D&D 5E Mike Mearls Interview with the Escapist

[I'm A Banana]

When you face the ogre as a tough scary fight or boss monster than a single spell from a single character shouldn't end the fight.
But when you face an ogre as a guard it's not likely to have boss monster hp, so it should be taken down with sleep. Casting sleep as a 3rd level spell should do it. At that point it's fine if one person takes him down.

The difference being in the one instance, sleep is still effective but requires the entire party working together first. Rather than sleep just not working on boss monsters.

All true. I wouldn't propose making the spell a boss-fight-ender. I just shouldn't need to go beat up on the sentry (even at 1st level) just so that the rogue can sneak in undetected.

Though come to think of it, 5d8 hp is enough to affect a guard or two (average is 27, so a pair of guards per the monster doc is likely to go down...just won't affect a lot of truly CR 1 critters, which makes sense, since those are beasts at LV = CR...hmmm...).

I guess it's more fine than I was suspect of, depending on the monster choice the DM uses.

Sure it is, just cast it at higher level, when bypassing an encounter with an ogre makes sense. Unless you think it's cool for a 1st level party to put to sleep any encounter they come across, regardless of how tough it is?

Yep, exactly, you called it, I just want everyone to walk past all their encounters because magic sleep spell, that's precisely what I want, and I could not possibly actually want some other thing at all.

 

[bogmad]

This interview helped me twig to one of the things I'm not a fan of about the HP Threshold effect:

It assumes you're going to be fighting the things before you sleep 'em.

Meanwhile, those who want a more subtle application of the spell are a little out in the cold. Someone who just wants to sleep the ogre before they rush in? Nah. Sleep is a combat-ending spell, not a subtle spell for encounter evasion!

But the description of the spell like Flesh to Stone makes me think that this might be a more satisfying way to track it. So I whipped up this. It's not as elegant as FtS, but I think it captures the basic idea -- a spell you can cast from hiding to put a sentry to sleep.

I like it. I'd even go so far as to houserule it as an alternate casting method for sleep instead of making someone memorize another spell for it.
Though casting it at a higher level works fine enough maybe for the published rules, sure.
The extra conditions do well enough to keep from spamming it. And if you're a DM who sees it as a player's "evade every encounter" trump card, just roll in secret and say the ogre made its wisdom save (yes, yes I know that's unsatisfactory for some).

 

[Thaumaturge]

Yep, exactly, you called it, I just want everyone to walk past all their encounters because magic sleep spell, that's precisely what I want, and I could not possibly actually want some other thing at all.

Shouldn't you be playing Magic: The Slumbering, then?

Thaumaturge.

 

[Agamon]

Yep, exactly, you called it, I just want everyone to walk past all their encounters because magic sleep spell, that's precisely what I want, and I could not possibly actually want some other thing at all.

I might be going out on a limb here, but I kinda looks like what you want is to be sarcastic?

 

[Sir Brennen]

This interview helped me twig to one of the things I'm not a fan of about the HP Threshold effect:

It assumes you're going to be fighting the things before you sleep 'em.

Meanwhile, those who want a more subtle application of the spell are a little out in the cold. Someone who just wants to sleep the ogre before they rush in? Nah. Sleep is a combat-ending spell, not a subtle spell for encounter evasion!

But the description of the spell like Flesh to Stone makes me think that this might be a more satisfying way to track it. So I whipped up this. It's not as elegant as FtS, but I think it captures the basic idea -- a spell you can cast from hiding to put a sentry to sleep.

It only requires you to fight things with hit points that exceed the hit points rolled. On average, you're going to affect about 22 hit points worth of creatures - four kobolds, for instance. Cast it as a 2nd level spell, and you're going to get a couple more. To me, that lets Sleep work like its Old School version of automatically KO'ing low level creatures, but still letting it have some usefulness still at higher levels, instead of going from Must Memorize to Never Memorize as the character advances.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It only requires you to fight things with hit points that exceed the hit points rolled. On average, you're going to affect about 22 hit points worth of creatures - four kobolds, for instance. Cast it as a 2nd level spell, and you're going to get a couple more. To me, that lets Sleep work like its Old School version of automatically KO'ing low level creatures, but still letting it have some usefulness still at higher levels, instead of going from Must Memorize to Never Memorize as the character advances.

