I acknowledge and agree that the creature description text isn’t crunchy combat text for the most part on most monsters, it certainly shouldn’t be looked to to overrule or contradict any other rule text! But the assumption that everything that is intended to be sleep will be described as sleep within a stat block spell description etc. is just that, an assumption. I don’t agree that from what I know about the way that 5E is written, anything leads me to believe that calling something unconscious versus asleep is always “deliberate” rather than “inadvertent.” I think that the sprite is pretty good evidence that a monster with a feature that is very clearly intended to be sleep, was nevertheless not described as sleep in the stat block, showing that Crawford‘s “well call it sleep if it is sleep“ ruling isn’t actually an accurate representation of reality.
not all unconsciousness is intended to be sleep, true. The line between sleep and not sleep unconsciousness can always be brightly drawn based on the language of the stat block or spell description, not true. I think that we have to chalk this up as there’s a real game mechanic here that “matters”, but applying it is some thing that a DM will need to make reasonable calls on themselves instead of finding a black-and-white guide in every spell and monster ability.
it’s not unlike the issue with that other spell that folks are talking about in another thread, what is it, mind blank? Intellect fortress? something like that?
I have no idea if this would work. Play an Elven Sorcerer/Warlock with at least 5 levels in Sorcerer and 10 levels in Warlock. Pact of the Genie. You get Sanctuary Vessel at 10th level, and at that level it lasts for 8 hours. You take your group inside, use Trance for 4 hours, and you have gotten a Long Rest for yourself. It says if you spend at least 10 minutes inside the Vessel, you get the benefit of a Short Rest. It is possible that while in Trance, you got both a Long and a Short Rest. If the DM doesn't allow that, no matter.
Ten minutes after your Trance, you've got a Short Rest in. Then cast Catnap. 10 more minutes and you have another Short Rest in. It does not say if casting a single spell spoils a Short Rest. It is possible that during the hour in which you cast Catnap, you get three Short Rests. You have 3 more hours you can spend in the Vessel, and if the DM lets you take Short Rests back-to-back, that's three more. 5 (or 6) Short Rests, one Long Rest for you and the entire party, and you're ready to go. You now have 16 hours until you can pull this stunt again, and as many Short Rests as you can find the time to take during the day.
I have no idea if this would work. Play an Elven Sorcerer/Warlock with at least 5 levels in Sorcerer and 10 levels in Warlock. Pact of the Genie. You get Sanctuary Vessel at 10th level, and at that level it lasts for 8 hours. You take your group inside, use Trance for 4 hours, and you have gotten a Long Rest for yourself. It says if you spend at least 10 minutes inside the Vessel, you get the benefit of a Short Rest. It is possible that while in Trance, you got both a Long and a Short Rest. If the DM doesn't allow that, no matter.
Ten minutes after your Trance, you've got a Short Rest in. Then cast Catnap. 10 more minutes and you have another Short Rest in. It does not say if casting a single spell spoils a Short Rest. It is possible that during the hour in which you cast Catnap, you get three Short Rests. You have 3 more hours you can spend in the Vessel, and if the DM lets you take Short Rests back-to-back, that's three more. 5 (or 6) Short Rests, one Long Rest for you and the entire party, and you're ready to go. You now have 16 hours until you can pull this stunt again, and as many Short Rests as you can find the time to take during the day.
Plenty of time for Coffee.
There are varied opinions on how to stem short rest abuse, which warlocks are notorious for, although they are not the only offenders. So far as I know, general opinion is as follows:
Casting any spell counts as more strenuous than reading or tending to wounds and automatically disrupts a short rest (so does attacking anything).
By definition of a short rest, a long rest is also a short rest, because a long rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.
A DM concerned about Short Rest abuse (e.g. shutting down a real, genuine Coffeelock, such as a mark of healing halfling) can modify the Short Rest rules to, like the Long Rest rules, enforce the DMG guideline limit. In this case, that means adding this text to it: "A character can’t benefit from more than two Short Rests between Long Rests."
