I've heard so much comdemnation of 4e and 4e players about how the game was ruled by mechanics.
And here we have people so paralyzed by the concept of dealing with exhaustion, lack of sleep, and fatigue unless they can find a rule of HOLY RAW to guide them.
None of you lot have any standing to make those critiques of 4th Edition after a performance like this.
You've all forgotten what it is to to be a gamemaster. It's about mastering the game, not the game mastering you. It's why you sit at that table as the judge and you're still not being replaced by a DEC 40 running on punch cards despite the fact that this hobby is about a half century old.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to run a roleplaying game in any system of any depth if you insist on some piece of RAW holding your hand at every step, about every stupid minor aspect of the gaming experience. At this rate I fully expect someone to ask for a table on when someone has to go to the crapper and a detailed chart on the effects of forgoing those trips.
At some point, leave the rules behind.
In fairness LazarX, i don't think you'll find many people here arguing that those who are obsessing over the details of the RAW on this are acting in a way we consider healthy.
No need to turn this into an edition war thread.
And that said, i don't think that actually is a complaint I have ever heard made of 4e. My biggest complaint about 4e(a game which I enjoy well enough, but do not think is perfect), and the complaint I have heard most often made about it is exactly the opposite, that it just hand waves whole section of behaviour which it does not consider 'adventurie' such as craft/profession skills for instance.
So I am not sure it is even an especially fair attempt to drag this thread down that road.
Shall we instead focus on the subject of sleep?
One of the things that I've been tinkering with is to rework the hit point economy so that things like sleep, food and water are actually relevant to the underlying mechanics, rather than an afterthought.
One thing that I wanted to address was that there is no qualitative difference between how one rests. You get 1 hit point per character level when you get 8 hours of sleep. This could be in a damp moldy dungeon where you wonder if you'll be awoken to battle, or in a feather bed nestled in a safe haven like Rivendel. I want the conditions to be meaningful and give a bonus if you're in a favorable place.
A factor I also want to meaningful is a bedroll and tent. Right now it's just extra weight to be carried and then doesn't seem to have any meaningful mechanical effect save for the whim of the GM. With RAW you can just walk around naked most of the time and sleep exposed on rock floors and it doesn't have any mechanical impact.
As I'd mentioned in a previous post, I backpack, hike and bikecamp and while one can make it through a summer night just sleeping on the ground with little on, it would be a miserable experience and you wouldn't be well prepared for another day of exertion. A friend of mine a couple of years ago forgot his tent poles on a trip and had to grind through a couple of days with his "tent blanke." He sucked it up, but he wasn't at the top of his game for that trip.
Now, to simulate different conditions of resting you could go with automatic values that are adjusted by modifiers. Another way is to do a Con check against a DC set by the conditions. The first is quicker, the second is more dramatic. I kind of lean towards the roll so that there is a dramatic rhythm, kind of like initiative rolls. It makes resting get highlighted in the game as something important to the players and that they ought to be paying attention to it.
Another thing with the roll is that you can incorporate important dreams into sleep. If you roll a 1 then there is a nightmare (start the day...
You are probably the GM, but I would still talk to the group first. After so much realism is added things get tedious.
|
I must add some more rule nitpicking: only arcane casters need to sleep/rest."A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular time of day to pray and receive spells."
I think alchemists need to sleep/rest but I am not totally sure.
Divine spellcasters recovering their spells even if fatigued is a often forgotten advantage.
I believe that's only Magus, Witch, and Wizard who need sleep, couldn't find anything on Alchemist, Bard, and Sorcerer.
I had a Paladin in group that would prepare and cast Lesser Restoration to remove the fatigue and stay up forever!!! DM ruled that would fly during adventures but to live out the rest of his days in such a way would be detrimental to his mental health
Daily Readying of Spells: Each day, sorcerers and bards must focus their minds on the task of casting their spells. A sorcerer or bard needs 8 hours of rest (just like a wizard), after which she spends 15 minutes concentrating. (A bard must sing, recite, or play an instrument of some kind while concentrating.) During this period, the sorcerer or bard readies her mind to cast her daily allotment of spells. Without such a period to refresh herself, the character does not regain the spell slots she used up the day before.
Magic section, near the end of Arcane Spells.
|
|
Spell recovery is not the only issue. Everyone needs rest to avoid fatigue and exhaustion. And even divine casters won't be able to recover spells if exhausted. The issue with arcane casters is that they need uninterrupted sleep. Each interruption (like being woken up for combat) adds an hour to the sleep needed, each spell cast during that interruption will count against the slots that can be refreshed in the morning. (this counts for divine as well)
I must add some more rule nitpicking: only arcane casters need to sleep/rest."A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular time of day to pray and receive spells."
I think alchemists need to sleep/rest but I am not totally sure.
Divine spellcasters recovering their spells even if fatigued is a often forgotten advantage.
An exhausted character moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –6 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. After 1 hour of complete rest, an exhausted character becomes fatigued. A fatigued character becomes exhausted by doing something else that would normally cause fatigue.
I don't see anything here that say "you can't recover spells".
As a divine spellcaster can easily remove fatigue with one lesser restoration and exhaustion with two, the problem for them is practically non existent until they reach the point where they suffer from hallucinations. Probably restoration (not lesser) will cure even that and AFAIK in RL it will require several days without sleep to reach that point.
With RAW you'll have min-maxers who will slough off as much as possible, not bothering to have bedrolls, tents and just get the most unappealing food possible that is eaten only once every three days. They crunched the numbers and see whatever bare minimums are needed to get by in the game world.
However if you incentivize these qualities as having value and push character performance to 110% then they'd buy into what is needed to get there. Rather than being barely clothed christmas trees the min-maxers will make sure there is food, blankets, pillows, pots, tents, etc. Suddenly they look far more like human beings rather than avatars in an MMO. And since what stands between them and that 110% performance rating is a roll, they'll look forward to and demand that it get done.
I agree, but you can't make people RP. I like to buy that stuff. I just wish I would stop being lazy, and make an prepacked kit so I dont have to do it every time I make a character.
There has been an ongoing joke with our group that if you are not a spell caster you don't ever need to sleep.
As much as we look we can't seem to find rules that tell you when one is fatigued from lack of sleep.
So are there any rules in RAW that enforcing a sleeping schedule. Do characters need a full night of sleep in order to function the next day?
I'll go one better.
Nowhere do the rules state that if you fall unconscious or die do you fall prone.
Sometimes, we don't bother putting rules in because hopefully the answers are obvious.
AKA: If you don't sleep, you become fatigued.
It isn`t obvious, you could, for example, became exahuasted, start taking nonlethal damage. Also, sleep deprivation generates mostly mental effects and symptoms so a -2 to Dex and Str isn't realistic. By those rules, a 3rd level cleric may never need to sleep because she can cast lesser restoration each morning and eliminate fatigue (Calistria temple parties now seem even more fun). If you don't eat you die, why isn't it obvious?
If the GM rols a ramdom encounter when the best (only) spotter in the party is sleeping because the GM said he has to, how would you feel?
Finally, lack rules for sleeping kill Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Elm Stret like escenario.
Humbly,
Yawar
There are no rules for weight gain ergo my character can eat infinite chocolate sundaes.There are no rules for tummyaches!
Depending on severity:
-Mild: no effect in gameplay-Strong: Sickened
-Please kill me now: Nauseated
Humbly,
Yawar
I mean... If elves didn't sleep... then pretty much every map of an elven home that shows a bed is getting it wrong.
I can think of other uses for a bed.
Seemed like something necro-worthy.