Help! I don't understand how Sleep works.

[The Aboleth]

I speak of the D&D spell, though real-life sleeping is difficult, too.

The wording of Sleep in the Player's Handbook is as follows:

This spell sends creatures into a magical slumber. Roll 5d8; the total is how many hit points of creatures this spell can affect. Creatures within 20 feet of a point you choose within range are affected in ascending order of their current hit points (ignoring unconscious creatures).

Starting with the creature that has the lowest current hit points, each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious until the spell ends, the sleeper takes damage, or someone uses an action to shake or slap the sleeper awake. Subtract each creature's hit points from the total before moving on to the creature with the next lowest hit points. A creature's hit points must be equal to or less than the remaining total for that creature to be affected.

The bolded parts are what have me confused. My understanding of the first bolded line is that only creatures with hit points equal to or less than the roll are affected; so, as an example, if I roll 25 from the 5d8's, then only creatures with 25 points or fewer are affected by the spell (and obviously, only those within 20 feet of the chosen point). Is this correct?

The second bolded area is what especially confuses me. Using the above example of 25, am I to assume that I am to inflict 25 points of damage to each creature the spell has affected? If so...doesn't that mean every creature is killed by the spell (since the first paragraph says only creatures equal to or less than that total are affected)? Also, if the spell inflicts damage...shouldn't that mean the creatures are woken up ("fall unconscious until...the sleeper takes damage" clause)?

I'm DMing an upcoming one-shot this weekend, and I want to make sure I rule correctly if/when this spell is cast (one of the characters definitely has it). How am I to interpret the spell description? Am I alone in thinking it is confusingly worded?

[bid]

You put the lowest hp to sleep first.

- small fry
Sleep roll = 22
Creature hp = 8 8 9
- 22 - 8 = 14 (lowest hp asleep)
- 13 - 8 = 6 (2nd highest hp asleep)
- 5 - 9 = Nope (that's it)

EDIT: ok, I had it backward

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I speak of the D&D spell, though real-life sleeping is difficult, too.

The wording of Sleep in the Player's Handbook is as follows:

This spell sends creatures into a magical slumber. Roll 5d8; the total is how many hit points of creatures this spell can affect. Creatures within 20 feet of a point you choose within range are affected in ascending order of their current hit points (ignoring unconscious creatures).

Starting with the creature that has the lowest current hit points, each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious until the spell ends, the sleeper takes damage, or someone uses an action to shake or slap the sleeper awake. Subtract each creature's hit points from the total before moving on to the creature with the next lowest hit points. A creature's hit points must be equal to or less than the remaining total for that creature to be affected.

The bolded parts are what have me confused. My understanding of the first bolded line is that only creatures with hit points equal to or less than the roll are affected; so, as an example, if I roll 25 from the 5d8's, then only creatures with 25 points or fewer are affected by the spell (and obviously, only those within 20 feet of the chosen point). Is this correct?

The second bolded area is what especially confuses me. Using the above example of 25, am I to assume that I am to inflict 25 points of damage to each creature the spell has affected? If so...doesn't that mean every creature is killed by the spell (since the first paragraph says only creatures equal to or less than that total are affected)? Also, if the spell inflicts damage...shouldn't that mean the creatures are woken up ("fall unconscious until...the sleeper takes damage" clause)?

I'm DMing an upcoming one-shot this weekend, and I want to make sure I rule correctly if/when this spell is cast (one of the characters definitely has it). How am I to interpret the spell description? Am I alone in thinking it is confusingly worded?

If you roll a total of 25, then you can affect 25 hit points worth of stuff. Let's say you're in combat with a 15 hp bandit, an 8 hp bandit and a 10 hp goblin.

You start by affecting the lowest HP creature. The 8 HP bandit falls asleep. You have 17 HP remaining. The goblin is next, and it falls asleep too. You've used 18 HP and have 7 remaining. 7 HP isn't enough to affect the 15 HP bandit, so he remains awake.

None of the creatures actually take damage from the spell.

[Grear Bylls]

What you do is roll 5 8 sided dice. Add the total. Say I got 26. There are 6 kobolds in range, each with 5 HP. Math:
Kobold one: 26 (dice roll total) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 21 HP
Kobold two: 21 (dice roll total minus previous kobold) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 16 HP
Kobold three: 16 (dice roll total minus previous kobolds) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 11 HP
Kobold four: 11 (dice roll total minus previous kobolds) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 6 HP
Kobold five: 6 (dice roll total minus previous kobolds) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 1 HP
Kobold six: My 1 HP left is less than Kobold 6's HP, therefore he's unaffected.

Does this help?

[Boverk]

Let's say you rolled a 25, and let's also suppose that you have with 2 party members, one has 10 health, the other 18, and let's say there's an enemy with 14 health, all within 20 feet of the chosen point.

So your spell can put to handle 25 hit points in total.

So it will first put to sleep your friend with 10 hp, since it is the lowest hp in range (this spell doesn't distinguish friend from foe). It would then put to sleep the enemy with 14 health, since 25 - 10 >= 14. The spell will not put your other party member to sleep, since there is only 1 hp remaining, and they have 18 health.

[Grear Bylls]

Also, the Animated Spellbook on YouTube has a good video on this. May or may not have plagiarized everything I said earlier

[The Aboleth]

You put the lowest hp to sleep first.

- small fry
Sleep roll = 22
Creature hp = 8 8 9
- 22 - 8 = 14 (lowest hp asleep)
- 13 - 8 = 6 (2nd highest hp asleep)
- 5 - 9 = Nope (that's it)

EDIT: ok, I had it backward


If you roll a total of 25, then you can affect 25 hit points worth of stuff. Let's say you're in combat with a 15 hp bandit, an 8 hp bandit and a 10 hp goblin.