Casting any spell counts as more strenuous than reading or tending to wounds and automatically disrupts a short rest (so does attacking anything).
This is turning a light switch off with a sledgehammer, and is really going to punish your party in the long term, or lead to unequal enforcement. "You can't rest back to back" is a sufficient ruling without imposing further restrictions that render scrying, sending, heroes feast, etc. useless.
This ruling is clearly so that elves can be willingly effected by a beneficial spell, is it a bit of a stretch? Sure, but I feel like it's the kind of thing a lot of DMs kinda bend things on so people don't feel like a spell is useless, or more probably so that if there is a party who wants to use the spell and there is only like one elf in the group they don't get screwed out of the benefit.
Not that ruling elves can't be effected by the spell is wrong, I just don't see it as a reason to disregard the ruling as "not carrying any meaningful weight".
Sleep. Each target must make a Wisdom saving throw and falls unconscious for 10 minutes on a failed save. A creature awakens if it takes damage or if someone uses an action to shake or slap it awake.
Symbol of Sleep doesn't really say you put someone to sleep, I would say a DM is withing right to rule that it can work on Elves.
Sleep. Each target must make a Wisdom saving throw and falls unconscious for 10 minutes on a failed save. A creature awakens if it takes damage or if someone uses an action to shake or slap it awake.
Symbol of Sleep doesn't really say you put someone to sleep, I would say a DM is withing right to rule that it can work on Elves.
Here we have a shining example of the absurd extremes of rules lawyering. Impeccable, really. :P
Do you have to be "asleep" to be "unconscious"? No
Is it considered "waking" someone to shake them out of an unconscious state? I think most people would say yes.
The literal only reference to sleep is the name of the symbol, I feel my ruling stands.
Am I saying it is the "correct" way to rule it? No I'm just saying that with the exact wording of the spell it seems completely within a DMs right to rule it that way in their game.
Sickened. The target has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. At the end of each of its turns, it can make another Wisdom saving throw. If it succeeds, the effect ends.
It's the poisoned condition without explicitly stating that it is, It seems to me wordings like this where done to specifically bypass certain racial traits such as.
Dwarven Resilience
You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.
Why do people keep asserting that anything Jeremy tweets is gospel? WoTC have said many times that his tweets do not count as rules or official material, they are just his own personal opinion. Most of it isn’t even common sense.
Why do people keep asserting that anything Jeremy tweets is gospel? WoTC have said many times that his tweets do not count as rules or official material, they are just his own personal opinion. Most of it isn’t even common sense.
Oh, you misunderstand. JC doesn't stand for Jeremy Crawford, it's Jesus Christ.
I acknowledge and agree that the creature description text isn’t crunchy combat text for the most part on most monsters, it certainly shouldn’t be looked to to overrule or contradict any other rule text! But the assumption that everything that is intended to be sleep will be described as sleep within a stat block spell description etc. is just that, an assumption. I don’t agree that from what I know about the way that 5E is written, anything leads me to believe that calling something unconscious versus asleep is always “deliberate” rather than “inadvertent.” I think that the sprite is pretty good evidence that a monster with a feature that is very clearly intended to be sleep, was nevertheless not described as sleep in the stat block, showing that Crawford‘s “well call it sleep if it is sleep“ ruling isn’t actually an accurate representation of reality.
not all unconsciousness is intended to be sleep, true. The line between sleep and not sleep unconsciousness can always be brightly drawn based on the language of the stat block or spell description, not true. I think that we have to chalk this up as there’s a real game mechanic here that “matters”, but applying it is some thing that a DM will need to make reasonable calls on themselves instead of finding a black-and-white guide in every spell and monster ability.
it’s not unlike the issue with that other spell that folks are talking about in another thread, what is it, mind blank? Intellect fortress? something like that?
Mind Blank
To me it speaks to a rules lawyer approach to game design rather than a storyteller's approach. Most sage advice or dev rulings (and most of the discussion in this section of the forums) revolve around the letter of the rules rather than any common sense interpretations and, as in this case in particular, often ignore historical concept in favour of technical rulings.
