Exhaustion question

[Banshee16]

I'm wondering.....

I'm running my party through Dead Gods at the moment, and they're in the Vault of the Drow. They're currently being hunted through the caverns by soldiers of House Tormtor. They've tried finding shelter and resting to recoup, but have been tracked down twice. In both cases, they've managed to get away, but they're getting weakened.

Our game ended this week with the PCs having been up and awake for about 23 hours.

Are there rules in the DMG or PHB about exhaustion? When do characters have to sleep? What are the effects if they try to continue without rest? I can't seem to find that information in the indexes of either book.

Banshee

 

[shilsen]

DMG pg. 300-301 has the effects of being fatigued or exhausted (as does the PHB glossary). I don't think the books spell out exactly how much sleep one must miss before being affected by tiredness, so you have to eyeball it. Having PCs up for 23 hrs would definitely put them at fatigued IMC.

 

[TimSmith]

Are they getting any time at all to sleep? (eg 20 mins, an hour, a couple of hours)?

It is a myth that you need 8 hours a night. Lots of people power nap (myself included) and keep going on that with very little "proper" sleep. Margaret Thatcher used to claim she only needed 4 hours a night, day in day out (although I make no claims as to the "correctness" of her decisions ) I am no expert, but I understand it is quality, not quantity of sleep that is important, in particular not having the deeper REM sleep constantly interrupted.

If this sleep deprivation doesn't last more than a couple of days, I would have thought adrenalin and fear would keep the PC's going. Having said that, if denied even a breather they will be physically exhausted from their exercise if nothing else.

Every person is different and feels the need for different amounts of sleep if they have a free choice. Here's a thought- check the PC backgrounds to see if they have young children. If they have then a measly single day of no sleep will be a holiday and I would give them a +2 competence bonus to all rolls for feeling more refreshed than usual

 

[Humoru]

Are they getting any time at all to sleep? (eg 20 mins, an hour, a couple of hours)?

It is a myth that you need 8 hours a night. Lots of people power nap (myself included) and keep going on that with very little "proper" sleep. Margaret Thatcher used to claim she only needed 4 hours a night, day in day out (although I make no claims as to the "correctness" of her decisions ) I am no expert, but I understand it is quality, not quantity of sleep that is important, in particular not having the deeper REM sleep constantly interrupted.

If this sleep deprivation doesn't last more than a couple of days, I would have thought adrenalin and fear would keep the PC's going. Having said that, if denied even a breather they will be physically exhausted from their exercise if nothing else.

Every person is different and feels the need for different amounts of sleep if they have a free choice. Here's a thought- check the PC backgrounds to see if they have young children. If they have then a measly single day of no sleep will be a holiday and I would give them a +2 competence bonus to all rolls for feeling more refreshed than usual

Unfortunately this is DnD and not reality

Here's the details fromthe rules:

Characters covering long distances cross-country use overland movement. Overland movement is measured in miles per hour or miles per day. A day represents 8 hours of actual travel time. For rowed watercraft, a day represents 10 hours of rowing. For a sailing ship, it represents 24 hours.

Walk: A character can walk 8 hours in a day of travel without a problem. Walking for longer than that can wear him or her out (see Forced March, below).

Forced March: In a day of normal walking, a character walks for 8 hours. The rest of the daylight time is spent making and breaking camp, resting, and eating.

A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It's possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard.

Run: A character can't run for an extended period of time.

Attempts to run and rest in cycles effectively work out to a hustle.

Hustle: A character can hustle for 1 hour without a problem. Hustling for a second hour in between sleep cycles deals 1 point of nonlethal damage, and each additional hour deals twice the damage taken during the previous hour of hustling. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from hustling becomes fatigued.

A fatigued character can't run or charge and takes a penalty of -2 to Strength and Dexterity. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue.

 

[Banshee16]

Unfortunately this is DnD and not reality

Here's the details fromthe rules:

Characters covering long distances cross-country use overland movement. Overland movement is measured in miles per hour or miles per day. A day represents 8 hours of actual travel time. For rowed watercraft, a day represents 10 hours of rowing. For a sailing ship, it represents 24 hours.

Walk: A character can walk 8 hours in a day of travel without a problem. Walking for longer than that can wear him or her out (see Forced March, below).

Forced March: In a day of normal walking, a character walks for 8 hours. The rest of the daylight time is spent making and breaking camp, resting, and eating.

A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It's possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard.

Run: A character can't run for an extended period of time.

Attempts to run and rest in cycles effectively work out to a hustle.

Hustle: A character can hustle for 1 hour without a problem. Hustling for a second hour in between sleep cycles deals 1 point of nonlethal damage, and each additional hour deals twice the damage taken during the previous hour of hustling. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from hustling becomes fatigued.

A fatigued character can't run or charge and takes a penalty of -2 to Strength and Dexterity. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue.

Thank you sir, you're right on the money....I knew I'd seen some form of rule, somewhere. In this case, the PCs travelled through the Abyss on the Plain of Infinite Portals, encountered an ambush set by a pair of Vrock who the caravan master had paid off to let the caravan past a tanar'ri battle force, and then walked about 5 hours to a portal to the Demonweb of Lloth. Another two hours walking through there with a Handmaiden of Lloth as a guide, and then through a conduit to the Fane of Lloth in the Vault of the Drow. After completing the trade, the PCs stayed behind, and negotiated access to the city, and spent another 2 hours on foot moving off into the wilderness of the cavern, making their way around the periphery of the cavern to stay away from drow patrols. At that point, I think they'd been up for about 10 hours. They attempted to camp near a river in the center of the cavern, at the edge of a mushroom forest, but were found by a patrol of drow after about 4 hours of sleep. They managed to drive them off, then crossed the river, and went deep into the mushroom forest on the other side to hide, and tried to rest again. After 2 more hours of sleep, one of the drow who had escaped the last battle returned with companions, using trolls to track down the PCs.

We ended the game after the ensuing battle. The PCs are having some difficulties because none of them speak the language. Without resting opportunities they can't memorize more Tongues spells.

So they've had maybe 6 hours of sleep, but interrupted. They haven't found anywhere safe to rest yet. They're starting to figure on just trying to slough on without stopping to rest, but if they do so, I figure there should be some form of fatigue...

Banshee

 

[Humoru]

Fatigue to exhaustion

Don't forget the following:
Fatigued: A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

 

[iwatt]

Don't forget the following:
Fatigued: A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

That means that after the 3rd hour of hustling your'e exhausted.
1hr: Non-Lethal = 0 OK
2hr: Non-Lethal = 1 Fatigued
3hr: Non-Lethal = 1+2=3 Fatigued+Fatigued=Exhausted.

Whuich applying the rules makes it almost impossible to hustle yourself to unconciousness.