The new D&D Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set won't let players rest after every scrap in the dungeon
The new Dungeons & Dragons starter set doesn't just hand out healing naps like candy. Thank goodness. This new starter set leans into the grind—where players must learn to manage abilities and resources early, and resting isn't a given.
In D&D, players gain powers and abilities. Very few of those have unlimited uses, however. You don't want to waste your biggest attacks on the kittens before you take on the momma cat. If you do, you'll be left taking your weakest swings, or casting your weakest spells, in the big boss fight.
In video games, you might build up your special attack by defeating enemies and building up a power bar, or by letting a timer countdown to the next use of your special attack. Well, in D&D, you regain your special attacks through resting. In one adventuring day, you can have two Short Rests and one Long Rest.
Short Rests (1 hour) let you catch your breath—read, eat, stand watch—and maybe regain a few abilities. Long Rests (8 hours) are full-on sleep mode: all Hit Points and major powers restored.
Rests are powerful. And aside from the general guidelines of not interrupting your rest with more combat, a player is able to bring massive attacks to the table during the next fight. That's awesome.
But it can make a Dungeon Master's job difficult—the part of a DM's job that requires the assembly of fun and challenging encounters for the players. If players can spam abilities and demand a rest after every skirmish, the DM becomes the bad guy for saying no to rests. Been there. Done that. Sorry, John.
And that was the problem I had with Short Rests and Long Rests. As a Dungeon Master, I had to be the jerk and tell them no. All your monk did was throw two more punches, John, so you don't get to take another break right now. Suck it up, buttercup.
The D&D Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set gives DMs clear rest rules. It's not just whenever the players ask for one. In the Caves of Chaos, "threats abound within the caves," so players can only take Short Rests within them. To take a Long Rest, thereby regaining all of their Hit Points and abilities, they need to exit the cave they're in.
This is the tabletop roleplaying game equivalent of "You cannot sleep when enemies are nearby."
That's in the Caves of Chaos. If you're traveling through the Wilderness (capital W), the Wilderness keeps players on their toes. They can't take Long Rests at all. They have to make their way to:
The Keep on the Borderlands. That's where they can finally take a Long Rest. That's where civilization is restored, and where players no longer have the inherent dangers of the Wilderness or the Caves of Chaos ruining their sleep.
I should've been able to tell my players that when I took them through Curse of Strahd or Descent into Avernus. But I didn't know any better. I didn't want to be a jerk DM. But the new Keep on the Borderlands Starter Set takes away that jerk-DM guilt by making it explicit when and where players can take short and long rests.
Thank you, Starter Set. You're making my job as a DM easier already. Now I have the confidence to incorporate that into my current Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign: "No, John, you're in the middle of the War of the Lance. You can't take a Short Rest every other room in the catacombs under Castle Kalaman."
Whew. Feels good to finally say it. And even better knowing the Starter Set has my back.
The D&D Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set releases September 16 on store shelves and on D&D Beyond. It will be the first starter set built from the ground up for the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual.
