Blooded actions when they can't take them? [4e]

[DarknessLord]

Alright, my party finally got through Kobold hall, and due to some lucky roles and my forgetting about the Dragon's bonus to saves, put him to sleep. He got bloodied while he was asleep, which SHOULD have activated his bloodied breath, if he had been awake. My ruling right then was his breath was recharged but he couldn't take any actions because he was asleep. Then when we woke up, we tried to figure out if he got to use it then, my logic was he got the free action because he was in pain and pissed so as soon as he realizes he's hurt he'd get it, but some of my players said he missed his chance, so I compromised and gave him a saving throw to see if he would register the pain, and associate it with the PCs enough to get the attack. He blotched it.

I was wondering, because that was a game time ruling, if there were rules about actions like that, when they can't take them, and/or what do you guys think are some decent house rules?

[Tadanori Oyama]

There was an articale about that happening during playtesting. I believe it was in the preview books.

Basically, the Dragon loses the free action use if it's sleep or otherwise unable to take free actions.

I can't cite the source at the moment, I'll see if I can find it again.

[KillianHawkeye]

Yeah, you can't take actions, even Free Actions, when you're unconscious.

[RebelRogue]

The same thing happened to me while running an encounter with a small Green dragon (vs. a lot of players. It was a special end-of-level thing for two groups combined). I actually let it use it's bloodied breath while sleeping then (it was kind of funny describing and nobody got really hurt anyway), but having re-thought it, I agree that being unconscious prevents you from taking any actions, even free ones.