Here’s the story about how resting in the worst possible spots killed my PCs.

We were playing Lost Mines of Phandelver but most of the group was fairly experienced in D&D. The group had been sent to Agatha (a banshee) to have a question answered. The Paladin decided he wanted to kill her after getting the question answered. I know the adventure says that she just disappears, but that’s not interesting to me. Attacking her was not a good idea, but they almost killed her before she flew away.

Previously I’d told the group that Agatha’s lair was 150’ away from the entrance to town. They decided they wanted to short rest and, when asked where they would do it, they said that they would do it at the entrance to town. Agatha quietly conducted a short rest of her own and after she had healed she attack the party again. This led to one of the PCs dying before Agatha was vanquished.

Fast forward to the PCs after we were done with LMoP and into rest of the campaign. The PCs had tracked your standard bandits into a cave complex and cleverly taken out most of the bandits at the entrance. One survived a well-placed fireball and escaped to the back of the cave. The party found the tunnel in the back that led deeper in and the wizard promptly plopped down at the entrance to the tunnel to ritual cast Tiny Hut so they could rest safely. This was all after they watched a live bandit escape down that tunnel (ignoring intelligent creatures running to get reinforcements had previously caused a TPK as the party continued to fight an over extend themselves—this will become important).

A minute or two into the ritual casting of Tiny Hut, the escaped bandit shows up with reinforcements from further in. Fighting ensues with the party dragging the battle back outside and eventually vanquishing their foes—all except for one that had a turned invisible. They are about 20’ from the mouth of the cave (so about 50’ from the aforementioned tunnel entrance) and what happens? The party plops down as the wizard ONCE AGAIN attempts to ritual cast Tiny Hut.

It was a poor decision the first time, and still no one says anything about getting further away and finding a better place to rest. So, what happens? The invisible bandit shows up with more reinforcements from inside the cave and a TPK ensues.

And that’s the story of how resting killed my PCs who refused to learn.