D&D 5E Is the sleep spell d&d 5e too powerful

[Dausuul]

Can you answer my question (from my example) please, thank you. A 1st level wizard has a high chance of wiping out the rest of his party with one spell, sleep!

You asked one question in your OP: "Is the sleep spell too powerful and in need of a revision?"

The answer to that question is "no."

The reason is that 5E is not a PVP game.

 

[LordEntrails]

The group doesn't even know there getting attacked, Bam (out of the blue and out of the affected area) he casts sleep!

And two of the 4 are put to sleep. Not all 4. Then the fighter goes over and pummels him.

A quarter staff does 1d8 + 1d8 (critical) + any other bonuses (advantage). So high chance of killing the rogue, then the cleric and maybe finish off the fighter.

High chance... except the fighter is not asleep.

Dude, you're ignoring what everyone is saying. Actually go run the scenario. A scenario where you are assuming the wizard gets surprise, that all the PCs are within it's area of effect. That absolutely nothing else is going on to interfere.

Of course you can think or other various scenarios where one character under specific conditions can do something awesome. That's the way things are supposed to work.

Enjoy, but sleep is not overpowered.

 

[neogod22]

Once again, you say six. I say 4 ( 3 not including yourself) even easier a party of 3. So once again, a 1st level spell capable of wiping out 2 ( possibly 3) party members with a high probablity chance of success!

The average party is 5-6 players. The fact that you are actively wanting to reduce the number to make your argument shows the fallacy in it. Also you're forgetting you habe to roll dice, and while it's possible to roll 40hp and take out 3 or 4 members of your party, it's just as possible to roll 5hp and take none of them down.

 

[Salthorae]

Once again, you say six. I say 4 ( 3 not including yourself) even easier a party of 3. So once again, a 1st level spell capable of wiping out 2 ( possibly 3) party members with a high probablity chance of success!

No.

Even if you assume your original post where Fighter = 12 hp, Cleric = 9 hp, Rogue = 8 hp.

Everyone rolls initiative because you are initiating combat even though they're asleep. You cast sleep spell in the first round without opposition because you get surprise in that round.

If you roll high enough they're all asleep. If you don't, those that you didn't get would get perpception checks to wake up.

Great, now you get a free attack on your party members who are asleep.

You still have to roll to hit. Yes, you have advantage, but you can miss the attack, even on a sleeping target.

IF you hit with a... firebolt. You'll probably kill the rogue or cleric. Maybe depending on the dice. If you dont', they automatically wake up and act in the initiative order that was rolled earlier. They might go before you.

Anyone (probably the fighter) who didn't get slept by the spell, gets a chance to wake up each time you cast a spell whether its on them or not. If they wake up, they act on their init. If the fighter wakes up, you probably lose this attempted murder.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed if you play how the rules are actually written? No.

As others have pointed out, it's not too powerful, even if you want to PVP and happen to be a serial killer wizard.

Plus, good luck playing in that group anymore!

But wait, there's more!

That human fighter or the human rogue, took Alertness with their bonus feat. They get +5 to their init, so if you dont' sleep them there is a great chance they go before you.

Better also try this before someone in the party gets a Weapon of Warning. You'd wake them all up immediately when you became an enemy by targeting them with hostile intent.

 

[the Jester]

A quarter staff does 1d8 + 1d8 (critical) + any other bonuses (advantage). So high chance of killing the rogue, then the cleric and maybe finish off the fighter.

Sure, it could happen that way. But that doesn't change anything- once again, you don't check the balance of D&D features by assuming a pvp. Especially one where one half of the pvp has everything perfectly arranged and the others don't. Let's be real here- in your scenario, you have to assume that the rest of the party is nicely bunched up for you, that you aren't in range yourself (oops!), that everyone has the low Con scores you seem to think likely (and that really aren't in real play; I would expect the party to have at least 4 more hps than you between them, which matters here), that you roll high enough to put them all to sleep, that nobody is an elf, that you both hit and do enough damage to one-shot everyone with your staff AND you do it fast enough that sleep doesn't wear off first, etc. That sort of white-room theorycrafting is just not a very accurate representation of what encounters actually look and flow like.

If you have to worry about one of the pcs turning on the others, and that's not a fun playstyle for you, then you probably should consider finding a different group or at least discussing your social contract. Otherwise, quit worrying about it- either your group enjoys it, or you don't have to worry about it coming up.

Play the game! Try it on in a real (well, a real for D&D) scenario. Don't rely on how things look on paper.

 

[Jasondd]

And two of the 4 are put to sleep. Not all 4. Then the fighter goes over and pummels him.

High chance... except the fighter is not asleep.

