D&D 5E Going Without Sleep

[Horwath]

This was also on an episode of MythBuster, and their tests confirmed driving while tired is as bad as driving while drunk.

I watched that episode. It was worse than driving drunk.

I would say that after 36 hrs awake you get one level of exaustion then one extra every 24 hrs.

 

[Gonat]

My players where recently pestered during their sleep time by some low level enemies (too weak to take on them but capable of fire arrows in the night, start smelling fires upwind from the pc camp, play the trumpets and the horn loudly and run, etc..), but with the numbers to make shifts in this work (and sustain the losses.. not every wake up operation was without problem).
In this occasion after a 24 h period of sleep deprivation I started burden the pc with a level of exaustion for every other 24h period without Cos save. In this specific scenario the saves will have diluted the sense of tension and the urgency to reach the civilization quickly. But I had to watch out for the barbarian that started with a couple of level of exaustion after some encounter. The others make sure to take all the possible action to grant him a couple hours of sleep every now and then.

 

[Mirtek]

Aren't there actually rules in 5e about gaining exhaustion level for not sleeping?

 

[BoldItalic]

What if the PCs deprive monsters of sleep? Do you apply the same rules to bandits and goblins? And what about elves, who don't sleep anyway? How many weeks can an elf go without trancing?

 

[l0lzero]

Aren't there actually rules in 5e about gaining exhaustion level for not sleeping?

I could have sworn there were too, but I can't seem to find them. For some reason I thought the number of days you could go without sleep before con saves was tied to your con bonus, and that this was outlined somewhere in Out of the Abyss, but having skimmed through the PHB, DMG, and OotA, I can't find the rules anywhere, which makes me wonder where the heck we even got that idea (I was playing a monk, everyone was tired and exhausted, and I had the best con in the group so I stayed up to keep watch while everyone else rested, after kind of sort of blowing myself up on purpose at a natural gas pocket (human variant, magic initiate druid for produce flame, thorn whip, and cure wounds, used produce flame to ignite my improvised kusari-gama and hurled it into the pocket from as far away as I could, but the blast was larger than my range lol) so I wasn't in GREAT shape, but I was better off than the rest of the party (thank you cure wounds on myself once a day )).

I'm not giving up, I'm totally going to find those rules dammit!

 

[UnknownDyson]

The longest scientifically documented record of a human being going without sleep is 264 (11 days) and is held by a man named Randy Gardner. As for what sort of penalties should be applied for sleep deprivation, If I were DM I would rule that after a humanoid has stayed active without a period of rest for 24 hours they would be required to role a con save. How extraneous their actions were that day would determine how high the DC is. If you fought 3 encounters that day, the DC will be pretty damn high. If the player fails they will suffer a level of exhaustion. If the player succeeds he/she avoids suffering a level of exhaustion but only for the first 24 hours.

In this state if the player engages in any sort of low maintenance activity without using stimulants to stay awake they are required to make a saving throw (with a high DC) to remain awake. For each subsequent 8 hour period that the subject does not sleep they automatically acquire another level of exhaustion unless sustained by magical means. I believe that the subjects exhaustion level should be capped at 4 depending on their activity and how long they have gone without sleep. Also, if its only sleep deprivation and not disease or magic that is afflicting the character, I would have them roll a madness saving throw before they acquired the exhaustion 5 effect (which is your speed becomes 0). Sleep deprivation has been documented to severely alter the subject's brain activity and personality. If they are sitting in their room looking over wizard tomes and drinking coffee for seven days straight, they should acquire levels of madness (imo). This is very different from physically take your body to the brink in a battle, which should require immediate rest.

 

[dmnqwk]

Good lord.

How about 'Make a DC 15 Con check or suffer a level of exhaustion.'

As I'm sure you are aware, sleep deprivation is NOT primarily about the physical detriment but more affects your mental and cognitive functions. The exhaustion table is too heavily focused on the physical aspect to really apply. As all long-term sleep deprivation studies have shown cognitive impairment is high and, while you might want to simply apply Exhaustion, I don't think speed halved is really appropriate, or hit point max halved, are directly relatable.

The other issue is Sleep deprivation is more heavily a "willpower" focus, which now falls under the purview of wisdom saving throws. I can understand why you wish you could simplify it down to a Con check, but it's really not a physical endeavour to stay awake, but a mental one. Feeling "so tired" because of a lack of sleep is more because your brain is struggling to cope, as opposed to your body.

