How hard is it to fake an Elven Trance?

[Escheton]

Say you are a human with a special hat of disguise that lasts a day. Or a changeling that racial ability shapechanged to look like an elf.
And you are traveling with a group. How fast would it be obvious?

How about if you take guard shifts alone and just nap?

What about around those that don't sleep. Like say, actual Elves or Automata that rest fully aware?
Not a system specific question, because any of them having a raw answer is unlikely.

[OldTrees1]

Let others realize a different reason for any discrepancies.

Where a full face facemask with tinted lenses and avoid snoring (a gag?). You are a quiet reserved elf that likes to take time during the day to meditate in silence and ignore everything else. That will stifle the observable differences. Now you just need the group to invent reasons that explain why you cover your face (burns? vanity? full of yourself? shyness? like privacy?) and why you meditate so deeply (discipline? stress?).


Also there is always the layered bluff. You could pretend to be an elf badly pretending to be a human.

[Vodahim]

I assume Elven Trance is from D&D5e

Rulewise, you could take the warlock invocation Aspect of the Moon (need Pact of the Tome) and never have to sleep again. But you need at least 3 lvl of warlock.


Basically, you "just" need to be on your bed four more hours than what you should need.

* You could cast Simulacrum (Wizard spell list - 7 lvl) to make a perfect double of yourself and let him take your shift while you hide somewhere to sleep. But it needs a Wizard lvl 13 or a Bard lvl 14 and one slot of Magical Secret.

* You could find a pretext to have some matters to attend at night, when the group rest, who requires total intimacy/discretion from your part, and thus never be able to take your guard shift and sleep 8 whole hours instead.
But you'll need to have your private quarters.
I don't really know how you can hide the fact that you're actually sleeping if they want to take a look on what you're doing(maybe your private quarters don't have any window but have a lock on the door. Plus you could set an alarm (magical or not) to wake you up if anyone try something funny. Or you could sleep directly in front of your desk, but your DM could argue that it cost you physically (like sleeping inside a heavy armor).

* Like OldTrees1 said, playing dumb/mad (a little) and being that-Elf-who-think-he-is-a-human (or any other race) could work.
You could make it more true by roleplaying the race in question in every interaction you make :
- "Look, I've got a dwarf friend, obviously I'm not an elf !"
- Forgetting how to behave like an elf, maybe burping after each meal could help.
- Putting on a fake beard, and maybe fake chest's hair too !
But it seems a lot effort doing your best to seems like your a race that your not just to to be a race that your not.
And after writting that, I just realize that me metagaming that it is a ridiculous thing to do probably makes it the best thing to do !

[Anymage]

Assuming a little leeway for fantasy heroes (so they don't have to worry about snoring and can find comfortable sitting/leaning positions to sleep in), I'd guess a few days to a week before sleep deprivation caught up with them hard enough to be particularly noticeable. Fewer if you have system granularity issues like needing eight contiguous hours for a rest to mechanically count or elves just being able to refill their spell slots in half the time, more if catnaps throughout the day can help pep you up and you can find the time to duck out for those catnaps.

[Escheton]

I assume Elven Trance is from D&D5e

Rulewise, you could take the warlock invocation Aspect of the Moon (need Pact of the Tome) and never have to sleep again. But you need at least 3 lvl of warlock.


Basically, you "just" need to be on your bed four more hours than what you should need.

* You could cast Simulacrum (Wizard spell list - 7 lvl) to make a perfect double of yourself and let him take your shift while you hide somewhere to sleep. But it needs a Wizard lvl 13 or a Bard lvl 14 and one slot of Magical Secret.

* You could find a pretext to have some matters to attend at night, when the group rest, who requires total intimacy/discretion from your part, and thus never be able to take your guard shift and sleep 8 whole hours instead.
But you'll need to have your private quarters.
I don't really know how you can hide the fact that you're actually sleeping if they want to take a look on what you're doing(maybe your private quarters don't have any window but have a lock on the door. Plus you could set an alarm (magical or not) to wake you up if anyone try something funny. Or you could sleep directly in front of your desk, but your DM could argue that it cost you physically (like sleeping inside a heavy armor).

