D&D 5E Stealth and sleeping creatures

[Teemu]

I think a simple way to rule it is to say that the dragon doesn’t suffer any penalties to Perception within its blindsight radius, even when asleep. So the PC rolls Stealth normally against the sleeping dragon’s passive Perception.

 

[delphonso]

-5 seems fair. I'd modify this slightly, based on some real world conditions.

Sleeping under threat (in the wild/if worried about being pursued, etc) leaves us in lighter sleep in general (or makes our senses more ready to kick up to awake). If the dragon knows the PCs are coming, I'd leave passive perception as is, or give it a minus 2 to 5. Blindsight should wake it if they walk close (half blindsight range, maybe?)

Secure sleep and the creature sleeps deeply, if it doesn't know anything is going on with PCs, -5 to -10 to Passive seems fair to reflect the deep sleep they're in. Blight sight might only trigger if the PCs venture to a space adjacent the dragon.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Disadvantage on passive Perception seems like the way to go here. If the creature has blindsight (as with a dragon) or perhaps a relevant Keen Sense trait, then give them advantage which offsets disadvantage.

Just to clarify, disadvantage on a passive Perception in 5e is resolved by a -5 to the passive Perception score.

 

[iserith]

Just to clarify, disadvantage on a passive Perception in 5e is resolved by a -5 to the passive Perception score.

I assume everyone already knows that.

 

[GMMichael]

Dragons are an exception. Sometimes they wake up for no reason at all.

So do coyotes, even while you're chewing your arm off.

This is enough talk about -5s and -10s. Fifth edition people, not third:

The number is awfully big for 5e (5e would usually just say you can't do something rather than give it that sort of penalty), and I prefer not to break with 5e standards when possible. That means it should probably be handled in terms of absolute yes/possible yes/no, and Advantage/Disadvantage as modifiers within "possible yes" category.

So how would you handle sleeping creatures noticing stealthy characters, taking into account 5e standard operations and the specific details about waking in in XGtE?

Like this! Use your handy DC chart (5 is very easy, 10 is easy...) and PCs roll against that. PCs get disadvantage if they're walking across treasure, or close to the dragon, or what-have-you.

Re-reading the OP, though, the problem was how to handle the dragon's ability to notice. Not the PC's ability to sneak. That sounds like an active check to me. Dragon rolls perception with disadvantage, DC is the dex+stealth+10 of the noisiest/stinkiest/heaviest party member.

 

[jmartkdr2]

This is enough talk about -5s and -10s. Fifth edition people, not third:

The -5 on a passive score for disadvantage is the rule for 5e. PHB, pg 175.

RAW would be: roll stealth against their passive perception, but at -5 because of disadvantage.

Now if you'd rather roll for the dragon than use passive, that's fine too. Anything else is a houserule.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My alarm clock usually beats my passive perception. When it doesn't I sleep right through it!

As a true in real life take on sleeping and passive perception, when you become a parent you don't need a particularly loud sound to wake you up, just a sound your body hasn't gotten used to and learned to ignore.

I'd say a sleeping dragon loves their gold as much as a new parent their child....so they are normally precepting.

 

[Hriston]

The test of the "Sleep" spell supports this interpretation, because it causes unconsciousness and it refers to those affected as "sleepers".

However, it is just not 100% true that a sleeping person is totally unaware of their surroundings, or how would alarm clocks work?

Maybe they're unaware of their visual surroundings but, since they are not Deafened, they can still hear?

Like a lot of stuff in the game, it's an abstraction, so unaware of surroundings might not mean exactly the same thing it does in real life. The phrase "for game purposes" can be considered to be appended to "unaware of its surroundings", as it can for most things. To me, it means (among other things) you don't notice any hidden threats.

I think non-magical sleep should be somewhat less strong than the magical variety, but I still use Unconscious for it. It's just easier, in my game, to wake someone up from natural sleep. You don't have to use an action. Simply shouting at them is sufficient. And they don't have to take damage. They only need to be attacked. An alarm clock works because 1) the player says, "My character is setting an alarm, and when it goes off, I will wake up," and 2) it makes a loud noise which I, as DM, have determined will wake up anyone sleeping near enough.

I wouldn't differentiate between the senses. I would consider the condition to represent a creature being cut off from awareness of its surroundings in general.

Here's a chart to show how this fits into the game:

Activity	Passive Perception
Awake (conscious), not traveling at a fast pace, and keeping watch	Normal
Elven trance (semi-conscious) / Traveling at a fast pace and keeping watch	Disadvantage
Asleep or otherwise Unconscious / Other activities such as navigating, drawing a map, tracking, or foraging	n/a

 

[GMMichael]

The -5 on a passive score for disadvantage is the rule for 5e. PHB, pg 175. . .
Now if you'd rather roll for the dragon than use passive, that's fine too. Anything else is a houserule rule zero.

Huh. Well, since players don't declare passive checks, I'm not sure why WotC put that in the PHB. It should be in the DMG. Also not sure why there's a "passive" check rule at all in a streamlined game. But that's me, and I'm not in charge of an iconic RPG franchise.

I fixed that last part for you. The decision to use the DC chart, or no chart, is part of running the game for the DM - not a houserule.

 

[prabe]

Also not sure why there's a "passive" check rule at all in a streamlined game.

I believe the intent was to avoid many-to-most instances of "both sides roll" in the belief that roughly half as many people calculating their results would result in more streamlined game play. It can also work for streamlining stuff, if the DM knows the PCs' passive scores across the board and treats those as floors for determining, e.g., what characters know; you can think of it as being helpful for determining auto-success.