Best Methods for Protecting Yourself When You're Sleeping?

[Brock Samson]

I'm curious as to what people have come up with in the past. Whether it be by the useage of spells, disguises, specific encampments, tactics, etc...

Of course there's the standard Rope Trick spell.

What about Tree Shape and sleep as a tree?

Creating your own floating fortress?

If you Wild Shape into an Earth Elemental can you just sleep inside the ground?

Any other ideas?

[Quietus]

I'm a fan of the old, simple methods : Set a watch (With good spot/listen scores, of course), and the Alarm spell. I don't much like sleeping in a cramped space with four other people then coming out into an area not knowing what could be waiting (rope trick). Of course, MMM fixes most of those issues, but that's a higher level spell than I usually get to tool around with.

[Fishy]

I've got a character who plans on sleeping in Tree Shape. She's a fey plant thing, so it makes a certain amount of sense.

[Rowsen]

Have a Warforged in the party. Since he won't need sleep, I'm sure he'll be happy to stand guard

[derfenrirwolv]

The leomands spells make for a nice defensible position to sleep in.

rope trick of course.

Making two camps and putting dummies around the second one

using unseen servant to make one of said dummies appear to move every so often

Illusionary camp.

plant growth around the camp

Buy a pack of guard dogs. Scent is ridiculously hard to get around

war horse/pony in guard mode.

trench fortifications, small rock walls and bariccades

A bag of holding full of wooden planks and a sorcerer with fabricate

polymorph the party into forest critters and have them blend in.
.

[arthious]

Have a Warforged in the party. Since he won't need sleep, I'm sure he'll be happy to stand guard

Yeah, we once had a Warforged Figther in our party , standing guard every night.
He never made his spot- or listen-checks so our alarm-signal was the clank-sound of enemy weapons on his armor.

[Killer Angel]

I'm curious as to what people have come up with in the past. Whether it be by the useage of spells, disguises, specific encampments, tactics, etc...

At low levels, I always like the alarm spell, a ring of sustenance and watch turns. A couple of rings in the group (a caster and a fighter-type), and you'll be fine. The last 2 hours, you sleep while the rest of the group is awake.
With 2-3 pcs active, it's more difficult to be surprised.

[Narmoth]

No fear of dying and fatalism is the best.
Failing that, I try to find a tavern or such to sleep in
And of course, stand guard
Also, sanctuary
invisibility to undead might be useful in some situations

[Quietus]

plant growth around the camp

Ooh, I like this one. My Druidess could do that with any Plant Growths she has left prepared at the end of the day; affect a 100 foot radius circle, with a 20 foot radius center. That's PLENTY of room for a nice little camp, and who really wants to push through 80 feet of overgrown bushes that drops their speed to 5 or 10 feet just to see what's inside?

::edit:: Note to self; Buy a scroll or two of Diminish Plants, just in case. I'm not slowed down by the bushes, but my party members are, and if we need to escape for some reason...

[lesser_minion]

In 3e, I'd probably go with one of the old-school methods - have someone keep a watch. I like the sanctuary and invisibility ideas, although these both really need a watch.

In 4e, as long as you have an elf, you don't need to keep watch - Wizards suddenly added in the note that elvish trance actually does nothing whatsoever to impede a character's awareness of their surroundings.

And they are awake fully for two hours out of the six everyone else spends asleep.

[Grynning]

That's Eladrin (high elves) and Drow only of course. Regular (Wood) Elves need to sleep in 4th ed. Since our 4th ed. group has two Eladrin, we're covered for watches.

At low levels in 3rd or 4th ed with no Eladrin, rotating watches have always been the method my groups have used. 3rd ed. has plenty of alarm and trap type spells as people have pointed out, but you can also use various mundane traps if you're inclined. Tripwires attached to noise makers of various types are simple enough to make, most DM's would probably make it a low DC crafts check of some kind. (of course they'd be equally easy to disarm if spotted).

[Curmudgeon]

A really good Listen score is often all you need. You can make checks even while you're asleep.

[EarFall]

Group trance is one of the teamwork benefits that makes absolutely zero sense in 3.5, but it can help if the DM allows it... seriously, all the others pretty much make sense... "I can teach you how to overcome your bodies resting mechanism by holding my hand for four weeks without magic" just doesn't really cut it...

[Rhiannon87]

Our party uses Leomund's Hidden Cabin (like the regular cabin, but it takes a DC 30 Survival check to figure out that something is odd there... yay camo cabin!) and watches. The cabin has windows, so the people on watch can just sit and look. Odds are good that if something happens to come by, it won't even see us.

[Siosilvar]

A really good Listen score is often all you need. You can make checks even while you're asleep.

Sure, at -10. What was your modifier, again?

[OverdrivePrime]

Sure, at -10. What was your modifier, again?

