D&D: Five Ways To Recover When You Don’t Have Time To Rest
Almost anything in D&D can be fixed with a good night’s sleep. But what do you do when you can’t get eight hours of shuteye?
In D&D, most everything can be cured with a good night’s sleep. An axe to the face? Severe blunt force trauma? Suppurating wounds? Even the soul-withering touch of an ancient spectre can be fixed with a little snack and eight solid hours of uninterrupted rest.
But what do you do when life imitates art, and your character doesn’t have time for a full Long Rest to cure what ails them? Here are some other solutions to turn to. As you might expect, most of the answers are magic.
Greater Restoration
Greater Restoration will cure most everything that ails you. It’s not exactly the same as eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. But it comes awfully close. This spell is one of the only non-sleep ways to restore a level of exhaustion, without actually stopping for a Long Rest. And if you don’t need that, it will also end an effect that is charming, petrifying, cursing, or reducing your hit point max or ability scores.
Sure, it’s a 5th level spell and it costs 100gp, but it’s absolutely worth it if you’re racing against the clock.
Heroes’ Feast
Food can be a good substitute for sleep, in D&D, as long as it’s magical. Heroes’ Feast is a fantastic way to keep the party going, even when you’re diseased and poisoned and down and out on hit points. It’s not as fast a spell as Greater Restoration, but this spell affects multiple creatures. If you eat from it, not only do you gain 2d10 extra hit points (increasing your maximum by the same amount for 24 hours), you also are cured of all diseases and poisons, becoming immune to the latter.
A good way to counteract the draining effects of undead who often reduce your hit point maximum in increments of 5.
Prayer of Healing
Sometimes all you need is a quick break to freshen up. And Prayer of Healing allows you to top up pretty much everyone in your adventuring party with a single 2nd level spell. After Healing Spirit was nerfed, this is probably one of the more wide-reaching low-level healing spells, and it’ll get you ready to take on whatever else the DM has to throw at you.
Twilight Domain Cleric’s Channel Divinity
Of course when you need to heal up, the Twilight Cleric’s Channel Divinity can keep you going. At least for one extra fight. It doesn’t actually heal, but it gives you the ability to grant any creature that ends its turn within your Twilight Sanctuary aura (a sizable 30 foot radius sphere) 1d6 temporary hit points without using up a reaction, action, or bonus action. You just get to do it.
It’s a great way to make everyone feel like they’ve had a rest even when they haven’t.
Reincarnate
Finally, though it may seem counterintuitive and expensive, it can be worth it just to let someone die and then bring them back in a hurry. If you absolutely have to get back to full health/cure that curse/disease/magical soulblight but only have an hour, just succumb to it.
And then of course be sure you have a Druid or someone else that knows the Reincarnate spell. It will literally cure all wounds and refresh all levels of exahustion plus removing curses and ailments afflicting your old body. Because your old body will be dead but you’ll be reincarnated in a new body, magically created just for you. And all this with none of the debilitating penalties of a typical Resurrection spell.
