Sleep Spell and Chain Awakening

iserith said:

Maybe goblins do. The Monster Manual and spell entry for sleep don't say one way or another.

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Can I ask you something? I'm not trying to be snarky or rude. Just honestly wondering...

What was the point of your OP?

I was operating under the assumption that you felt the result of group initiative and sleep was a bit quirky or odd and you wanted to see how other DMs would have handled it. Maybe I missed it...the thread is long...but it appears to me now that you have felt a need to defend your ruling against everyone who has expressed how they would have handled it differently or might handle similar situations in the future as if this is some sort of argument.

Was your ruling "wrong"? No. You didn't break any written rule. How the DM handles group initiative is left up to the DM. There is no wrong way. Whether goblns would know how to break magical sleep is entirely up to the DM. Whether they would bother to wake a sleeping comrade is likewise up to the DM. Whether a chain of three creatures using their action to wake sleeping comrades fits a narrative or not is also up to the DM...so your ruling was entirely correct, within the rules and valid by any objective standard.

You seem to have a need to argue about it with any who disagree.

Were your players cool with the way you ruled? If so...all is good. You be you.

iserith said:

Inherent in your question is an assumption that the DM has to resolve everything the exact same way all the time regardless of the circumstances. I don't share that assumption.

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I'm asking what the DM would do in a similar situation

all right then.....someone mentioned a city of sleeping goblins.....you damage the first one and they can all awaken? in 6 seconds? I know its a game and not a true simulation but that is pure dairy cheeseapalooza

this is the peasant railgun all over again in another form and a lot smaller scale

personally I would rule that gobbo 1 is awakened by a hammer to the face....then on the gobbos' turn he awakens gobbo 2....since 2 awakened on his turn he doesn't get an action

Uller said:

Can I ask you something? I'm not trying to be snarky or rude. Just honestly wondering...

What was the point of your OP?

I was operating under the assumption that you felt the result of group initiative and sleep was a bit quirky or odd and you wanted to see how other DMs would have handled it. Maybe I missed it...the thread is long...but it appears to me now that you have felt a need to defend your ruling against everyone who has expressed how they would have handled it differently or might handle similar situations in the future as if this is some sort of argument.

Was your ruling "wrong"? No. You didn't break any written rule. How the DM handles group initiative is left up to the DM. There is no wrong way. Whether goblns would know how to break magical sleep is entirely up to the DM. Whether they would bother to wake a sleeping comrade is likewise up to the DM. Whether a chain of three creatures using their action to wake sleeping comrades fits a narrative or not is also up to the DM...so your ruling was entirely correct, within the rules and valid by any objective standard.

You seem to have a need to argue about it with any who disagree.

Were your players cool with the way you ruled? If so...all is good. You be you.

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The point of the original post was to share something that was interesting about group monster initiative that I hadn't noticed before in play and to see if others had seen it as well.

Subsequently, some posters presented arguments about why particular rulings should or shouldn't be made, often on the basis of presuppositions presented as universal facts e.g. what a goblin would or wouldn't do or how quickly creatures wake up from sleeping, etc. Where they did that, I pointed out that their assertions are not axiomatic and therefore do not apply to other people's games. For those that presented things as "I run goblins this way in my campaign" or words to that effect, I gave them some XP and generally didn't argue against it because they were not presenting their preferences as something that does or should apply to other games.

I am not defending my ruling. I know it was correct for the game I run and according to my interpretation of the rules. I am, however, showing where appropriate how certain assertions are not applicable in all cases. I hope this clears up my position for you.

Eis said:

I'm asking what the DM would do in a similar situation

all right then.....someone mentioned a city of sleeping goblins.....you damage the first one and they can all awaken? in 6 seconds? I know its a game and not a true simulation but that is pure dairy cheeseapalooza

this is the peasant railgun all over again in another form and a lot smaller scale

personally I would rule that gobbo 1 is awakened by a hammer to the face....then on the gobbos' turn he awakens gobbo 2....since 2 awakened on his turn he doesn't get an action

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I really wouldn't consider four sleeping goblins in a chamber in a dungeon "a similar situation" to a 5000-strong goblin army passing an item down its ranks or entire city of sleeping goblins waking each other up. Please explain why you would, if you indeed do.

