When the Waker Dreams...

My group is currently adventuring in "The land of Dreams". We treat it like another dimension, akin to the Plane of Shadows.

The dreamlands are always in twilight, neither day nor night. If a particular section is in "nightmare mode", the sky is overcast and the wind is chill, as if it were about to rain. Happy dream state is always clear skies and pleasant weather.

For odd reasons a PC Elf in the party started having a need to sleep. He was inexperienced at dreaming (since Elves don't normally sleep), and fell prey to the Big Bad of the campaign, or perhaps one of his minions. The Big Bad calls himself the Nightmare King.

Anyway, the party can't wake the Elf up, and using various means determined that he was being held in the dream realm and couldn't escape.

That's the background.

Some of the part went after him by drinking special sleep potions. Others used Shadow Walk to shift to that plane.

So here's a question: How do spell casters recover their spells there?

Obviously, the dreamers need to wake up, which means leaving the adventure, at least temporarily.

But if people who are actually there go to sleep, what happens? Does their dream form appear? Do their dream form appear in the waking world?

Now the party fought a few battles in there and burned some higher level stuff. They decided to camp at what felt like mid day, give or take an hour, and I let the sleepers "Dream that they slept", but I'm not sure how to follow this.

Two were Clerics, and their spell recovery has nothing to do with sleep or rest. Their spells come back at a particular time of day.

But in a land where it's never sunrise or sunset, no mid-day or midnight, how does that work?

Their in game time line was that they got up and got spells (so start an hour after sunrise), used Shadow Walk that takes 1d4 hours to go to another plane (they took two hours), which sets their arrival time at something mid-morning, like 9:30 to 10:0 am.

They made their way across a lake, fighting a lake monster on the way. after reaching the far shore they fought another encounter, a hefty one. The sky is dark and cloudy, so it's definitely nightmare territory.

From there they went to a road and made a late morning camp while they waited for a whole stream of undead to pass, so call that another hour.

Traveled an hour north on that road, towards the city, then left the road and made camp, to get spells back before trying to enter a nightmare version of a city that they knew.

I see that "Make camp" time at about noon. Add eight hours of sleep and...

Well, at some point those sleeping potions should wear off. And the Clerics/Druids shouldn't really have been able to recover spells, no matter whether they were able to "sleep" or not.

The question is, if their spell recovery is tied to a particular time of the day (in a world without standardized time/clocks), and it's always twilight...?

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. What are your thoughts on adventuring in this realm, and on the issue of spell recovery in specific?

I'm a bit torn on this. Part of me wants to say "Oh, you get your spells back at dawn? Well it's not dawn." and force the players to dig deep. Make every cantrip count. That wand you've been carrying around for the last three levels? Time to bust it out. Maybe by purging certain parts of the realm of the nightmare effects they gain a one time boon that lets them regain spells as daylight shines through briefly? But what if players regain spells at sunset? Could they constantly regain spells? On the other hand I could see that with some sort of crazy Planes or Survival check you would be able to know that now is the right time to ask your divine patron for spells.

When the players sleep in the dream world I'd say whatever one of the characters dreams about happens in the dreamscape for real. Is your character dreaming about the pretty barmaid from the last town? Well guess who's here! Dream about swimming in a lake of wine while being chased by gingerbread men? The party's life is about to get weird. Maybe give each PC a charisma check to see who affects the dream world the most. You could use this to inject humor into the session if need be.

I wouldn't let the potions the party took to wear off either. You're in the dream world and you're trapped there until you find the way out. Waking up the elf could be the way out. I could see players trying to dismiss the effects of the potion on themselves and wake up at the right moment. For instance, readying an action to dismiss the effect and wake up just as some big monster uses a powerful spell or ability. What if they wake up and try to ferry supplies into the dreamworld that way? I wake up, go shopping, go back to the inn and take another sleeping potion. Something like that. How rare is the sleeping potion supposed to be?

Well there are several approaches to take, and they are not mutually exclusive.

1st. Can they exercise any control over the dream space? Perhaps some will/concentration rolls to represent deep prayer will allow them to locally alter the dream to dream of Dawn and recover their spells. Perhaps they can find a "lucid dreaming" spell or potion (perhaps even within the dreamworld) to allow them to seize some small temporary control.

2nd. Maybe the clerics have to wake up (Hope you guessed the time right) to recover spells, and the fighter has to stay behind in the dream world to serve as their anchor lest they have to repeat their journey again. Now, you would want to be leery of combat encounters while forcing a split-the-party scenario but there should be some good RP opportunities.

3rd. It's extra-planar and a dreamworld to boot. Embrace the weird. Maybe they find a vampire dreaming of his lost sunrises and have to talk him into sharing his dream. If they need noon, it's a dream of spring break and they need to not get trapped in a dream of beach babes, beer, and bbq.

Good thoughts.

Here's a little background. They've been here before, as a group. It's always twilight here. Remember Orcs and Goblins dream too, so the time has to be hospitable to all the races. That's not something they can change.

