If we assume that the sleep spell suppresses consciousness, or awareness of one's surroundings, and we assume that the undead have some sort of awareness of their surroundings, then we can assume that undead would be affected by this spell.LowSpine said:I think you can just take it that undead are immune to sleep. Just because it isn't explicit in the info we have now doesn't mean that it will not in the final print, and if it isn't then it is an error.
I understand some of the reasoning in this thread, but the fact is, with the exception of the vampire, undead don't sleep. And in the case of the vampire I don't actually see that as sleep. It is more like that during the day the vampire must return to the grave and be dead (as if their unlife switches off and they become inanimate) until the sun sets which isn't the same thing.
Thattanguy said:From my understanding, Undead are _magicaly_ brought back to life to varieing degrees, from instinctual awareness of the mindless zombie to the rebinding of a soul in a lich's phylactery. At the baseline of them all is a current of magic on which they survive, much as living creatures on oxygen. Supress that magical awareness, that compulsion imposed apon an inert corpse from some magical source, and it makes sense that the corpse will cease to be ambilitory, even if only short duration. Sleep might be better worded as Supress Awareness but then it loses its fantastic feel and starts drifting to the realms of sci-fi to me.
Much the same for the general "mind-effecting" field of magic. if you think about it, the necromancer who raises a skeleton is exerting his will through magic to compel the inanimate to move and act in accordance to his designs. even if left to its own actions after animation, its is the raiser's will, though magic, that allows the corpse to function untill destroyed or the magic ceases to effect it. Thus, it seems to follow suit that another could use magic in an attempt to overwrite or supress the magic compelling the corpse to function. Since it is a different type of magical compusion, should it be more difficult to overwrite the animating effect? That makes sense, but in the example of a 1st level necromancer's skeleton being happened apon by a 15th level enchanter, the latter's magic should unquestionaly by strong enough to superceed the formers.
Dragonblade said:The new body, soul, animus paradigm for 4e works out well too. Sleep could be a spell that affects the animus and thus it affects living and unliving creatures equally.
In living creatures, they have a soul so while the animus sleeps the soul keeps active, hence dreams. But in unliving creatures, they simply lose consciousness and go into a dreamless torpor while the animus is suppressed.
I think I'll only answer this question after I take some time to consider the love of electronics expressed by the writers of classic fantasy and horror.Dannyalcatraz said:But is that sleep or merely a "stand-by" mode?