@JeremyECrawford if more than an hour has passed during any given rest period & the DM calls for initiative, can players choose to receive the benefits of the short rest they have earned, or does the call for initiative invalidate the 60+ minutes of rest that have occurred?
— calebrus44 (@calebrus44) April 2, 2018
A short rest and a long rest are separate things in the D&D rules. You decide which one you're taking when you start the rest. That said, a DM might allow a truncated long rest to confer the benefits of a short rest if it was at least 1 hour long. Doing so breaks nothing. #DnD https://t.co/53QvMHz5lp
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) April 10, 2018
I’m sorry, but that doesn’t jive. That may have been the RAI, but the rule simply says “an X rest is a period of downtime Y long.” You’re now saying that calling a long rest & resting 7 hours is not a short rest unless your DM is nice?
That’s dumb. Maybe RAI, but not RAW. I'm glad to answer rules questions, and I'm happy to provide further clarification. That said, I avoid answering questions that are tainted by open insult. If you'd like to have a constructive conversation about RAW vs. RAI, please compose a new tweet.— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) April 10, 2018
I'll take a stab at a constructive follow up: Could you please expand on separating the two explicitly? It seems like both are simply meeting time and activity requirements. Is there a situation where it's important that they're separate? I don't see a "You must choose" anywhere.
— Alex Harris (@Alex_Harris) April 10, 2018
Short and long rests have different places in the game's narrative, as described in sentence 3 of "Resting" (PH, 186).
Many features are refreshed by a short or long rest. If a long rest included a short rest (it doesn't), such features would refer only to a short rest. #DnD https://t.co/lYeaH7Ui5d
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) April 10, 2018