Elves don't sleep, nor do undead, so as entertaining as the idea of the Vampire dreaming of a beautiful sunrise might seem, it really can't happen.

If the group came to a consensus as to what the dream world was like, they might affect it. Once PC an Orc Dragon Disciple, decided to dream himself into his eventual form, a winged half dragon. Couldn't do it until he raged in combat.

So personal changes are possible on an individual level. World changes need more than one person.

There are some creatures here that are purely dream stuff. Others are other dreamers. Some (but not all, or even most) of the dream creatures know what they are. Their nature changes depending on whether they need to be someone's dream, or someone's nightmare.

If you encounter an Elf there, or an undead, they're almost always dream creatures. Almost always. This plane is, as I said, closely related to the Plane of Shadows, so that it seems like a twisted version of the real world.

Some things tend to reflect as over dramatized versions of the real world. If a young man dreams of being the hero and saving the kingdom, the "enemy" is as stereotypically dark (and inept) as needed for the scene to play out.

The party was headed towards the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West (complete with flying monkeys). They stopped and asked a hedge witch for advice and she agreed to answer one (and only one) question for them. She said that the party leader (the Paladin of Freedom) would ask the question, and that they could discuss it among themselves first.

They decided to test the maleability of the dream, so they asked her where the secret back entrance to the palace was. They figured that by presuming such a thing existed, it would be come "real".

She stirred her cauldron and peered inside, then told them: "In the town there's a wine merchant named Gil'ooley. In the deepest of his storage cellars, along the north wall, there's a secret panel. That will lead you to the emergency escape passage from the castle."

Later they recalled that the Wicked Witch's castle had no town attached.

Last week, after finding and fighting/bargaining their way into the passage, they recalled something else: They had specified a way into the "Palace", not the "castle". They hadn't actually said which place they wanted to get into, and the hedge witch, being a dream creature in nightmare mode, had happily misdirected them.

I know that at least one of the players in the group reads this forum and that's all right. I'm not saying anything here that hasn't been said at the table.

Still, I messed up when I let them "sleep" to recover spells. I won't turn back time to correct my mistakes, but I will try to make it right by other means.

Well, arcane casters don't need to sleep for 8 hours, they need to rest for 8 hours. They could just sit in a chair and let their minds wander.

As for divine casters, the rules say that if they miss their time they need to pray as soon as possible, or just give them a divine alarm clock that pings their brain when it is time to pray.

yeah I think monks are similar

Spells work in the dream world? Since when? Since when does time have a definite meaning in the dream world? Since when does how long you spend in the dream world have anything to do with how long you are in the real world.

I'd flat out rule that spells don't work in the dream world. Or rather, anyone can cast spells in the dream world if they have enough Dreaming skill, simply by making a successful role to change the theme of the dream. Your characters are dreaming if they think that they are actually casting spells in the dream world. They apparently have enough self-possession to have retained their identity in the dream world (no mean feat in and of itself, since most people who go into the dreaming untrained, end up forgetting who or what they are). And they have apparently self-limited themselves to being who they are in reality. But in point of fact, none of that is necessary. You can cast spells at will in the dreaming, but that has only limited utility. It's all a dream after all.

The other possibility is that you are basically in some obscure portion of the ethereal plane or astral plane. Figure out how spells are recovered in those planes and apply those rules.

Well, there's two ways to get there, and that makes a difference.

Some of my party came by drinking a magical sleep potion. They're there in their dreams.

Most of my party came via Shadow Walk, using its ability to cross planes.

People there physically can sleep and recover spells. Dreamers need to wake up to do that. At least, that was the plan.

Since, as you suggest, time is uncertain there, I elected to make it always twilight, either approaching sunrise or after sunset, depending on a person's point of view. So people who recover spell at a particular time of day, such as Clerics and/or Druids, can find themselves in a bit of trouble.

Clerics and Druids are supposed to designate the time they get spells, based on their deity, and/or the aspect of that deity they favor. Sunrise, sunset, midnight and noon are popular times, with sunrise being the #1 choice by about 9 to 1. And the sun never rises in the dream realm.

But I still try to tie it to real world time. Whether you're a dreamer or a waker, I keep track of time spent in that realm for this specific reason. I'm not chained to it, of course, but players need to have at least a semblance of the normal rules if they're going to play the game.

Our Barbarian/Sorcerer/dragon Disciple, a dreamer, wanted to manifest his full Half Dragon form, the one he'll get in a few levels. I let it happen, when the circumstance seemed to warrant it. And it went away when he woke up.

Several people tried to manipulate the dream environment, and failed. If they had worked together it was possible, but as one wants it to change, the others are seeing it as it is, and acting like an anchor.

I'm trying to inspire some teamwork, and that was one aspect I planned in advance. So far though, I'm falling flat on that aspect. But that's another story...

Out of curiosity, what happens if you pray for spells at sunset? Is it always time to get new spells?

Since it's neither sunset or sunrise, no.

It's twilight, either pre-sunrise or post sunset, depending on the character's point of view.

Like I said though, I try to relate it, at least a little, to the waking world time frame, for wherever they were before they entered this realm.