In my campaign, I have a coven of witches (hags) who has been keeping a literal boat load of people from sleeping for several days after moving their ship into the Shadowfell. Because of this everyone (except the hags) has 3 levels of exhaustion.
If the witches were to intentionally switch their strategy, dropping their "stay awake" efforts, and then cast the sleep spell on various characters... would their sleep spells be more effective on these exhausted characters as compared to regular not-exhausted ones?
I imagine it would/should... Are there any rules about this... What would some of you suggest for this scenario?
Secondly, if the Shadowfell is a place of despair (optional rule DMG Chapter 2), would the lack of excitement, depressive, melancholy atmosphere also contribute to the ease of people falling asleep? (and staying that way perhaps?)
There's nothing in RAW about this, but it does make some sense for exhaustion to make sleep more effective. If you're the DM, there's nothing stopping you from saying it counts as being cast at one or two levels higher than it is. I'd be more hesitant on that "place of despair" stuff, though.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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1) RAW no. Neither Exhaustion nor sleep have any effectiveness on the sleep spell. However, if the DM wants to add a modifier then they could do so. One thing to keep in mind though is that the sleep induced by the sleep spell may not be the same as natural sleep so it is possible that exhaustion might or might not have any effect on magical sleep. Consider that for elves (or any race with the fey ancestry trait), magic can't put them to sleep. So no matter how exhausted they might be, the elves could not be put to sleep. In addition, the Trance trait says that Elves don't need to sleep but there is nothing indicating that they can't sleep naturally if they wish - which might indicate that natural and magic sleep are a bit different.
2) From a narrative perspective ... Why? Why would the hags change their tactics? If they are night hags they have 16 intelligence (other hags are 12+). The hags have prevented the characters from sleeping and they all now have three levels of exhaustion. If they keep this up then it only takes 3 more levels of exhaustion for the entire party to be dead. Alternatively, if the hags want to take the characters prisoner, the hags could wait for everyone to have 5 levels of exhaustion, they have speed zero, disadvantage on everything and 1/2 their normal hit points. This makes them easy to capture.
So depending on the goal of the hags, they WOULD wait until the party is either at level 5 or 6 exhaustion since it is the lowest risk with greatest success for the hags. This means either a TPK or captured/enslaved party. The problem with this narrative is that is probably not what you intended as the DM .. the challenge is to figure a way out as to why the hags DON'T wait and make sure it fits with your plot line. (On the other hand, if you just want the party captured or dead, the hags would wait but the situation really removes player agency unless they can come up with some way to mitigate the exhaustion).
Ideas that could force the hags to act sooner could include some other force in the Shadowfell has a task for the characters ... the hags know this creature/force is coming and decide to attack sooner than they would like. OR. There is some sort of time limit on the characters being in the shadowfell or on the hags using their exhaustion tactic which would mean they don't have the time to play it out. OR. The hags get impatient and figure they are softened up enough already ... though halving their hit points at exhaustion level 4 might be tempting.
Anyway, if you DON'T want a TPK/capture then you need to come up with something to give the party a chance. :)
P.S. If the hags wait unless four levels of exhaustion then the target hit points are halved and sleep spells will intrinsically be more effective since the targets have fewer hit points and will be more easily affected.
Rules-As-Written, Hags don't have a lot of abilities specified, and Exhaustion does not interact with the Sleep Spell, so if you want to stay strictly per the rules, the Hags could have been poking and cutting at their prisoners the whole time to keep their hit points low, so the Sleep spell will be more effective.
The key feature of Hags is that their magic is supposed to be creepy and strange. I believe they're intended for the DM to give them abilities that aren't in their stat-blocks, so adventurers don't know exactly what they're up against. So you may give the Hags bonuses on their spells when all three of them are together, or other such changes. Hags are meant for Homebrew.
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In my campaign, I have a coven of witches (hags) who has been keeping a literal boat load of people from sleeping for several days after moving their ship into the Shadowfell. Because of this everyone (except the hags) has 3 levels of exhaustion.
If the witches were to intentionally switch their strategy, dropping their "stay awake" efforts, and then cast the sleep spell on various characters... would their sleep spells be more effective on these exhausted characters as compared to regular not-exhausted ones?
I imagine it would/should... Are there any rules about this... What would some of you suggest for this scenario?
Secondly, if the Shadowfell is a place of despair (optional rule DMG Chapter 2), would the lack of excitement, depressive, melancholy atmosphere also contribute to the ease of people falling asleep? (and staying that way perhaps?)
I'm looking forward to your replies.
There's nothing in RAW about this, but it does make some sense for exhaustion to make sleep more effective. If you're the DM, there's nothing stopping you from saying it counts as being cast at one or two levels higher than it is. I'd be more hesitant on that "place of despair" stuff, though.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Two things :)
1) RAW no. Neither Exhaustion nor sleep have any effectiveness on the sleep spell. However, if the DM wants to add a modifier then they could do so. One thing to keep in mind though is that the sleep induced by the sleep spell may not be the same as natural sleep so it is possible that exhaustion might or might not have any effect on magical sleep. Consider that for elves (or any race with the fey ancestry trait), magic can't put them to sleep. So no matter how exhausted they might be, the elves could not be put to sleep. In addition, the Trance trait says that Elves don't need to sleep but there is nothing indicating that they can't sleep naturally if they wish - which might indicate that natural and magic sleep are a bit different.
2) From a narrative perspective ... Why? Why would the hags change their tactics? If they are night hags they have 16 intelligence (other hags are 12+). The hags have prevented the characters from sleeping and they all now have three levels of exhaustion. If they keep this up then it only takes 3 more levels of exhaustion for the entire party to be dead. Alternatively, if the hags want to take the characters prisoner, the hags could wait for everyone to have 5 levels of exhaustion, they have speed zero, disadvantage on everything and 1/2 their normal hit points. This makes them easy to capture.
So depending on the goal of the hags, they WOULD wait until the party is either at level 5 or 6 exhaustion since it is the lowest risk with greatest success for the hags. This means either a TPK or captured/enslaved party. The problem with this narrative is that is probably not what you intended as the DM .. the challenge is to figure a way out as to why the hags DON'T wait and make sure it fits with your plot line. (On the other hand, if you just want the party captured or dead, the hags would wait but the situation really removes player agency unless they can come up with some way to mitigate the exhaustion).
Ideas that could force the hags to act sooner could include some other force in the Shadowfell has a task for the characters ... the hags know this creature/force is coming and decide to attack sooner than they would like. OR. There is some sort of time limit on the characters being in the shadowfell or on the hags using their exhaustion tactic which would mean they don't have the time to play it out. OR. The hags get impatient and figure they are softened up enough already ... though halving their hit points at exhaustion level 4 might be tempting.
Anyway, if you DON'T want a TPK/capture then you need to come up with something to give the party a chance. :)
P.S. If the hags wait unless four levels of exhaustion then the target hit points are halved and sleep spells will intrinsically be more effective since the targets have fewer hit points and will be more easily affected.
Rules-As-Written, Hags don't have a lot of abilities specified, and Exhaustion does not interact with the Sleep Spell, so if you want to stay strictly per the rules, the Hags could have been poking and cutting at their prisoners the whole time to keep their hit points low, so the Sleep spell will be more effective.
The key feature of Hags is that their magic is supposed to be creepy and strange. I believe they're intended for the DM to give them abilities that aren't in their stat-blocks, so adventurers don't know exactly what they're up against. So you may give the Hags bonuses on their spells when all three of them are together, or other such changes. Hags are meant for Homebrew.