Sleep: Much Power!?!

[Toaau]

So, in my 1st Level game today, the group came across a group of Goblins. Bard and WildSorc cast Sleep, and with preparations, the heroes tie up all the goblins and take them back to the village for their bounty. Now, this is fine for the story I'm playing, and fits with my overall town and portrayal of Magyks, but I can see 5d8 worth of Sleep being very, very powerful if, say, two or three casters use it mid-battle. Especially with no save.

Thoughts?

[Townopolis]

What you've witnessed is a couple of characters casting Sleep in literally the best possible situation to cast Sleep and not being let down by their dice. I wouldn't sweat it.

[Toaau]

Like I say, I'm personally not bothered, but I could see it being abused.

[Strill]

Sleep is powerful at level 1, but quickly becomes worthless as you begin to face more powerful opponents who have more HP than your spell can handle. At that point, you begin to rely on Hypnotic Pattern, which is similar to Sleep, but is a third-level spell, requires a saving throw, and affects all targets in the area regardless of their HP.

[SharkForce]

to put it another way, go through your monster manual and take a look at the typical HP of, say, challenge rating 1 creatures.

now imagine if the party was level 4 and fighting a group of those. how impressive would sleep have been then?

sleep has always been ridiculous at level 1 (well, ok, probably not in 4e unless i really misunderstood sleep... it sucked royally in 4e)

it has always gone way down in value once you start fighting things that don't get killed in one hit most of the time by people with no damage bonus. though it still retains *some* value in 5e (if you can actually manage to knock a bunch of enemies down to 5 hp and cast sleep, it can still do wonders... but truthfully, most of the power was in whatever took everything down to 5 hp).

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The best edition for sleep was 4e. At least conceptually and I would love to see a return to that type of spell. The idea that the spell slows the target down (makes them drowsy) and then puts them to sleep is fantastic and really helps with the role-playing aspect of a mechanical tool.

Something like...

Roll your dice (5d8 + 2d8/higher level slot)

Dice = or > HP, then target is slowed until the end of their turn and then falls to sleep unless the caster is killed before the end of their turn.

Dice < HP, then target is slowed (half speed). Con save on the end of their turn(s) to remove slow.

So we still have sleep being awesome, it has a minor effect on a miss, and is thematically awesome (i can just see the ogre running at the wizard as a last ditch effort as they feel themselves falling asleep).

Edit...

And it gives charger feat a use for classes other than cleric! Lol

[Shaofoo]

(well, ok, probably not in 4e unless i really misunderstood sleep... it sucked royally in 4e)



4e Sleep is possibly the most horrifically broken implementation of sleep in all of D&D history,because the enemy doesn't wake up if you beat up on him only waking up on a save and it affects everyone in an area regardless of HP. And considering that Wizards can give their enemies penalties to saving throws in the double digits in the late game you can have the big bad and company fall asleep while everyone takes turns Coup de Graceing it over and over and over and over.

But back on topic 5e sleep, it isn't so broken because of the randomness of the dice, the fact that you can't target who is affected (and you shouldn't be able to tell how much HP any person has as a player) and it doesn't discriminate (so you can end up putting your fighter friend to sleep instead of the enemies).

[SharkForce]

4e sleep took 2 turns and 2 failed saving throws to put someone to sleep. yeah, it's nice if they actually manage to fail 2 saving throws and have absolutely no means of dealing with failed saving throws. but a 25% chance of doing what you want? not a good spell.

seriously, what the heck were the minions doing that you can stand your party around spamming CDG on the boss?

[Malifice]

So, in my 1st Level game today, the group came across a group of Goblins. Bard and WildSorc cast Sleep, and with preparations, the heroes tie up all the goblins and take them back to the village for their bounty. Now, this is fine for the story I'm playing, and fits with my overall town and portrayal of Magyks, but I can see 5d8 worth of Sleep being very, very powerful if, say, two or three casters use it mid-battle. Especially with no save.

Thoughts?

Throw the games expected six(ish) encounters at your party before letting them long rest, allowing a short rest every 2 or so encounters.

That will fix your problems right up.

[Sception]

4e sleep took 2 turns and 2 failed saving throws to put someone to sleep. yeah, it's nice if they actually manage to fail 2 saving throws and have absolutely no means of dealing with failed saving throws. but a 25% chance of doing what you want? not a good spell.

Sleep without applied penalties to save = not a big deal. But once you started stacking on the sorts of save penalties wizards had access to, you could very quickly get to a point of no return for any monsters caught in the effect.

It wasn't a good spell if you just took it out of the box, but was very much a powerhouse if you deliberately built around it.