Yeah, that's likely the intent of it.

I'm thinking in terms of how everyone might contribute to a stealth encounter. The rogue sneaks, of course. Maybe the fighter wrestles someone and puts them in a sleeper hold. The wizard puts things to sleep. The cleric...distraction committee? (at a bit of a loss for them, honestly). It seems like this version of sleep might not be effective if the idea is to sneak past the CR 2 Ogre (at level 1) rather than fighting it or fleeing in terror from it.

 

[Raith5]

For me the solution is incredibly simple, and is one that's been going on since at least I started in 1981

Trust your DM to make a fair ruling.

If you don't think something is a fair ruling, talk to your DM and explain why.

If you still think your DM is being unfair, find another DM, or DM yourself.



There you go. Simple and easy. AD&D had tons of ambiguous rules in them that required DM interpretation. And yet, most of us managed to keep driving on and having fun at the table because those DMs who were bad and didn't want to learn to get better? Players stopped gaming with them. Rules should help drive the game, not fix personality problems.

But surely consistent rulings are assisted by clear rules and mechanisms. I think their are some costs with leaning to heavily on DM rule interpretation. My experience in AD&D was that significant aspects of the game - especially stealth and some aspects of social activity were just avoided and the game style space narrowed to dungeon crawling. I also guess I want my DM to set the context, run monsters intelligently and engage - not to be tied up micro managing rules. Furthermore, given how hard it is to get together these days, I would rather play the game than have long debates about rules.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Yeah, that's likely the intent of it.

I'm thinking in terms of how everyone might contribute to a stealth encounter. The rogue sneaks, of course. Maybe the fighter wrestles someone and puts them in a sleeper hold. The wizard puts things to sleep. The cleric...distraction committee? (at a bit of a loss for them, honestly). It seems like this version of sleep might not be effective if the idea is to sneak past the CR 2 Ogre (at level 1) rather than fighting it or fleeing in terror from it.

If you're the DM, couldn't you see the number of HP rolled, compare it to the Ogre's HP, shrug and say it worked? Heck, why even roll at all? Just assume that sleep as written is its combat application. If the target doesn't "have his blood up", the spell is significantly more effective (double HP? auto?). Then it maintains its combat application, but it gets the exploration potential you're looking for.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Agamon]

But surely consistent rulings are assisted by clear rules and mechanisms. I think their are some costs with leaning to heavily on DM rule interpretation. My experience in AD&D was that significant aspects of the game - especially stealth and some aspects of social activity were just avoided and the game style space narrowed to dungeon crawling. I also guess I want my DM to set the context, run monsters intelligently and engage - not to be tied up micro managing rules. Furthermore, given how hard it is to get together these days, I would rather play the game than have long debates about rules.

My anecdote might be abnormal, but the rogue in my group has been doing a lot of Stealth, no issues. I don't feel tied up in rules minutia, it's actually freeing to just make a ruling and everyone accepts it and play continues. And if there's to be any rules discussion, it should always wait for once the game is done. Make a ruling and move on.

 

[Thaumaturge]

My anecdote might be abnormal, but the rogue in my group has been doing a lot of Stealth, no issues. I don't feel tied up in rules minutia, it's actually freeing to just make a ruling and everyone accepts it and play continues. And if there's to be any rules discussion, it should always wait for once the game is done. Make a ruling and move on.

My 5e tables have been some of my sneakiest tables, ever. With group checks, at least half the party is able to sneak past goblins (Passive Perception 9) fairly easily.

Thaumaturge.