Dude, you're ignoring what everyone is saying. Actually go run the scenario. A scenario where you are assuming the wizard gets surprise, that all the PCs are within it's area of effect. That absolutely nothing else is going on to interfere.

Of course you can think or other various scenarios where one character under specific conditions can do something awesome. That's the way things are supposed to work.

Enjoy, but sleep is not overpowered.

You are the fourth member of the party, so three targets. It is easy to canculate yourself out of the affected area. So far pretty simple scenario with a fatal outcome. If there are 2 targets the probability is almost 100% and with 3 targets, still very high.

 

[Jasondd]

Sure, it could happen that way. But that doesn't change anything- once again, you don't check the balance of D&D features by assuming a pvp. Especially one where one half of the pvp has everything perfectly arranged and the others don't. Let's be real here- in your scenario, you have to assume that the rest of the party is nicely bunched up for you, that you aren't in range yourself (oops!), that everyone has the low Con scores you seem to think likely (and that really aren't in real play; I would expect the party to have at least 4 more hps than you between them, which matters here), that you roll high enough to put them all to sleep, that nobody is an elf, that you both hit and do enough damage to one-shot everyone with your staff AND you do it fast enough that sleep doesn't wear off first, etc. That sort of white-room theorycrafting is just not a very accurate representation of what encounters actually look and flow like.

If you have to worry about one of the pcs turning on the others, and that's not a fun playstyle for you, then you probably should consider finding a different group or at least discussing your social contract. Otherwise, quit worrying about it- either your group enjoys it, or you don't have to worry about it coming up.

Play the game! Try it on in a real (well, a real for D&D) scenario. Don't rely on how things look on paper.

Good point for the elf, yet I strongly feel that this is a way too powerful spell for a 1st level. Which offers NO SAVING THROW. Thanks for your insight

 

[Jasondd]

Where are you getting these "next 10 rounds he has advantage"? The target wakes up the moment it takes damage...

Sleep is a VERY strong spell in the early levels of the games when you have little spell slots to spend so it gives you more bang for your buck. However, as you gain more spell slots you could use it on, it starts to scale less effectively. By the time you're level 4 or 5, if you're not facing a single low CR enemy, you won't be able to do much with it.

Where are you getting these "next 10 rounds he has advantage"? The target wakes up the moment it takes damage...

Sleep is a VERY strong spell in the early levels of the games when you have little spell slots to spend so it gives you more bang for your buck. However, as you gain more spell slots you could use it on, it starts to scale less effectively. By the time you're level 4 or 5, if you're not facing a single low CR enemy, you won't be able to do much with it.

Sleep 1 minute (10 rounds) and you can't wake up if your dead...

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

The odds of that Wizard rolling 29hp or better is under 13% (I think). It doesn't look especially likely that the wizard could drop the entire party described in the OP. Would a high-Int serial killer wizard risk those odds?

No, sleep doesn't appear to be particularly overpowered.

 

[neogod22]

No.

Even if you assume your original post where Fighter = 12 hp, Cleric = 9 hp, Rogue = 8 hp.

Everyone rolls initiative because you are initiating combat even though they're asleep. You cast sleep spell in the first round without opposition because you get surprise in that round.

If you roll high enough they're all asleep. If you don't, those that you didn't get would get perpception checks to wake up.

Great, now you get a free attack on your party members who are asleep.

You still have to roll to hit. Yes, you have advantage, but you can miss the attack, even on a sleeping target.

IF you hit with a... firebolt. You'll probably kill the rogue or cleric. Maybe depending on the dice. If you dont', they automatically wake up and act in the initiative order that was rolled earlier. They might go before you.

Anyone (probably the fighter) who didn't get slept by the spell, gets a chance to wake up each time you cast a spell whether its on them or not. If they wake up, they act on their init. If the fighter wakes up, you probably lose this attempted murder.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed if you play how the rules are actually written? No.

As others have pointed out, it's not too powerful, even if you want to PVP and happen to be a serial killer wizard.

Plus, good luck playing in that group anymore!

But wait, there's more!

That human fighter or the human rogue, took Alertness with their bonus feat. They get +5 to their init, so if you dont' sleep them there is a great chance they go before you.

Better also try this before someone in the party gets a Weapon of Warning. You'd wake them all up immediately when you became an enemy by targeting them with hostile intent.

Also, to add to that, to fire bolt has disadvantage to prone targets, and more importantly he has to beat all 29HP on his sleep spell roll, which has a pretty low chance of that happening. He never included races in his scenario, if anyone is playing an elf or half elf, they would be outright iune to the sleep spell and still suck up the HP, so there's the possibility that none of them will fall even if he should've gotten at least 1 of them.