If you want a simple thing, I'd go with:
You can stay awake for 24 hours with no effect, after which a DC 15 Wisdom check is required to stay awake. After 48 hours awake you suffer disadvantage on all checks and cannot concentrate on spells.

 

[l0lzero]

As I'm sure you are aware, sleep deprivation is NOT primarily about the physical detriment but more affects your mental and cognitive functions. The exhaustion table is too heavily focused on the physical aspect to really apply. As all long-term sleep deprivation studies have shown cognitive impairment is high and, while you might want to simply apply Exhaustion, I don't think speed halved is really appropriate, or hit point max halved, are directly relatable.

The other issue is Sleep deprivation is more heavily a "willpower" focus, which now falls under the purview of wisdom saving throws. I can understand why you wish you could simplify it down to a Con check, but it's really not a physical endeavour to stay awake, but a mental one. Feeling "so tired" because of a lack of sleep is more because your brain is struggling to cope, as opposed to your body.

If you want a simple thing, I'd go with:
You can stay awake for 24 hours with no effect, after which a DC 15 Wisdom check is required to stay awake. After 48 hours awake you suffer disadvantage on all checks and cannot concentrate on spells.

The reason so many people reduce it to con saves is because it is physically taxing to try and stay awake beyond 24 hours, and the default rules do not include madness rules. If you wanted to make it more realistic (and only marginally more complex) you would have the player roll two saves, the first is a con save to see if you have enough energy to physically stay awake, and the second is a wis roll to see if you suffer any negative mental effects, upon failure, they are subject to either madness, or effects similar to the confusion spell, but this would still result in you having to come up with reasonable sleep deprivation mental effects, because it's not until you have been deprived of sleep for extended periods of time that you begin to hallucinate to the point that you would attack allies. I've stayed up far longer than 48 hours without chemical assistance (yay insomnia) and suffered only mild disorientation (loss of ability to keep track of time, dizziness, loss of coherence in thought, etc.), but we want mechanical effects, not stuff with no mechanical impact like "you forgot what you were talking about" or "you can't remember if it's dawn or sunset" etc.

I like the idea of a wisdom save in addition to a con save, but I think maybe a mental exhaustion table would be the most realistic, but I would still keep the con save as a part of it.

 

[Mirtek]

I could have sworn there were too, but I can't seem to find them. For some reason I thought the number of days you could go without sleep before con saves was tied to your con bonus, and that this was outlined somewhere in Out of the Abyss,

Me too. And it was before OotA. Maybe in some version of the playtest rules and later scrapped for the final PHB? But I definately read it somewhere

 

[Mercule]

As I'm sure you are aware, sleep deprivation is NOT primarily about the physical detriment but more affects your mental and cognitive functions. The exhaustion table is too heavily focused on the physical aspect to really apply. As all long-term sleep deprivation studies have shown cognitive impairment is high and, while you might want to simply apply Exhaustion, I don't think speed halved is really appropriate, or hit point max halved, are directly relatable.

Since hit points are explicitly not entirely physical, I don't see a problem: You're flat-out easier to kill if you're dragging your hind end. I could be sold on using Wisdom instead of Constitution, though.

IIRC, it's about 15 days before you die from lack of sleep. Based on that, I'd say a Wisdom save every day, with a DC of (15 + sleepless days + current fatigue level) would be appropriate for absolutely no sleep. You can grant a bonus on the save of +2 for each hour of sleep the character gets. Checks start once you either miss all sleep in a night or go three days with less than half your required sleep. Any night in which you get a full allotment of sleep does not require a save and resets the sleepless days count.

That system makes that 15 day mark something of an inevitability, if you can't get sleep. It also grants some pretty good bonuses for getting any rest. It's totally not play-tested, but I don't expect most parties to get beyond the first couple levels. It's just not that common. Instead, having rules encourages the players to manage something the characters would almost be forced to do.

I'd probably only bother checking for falling asleep during a short rest. Make a Wisdom save vs. whatever the current target is or lose the benefit of the short rest because you didn't actually get a chance to bandage wounds, or whatever. Additionally, you are automatically surprised should anything happen during the rest. Any other impact is easy enough to handle by the level 1 impact of disadvantage to ability checks (including surprise/perception and initiative) -- at DMO, the character might have to make more surprise checks than usual, just to be sure.