For a halfway decent elven ranger at level 5? Probably around a +12.
For a 10th level elven ranger who's devoted some very modest equipment to his listen check? More like a +24.
By level 15 the listen checks get ridiculous. By the time my players were level 18 (3.5 ed), the elf ranger had a natural listen check somewhere around d20+40. She had to train herself not to be woken up by loud mouse farts.

[Curmudgeon]

Sure, at -10. What was your modifier, again?

Typically about 20, with the Rogue/Cleric characters I like to play.

Trying to hear something you failed to hear previously is a move action.

You can use 2 move actions each round for Listen checks while you sleep, plus one more if you've got the Quick Reconnoiter feat -- and that's just for things you failed to hear previously.

Every time you have a chance to hear something in a reactive manner (such as when someone makes a noise or you move into a new area), you can make a Listen check without using an action.

[Riffington]

You can use 2 move actions each round for Listen checks while you sleep

Your sleep... it is different from mine.

[EarFall]

It is? I always devote my move actions to listen checks when I sleep. But I usually use my standard actions for something else.

[Wulfram]

What about Tree Shape and sleep as a tree?

Make sure there are no lumberjacks about before trying that

[Optimystik]

For a halfway decent elven ranger at level 5? Probably around a +12.
For a 10th level elven ranger who's devoted some very modest equipment to his listen check? More like a +24.
By level 15 the listen checks get ridiculous. By the time my players were level 18 (3.5 ed), the elf ranger had a natural listen check somewhere around d20+40. She had to train herself not to be woken up by loud mouse farts.

Why was your elf sleeping? >_>

[The Rose Dragon]

Take Immunity to Sleep or Immunity to Everything with the Flaw Limited (only while sleeping).

The former costs 1 power point while the latter costs about 100 power points.

Or you could specify a game and get advice focused on that game and not M&M.

[Kylarra]

Our party uses Leomund's Hidden Cabin (like the regular cabin, but it takes a DC 30 Survival check to figure out that something is odd there... yay camo cabin!) and watches. The cabin has windows, so the people on watch can just sit and look. Odds are good that if something happens to come by, it won't even see us.

4e has something similar with the Create Campsite ritual that allows you to use your nature skill to set the DC for [other people] finding your campsite overnight.

[Zaq]

A lot of GMs will let you use either Survival or Craft(trapmaking) to set up some booby traps around your campsite. That's no substitute for a series of watches, an eternal wand of Alarm (caster level 4th or better), and some common sense, but it certainly helps.

It also helps to be aware of the dangers of the area. Are you mostly looking at animal predators? Keeping a campfire burning is probably a good idea. Are bandits a bigger problem? Probably want to douse that light, then. Are you being actively hunted? You should probably spend some more time than usual creating false trails and hiding really well. Will whatever you're afraid of be able to see or sense magic? Mundane precautions might work better than fancy abjurations.

Of course, even if you set a watch, you need to be able to rally the troops as fast as you can in an emergency. A wand of Dawn (0th level spell, so it's very very cheap) is useful for automatically and easily waking up all of the other party members in case of trouble, assuming that all of those taking watch are capable of using it. Insignia of Alarm, from Races of Destiny, is another spell that's good for quickly rousing the party in an emergency. I'm pretty sure there's a magic item that does something similar, but I can't remember what it's called.

[Draz74]

Dungeonscape: Make your armor Restful to reduce the Listen penalty while sleeping to only -5. Costs only 500 gp, and as a bonus, it makes your heavy-armor types able to sleep in their armor without fatigue!

Dungeonscape: Buy a set of Blankets of Security or whatever they're called. Only 1400 gp each, and whoever's on watch will be able to wake up the rest of the party instantly in case of trouble. Avoid like the plague if any of your party members are wanton pranksters.

PHB2: Awareness Teamwork Benefit. Easy to qualify for if you pay attention to this sort of thing at all, and can end up providing ridiculously good Spot and Listen bonuses. Doesn't say anything about not working while you're asleep.

PHB2: Camp Routine Teamwork Benefit. Like the previous one, except it's possibly even easier to qualify for, and it's actually intended (obviously) to work while sleeping.

Casters can also optimize their familars to be night watchmen-types if they don't find themselves actually using familiars for much during the daytime.

Rings of Sustenance and Heward's Fortifying Bedrolls (CMage) make your party need much less sleep, which according to probability should mean there's a much smaller chance of something finding them during down time.

[lsfreak]

An eternal wand of vigilant slumber, from Complete Mage. You can trigger it to any event, such as "a creature that's not one of my companions and larger than Tiny approaches within 30 feet of me." And it triggers on anything that you could normally observe - which means someone with permanent see invisibility or arcane sight can see a lot.

[Epinephrine]

Bat familiar, have it sleep during the day and keep watch at night?

Edit - didn't see someone mention familiars just above...

Spike Growth works pretty well, too. Very hard to spot.