Elves in D&D, historically, were not merely immune to sleep spells because of some resistance to sleep magics but because they meditate rather than sleep. Unless there was something in 4e about it, this distinction between 'normal' sleep and 'magical' sleep is completely new to 5e. And it makes no sense. Why an immunity to a powered forcing of sleep yet none to theoretically less powerful means?
But 5e is what it is. And the rules are what they are....
It's actually their "Fey Ancestry" the same thing that makes them resist charm, just because it and "Trance" effect Elven sleep doesn't mean they are related.
It outlines the Elvish trance ability and them only needing 4 hours to equal a humans 8 hours of sleep.
It then explains that the Drow need a long rest to regain some of their spell abilities. They could have just said the Drow need a rest.
Was this book even proof read for simple problems like that?
Well a "Long Rest" isn't sleep
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
I'm not sure it says that humans need 8 hours of sleep when the long rest bit clearly says you only need 6 but that a different issue.
Why do people keep asserting that anything Jeremy tweets is gospel? WoTC have said many times that his tweets do not count as rules or official material, they are just his own personal opinion. Most of it isn’t even common sense.
Forums are a place to share opinions and a lot of people value the opinion of the lead developper wether on twitter or podcast.
I'd say most of it is common sense being simple Q&A that can even inform RAI but it's otherwise not official ruling like Sage Advice email or Compendium.
Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
I'm not sure it says that humans need 8 hours of sleep when the long rest bit clearly says you only need 6 but that a different issue.
M3 helps a little bit with clarifying trance. The wording for Eladrin etc. for trance changed a bit, now it just states, that trance allows you to finish a long rest in 4h.
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I acknowledge and agree that the creature description text isn’t crunchy combat text for the most part on most monsters, it certainly shouldn’t be looked to to overrule or contradict any other rule text! But the assumption that everything that is intended to be sleep will be described as sleep within a stat block spell description etc. is just that, an assumption. I don’t agree that from what I know about the way that 5E is written, anything leads me to believe that calling something unconscious versus asleep is always “deliberate” rather than “inadvertent.” I think that the sprite is pretty good evidence that a monster with a feature that is very clearly intended to be sleep, was nevertheless not described as sleep in the stat block, showing that Crawford‘s “well call it sleep if it is sleep“ ruling isn’t actually an accurate representation of reality.
not all unconsciousness is intended to be sleep, true. The line between sleep and not sleep unconsciousness can always be brightly drawn based on the language of the stat block or spell description, not true. I think that we have to chalk this up as there’s a real game mechanic here that “matters”, but applying it is some thing that a DM will need to make reasonable calls on themselves instead of finding a black-and-white guide in every spell and monster ability.
it’s not unlike the issue with that other spell that folks are talking about in another thread, what is it, mind blank? Intellect fortress? something like that?
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
NPC: Casts Sleep on exhausted party.
Elf/Half-Elf: Stays awake due to immunity.
NPC: Gives Elf/Half-Elf a sedative or knocks them on the head.
Elf/Half-Elf: Falls unconscious.
I have no idea if this would work. Play an Elven Sorcerer/Warlock with at least 5 levels in Sorcerer and 10 levels in Warlock. Pact of the Genie. You get Sanctuary Vessel at 10th level, and at that level it lasts for 8 hours. You take your group inside, use Trance for 4 hours, and you have gotten a Long Rest for yourself. It says if you spend at least 10 minutes inside the Vessel, you get the benefit of a Short Rest. It is possible that while in Trance, you got both a Long and a Short Rest. If the DM doesn't allow that, no matter.
Ten minutes after your Trance, you've got a Short Rest in. Then cast Catnap. 10 more minutes and you have another Short Rest in. It does not say if casting a single spell spoils a Short Rest. It is possible that during the hour in which you cast Catnap, you get three Short Rests. You have 3 more hours you can spend in the Vessel, and if the DM lets you take Short Rests back-to-back, that's three more. 5 (or 6) Short Rests, one Long Rest for you and the entire party, and you're ready to go. You now have 16 hours until you can pull this stunt again, and as many Short Rests as you can find the time to take during the day.
