Perhaps more valuable the gold and certainly harder to find is the one thing all adventurers need: time to rest. A chance to sleep, eat, tend wounds, and refresh spells is crucial to a successful adventure. A character that does not get sufficient rest becomes exhausted.
There are two types of rest available to players a Short Rest and a Long Rest.
Short Rest
A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.
Once per day, a character can heal 1 hit point per character level at the end of a short rest, up to his maximum hit points. Additional short rests do not provide healing but may give other benefits, depending on a character’s class, feats, and special abilities.
Long Rest
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs only light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity or at least 1 hour of walking—the characters must begin the long rest again to gain any benefit from it.
At the end of a long rest, a character regains 2 hit points per character level, up to his maximum hit points, and 1 point of ability damage to each damaged ability score. In addition, any ability measured in uses per day is restored to its maximum number of uses.
A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.
Full Day Rest
A full day of rest is 24 hours of down time, typically a day of bed rest. A character can perform up to 2 hours of light activity (see above) and still gain the benefits.
At the end of a full day rest, characters gain twice the normal benefits of a long rest, though they only regain use of daily abilities once.
Long-Term Care
A character with the Heal skill can provide long-term care with a successful skill check. Long-term care provides double the normal healing from a Long Rest or Full Day Rest.