I otherwise take no issue with how you rule these things in your own game.

iserith said:

Interestingly, the entry in the Monster Manual says nothing about goblins being cowardly. They are "individually weak," "black-hearted," and "selfish" creatures who "crave power and regularly abuse whatever authority they obtain." Plus they are "lazy and undisciplined." But unless I missed something, nothing says they are cowardly. To the extent they are canonically selfish, a reasonable case can be made that it is not a selfless act to wake up a sleeping comrade. It could be said that Wartiak needed those goblins to help over his own escape. Goblins are "made bolder by their numbers," after all.



Maybe goblins do. The Monster Manual and spell entry for sleep don't say one way or another.



What's odd about that? Can you imagine a fictional justification that would make sense for a character to do that? I bet you can.

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"Narrative" was a poor word choice. That doesn't negate the fact that it's a clunky process to work through the rules sometimes create situations that drive the fiction in odd ways. Such as advice in another thread where a person was multiclassing paladin and warlock and complaining that they couldn't be holding their sword while casting warlock spells with somatic components. The answer (from several people) was the "drop your weapon, cast the spell, pick up your weapon." So in every combat that's what they would be expected to do to cast a warlock spell. Where in a real sword fight, if you dropped your weapon you'd be at an extreme disadvantage, and bending over to pick it up would likely get you killed.

In this case, it's a factor of the play experience: Oh, if I attack now, the goblins have the next initiative and they might be able to wake each other up, disengage, and escape. I'll move over here and ready my action to attack any goblin that wakes up, or this goblin once the fighter takes his attack. Then the inevitable discussion about whether you can have two triggers for a readied action. Then the goblins take their turn, might wake up or not, etc. All this to describe what? I walk over and attempt to kill the helpless creature.

It pulls you out of the fiction. I'd rather they just tell me that they go over to kill the sleeping goblins. Because putting them all to sleep while there is no imminent danger should pretty much end the combat. Kill them, tie them up, whatever. There was potential danger in the next room, but they weren't in any position to interfere with their actions yet.

Ilbranteloth said:

"Narrative" was a poor word choice. That doesn't negate the fact that it's a clunky process to work through the rules sometimes create situations that drive the fiction in odd ways. Such as advice in another thread where a person was multiclassing paladin and warlock and complaining that they couldn't be holding their sword while casting warlock spells with somatic components. The answer (from several people) was the "drop your weapon, cast the spell, pick up your weapon." So in every combat that's what they would be expected to do to cast a warlock spell. Where in a real sword fight, if you dropped your weapon you'd be at an extreme disadvantage, and bending over to pick it up would likely get you killed.

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That's why you throw the sword up in the air and it slow-mo tumbles end over end while you get off the spell, then catch it when it comes back down. Badass.

Ilbranteloth said:

In this case, it's a factor of the play experience: Oh, if I attack now, the goblins have the next initiative and they might be able to wake each other up, disengage, and escape. I'll move over here and ready my action to attack any goblin that wakes up, or this goblin once the fighter takes his attack. Then the inevitable discussion about whether you can have two triggers for a readied action. Then the goblins take their turn, might wake up or not, etc. All this to describe what? I walk over and attempt to kill the helpless creature.

It pulls you out of the fiction. I'd rather they just tell me that they go over to kill the sleeping goblins. Because putting them all to sleep while there is no imminent danger should pretty much end the combat. Kill them, tie them up, whatever. There was potential danger in the next room, but they weren't in any position to interfere with their actions yet.

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The thing is, there was imminent danger. The safer move by the player in that situation given the initiative order would have been to let sleeping goblins lie. The odds were on his side that he would have killed that goblin. Only he didn't and several goblins waking up and making a break for it was the result. Them's the breaks.

I don't see how this pulls one out of the fiction, though I take people at their word when they said it does so for them. It's a fairly easy thing in my view to take the rules and tactical situation into account when considering the fiction and to have both work hand in hand.

iserith said:

Interestingly, the entry in the Monster Manual says nothing about goblins being cowardly. They are "individually weak," "black-hearted," and "selfish" creatures who "crave power and regularly abuse whatever authority they obtain." Plus they are "lazy and undisciplined." But unless I missed something, nothing says they are cowardly. To the extent they are canonically selfish, a reasonable case can be made that it is not a selfless act to wake up a sleeping comrade. It could be said that Wartiak needed those goblins to help over his own escape. Goblins are "made bolder by their numbers," after all.