* Like OldTrees1 said, playing dumb/mad (a little) and being that-Elf-who-think-he-is-a-human (or any other race) could work.
You could make it more true by roleplaying the race in question in every interaction you make :
- "Look, I've got a dwarf friend, obviously I'm not an elf !"
- Forgetting how to behave like an elf, maybe burping after each meal could help.
- Putting on a fake beard, and maybe fake chest's hair too !
But it seems a lot effort doing your best to seems like your a race that your not just to to be a race that your not.
And after writting that, I just realize that me metagaming that it is a ridiculous thing to do probably makes it the best thing to do !

When your goal is to infiltrate an enclave of Elven bards, spies and assassins as one of their own; Not getting caught on inconsistencies like "btw, elves don't sleep, why do you?" becomes important.
And one tries not to rely on coincidental availability of stuff like Rings of Sustenance.

[Pauly]

Say you are a human with a special hat of disguise that lasts a day. Or a changeling that racial ability shapechanged to look like an elf.
And you are traveling with a group. How fast would it be obvious?

How about if you take guard shifts alone and just nap?

What about around those that don't sleep. Like say, actual Elves or Automata that rest fully aware?
Not a system specific question, because any of them having a raw answer is unlikely.

It would depend on a few things.
1) are they suspicious of your character already? Do they have any reason to be on the lookout for deception.
2) How good is your character at faking being an elf? Not just the looks, but speech, habits, gestures etc.
3) how familiar are the rest of the group with elves?

There have been lots of historical examples of humans being able to pass themselves off as belonging to wildly different races for very long times. So I think as long ad your character doesn’t do anything wildly wrong and doesn't give the other members of the party reasons to be suspicious them they should be able to keep up the pretense indefinitely.

Edit to add:
If you are going into an enclave of spies and assassins who are already highly trained in spotting fakes and who have good reason to be suspicious of any outsider then I’d say your chances of avoiding being spotted would be a few days at most. Possibly a bit longer if you have a powerful mentor supporting you. To extend beyond that you are going have to prove you are a trusted member by carrying out missions flawlessly.

[hamishspence]

In the D&D FR novel Silver Shadows, "faking trancing" is something a half-elf (Arilyn Moonblade) had to do when working with an extremely xenophobic group of wild elves. To do it she used an exceptionally high-quality mask, with eyes that remained open while she was actually sleeping, producing the visual effect of "being in trance".

It fooled them for a short time, at least.

[Vodahim]

When I told that it seems a lot of efforts, I'm mean the "Look at me I'm a human" thing.
When the easy way to go surely involve magic.


When your goal is to infiltrate an enclave of Elven bards, spies and assassins as one of their own [...]

This is important !
Can you give us more information about your character and what are allowed in your campaign/settings ?
Maybe also some informations on the skills of the spies ?
Because right know, assuming they're good at their jobs, I see only two options (assuming, once more, that you need to live with them, not just spies on them from afar) :
* to abduct one of them, and be able to exactly mimic everything about the guy and everything about thise special encampment. We're talking about people who surely have trust issues and that are skillful in using multiple identities.
* Having a good reason to join them as a new member (and have a backstory that they could maybe check, so I would think about leaving clues or rumors about me.

If you need to infiltrate an enclave of spies and assassins, I surely hope that you have time to prepare for it.
And IMO your possibilities greatly depends on what your DM think his approppriate/possibile and the skills of those spies.

For imitating an Elven Trance, Aspect of the Moon and Ring of sustenance are the two best ideas (for me) for infiltrating a camp full of spies.

[Slipjig]

Are the people you are trying to fool other elves, or a different race? If there are no other elves in the group, I might go with, "What?!? Who told you elves don't sleep? That's an old wives tale." Or possibly claim that out of the ~350 elvish sub-races, some have to sleep and some don't.

If we're talking about fooling other elves, unless you can manufacture an excuse to be alone an extra four hours a day, I'm thinking you'll be lucky to pull it off for more than a few days. Even if you somehow disguise your sleep as a trance, after a few days of only sleeping four hours you will be so exhausted that when you do sleep you are all but guaranteed to snore like a chainsaw.

[Keltest]

In the D&D FR novel Silver Shadows, "faking trancing" is something a half-elf (Arilyn Moonblade) had to do when working with an extremely xenophobic group of wild elves. To do it she used an exceptionally high-quality mask, with eyes that remained open while she was actually sleeping, producing the visual effect of "being in trance".

It fooled them for a short time, at least.

