Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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There's only 1 source that I could find that makes this explicit: the Sleep spell, which explicitly mentions who is immune to it.
However, Symbol and Eyebite don't mention any immunity, and the Adult Brass Dragon doesn't mention any immunity either, despite all of these being called "Sleep".
In the case of elves, it's pretty clear cut, they have the "Trance" trait which gives them blanket immunity against all forms of magical sleep (dragon breath aren't magical effects, though). Warforged also have the similar "Sentry's Rest".
But for the Undead, the idea that Immune to Exhaustion = Immune to Sleep is only ever mentioned as a limitation of the Sleep spell. It is not a general rule. For everything else, it's the Unconscious condition they would need immunity to, which most Undead don't have.
This feels like another case of "magical darkness" where it feels like they should all block Darkvision, but really only the Darkness and Maddening Darkness spells do.
Unless I missed something?
Exhaustion immunity does not give immunity to forced/magical sleep - it's a specific caveat of the Sleep spell.
Exhaustion as a condition is a measure of fatigue, which can be caused by lack of sleep, but can also be caused by things like environmental hazards and starvation. Immunity to Exhaustion just means that you shirk those factors, so Undead aren't worn down by lack of food, extreme temperatures, etc.
Likewise, species like Warforged and Elves are still susceptible to the effects of Exhaustion, even though they can't be forced to sleep. The two are unconnected.
Note that by strict RAW elves and warforged are not immune to the "sleep" and "asleep" effects of the Symbol and Eyebite spells.
I disagree. The name of these spell effects should be enough to constitute magical sleep. And it wouldn't be the first rule based on an effect's name (for example, the rule against stacking the same spell effect like Bless is based on the name being identical).
Immunity to exhaustion only gives immunity to sleep effects if the sleep effect specifies that creatures immune to exhaustion are immune. There's a plausible argument that most creatures immune to exhaustion should be immune to sleep, but by RAW they aren't.
However, I'd agree that immunity to sleep covers effects named sleep.
Quite frankly I think most Undead are immune to enough things already...
and also . . .
This take is understandable but it's not how the rules work. The name of a feature has no mechanical consequence. Features do what they say -- what they say is defined by their description, not their name.
Mechanically, even the Sleep spell doesn't actually put creatures to sleep. The only reason why creatures such as Elves are immune to the effects of the Sleep spell is because the description of the Sleep spell explicitly says so:
"Creatures that don’t sleep, such as elves, or that have Immunity to the Exhaustion condition automatically succeed on saves against this spell."
Sleep is not a defined term in 5e, and thus 'magic can’t put you to sleep' means that any effect that the DM rules is (a) magical, and (b) sleep, will be stopped.
So the species power "magic can’t put you to sleep" is meaningless?
Since sleep is not a condition of its own, that text protects you from any effect described as sleep, no matter what condition it imposes.
It needs to be a magical effect too.
It doesn't protect against the brass dragon's breath, for example.
If we're still talking about RAW, then yes, this does appear to be one of the unfortunate consequences of the rules rewording that occurred for the 5.5e 2024 ruleset. If we go back to the 5e 2014 rules, the Sleep spell said: "This spell sends creatures into a magical slumber", and it referred to an affected creature as a "sleeper". Also, the Imprisonment spell said: "Slumber. The target falls asleep and can’t be awoken." So those are two examples that were directly countered by this power under those rules.
If we're not really talking about RAW, then sure, the DM should just use some common sense when ruling on such things.
Sleep is not a defined condition in 2024. That means the DM is expected to use their judgment about when it applies.
I will say, as I have multiple times before: If your reading of the rules means an ability does nothing, then your reading is likely incorrect.
I'm curious: why are those valid, but effect descriptions explicitly saying that they are "sleep" are not?
If this is what RAW says, then RAW is useless.
Just to quickly respond to this thought -- it's because the name of a feature in and of itself has no mechanical meaning because it could be named anything. The name is just for convenience so that we can all refer to it easier.
For example, the Sleep spell could have been named the Unconscious spell. Or it could have been named the Gobbledygook spell. In both of those cases, casting the spell would result in the exact same mechanical effect as casting the Sleep spell. It would be the same spell, just with a different name.
This issue arises in other discussions as well. For example, when discussing the Invisible condition, a common misconception is that having that condition causes you to be concealed. It doesn't. It causes you to experience a specific effect that is called "concealed", which is defined like this: "Concealed. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen unless the effect’s creator can somehow see you. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed." So, when someone subsequently says something like "Don't forget, I'm concealed because I have the Invisible condition", it sort of depends on what that player means by that as to whether or not they are correct. If they mean that they are experiencing that exact effect which has that exact definition and which is referred to by the name "concealed", then sure. If they are using the word in a more common everyday language usage, then no, they would be incorrect.
Anyway, this is getting into the weeds about how the rules work in general and isn't a big deal for this thread. As we all agree, in this case RAW should probably just be ignored and the DM should just use common sense for what should be considered to be magically induced sleep in this game. However, remember that even if sticking to strict RAW for this topic, elves ARE immune to the effects of the Sleep spell because the description of the Sleep spell explicitly says so.
Here's an SAC entry that demonstrates the exact opposite by formalizing a mechanical rule based solely on an effect's name:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/sae/sage-advice-compendium#SAC-Bard1
That's why RAI is more important than RAW.