Antimagic field vs. sleep conditions

[holywhippet]

Say a character gets a sleep effect placed on them (sleep spell or eyebite for example). Then someone else casts an antimagic field and steps next to the sleeping character. Since the sleep effect is magical it is supressed and the character regains consciousness. But if they then leave the antimagic field area they would immediately fall asleep again? Even stranger the simplest remedy for any sleep condition is to shake the character awake. But you can't actually do that while the effect is suppressed? What about taking damage while the spell is suppressed?

[MilkmanDanimal]

It's "Sleep", not "Sleep Field"; it's an instantaneous effect to make someone fall asleep, and not a persistent thing. If they're awoken for any reason whatsoever, they're awake. If it's something like Eyebite that lasts for a minute, yes, it could be used again if the target was out of the field, because it has an actual duration.

Plain Sleep is just that; you fall asleep or there's no effect. No reason it would turn back on again.

[Man_Over_Game]

Say a character gets a sleep effect placed on them (sleep spell or eyebite for example). Then someone else casts an antimagic field and steps next to the sleeping character. Since the sleep effect is magical it is supressed and the character regains consciousness. But if they then leave the antimagic field area they would immediately fall asleep again? Even stranger the simplest remedy for any sleep condition is to shake the character awake. But you can't actually do that while the effect is suppressed? What about taking damage while the spell is suppressed?

The rules don't cover every instance of spells. Sometimes, the DM just has to make a logical decision.

There's two ways you can go:


Sleep is magical and instantaneous, but the condition is not. The Duration is more of a time limit on the condition rather than the spell, and so Antimagic Fields would have no effect on a sleeping person.
Sleep is magical and forces you to sleep during the duration, but you can only fall asleep from the initial casting. Once you're awake (either by an Antimagic Field, Dispel Magic, or being shaken awake) you're awake for good.



Any other option just doesn't make much sense.

RAW, Sleep has a 1 minute Duration, so it can be dispelled just fine, which implies that #2 is closer to RAW acceptable, but I prefer solution #1 as it's cleaner and actually empowers Sleep, as it cannot be nullified by higher level spell removal. Sleep is known for being strong at early levels, but useless at higher levels, and making it immune to dispel effects at later levels is a small way to make it more relevant. Probably not enough to change anything, though.