Sleep (and lack thereof) rules

[Thurbane]

Just curious, what rules do you guys use for characters who go without enough sleep? Also, what rules do you use to determine how quickly they can wake up when an alarm is sounded?

Here's some things I would take into consideration:

1. What is the minimum amount of sleep required? I believe that the rules suggest 8 hours, but I can honestly say I generally function on about 6 a day. Would it vary by race, or would that be unneccesarily complicating things?

2. If you were to allow some sort of save to stave off the effects of too little sleep, would you say it would be Will or Fort based? What would be a good baseline for the DC? Should the DC increase for each hour witrhout sleep?

3. What should the effects of sleep deprivation be? Fatigue and Exhaustion seem the obvious choices, but for how long etc.

4. For rousing a sleeping character, would a Listen check be appropriate? How long should it take a sleeping character to sping into action? What sort of actions would be involved (i.e. getting up from Prone etc.).

All thoughts and suggestions welcomed!

 

[DarkKestral]

1) I would consider 6 hours a reasonable option for most circumstances.

2/3) I would use Fort save DC 10 + 1 per 4 hours past 24 with a check every hour. (so +8 for every day awake) First failed save leaves you fatigued, second exhausted, third leaves you sleeping/resting for 12 hours + 1 additional hours for each day past the first you remained awake without sufficient rest. If you are already fatigued/exhausted, each failed save bumps you a step closer to forced sleep. This fatigue/exhaustion would remain until sufficient rest has been accumulated to clear the fatigue/exhaustion.

Significant rest gives a bonus equal to the check equal to one-half rounded down of the total number of hours rested since the sleep check last reset. This is a circumstance bonus. It also removes fatigue/exhaustion at the normal rate.

4) DC 5 Listen check to notice loud sounds, (thunder clapping, drums, shouting, etc.) DC 10 to notice abnormal sounds at a normal sound level (a window's rattle, doors creaking, etc.) DC 15 to notice normal sounds, (wind, rain, fire crackling, etc.) and DC 20 to notice quiet sounds. (a small twig breaking, the sound of stocking'ed feet on plush carpet, pages turning, etc.) If a DC is noted at a specific difficulty when awake, then add it to the difficulty when sleeping (in effect, the listen DC here becomes a circumstance modifier) and calculate success/failure by the new DC.

Getting up from bed would be a move action. (it would count as getting up from prone) If a character is in bed during combat, treat them as if prone, and if sleeping, unaware. If a character is asleep, they are entitled to a listen check to wake up every round at the appropriate DC.

 

[Kularian]

1. What is the minimum amount of sleep required? I believe that the rules suggest 8 hours, but I can honestly say I generally function on about 6 a day. Would it vary by race, or would that be unneccesarily complicating things?

The minimum amount of sleep needed has shifted from eight to nine, back to eight, and I think currently rests at seven as a minimum. With that being said, I think the minimum should be eight. It's a commonly accepted number, and I don't think you'll have any arguments arising from that.

2. If you were to allow some sort of save to stave off the effects of too little sleep, would you say it would be Will or Fort based? What would be a good baseline for the DC? Should the DC increase for each hour without sleep?

Well, lack of sleep is debilitating in the physical and emotional level. So here's what I propose, and you can tell me what you think:
As characters are generally hardy adventurers, the save should be that high. So perhaps 10 + 1/hour of sleep missed. But such a thing is cumulative. Say Bob the Fighter stands watch for two hours, then sleeps for six. In the morning, he'll have to make a Fortitude save vs DC 12. He does the same procedure the following night, and thus arrives it at a DC 14. The DC continues to rise until the character gets eight solid hours of sleep, which erases all cumulative DC modifiers.

3. What should the effects of sleep deprivation be? Fatigue and Exhaustion seem the obvious choices, but for how long etc.

Now, with that being said, if you want to use fatigued and exhausted, that works fine. I, however, would probably set it more akin to something like this: The character not only makes a Fort save, but a Will save as well. If s/he fails the fort save, the character takes one temporary point of damage to str, dex, or con, as determined by a 1d3. If s/he fails the will save, the character takes one temporary point of damage to int, wis, or cha, also determined by a 1d3. For every full night's rest the character receives, they can eliminate one point of sleep related ability damage. That's probably how I'd run it, methinks.

If you did Fatigue and Exhaustion, then do it as such: If a character is Fatigued due to lack of sleep, and receives eight hours, s/he's fine. If the character is Exhausted, after receiving the eight hours, s/he is now Fatigued. But these would only apply when the character fails the save, and if just using Fatigue and Exhaustion, I would apply a fortitude save.

4. For rousing a sleeping character, would a Listen check be appropriate? How long should it take a sleeping character to sping into action? What sort of actions would be involved (i.e. getting up from Prone etc.).

This I don't see as much of a problem. Adventurers are trained to spring into action at a moment's notice, regardless of sleep depravation. Perhaps, if you wanted to incorporate the tiredness (using fatigue and exhaustion), you could set it up as follows:

If a character is fatigued due to lack of sleep, s/he must spend a round to rouse him/herself, and is considered prone for this round. If the character is exhausted, this is extended to three rounds.