[SharkForce]

2 turns to do anything useful to a single target (maybe, if they don't roll well or have something that gives them a good shot at making their save anyways) and that's supposed to be a concern? with PCs probably blowing multiple limited-use abilities to even get things to reach that point? i can have a pretty big impact with daily spells that don't need me to spend a bunch of special abilities or get hyper-specialized, thanks.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

2 turns to do anything useful to a single target (maybe, if they don't roll well or have something that gives them a good shot at making their save anyways) and that's supposed to be a concern? with PCs probably blowing multiple limited-use abilities to even get things to reach that point? i can have a pretty big impact with daily spells that don't need me to spend a bunch of special abilities or get hyper-specialized, thanks.


Even mild optimized wizards could wreck you with the sleep spell. A lot of wizards were made for legalities to saving throws and coupled with the saving throw mechanics made sleep a very powerful spell.

Two rounds was fine. Hit a creature that will be an issue eventually and focus the rest of your stuff on the enemies that ARE an issue.

4E sleep was the most party friendly version. My PC was killed in 5e AL when a party member dropped sleep on me and two ogres (first level) not realizing how their spell worked (first time player who *had* to be a wizard). The ogres (or orcs, or whatever they were) crit me to death... Poor cleric, I hardly knew ye.

I didn't blame the DM and could see the hesitation... So I told him to not be a wussy and do it (the table language was a lot more "mature" as we all were adults).

In 4e, my cleric would have lived :(

So yeah 4e sleep has some trade offs from traditional sleep, but iverall, is the best iteration of sleep.

Besides a spell so damn powerful needs a drawback. I prefer the two round/2 failed saving throws to the spell becoming almost useless at later levels.

[Aeradom]

You think that's rough? Just imagine using Conjure Woodlands Being and use that to cast 8 Pixies that can all cast Sleep.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

You think that's rough? Just imagine using Conjure Woodlands Being and use that to cast 8 Pixies that can all cast Sleep.

Shhhh... Conjure Spells like that doesn't exist.

Because the game is balanced :smallamused:

[Dimers]

4e sleep took 2 turns and 2 failed saving throws to put someone to sleep.

The first failed save imposes unconsciousness, not the second. So it requires one hit and one failed save. Wasn't impressed with it myself, but I optimize poorly and never tried stacking save penalties. Gimme a blaster any day.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The first failed save imposes unconsciousness, not the second. So it requires one hit and one failed save. Wasn't impressed with it myself, but I optimize poorly and never tried stacking save penalties. Gimme a blaster any day.

Didn't the first failed save just slow a target? I'll get my book...

Edit

From Essentials

Burst 2 within 20 (10' radius within 100')
On a hit each target is slowed (save ends)
After the first failed saving throw the target(s) falls unconscious.

So you have to hit (typically easy) and then the target is slowed. When the target attempts it's first saving throw, the target will either fall asleep (fail) or stop being slowed and stay awake (pass)

On a miss the target is slowed until they save.

Sooo the essentials version of sleep is pretty killer. I recall the original sleep being less impressive but still good.

Edit

I'm using essentials sleep as my go to sleep when someone asks for a decent sleep spell.

[Townopolis]

Essentials Sleep is the same as regular 4e Sleep. Even at level 1, when you generally won't have many (if any) ways to reduce enemy saves, Sleep was always one of the best control daily available to wizards of its level.

And it still is in 5e, at least at level 1. Around level 5, you stop using your level 1 slots for anything but Mage Armor, Shield, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter anyways.

Edit: Okay, so there are still Feather Fall, Fog Cloud, and Protection from Evil and Good.

[Sception]

Yes, that was right, it was a hit then a failed save, not two failed saves, and works in an area (which, iirc, there were ways to make larger), so you can catch two or three creatures, increasing the likelihood that at least one would pass out and become crit fodder.

Elites and solos were more likely to make the save, but again wizards can stack up some pretty massive penalties. iirc, it wasn't too hard to get up to a -5 on all saves vs. enchantment/charm powers with an essentials specialist mage plus the renegade red wizard background, or alternatively if you just want to kill one thing, a PHB orb wizard, even post nerf, could get a -2 or 3 save to everything, plus a stacking -wis mod penalty to one enemy save per encounter, which was generally enough to make elites and even solos reliably fail the first save, especially if you had a warlord in the party to force a re-roll. And with parties ready to bust out their per-encounter multi attacks and multi-weapon-die powers, Even one round of unconsciousness is usually enough to see any reasonably leveled monster to its grave, even 4e's notoriously tedious bullet-sponge solos.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Essentials Sleep is the same as regular 4e Sleep. Even at level 1, when you generally won't have many (if any) ways to reduce enemy saves, Sleep was always one of the best control daily available to wizards of its level.

And it still is in 5e, at least at level 1. Around level 5, you stop using your level 1 slots for anything but Mage Armor, Shield, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter anyways.