Worth noting, the mask disguise never broke. What ended up happening is she got, ahem, intimate with one of the elves during a celebration and fell asleep afterwards while still in his presence. Although the mask itself wasnt fool proof and relied on the (accurate) assumption that the elves would be too polite to go up and start interacting with her when she was in trance unless there was a dire emergency.

[Escheton]

When I told that it seems a lot of efforts, I'm mean the "Look at me I'm a human" thing.
When the easy way to go surely involve magic.



This is important !
Can you give us more information about your character and what are allowed in your campaign/settings ?
Maybe also some informations on the skills of the spies ?
Because right know, assuming they're good at their jobs, I see only two options (assuming, once more, that you need to live with them, not just spies on them from afar) :
* to abduct one of them, and be able to exactly mimic everything about the guy and everything about thise special encampment. We're talking about people who surely have trust issues and that are skillful in using multiple identities.
* Having a good reason to join them as a new member (and have a backstory that they could maybe check, so I would think about leaving clues or rumors about me.

If you need to infiltrate an enclave of spies and assassins, I surely hope that you have time to prepare for it.
And IMO your possibilities greatly depends on what your DM think his approppriate/possibile and the skills of those spies.

For imitating an Elven Trance, Aspect of the Moon and Ring of sustenance are the two best ideas (for me) for infiltrating a camp full of spies.


It's a general question, because it's for an game that is sill recruiting and I don't even know if I am in.

Buuuut: The game starts a few years after the Mourning, is in New Cyre, and you start as working for the rebuilding local leadership there.
Now, I made a skillmonger Changeling who can crank out a +13 Deception and Persuasion from level 6 (current lvl 5 and 3 less), (+17 vs nobility, which I think includes Dragonmarked Houses)
And one of the things about the Day of Mourning is that House d'Phiarlan ALL happened to be out of town when the nuke hit.
Now, my +10 Knowledge History tells me that guild isn't just a bunch of fun entertainers and there is more to it. And has been dying to investigate but has been caught up in rebuilding, and well, looting the Mournlands to increase personal power.
So my thought was to set up my Adventurer Persona as House d'Phiarlan bard who is uninitiated by the shadier side of the guild. But given the in with local powers, and just being in a semi successful adventure outfit, expect them to be tapped. (if not, may force the issue).

But then I thought, ok. So you wanna live as an Elf around your party so even they don't know you are a changeling...How????
Like, Changelings sleep. Elves trance for 4 hours. Which is why they usually get put on guard duty, not to mention all of them being Perception proficient.

[Socksy]

If you are playing 5e, only six of your eight hours of rest need be sleep.

150% of 4 is 6. Comparatively, 150% of 6 is 9.

I know I'd prefer nine hours' sleep to six - maybe your "elf" just likes those extra couple of hours beyond what is strictly necessary?

EDIT: Alternatively with that Deception modifier, spin a story about how you've been cursed to Trance twice as long as usual for some plausible reason.

[Vahnavoi]

If you are travelling with a group for days, having to sleep around them, with at least some of them not needing (as much) sleep, this is, bluntly, not a great plan. It would help if you can learn how to achieve meditative trance yourself, or get your hands on stimulants (coffee, coca leaves etc.) that can temporarily lessen or remove need for sleep. In the long term (past a week), effects of sleep deprivation and exhaustion will settle in, so even if you manage to not fall asleep on your feet, your increasingly erratic behaviour might tip others off.

It becomes much more workable if you can regularly excuse yourself from the group and sleep in privacy.

[NRSASD]

Good luck OP! I definitely think the con is worth trying because getting caught by fellow PCs is hilarious.

In a custom setting, I had a character who was an inconvenient heir to a noble house. Everyone thought he was dead, and he preferred to keep it that way. Unfortunately for me, in this setting there were like 10 races of human, each with very obvious super powers, and his house was gifted in one of the most regulated and rarest traits: the ability to detect anyone's super powers before they were used.

Knowing that only a handful of his kind existed, and that being identified as someone with those powers would immediately draw a massive amount of attention, I pretended to be clairvoyant instead. It was absolutely hysterical making completely random and vague predictions for the rest of the party, relying on rumor gathering and inspired guesses to guide my "predictions". The best part was one of the PCs was actually clairvoyant, but had her own reasons to avoid drawing attention to herself.

When my lies finally collapsed, after a dozen or so sessions, my party was besides themselves with laughter. Our real clairvoyant was very indignant that I had spent all that time giving her race a bad name due to the inaccuracy of my prophecies though.

