D&D 5E No SLEEP Effects

[maritimo80]

What happens to a character that is for example three days without sleep (long Rest)? He gain level of exhaustion?

 

[pukunui]

Going without sleep is one of the examples for a Con check. As there are no specific consequences, I'd go with the same rules as for forced marches, but make it once per day rather than per hour. So Con checks with increasing DCs to avoid exhaustion.

 

[ninjayeti]

From what I have read (and experienced) sleep deprivation is much different from physical exhaustion. Being over tired does not impair a person physically so much as it degrades their alertness and focus. Exhaustion is not the best mechanic because a tired person can lift just as much, sprint just as fast, etc. as when they are rested.

I think in my games I would house rule that tired characters had disadvantage to perception checks and anything else the required focus on a repetitive task (driving long distances, translating an obscure text, etc.). Plus there is always the fun possibility of falling asleep at inopportune times, like guard duty or the king's longwinded speech....

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Interesting one. I'd say 24 hours, ok. 48 hours, Disadvantage on mental faculty checks (including a reduction in Initiative). 72 hours, one level of Exhaustion plus Disadvantage on all physical checks (inc combat and stealth). After that, for every 24 hours without sleep maybe impose a -1 temporary attribute reduction and temporary loss of 1 hit die.
Be quite nice to have the evil wizard cast a spell on a player character which looks like a Sleep spell, sounds like a Sleep spell but seems to have had no effect...til they realise it's actually a No Sleep spell and lasts for up to 7 days unless dispelled or the caster is killed (assuming the last time the party see him is when he waggled his fingers to (seemingly) no effect then hightailed it out of the back window). How they laughed...at the time...

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I played around a bit with creating some rules based on the hunger and thirst rules, since they provide the patterns for that sort of thing. I was thinking of saying that when your exhaustion levels maxed out you gained long-term insanity instead of dying.

Eventually I decided it was easier just to treat it like a forced march. I'm not sure what time increments I would use yet, though. Perhaps say half a night's sleep is equal to one hour of forced marching. So one check if you get half your sleep, and two checks if you get less than half a night's sleep.

 

[pukunui]

From what I have read (and experienced) sleep deprivation is much different from physical exhaustion. Being over tired does not impair a person physically so much as it degrades their alertness and focus. Exhaustion is not the best mechanic because a tired person can lift just as much, sprint just as fast, etc. as when they are rested.

I think in my games I would house rule that tired characters had disadvantage to perception checks and anything else the required focus on a repetitive task (driving long distances, translating an obscure text, etc.). Plus there is always the fun possibility of falling asleep at inopportune times, like guard duty or the king's longwinded speech....

I played around a bit with creating some rules based on the hunger and thirst rules, since they provide the patterns for that sort of thing. I was thinking of saying that when your exhaustion levels maxed out you gained long-term insanity instead of dying.

Hmm. Maybe the madness rules could come into play. The Con checks could be to stay awake (failure = you fall asleep against your will). After some time with no sleep, you suffer a short-term madness effect that lasts until you get a full night's sleep. After another few days, you instead get a long-term madness effect (that, again, lasts until you get a full night's sleep). If you're still not sleeping after a week or so, then you get a form of indefinite madness.