Edit: Okay, so there are still Feather Fall, Fog Cloud, and Protection from Evil and Good.

I still use my level one spells to check an enemy's saves. Pop off a spell just to see how well it works.

Catapult, Earth Tremor, Ice Knife, Charm Person, and Grease are all good tester spells.

[ImSAMazing]

Sleep is a great spell, with no other lvl 1 spell close to it's power. It is strong at lvl 1, and it really becomes bad starting from lvl 3. With a wizard, you effectively just loose a spell in your spell book at higher levels, because you can't switch spells. With a Sorcerer, it ain't bad. But remember: you only have 2 lvl 1 spell slots at level 1. If you both cast Sleep, you expend 50% of your power in 1 ENCOUNTer of the 6-8 in an adventureday.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Sleep is a great spell, with no other lvl 1 spell close to it's power. It is strong at lvl 1, and it really becomes bad starting from lvl 3. With a wizard, you effectively just loose a spell in your spell book at higher levels, because you can't switch spells. With a Sorcerer, it ain't bad. But remember: you only have 2 lvl 1 spell slots at level 1. If you both cast Sleep, you expend 50% of your power in 1 ENCOUNTer of the 6-8 in an adventureday.

But if you don't cast anything then your versatility is essentially 0!

(Yay Red Mage references!)

[SharkForce]

But if you don't cast anything then your versatility is essentially 0!

(Yay Red Mage references!)

no, if you don't cast anything you keep all your versatility. it's casting things that reduces your versatility :)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

no, if you don't cast anything you keep all your versatility. it's casting things that reduces your versatility :)

Not at all, if you chose to never cast then you are just as versitile as if you didn't have spells to begin with!

:p

(Ok, ok, I'll stop now, this can go on way longer than I care to admit haha)

[Shaofoo]

no, if you don't cast anything you keep all your versatility. it's casting things that reduces your versatility :)

Then Champion fighters are the best class in the entire game because they can always be versatile regardless of what they do, they never lose out.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Then Champion fighters are the best class in the entire game because they can always be versatile regardless of what they do, they never lose out.

Staaaaahhhhp

Though they do get 18-20 crit sleep range for their weapons....

[SharkForce]

Not at all, if you chose to never cast then you are just as versitile as if you didn't have spells to begin with!

:p

(Ok, ok, I'll stop now, this can go on way longer than I care to admit haha)

no, no, you're still just as versatile by not casting spells (you just aren't *using* your versatility - it's still there :P )

[PoeticDwarf]

So, in my 1st Level game today, the group came across a group of Goblins. Bard and WildSorc cast Sleep, and with preparations, the heroes tie up all the goblins and take them back to the village for their bounty. Now, this is fine for the story I'm playing, and fits with my overall town and portrayal of Magyks, but I can see 5d8 worth of Sleep being very, very powerful if, say, two or three casters use it mid-battle. Especially with no save.

Thoughts?

First, better 5d8 damage than 5d8 sleep, with chromatic orb you can get 3d8 damage, and yeah, low level is sleep better than chromatic orb, but after level 5 it becomes worse.

[MaxWilson]

Sleep is a great spell, with no other lvl 1 spell close to it's power. It is strong at lvl 1, and it really becomes bad starting from lvl 3. With a wizard, you effectively just loose a spell in your spell book at higher levels, because you can't switch spells. With a Sorcerer, it ain't bad. But remember: you only have 2 lvl 1 spell slots at level 1. If you both cast Sleep, you expend 50% of your power in 1 ENCOUNTer of the 6-8 in an adventureday.

A 1st level wizard who casts three sleeps a day (two 1st level slots + Arcane Recovery) will end a Hard encounter with three Goblins 65% of the time; 21% of the time he will get only two of the Goblins; 4% of the time he will get only one goblin. Three goblins is 25% of the daily XP budget, so if your DM uses budgets you can expect to probably fight maybe twelve goblins total throughout the day. The wizard is disposing of 7-8 of those goblins by himself via Sleep, which means that Sleep is more than pulling its weight.

As an aside, Goblins in 5E are nasty to fight without Sleep. Nimble Escape and Stealth +6 synergize well.

[eastmabl]

Sleep is beefy at first level when it's the first spell that goes off in initiative where you've got clumps of monsters. It keeps its usefulness as you keep pumping the spell slot, but becomes pretty poor as a 1st level spell otherwise.

If your monsters get involved in melee with the players and get a lick or two in, it becomes much harder to put the monsters to sleep - especially when monsters start having more HP than the players do.

To provide anecdotal evidence, I was running a game where a 2nd level wizard dropped a sleep spell on a badger (3 hp), 2nd level fighter (at 18 hp) and a black bear (at 19 hp). The wizard rolled 5d8 and put to sleep the badger and the fighter, providing the bear with a B-line to the wizard.