbarian got pincushioned by the kobolds with the crossbows at the end of the hall. So, the Kobolds just lost a third of their warriors, and they have no healer. The cleric used up all his healing spells to get the fighter and barbarian back up to full and has nothing else. The rogue is at half health. The wizard has one spell left. So, the Chief begins peace negotiations, luckily the wizard knew draconic, and they settled with a trade of food and bandages and the like, and safe passage for the kobolds to relocate for the dungeon and information regarding the deeper levels of the dungeon. The party learned the importance of watches and reconnaissance, and they had a fun social encounter, and also since I give experience for resolving the situation, as if they had simply killed all the kobolds, they would not mind looking for a peaceful resolution if possible considering the other possibilities.

Also, that trip from Luskin to Amn also could include overnight trips in Waterdeep, etc.

I think another thing people forget about leomonds tiny hut, is that it's a dome; not a sphere. It doesn't dig into the ground. Kobold love to dig. Mold earth and earth tremor are both low level spells.

Hi Luke, I'm running your Serpent Senctum adventure and it is a blast to my players. Those three yuan-ti purebloods from the Lounge came to check what is going on in Cathedral and tried to make a deal with PC's but PC's decided to attack. One of yuan-tis ran away to alert the boss and PC's went after him and they burst into Blood Bath in the same time when Mind Whisperer, Abomination and Broodgards went out from the Throne Rome. Against all odds they won, and I wasn't easy on them. One of PC's died but Palading managed to revivify him. And they decided to take a long rest... They are happy now but there will be consequences. Their mission will fail. Everyone from Slave Pen will be slained :(

Wouldn't work, but I had the idea enough to check. The party climbs inside a bag of holding, wizard casts Tiny Hut inside. Someone climbs out, hides the bag somewhere where it most likely won't be found by casual search, then gets back inside themselves. Bonus if druid, then wild shapes into an insect to crawl back in without leaving a humanoid sized opening. Tiny Hut is a 10' radius dome though, and a bag of holding doesn't have that much space inside. At best, it holds 64 cubic feet, while a 10' radius half-sphere takes up 2094.4 cubic feet.

Sheeeeesh these are creative af 💪

For anyone that wants to be detailed about travel, a good but not exhaustive walking speed is 3 miles per hour on a good road or trail. Assuming a full day's travel with breaks for meals, snacks, and personals, 10-14 hours a day walking. They can get 30-40 miles a day if they're on roads or well traveled trails. Calculate a slower walking speed if they're traveling off road, even slower over rough terrain. Players could decide to push it and go for a 4-4.5 mph walking speed (any faster than that and you start jogging, seriously, try these speeds on a treadmill). In that case, you might want to make them roll athletics or constitution checks, or give them exhaustion at some point in the day. If you wanted to be really detailed you could say that they need more food throughout the day if they're pushing it, and they're going through their rations faster.

*Fun Fact:* Leomund's Tiny Hut specifies that it creates a "dome of force." The keyword here is "dome," as that means they have no protection from below. In all my narrative and mechanical tomfoolery, I can count on only a single hand the number of times that I have shaken and perturbed my players more than when their "utterly unassailable" long rest was interrupted by a hungry bulette breaching like a great white taking a seal (except that the seal in this case was an exceptionally mortified rogue).

On the note of travel, I find one of the MOST important things is to make the decision to travel in the first place interesting. If there are 3-4 time-sensitive events going on in the world, then the players need to consider and discuss what they can feasibly accomplish with the time they have available. I find a lot of the time this actually leads to the party reminding each other about other potential plot hooks they've forgotten about, or it can even lead to giving me more ideas for future adventures. My general rules are: Is there realistically anything interesting or threatening along this travel route? If not, then just tell the players how long it takes to arrive. If yes, then I like to actually make a short adventure at some point along the way, skip to that, then skip to the destination after the adventure (sometimes the travel itself is the adventure if it's through mines or something to that effect).

You can have a random encounter everyday? Ah yes, the Pokémon Journey from town to town lol

I've built a whole plot based encounter around the first use of Rope Trick in my current campaign.

I like the Genie Warlock's ability to allow his players take a long rest in his Genie's Lamp.

For the travel I either hand waive it, if it’s somewhere they have been before and know the route. Or if it’s something that narratively makes sense. Or if my players are being extra distractible. For long trips, I mostly use that for new places, if I want the journey to have that feeling of slogging through somewhere, or I have finished planning the main campaign setting and they are still traveling there. Oh I need just one more session then I’ll have it ready. Travel session time.