If you use my method, it'd be one round per temporary stat point lost.

Okay, that turned out being a little longer than planned, Does this help at all?

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Well, in health classes they say you need 1 hour of sleep to cancel the fatigue of 2 hours of being awake.
I am inclined to say 8 hours is the "norm" in D&D. (Not checking books, they might say 6)

I would rule that fatigue sets in after 24 hours without sleep. A will save may be attempted once each hour (DC 5, +1 per hour of being awake over 24, +1 per previous attempted save) to shake off the fatige for that hour.
If a character remains awake for over 48 hours, exhaustion sets in. A will save may be attempted once each hour (DC 10, +1 per hour of being awake over 48, +1 per previous attempted save) to reduce the penalty to fatigue for one minute.
After 72 hours of remaining awake, fortitude saves must be made once each hour (DC 15, +1 per hour of being awake over 72) or pass out, falling asleep.

I would say the ammount of rest a character who stays awake for long periods of time be aproximatly 1 hour of sleep per 2 hours of remaining awake. This ratio should be modified by the character's constitution modifier, as I have known people who used to be in the military who could remain away for a day or two, sleep an hour, and wake back up and be perfectly fine.
I would propose that 1 hour of sleep cancels 2 hours of remaining awake, +/- one hour per point of constitution modifier. 6-8 hours of sleep would be required to reprepare spells and recover class feature uses usable x times a day.

Waking a character who is asleep normally takes a standard action I believe. (Magical sleep may not make it possible at all with higher level spells) Perhaps if the sleeping character is recovering from exaustion a full round action may be needed, but if the sleeping character has not slept for a full 8 hours, they still awaken, but all the sleep they had gotten up to this point is nullified. (IE If they went to sleep needing 40 hours to fully recover, and I wake them up after 4, even if they are up only for a minute, they need to get 40 hours of sleep)

Now, of course such characters have to eat, and perform other bodily functions, so for simplicity's sake we could say that they may remain awake (but couldn't engage in straining activity like combat or spellcasting) for 8 hours for every 16 they sleep and still count all 24 of those hours as sleep.

As for waking up: Fatigue for the first minute would seem appropriate if they have slept for more than 1 hour. (Groggy) The would definitely need to sit up from prone and most likely don armor. (unless put to sleep magically)

Perhaps if fatigue or sleep deprivation are a big issue in a campain that a suite of feats be created to mitigate the penalties.

Light Sleeper
You remain perceptive even while asleep.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 13+, Alertness
Benifit: Your penalties to listen checks while asleep are only -4.
Character's trying to actively wake you up require only spending a free action to do so.
Magical sleep is less effective on you. You recive a +2 on all saving throws against magical sleep effects.

Hardened Veteran
Intense training or field experience have made you less vulnerable to the effects of fatigue.
Prerequisites: Constitution 13+, Endurance, Base attack bonus +1
Benifit: You recieve a +4 bonus on saves to mitigate the effects of fatigue or exhaustion due to lack of sleep.
Additionally, you may optionally take 5 points of non-lethal damage to remain awake for another hour if ever you fail a saving throw versus passing out due to sleep deprivation.
You also gain additional resistances against magical sleep: You may remain awake for one round after failing the saving throw of any magical effect that would put you to sleep. During this round you are exhausted. At the end of that round, you fall asleep as normal for the spell or effect.

 

[Thurbane]

Some great suggestions here, thanks. So far I'm leaning towards DarkKestral's ideas - they were fairly similar to what I was thinking.

Ltheb - great feats! I may well use them too.

 

[airwalkrr]

I would simply use a Con check per 8 hours after 24 or become fatigued. Two failures is exhausted. The DC would scale at +1/+2/+4/+8/+16, etc. There would be no penalty beyond fatigue, but each time the character rested or was relatively inactive, they would need to make a DC 10 Con check to keep from falling asleep.

There are people who have gone weeks without sleep before and were still capable of functioning quite well. Hence, I wouldn't think it appropriate to totally knock them out at any point. But there should definitely be penalties associated with going without sleep.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Thurbane, you might want to check out this thread.

 

[Tonguez]

1. What is the minimum amount of sleep required?

8 Hours

IMC Giants need more sleep (they have slower metabolisms) and it also helps explain why Jack is able to kill the Giant by catching him when he is sleeping
so a Large Giant will need 12 Hours Sleep and giant over 15ft will need 16 Hours and those over 20 will need 20 hours +. Giants of even greater size may sleep for centuries (and are only used as Legends IMC)

2. If you were to allow some sort of save to stave off the effects of too little sleep, would you say it would be Will or Fort based?

Fort based 10 + Each hour or become Fatigued. After a day without sleep a Fatigued character becomes exhausted

3. What should the effects of sleep deprivation be? Fatigue and Exhaustion seem the obvious choices, but for how long etc.

An Exhausted character who lacks sleep for a further day starts taking ability loss (-1 to all stats) each hour

*I based this on the fact that I can go about 2 days without sleep but on day 3 am usually sick and need to sleep

 

[DarkKestral]

Ltheb - great feats! I may well use them too.

I'm in agreement with Thurbane. Those are both flavorful AND useful. I like 'em myself.