You start by affecting the lowest HP creature. The 8 HP bandit falls asleep. You have 17 HP remaining. The goblin is next, and it falls asleep too. You've used 18 HP and have 7 remaining. 7 HP isn't enough to affect the 15 HP bandit, so he remains awake.

None of the creatures actually take damage from the spell.

Huh...so the initial 5d8 roll is, in effect, giving you a "pool" to draw from in determining who goes to sleep and who doesn't? I suppose that makes sense, but I did not get that from the spell description at all. I thought it was unusual the spell would do damage...glad to see it doesn't and that I had simply misinterpreted the wording.


What you do is roll 5 8 sided dice. Add the total. Say I got 26. There are 6 kobolds in range, each with 5 HP. Math:
Kobold one: 26 (dice roll total) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 21 HP
Kobold two: 21 (dice roll total minus previous kobold) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 16 HP
Kobold three: 16 (dice roll total minus previous kobolds) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 11 HP
Kobold four: 11 (dice roll total minus previous kobolds) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 6 HP
Kobold five: 6 (dice roll total minus previous kobolds) - 5 (HP) = Unconscious kobold and 1 HP
Kobold six: My 1 HP left is less than Kobold 6's HP, therefore he's unaffected.

Does this help?

Yes, it helps immensely! Thank you!


Let's say you rolled a 25, and let's also suppose that you have with 2 party members, one has 10 health, the other 18, and let's say there's an enemy with 14 health, all within 20 feet of the chosen point.

So your spell can put to handle 25 hit points in total.

So it will first put to sleep your friend with 10 hp, since it is the lowest hp in range (this spell doesn't distinguish friend from foe). It would then put to sleep the enemy with 14 health, since 25 - 10 >= 14. The spell will not put your other party member to sleep, since there is only 1 hp remaining, and they have 18 health.

So other party members can be affected by the spell? That makes sense, and it's definitely something I'll point out to the player (who is new to D&D) the first time they intend to cast the spell. Thank you!

[Vorpalchicken]

Remember elves and half elves are ignored by the spell. Players may use that to their advantage.

[Quoxis]

Just for clarification: the text says „roll 5d8 [...] substract the creatures hp from the total [of what you rolled]“, not „substract the total from the creatures hp“ or „substract the hp by the total“.
It’s clearly phrased to not do any damage.

[holywhippet]

Remember elves and half elves are ignored by the spell. Players may use that to their advantage.

Undead are also immune - which one player I know got a lesson in since he tried a sleep spell before realizing we were facing zombies. They were immune, my half-elf was immune so the only valid target for the spell was himself.

[SirGraystone]

Also the spell can affect both NPCs and PCs, if you have a kobold A with 4 hp, a kobold B with 7 hp but a player wounded down to 5 hp, then kobold A fall asleep first, then the player, then kobold B

[JeenLeen]

My table had a question about how immunity to sleep interacts with the spell Sleep. Namely, do they still count against the HP pool or not?
For example, let's say 3 bandits of 12, 11, and 10 HP. The 11 HP one is an elf and the others human. Sleep resulted in 30 HP worth of slumbering.
12 HP human goes down. 30 - 12 = 18.
11 HP elf is immune, but the spell tries anyway (?). 18 - 11 = 7.
10 HP human is not effected, as 10 > 7.

From the posts above, it seems the consensus is that the spell simply ignores them and the 10 HP human should've fallen asleep, but is that written out explicitly anywhere? My DM had the other interpretation (unfair as he admits it is.)

[Ivor_The_Mad]

I picture it more like charges. You roll the 5d8 (Is is possible to use overclock or is that just damage) and lets say you have 25 charges and you loose 1 for each hp of a creature you put to sleep and you need charges ≥ the creatures hp to succeed.

Edit: Overclock is the sorcerer ability that maxes out the damage dice right? I don't have the PHB on hand.

[Vingelot]

My table had a question about how immunity to sleep interacts with the spell Sleep. Namely, do they still count against the HP pool or not?
For example, let's say 3 bandits of 12, 11, and 10 HP. The 11 HP one is an elf and the others human. Sleep resulted in 30 HP worth of slumbering.
12 HP human goes down. 30 - 12 = 18.
11 HP elf is immune, but the spell tries anyway (?). 18 - 11 = 7.
10 HP human is not effected, as 10 > 7.

From the posts above, it seems the consensus is that the spell simply ignores them and the 10 HP human should've fallen asleep, but is that written out explicitly anywhere? My DM had the other interpretation (unfair as he admits it is.)

First off, you have it backwards. Sleep affects the lowest-hp creature first, so in your example, the 10 HP human would fall asleep, not the 12 hp one.

Regarding the actual question, if you read the spell description, it seems pretty clear to me that immune creatures don't count against the hit point pool. It says "each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious [...]. Subtract each creature's hit points from the total before moving on [...]."

Besides, Sleep is bad enough as it is. Since it can only affect such an absurdly low number of hit points, you're better off with a longbow than a Sleep spell for crowd control IMHO. So there'd not be any reason to make it even worse.

[Lucadibeppo]

Yeah I thought it read lowest hit point creatures first. Always thought about using the sleep spell for non combat encounters. Like to knock out a guard or something. Utility for combat might not be great unless you are a warlock or you up cast it.

[Slipperychicken]

Utility for combat might not be great unless you are a warlock or you up cast it.

It's fabulous at levels 1-3, where you can easily crowd-control a whole encounter worth of goblins with it. Then while the goblins are asleep or spending their actions waking each other up, your fighters get to dunk on them with impunity.

After that its usefulness in combat falls off a lot. But being able to quickly make a low hp creature sleep is a good option to keep in your pocket.