Yeah, my party did a long rest in Amber temple in Curse of Strahd. When they opened the door after the rest they instantly got a triple fireball in the face from the Flameskulls gathered outside the door. The closed the door real quick after that.

"The dome is opaque from the outside, of any color you choose, but it is transparent from the inside" It maybe opaque, but not just black. I would make that hit look like the surroundings.

Regarding travel, I'm a bit surprised that Luke didn't ask _why_ the players want to travel so far. Of course it could be just something they're excited to try, or it could be because the DM gave them a hook to lead them to that place, but sometimes I think travel can be a sign of either misaligned player expectations (new players who think DnD is Skyrim, usually), or it could be a sign that the players are bored with whatever the DM is doing, and they want to go off and do their own thing. I had players do this to me in the first campaign I ran, and it didn't take me long to realise that both of these things were happening. These were all avid gamers who had never played a TTRPG before, and expected an experience roughly similar to a video game RPG. On the other hand, the plot hooks I was giving them weren't very interesting, and I was acting a bit railroady. So one game they were on the road, and someone asked "what's to the North", and I was like "err... forest." They immediately just went off into the wilderness and I had to improvise a bunch of random encounters. The next session I planned some wilderness things for them to do, but it just wasn't the game I'd wanted to run, and it all felt very disjointed. Anyway I've since learned my lesson. I do have things planned in case players decide to go off-piste, but when I DM for new groups I always try to impress on them beforehand that D&D isn't a video game. And of course, that experience gave me another layer of motivation for creating as compelling hooks and scenarios as I possibly can. I've rarely had players wanting to go off travelling to random places ever since, because they enjoy what they're doing where they already are.

Taking a long rest in a dungeon, done intelligently is fine. Random encounters were written 30+ years ago for this various reason. To add challenge and spice during long rests.

"My players have decided to walk across the continent." Ah, so they're playing Lord of the Rings...

Imagine when the spell runs out they have all the monsters in the dungeon surrounding them.

One thing that I never see anyone mention from the Tiny Hut spell is this: "...The dome is opaque from the outside, of any color you choose..." Since you can make it any color you choose why the heck wouldn't you make it the same color as your surroundings for camouflage? Outside in the snow? Make it white. Next to a rock wall? Make it the same color. Etc, etc. So if you're in the dungeon somewhere go to a dead end, color it like the wall, and now the dead end just looks 10 feet shorter than normal. Pretty hard to spot at that point unless something is actively hunting for them.

Learning how A DM tries to counter lth is useful as a player, thank you 😊

Just to point out it's opaque but, can be ANY color the caster wishes. Thus I can color to match the surrounding stones or lava glass or take the color of nearby ice or snow. So at very least depending on lighting and enemy perception a stealth check is in order.

Travel always been a struggle for me, everyone wants to just get to point B, but it might be fun to run a game where the campaign is the travel, like a Journey to the West. Might also be easy to prep if it is something the group might be interested in.

Great video!

This is why our group still plays a Hybrid advanced AD&D (e1&2). Spells actually work, they don't limit you like they do in 5e. You can cast invisibility on items and they stay invisible until they attack. Leomand's Hut never attacks.

Depending on the dungeon you don't need to swarm the hut (also, assuming the enemies have some intelligence). The mastermind/boss can simply have everyone alert, set up more strategic positions that would normally leave their flanks/backs exposed. Even reinforce certain positions and leave other rooms empty (which would give the players a hint that something isn't right). Mechanically, all enemies would have higher stealth DC and advantage on perception checks. It doesn't always make sense to have "everyone attack". For one, they can end up bottlenecked. If the boss knows they have magic, they probably don't want everyone crammed into a smaller space. Secondly, outside the camp/hut might not be ideal position to ambush from.

Had Goblins see the hut as a Sign sent from Lamashtu. They set up around it as an area of worship. They got pretty upset after these longshanks showed up and broke the demon mama ball.

If travel is a handwave, then why not place it at game session end. And you arrive at the start of the next game session. That way it still feels off game like it took time, but still have the trivial feel. Then you can have some down time as well.

Another note on Long Rests in dungeons. Per the PHB, page 186 - "A character can't benefit from more than 1 Long Rest in a 24-hour period." So, unless they have somehow spent 16 hours since their last Long Rest, They're going to need more than 1 casting of Tiny Hut in order to get that Long Rest in - probably 3. So after the first hut expires, they haven't yet even had a long rest, and whatever has spotted them has had time to prepare.