[HidesHisEyes]

Say you are a human with a special hat of disguise that lasts a day. Or a changeling that racial ability shapechanged to look like an elf.
And you are traveling with a group. How fast would it be obvious?

How about if you take guard shifts alone and just nap?

What about around those that don't sleep. Like say, actual Elves or Automata that rest fully aware?
Not a system specific question, because any of them having a raw answer is unlikely.

I’d like the idea that you could potentially fool anyone except an elf. An elf would see through it immediately.

[Duff]

In a tight knit small elvish community? A village or camp?
A day or 2. More if you're outlandishly good at making excuses. But in a small community, the fact you're missing for 4 hours every day is going to be noticed
In a royal court? Months. Sometimes you're with those people, sometimes you're with the other people, sometimes you're in the library reading alone. With reasonable effort, no one expects to know where you are at all times. While you're asleep, everyone just assumes you were elsewhere

Maybe "I'm only 1/16th human, but i got the 16th that means I need to sleep" is you're best bluff. Or cursed or sick. Or you play at being a "Horny bard" and fervently deny that you were with any and every suggested individual while you were out of sight. "Where were you this morning?" "I most definitely was not in a 3some with your parents, and will not expand on what we got up to, no matter how much you want me too" Wiggles eyebrows

[Telonius]

Depends on how you can bluff it.

"I got hit with a Bestow Curse a while back. Haven't had the chance to get to see a Cleric about it yet."
"I value my privacy, and need to prepare spells. Please leave me alone for the next 8 hours."
"This is my Belt of Humankind. It makes me more skillful in dealing with them, but I have to sleep 8 hours like they do."
"I'm continuing my studies in Practical Oneiromancy."

[LibraryOgre]

Relatively easy if you can meditate, and the other person can't read minds.

To fully fake an elven trance, you have to sit still for 4 hours, probably without opening your eyes (though "I trance with my eyes open" might work, then you're keeping your eyes open for 4 hours, which isn't much better). Your main problem, if you're a species that sleeps, is that you'll have to sleep sometime. I could see someone training themselves to sleep in a trance position (and, for that matter, don't see any reason "trance position" couldn't be "lying down somewhere comfy"), but that 4-hours-a-night thing is going to be rough for most people, and insufficient for many people.

[Lord Torath]

Wear a blindfold. "I like to cover my eyes when I trance. Fewer distractions."

Still need to learn to sleep sitting up, and figure out how to sneak in the other 2 hours you need. Does the Nap spell still exist? Get a full-night's sleep in just one hour?

[Anonymouswizard]

The two issues are, as have been covered, faking the trance itself and dealing with sleep deprivation.

Faking trancing is relatively easy, there are people in the real world who meditate for over an hour so four might not even require fantasy exaggeration. You could also do the various 'disguising sleep' ideas mentioned above, but they might put you at risk of things like snoring. With enough practice whichever method you choose won't give you away.

Sleep deprivation is harder to solve, you will likely have to crash at some point unless you get your hands on some magic stuff. But if you're going for sleeping sitting up and aren't pretending to be an actual person you can always claim you're part of a religion or cult which requires 1+ hours of meditation before and after your daily period of unconsciousness. As an elf clearly you use the same posture for meditation and trancing :smallwink:

[Yora]

Faking that you are meditating to rest is easy.

The hard part is to not fall asleep while you do it, and to look rested after a night without sleep.

[AceOfFools]

Say you are a human with a special hat of disguise that lasts a day. Or a changeling that racial ability shapechanged to look like an elf.
And you are traveling with a group. How fast would it be obvious?

How about if you take guard shifts alone and just nap?

What about around those that don't sleep. Like say, actual Elves or Automata that rest fully aware?
Not a system specific question, because any of them having a raw answer is unlikely.

Well, I rolled a character once who created privacy by hiring a courtesan/porter/tailor (who was in on the ruse), to travel with us. This gave me all the excuses I needed for demanding nighttime privacy.

That character wasn’t pretending to be an elf, but was pretending to not be regularly summon demons at night, and the other players (if not their characters) knew this was the case. The demons ended up being way less helpful than I was expecting.

This was a home brew system where “has an unskilled servant to handle mundane tasks” was a pretty cheap perk, so it didn’t even require any special GM approval.