A Short Rest is a brief pause of at least 1 hour. It allows the party to catch their breath, eat, tend to wounds, and get a little work done without committing to a full 🏕 Long Rest.
The party may take one Short Rest between 🏕 Long Rests.
Quick Reference
Short Rest:
- Duration: 1 hour, plus the longest single 🔨 Crafting Time spent
- Frequency: Once between Long Rests
- Eat and drink (1 food + 1 drink, prevents Exhaustion, removes 1 Exhaustion stack)
- Use medical items and perform 📋 Medical Treatments
- Craft and repair freely — time is the only limit
- No Recovery roll, no Sleep, no injury self-mending
- Does NOT reset “Once per Long Rest” abilities
What You Can Do During a Short Rest
Eat and Drink
Each character may consume 1 food item and 1 drink item — this is both the minimum and the maximum for the rest period. Additional food or drink provides no HP and no buffs. (Super Mutants may consume 2 and 2.)
This provides the food/drink HP restoration and buffs as normal, prevents 😫 Exhaustion from hunger and thirst, and removes 1 stack of Exhaustion.
Food is the main way a Short Rest restores HP — there is no Recovery roll. As with all passive healing, the HP restored is divided evenly among all 6 limbs and applied to their 💔 Cripple Thresholds; Crippled limbs are ignored. See 💔 Cripple Threshold.
Medical Treatment
Characters may freely use medical items and perform 📋 Medical Treatments during a Short Rest. Normal item ⚡ AP costs don’t apply outside of combat.
Medical treatment is limited by its own rules, not by the rest: each 🤕 Injury may be treated once, and each 🤒 Illness once per 🏕 Long Rest.
Crafting and Repair
Anything you can craft, you can craft on a Short Rest — given the workstation, the materials, and the willingness to spend the time. There is no restricted list. This includes weapon and armor mods, Duplicate Combining, and repairing a Robot.
The Short Rest lasts 1 hour, plus the longest single Crafting Time spent by any character.
Longest, not sum — characters work in parallel.
A quick Repair Kit refill stretches the rest to 1h15m. A Tier 4 mod install stretches it to five hours. The clock is the cost, and the GM will say so before you commit.
See 🔨 Crafting for the full time tables and workstation requirements.
Minor Activities
During a Short Rest, characters may perform brief, simple tasks at the GM’s discretion:
- Brief conversation or planning
- Check equipment or inventory
- Quick survey of the immediate area
What You Cannot Do
The following are only available during a 🏕 Long Rest:
- Sleep — a Short Rest grants no Recovery roll at all, and no self-mending of 🤕 Injuries
- Provide Care
- Read a Book
- Scavenge
- Lookout duty (Short Rests are too brief for a full watch rotation)
Ability Resets
“Once per Long Rest” abilities do NOT reset after a Short Rest. Only a full 🏕 Long Rest resets these abilities.