Plenty of time for Coffee.
<Insert clever signature here>
There are varied opinions on how to stem short rest abuse, which warlocks are notorious for, although they are not the only offenders. So far as I know, general opinion is as follows:
This is turning a light switch off with a sledgehammer, and is really going to punish your party in the long term, or lead to unequal enforcement. "You can't rest back to back" is a sufficient ruling without imposing further restrictions that render scrying, sending, heroes feast, etc. useless.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Good catch in finding other exemples of "non-sleep" unconscious effects which says one can (be) awake.
This ruling is clearly so that elves can be willingly effected by a beneficial spell, is it a bit of a stretch? Sure, but I feel like it's the kind of thing a lot of DMs kinda bend things on so people don't feel like a spell is useless, or more probably so that if there is a party who wants to use the spell and there is only like one elf in the group they don't get screwed out of the benefit.
Not that ruling elves can't be effected by the spell is wrong, I just don't see it as a reason to disregard the ruling as "not carrying any meaningful weight".
Sleep. Each target must make a Wisdom saving throw and falls unconscious for 10 minutes on a failed save. A creature awakens if it takes damage or if someone uses an action to shake or slap it awake.
Symbol of Sleep doesn't really say you put someone to sleep, I would say a DM is withing right to rule that it can work on Elves.
Here we have a shining example of the absurd extremes of rules lawyering. Impeccable, really. :P
I really don't see what's wrong with it.
Do you have to be "asleep" to be "unconscious"? No
Is it considered "waking" someone to shake them out of an unconscious state? I think most people would say yes.
The literal only reference to sleep is the name of the symbol, I feel my ruling stands.
Am I saying it is the "correct" way to rule it? No I'm just saying that with the exact wording of the spell it seems completely within a DMs right to rule it that way in their game.
it's the same with things like eyebite
Sickened. The target has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. At the end of each of its turns, it can make another Wisdom saving throw. If it succeeds, the effect ends.
It's the poisoned condition without explicitly stating that it is, It seems to me wordings like this where done to specifically bypass certain racial traits such as.
Dwarven Resilience
You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.
While Symbol of Sleep effect's title more directly refers to sleep than Catnap, i wouldn't be surprised if JC gave a similar answer for both.
Why do people keep asserting that anything Jeremy tweets is gospel? WoTC have said many times that his tweets do not count as rules or official material, they are just his own personal opinion. Most of it isn’t even common sense.
Oh, you misunderstand. JC doesn't stand for Jeremy Crawford, it's Jesus Christ.
We always assumed...
Any poison whether breath weapon, poison sting or ingested poison could effect an Elf no matter the final effect.
Any spell that could cause damage and then unconsciousness or sleep would effect an Elf.
Any spell that only causes sleep would have no effect on an Elf.
I'm pretty sure its always been worded as resistance or immunity to sleep spells.
In AD&D it was just a 90% resistance so there was still a 10% chance that the level 1 sleep spell could put an Elf out.
It's actually their "Fey Ancestry" the same thing that makes them resist charm, just because it and "Trance" effect Elven sleep doesn't mean they are related.
I just reread the PHB on Elves.
It outlines the Elvish trance ability and them only needing 4 hours to equal a humans 8 hours of sleep.
It then explains that the Drow need a long rest to regain some of their spell abilities. They could have just said the Drow need a rest.
Was this book even proof read for simple problems like that?
Well a "Long Rest" isn't sleep
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
I'm not sure it says that humans need 8 hours of sleep when the long rest bit clearly says you only need 6 but that a different issue.
Forums are a place to share opinions and a lot of people value the opinion of the lead developper wether on twitter or podcast.
I'd say most of it is common sense being simple Q&A that can even inform RAI but it's otherwise not official ruling like Sage Advice email or Compendium.
M3 helps a little bit with clarifying trance. The wording for Eladrin etc. for trance changed a bit, now it just states, that trance allows you to finish a long rest in 4h.