D&D 5E Sleep spell overpowered?

AaronOfBarbaria

Adventurer

• Dec 4, 2015

• #11

SheckyS said:

So isn't that kinda... overpowered?

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No.

SheckyS said:

Or have I got something wrong?

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You have mismatched your expectations of what the terms used to identify varying encounter difficulties mean to the way in which D&D 5th edition actually uses them, or at the very least have looked at how the sleep spell performs in its best possible circumstance for usage, and missed that if that same XP value of encounter were instead with a singular monster that sleep would, on average, not do anything.

On average you can make 4 average hit point kobolds fall asleep - or less than a single average hit point bugbear, or just one average hit point orc because a remainder of 7.5 affected HP doesn't mean diddly if there isn't another creature nearby with that few hp.

 

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Eltab

Lord of the Hidden Layer

• Dec 5, 2015

• #12

During an AL module, a Minotaur burst in the room where my group was. I hit it with an Alpha Strike and then the Wizard cast _Sleep_. Down it went for a nap. I walked out of the room and found the Minotaur's allies in the hallway threatening the owner of the building. I stepped aside so they could see behind me, hooked my thumb over my shoulder, and said, "He scared me. You don't scare me." The allies surrendered without further ado. (I had a negative Intimidate modifier at the time, but didn't have to roll a die.)

Here is the important point: if I had not tried to exploit the advantage of our victory, this would have been a tough resource-burning encounter. (We would have still been fighting THEM when HE woke up again.)
When your players are clever and effective, let them enjoy their Triumph.
There are ways to design encounters so _Sleep_ doesn't do much; several are listed up-thread. If you have a BBEG in the background, have him learn from the kobolds' failure - but they have to fail first so he realizes there is a problem to address. You (or Fate) will get your chance eventually.

 

Raith5

Adventurer

• Dec 5, 2015

• #13

My experience as a player is that sleep is a very powerful spell in practice (especially compared to other 1st level spells). It can be cast at higher level spell slots and it affects current hit points not starting hit points, so it has utility at the start and near the end of a combat.

 

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Rya.Reisender

Explorer

• Dec 5, 2015

• #14

As the others said, Sleep is kind of strong in that particular situation, but generally, what I think is most important to consider is:

1. Sleep can also hit allies.
As DM play your monsters always so that some of them go for melee attacks. Don't put all the monsters in the same area. Force the wizard to place his AoE so that an ally could potentially be affected (in that regard a high roll might actually be a bad thing) or at least so that he can only hit half of the monsters with one spell.

2. You can wake up any sleeping monster by using an action.
You don't have to take the guaranteed critical hit with all the creature that fell asleep. Often it's better to prioritize waking them up. And you could give some monsters a blowgun so they can wake up at range.

If you keep this in mind Sleep is still particularly useful in certain battles, but in other battles Sleep is the worse choice.

 

S

Sword of Spirit

Legend

• Dec 5, 2015

• #15

I like what they've done with sleep. It's fairly potent to start, and it scales. Is it worth casting in a 9th level spell slot? Not very often. But that virtual "power word sleep" might come in handy if you were sure the hp of the big bad were pretty low at the moment.

In all three of the times in Lost Mine of Phandelver where I've seen the fight with the bugbear in the first cave (twice as DM, once as player), sleep has been cast, and in all three of those times I'm sure the fight would have been a lot scarier without it (and that was already a pretty scary fight).

But, as others have said, it's definitely not overpowered, even at the start. It does one thing that is particularly useful in certain situations, and does it well.

 

ExploderWizard

Hero

• Dec 5, 2015

• #16

SheckyS said:

So I'm kinda new to 5e and I am about to DM my first game (via FantasyGrounds).
I've got 5 PCs, one of which is a Wizard with the Sleep spell.

According to all of the encounter difficult calculators I can find, 4 Kobolds will be Easy for this group and 5-7 will be medium difficult. But...

Kobolds average 5 HPs each.

And Sleep affects 5d8 hit points worth of enemies, right (for an average of around 22.5 HPs)? So that's at least 4 Kobolds knocked out and essentially dead in one shot. And apparently the Kobolds don't even get a save - or at least the spell description doesn't indicate one.

So isn't that kinda... overpowered?
Or have I got something wrong?

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Sleep is supposed to be effective against weak enemies. That spell slot is used up though so this won't be spammed every fight. If used in the best case situation it is supposed to be a game changer. Smart players won't be tossing it out against every encounter with a half dozen kobolds. If they do then they will be down to cantrips when the bigger threats show up and the PCs will be wishing that they had been more careful with their resources.

 

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UngeheuerLich

Legend

• Dec 5, 2015

• #17

It is at the same time worse and better than in previous editions:

in 3.5 it affected 4 koblds too, but they got a will safe. In editions before that, it affected more than 4 kobolds... I think it was 2d4 worth of hit dice, with kobolds only having a quarter or so.

 

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bgbarcus

Explorer

• Dec 6, 2015

• #18

There have been lots of good comments about Sleep so I'll toss out one partially off topic. Do not underestimate how dangerous kobolds are against 1st level characters. They tend to show up in large numbers and those slings are deadly. My group got so seriously beat up by kobolds using ranged attacks at first level that they are still wary of them at 5th level.

 

K

kalil

Explorer

• Dec 6, 2015

• #19

Sleep can kill 4 kobolds on average with no save

Burning hands can kill any number of kobolds with no save (since even the damage on a succesful save kills a kobold)

Which is the over powered spell?

 

NotActuallyTim

First Post

• Dec 6, 2015

• #20

Power and balance are always a little bit subjective. Keep in mind that Sleep, as an AoE, relies in no small part on enemies being in a certain distance from one another, and also on the enemies not being all around or mixed in with party space. It's high power in effect on small, low HP enemies, but unless they're inside a 40 ft wide area that has no or few PCs in it, that's got its' center within 90 ft of the caster, it's far less effective.

The initial positioning of enemies determines the effectiveness of many different spells. If the party walks into a room with kobolds hiding around the perimeter of the room, waiting to jump out and throw rocks, knives or other dangerous objects, then Sleep is only going to hit so many of them.

Be careful with this. As a DM, you want the casters to cast spells. Otherwise if you're building up to something special, they're going to have all their resources available, and will solve the problem in just a few turns of spell casting. So remember that if you put a bunch of kobolds right next to each other and keep them that way, congratulate yourself when the Wizard casts Sleep on them, just like you planned.