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Whether it says that in 5e somewhere or not, I have no idea. It probably comes from an earlier edition, and the goblins in my world haven't changed, even if the MM or Volo's Guide or whatever decides to make them different.

Cowardly or not, though, I was thinking about it, and it's an interesting question regardless. You're in the midst of battle, are put to sleep by a spell, and then are rudely awakened when you're hit by a mace. A quick look around the battlefield shows your opponents all standing, and your allies all lying unconscious or dead. The nearest escape takes you past your fallen allies but to where additional allies are waiting, so what do you do?

Whether a goblin would figure out they are asleep due to the same spell is probably less relevant than whether they would attempt to defend/save an ally, and what their version of ally is compared to ours. If it's a survival of the fittest sort of thing, they might just very well leave them.

I'd also like to clarify that I don't have any issue with how you adjudicated the scene. Finding a clever escape is always fun. It's just a good example, as you point out, of how the initiative system creates a scenario that probably wouldn't otherwise occur, and also had the effect of more or less negating the sleep spell entirely, also as you pointed out. It's also an example of something that probably wouldn't ever occur in our campaign because we use an alternate combat system that wouldn't have artificially created the circumstance for this to occur.

The start/stop nature of turn-based combat is something we dislike altogether, and the group initiative makes it even more apparent. As others have pointed out, the circumstance was pretty rare. It had to be goblins, and it had to put all of them to sleep (although casting a sleep spell against any number of goblins just before their initiative turn would have the same effect since any of the goblins that are awake can start the chain).

Whether that bothers you or not is really up to you and certainly not wrong, and as written I think it's the right call.

iserith said:

That's why you throw the sword up in the air and it slow-mo tumbles end over end while you get off the spell, then catch it when it comes back down. Badass.

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"Yes, I am a Paladin McWarlock, but, my Background is - Juggler! Oh, and I'm NOT left-handed..."

iserith said:

That's why you throw the sword up in the air and it slow-mo tumbles end over end while you get off the spell, then catch it when it comes back down. Badass.



The thing is, there was imminent danger. The safer move by the player in that situation given the initiative order would have been to let sleeping goblins lie. The odds were on his side that he would have killed that goblin. Only he didn't and several goblins waking up and making a break for it was the result. Them's the breaks.

I don't see how this pulls one out of the fiction, though I take people at their word when they said it does so for them. It's a fairly easy thing in my view to take the rules and tactical situation into account when considering the fiction and to have both work hand in hand.

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In this case it's primarily the goblin chain that does it for me. "Oh, I'm awake, I'll slap him then run away...oh, I'm awake, I'll slap him and run away...oh, I'm awake, I'll slap him and run away..." all while the fighter is swinging that sword in slow...slower...slower still...motion. The secondary aspect is where the players spend a lot of time trying to figure out the right order, etc. to coordinate their actions to avoid it. Both break my suspension of disbelief/immersion. Probably followed by a discussion, "is that legal?" Checking books, the wizard complaining that he wasted his spell, etc. Not all of that's going to really happen in every campaign, of course.

As for the imminent danger, there wasn't any if they didn't attack. In which case there isn't any. The only reason that there was "imminent" danger when they attacked was the initiative order. If the cleric had skipped their turn or readied their action, then they would have let the goblin's turn pass, and the other characters could have finished them off.

Plus, as soon as any discussion regarding initiative order starts, you've already drawn me out of the immersion simply because such a thing doesn't exist in the world. It's not a question of the cleric thinking, "OK, so the goblins didn't take their turn this round. Did the fighter get to go first last round, or were the goblins first? I can't remember. Hey fighter, is your hit going to land before or after the goblin's turn?"

Again, that's us, and we've adjusted the rules to eliminate these types of scenarios, although that's not the only reason.

iserith said:

In other words, the case for Wartiak having this knowledge and wherewithal is about as strong as him not having it in my view.

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Then, did you roll a roughly 50% chance for Wartiak to have this knowledge and wherewithal?

Or did you just decide that he had it? In hindsight, do you feel that was that the correct decision?

(FWIW, I think you ran the rules exactly as written, and it worked fine. So to me, the more interesting question, is whether NPCs understand the game rules enough to take the optimal actions in scenarios like this.)