D&D 5E Going Without Sleep

[Lanliss]

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.

In the link Xeviat gave, a guy was mentioned to have gone 6 months without sleep before he died.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It is already a bad enough penalty for most classes to not recover anything they normally would from a long rest, since a standard long rest is a normal night of sleep/meditation. But for additional penalties, I would seriously consider not allowing recovery of anything from a short rest either, if the characters have gone at least 24 hours since the end of their last long rest.

 

[Ed Laprade]

I believe some years back the U.S. Department of Defense oversaw flight simulation studies on military pilots in which a control group was compared with a group that had blood-alcohol levels above the legal limit for operating a vehicle, and a third group that had twenty-four (or more) hours without sleep. Results indicated sleep deprivation proved even more detrimental in the simulators than baseline legal intoxication (.08 blood-alcohol content in many parts of the United States).

Which is not an argument for operating vehicles under the influence of alcohol. However, it does suggest that sleep-deprivation is very bad for things like decision-making, dexterity precision, reaction time, and so forth. In addition, there are a growing number of studies examining the effects of sleep deprivation among medical residents assigned to 24- or 36-hour shifts on ward, and the results aren't good.

Which is the long way around to say that, in addition to the saving throws, you might also consider sleep-deprivation effects expressed as things like penalties to dexterity-based activity, reductions on intelligence-based and wisdom-based checks, and similar, as well as eventual h.p. damage at some point. Sleep deprivation is bad. There's a reason our brains need rest cycles.

Still learning,

Robert

And it gets worse. Quite a few years ago I read the results of an experiment in sleep deprivation. The people were allowed to get all the rest they were supposed to need, but not actually sleep. After a day or two things were as you describe them above. But after a couple/few (I don't remember just how long) more days they started hallucinating, then getting quite irritable. Finely, they were showing strong symptoms of true paranoia. The experiment had to be ended in less than a week because the patients were becoming a danger to themselves and others.

Unfortunately, I've never seen so much of as a mention of the study since.

 

[abirdcall]

Unfortunately, I've never seen so much of as a mention of the study since.

Pesky ethics getting in the way of science.

 

[Jester David]

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!

Con bonus in days before any penalties is a bit much. Even one day can mess you up. Plus, you don't want players alternating sleeping every other day because they can easily do a couple days without negative effect. Plus even making it 36 to 48 hours is pretty hard for the average person. The record setting 15 days probably shouldn't be the baseline, even for brave adventurers. (In the same way days without food or water doesn't assume you can survive the record month and change before dying.)

Maybe 1 level of exhaustion the first day and then saves every day to avoid getting worse, but the DC set low so you have good odds of making it two or three days before really suffering. DC 10 or so. That should get people a little over a week, which is probably far longer than a lack of sleeping situation will play out at the table (but not so long that it will never have any impact).

The insanity/ irritability is probably more of a Flaw than a mechanically penalty.

 

[Xeviat]

Which is the long way around to say that, in addition to the saving throws, you might also consider sleep-deprivation effects expressed as things like penalties to dexterity-based activity, reductions on intelligence-based and wisdom-based checks, and similar, as well as eventual h.p. damage at some point. Sleep deprivation is bad. There's a reason our brains need rest cycles.

Still learning,

Robert

Considering that Rank 1 of Exhaustion is Disadvantage on all Ability Checks, which is mostly mental and Dexterity checks, I think exhaustion would work just fine.

 

[UnknownDyson]

In the link Xeviat gave, a guy was mentioned to have gone 6 months without sleep before he died.

The longest documented period anyone has gone for without sleep is 11 days. That is the maximum amount of sleep deprivation that can be observed as fact.

 

[Lanliss]

The longest documented period anyone has gone for without sleep is 11 days. That is the maximum amount of sleep deprivation that can be observed as fact.

Then whoever wrote the article that is linked in post #3 has some explaining to do I guess.

 

[UnknownDyson]

Then whoever wrote the article that is linked in post #3 has some explaining to do I guess.

I read the article, all I am saying is that this should be looked at scientifically. And there isn't extensive documentation to back up those six months like there is for Randy Gardner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)#cite_note-bbccornwall-11

I am just going off of what has actually been recorded and documented without supposition or exaggeration.

 

[Lanliss]

I read the article, all I am saying is that this should be looked at scientifically. And there isn't extensive documentation to back up those six months like there is for Randy Gardner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)#cite_note-bbccornwall-11

I am just going off of what has actually been recorded and documented without supposition or exaggeration.

Fair enough, I can hardly claim to have done any research on the subject myself, beyond having gone 3-4 days without sleep a couple of times in the past.