I've been playing D&D since the late 70s from Basic, Advanced, etc, through 3E and 4E and have never found Sleep to be this super "I win" button as either a player or a DM. In 3.5E, it only affects up to 4HD of creatures, requires a full round to cast and requires V, S and M components. It also is a Will negates and does not affect undead or constructs. So, if the wizard memorized sleep as one of his first level spells for that day and you encounter skeletons and zombies, you're out of luck. If you cast Sleep at 4 kobolds, chances are that at least one of them makes a save - if they don't detect the wizard first while he's chanting his magic words and waving his arms around for a full round.
A Rekindled Glimmer of Hope
- Thread starter innerdude
- Start date
I've been playing D&D since the late 70s from Basic, Advanced, etc, through 3E and 4E and have never found Sleep to be this super "I win" button as either a player or a DM. In 3.5E, it only affects up to 4HD of creatures, requires a full round to cast and requires V, S and M components. It also is a Will negates and does not affect undead or constructs. So, if the wizard memorized sleep as one of his first level spells for that day and you encounter skeletons and zombies, you're out of luck. If you cast Sleep at 4 kobolds, chances are that at least one of them makes a save - if they don't detect the wizard first while he's chanting his magic words and waving his arms around for a full round.
ExploderWizard
Hero
Sleep has limits. It is only an encounter ending spell at very low levels. At 5th level the party encounters 6 ogres, of which the magic user can put ONE to sleep. Hardly encounter ending.
There are higher level encounter ending spells but they also have limits.
Sleep is Mearls' example of a way for a wizard to shine, not mine. He probably has some idea how effective it is in D&DN against a bunch of kobolds. Certainly more than I do.
Oni
First Post
There are people that like classes to play dramatically differently, and that includes how important luck is to a classes performance. For instance it's not uncommon to see proc or crit based classes in MMO's and other computer RPG's, or classes that have an immense amount of control, but aren't forgiving of mistakes, or classes that are really good against single foes, or certain kinds of foes, but weaker in other situations. Personally I consider the allowing some classes to rest more heavily on luck and some less so to be a feature, not a bug. Classes should be different, different mechanics, different levels of complexity, different margins of error, different levels of reliance on luck, different, different, different.
yes, but a few quotes above in this thread (and in some other threads in the past) seem to indicate that Sleep is this all powerful spell that means you automatically win an encounter each time it is cast.
Doug McCrae
Legend
What if the players bypass content? Say you have an adventure made up of 12 encounters and the wizard has 3 encounter ending spells. The players are clever and avoid 9 of the encounters, leaving only 3. Doesn't that mean that the wizard wins every encounter?
We did this, in a session of 3e. The DM had a dungeon inside a steep-sided mountain. My character was a drider with a strength in the mid-20s. We figured out that I could climb up the side of the cliffs, carrying the rest of the party on my back, so we went straight to the final battle, admittedly missing out on some of the treasure.
Personally I don't much like to bypass content, as I see it as entertainment the GM has spent time on creating for the players. It's rather disrepectful, not much different than refusing to enter the dungeon at all. But a lot of groups seem to be cool with it, seeing the avoidance of worthless or 'trap' encounters, such as wandering monsters, as part of the challenge.
We did this, in a session of 3e. The DM had a dungeon inside a steep-sided mountain. My character was a drider with a strength in the mid-20s. We figured out that I could climb up the side of the cliffs, carrying the rest of the party on my back, so we went straight to the final battle, admittedly missing out on some of the treasure.
Personally I don't much like to bypass content, as I see it as entertainment the GM has spent time on creating for the players. It's rather disrepectful, not much different than refusing to enter the dungeon at all. But a lot of groups seem to be cool with it, seeing the avoidance of worthless or 'trap' encounters, such as wandering monsters, as part of the challenge.
slobster
Hero
Talking 3E at least, sleep is an ability given to a first level character that can completely overcome a combat encounter that would normally take an entire party to defeat, quickly and without taking injury or risking death.
This is a capability no non-spellcasting character at that level has. Sure sometimes the sleep won't land, but sometimes it will, and for that encounter nobody else contributed. The wizard wasn't just the MVP, he was the whole team roster.
Some people have a problem with this sort of game design. You may not, but it is an identifiable issue with a basis in an objective look at the way the game works.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Further to this point, I wonder if this is a universal desire, or if a significant number of rpgers, especially GMs, *want* the game text to be obscure?
If it takes many years to uncover how a roleplaying game, such as 1e AD&D actually works, if it's hard to run 1e AD&D well, then it means good DMs are rare, and the skills of those few good DMs become all the more valuable.
If someone had taken the time and effort to become a good DM, if they had finally uncovered the secrets of the game, might not they want those secrets to remain hidden?
I've never seen anyone express this view, I merely raise it as a possibility.
DMKastmaria
First Post
There may be some individuals who feel that way. The 300+ OSR bloggers, and host of Old School Forum dwellers, sharing and discusing everything they can think of about DMing, sometimes on a daily basis, would seem to suggest that kind of stinginess isn't a common trait.
