Sleeping in Armor and characters who either don't sleep or sleep for 2 hrs

I know there are spells that can get around sleeping in medium or heavy armor without getting fatigued (Bed of Iron for instance).

What other spells allow this?

Under Armor and check penalties in the CRB it states:

("Sleeping in Armor: A character who sleeps in medium or heavy armor is automatically fatigued the next day. He takes a –2 penalty on Str and Dex and can't charge or run. Sleeping in light armor does not cause fatigue.")

It doesn't list a number of hours involved to gain that Fatigue though. So if I've got a player using Ring of Sustenance all the time and doesn't remember to cast his Bed of Iron spell, would he be fatigued after only sleeping 2hrs in his heavy armor?

if he doesnt sleep at all, i believe he's fatigued no matter what he's wearing

If you use Keep Watch then you don't require sleep, just rest, so you wouldn't become fatigued due to the armor. Ring of Sustenance not required for this approach.

If you have Endurance then Medium armor isn't a problem. Combined with Mithral you could even have full plate on and sleep just fine.

I don't believe the duration of sleep matters for causing armor-based fatigue.

Just carry a backup set of "sleeping armor". You're still protected if you get ambushed in the night and you just put on your medium/heavy armor over top of it.

That is a bit of a weird mental image though. Knight taking off his full plate, and then slipping into a chainshirt to sleep in.

That is a bit of a weird mental image though. Knight taking off his full plate, and then slipping into a chainshirt to sleep in.

We refer to it as Mithril Pajamas.....

Not a spell, but adding the Comfort enhancement to armor for 5,000 gp will allow you to sleep in armor as well. This is from the Pathfinder Society Field Guide.

Living Greyhawk had more sleep time ambushes so a chain shirt to sleep in was common gear for anyone who regularly wore medium or heavy armor. Much less common in PFS so when someone does get caught at that time, they are more likely to be caught with no armor at all.

Under Armor and check penalties in the CRB it states:

("Sleeping in Armor: A character who sleeps in medium or heavy armor is automatically fatigued the next day. He takes a –2 penalty on Str and Dex and can't charge or run. Sleeping in light armor does not cause fatigue.")

It doesn't list a number of hours involved to gain that Fatigue though.

Therefore, any amount of sleeping in medium or heavy armour causes fatigue.

Living Greyhawk had more sleep time ambushes so a chain shirt to sleep in was common gear for anyone who regularly wore medium or heavy armor. Much less common in PFS so when someone does get caught at that time, they are more likely to be caught with no armor at all.

In the scenarios I've played that actually last more than a day I've seen a GM neither ask if anyone took their armor off for the night nor penalize anyone for having not said they did as much.

David Neilson wrote:

That is a bit of a weird mental image though. Knight taking off his full plate, and then slipping into a chainshirt to sleep in.

We refer to it as Mithril Pajamas.....

I've carried chain shirts on characters just for this reason. I'm generally too cheap to buy a Mithral Chain Shirt just for sleeping in though.

Not quite the same thing, but the Instant Armor spell can also be useful if you don't want to carry light armor.

Eigengrau wrote:

Under Armor and check penalties in the CRB it states:

("Sleeping in Armor: A character who sleeps in medium or heavy armor is automatically fatigued the next day. He takes a –2 penalty on Str and Dex and can't charge or run. Sleeping in light armor does not cause fatigue.")

It doesn't list a number of hours involved to gain that Fatigue though.

Therefore, any amount of sleeping in medium or heavy armour causes fatigue.

That makes the Sleep spell quite a bit more powerful... cast sleep on someone in med/heavy armor and bam, if they do wake up, they're automatically fatigued.

...okay, reasonably speaking a few rounds shouldn't do it.

The point of the rule is that you don't rest properly if you sleep in your armour. Therefore the reasonable interpretation is that if you're sleeping to gain the benefits of rest (regaining HP, arcane spells, etc) you also invoke the penalties for sleeping in armour.

The reason that my first response was so brusque was because this seems to me like a case where the RAI is really clear and the Ring of Sustenance issue was an attempt to create a loophole. In this case, nitpicking the RAW for loopholes instead of accepting the RAI... screws over anyone in medium or heavy armour when subjected to magical Sleep effects. :/ Doesn't seem like the way to go to me.

For a more productive contribution, Restful armour actually does both reduce the amount of sleep you need to two hours (like a Ring of Sustenance but without the other benefits) and lets you sleep in that armour without penalty.

In the scenarios I've played that actually last more than a day I've seen a GM neither ask if anyone took their armor off for the night nor penalize anyone for having not said they did as much.

It's not up to the GM to ask and assign penalties for that kind of thing. You know if your character was sleeping in armour or not, and you should assign the penalty yourself.

You'll usually decide what your character's default preference is, and announce it to the GM if he/she's doing something different that night.

The honour system applies.

Thanks guys for all your help.

I'm going to rule that they're fatigued if they sleep for more than an hour in their med/heavy armor, even if they're using a Ring of Sustenance.

As long as they're traipsing through this hot, rain forest of a jungle they're going to have come to grips with the armor being a burden.

Think ring of sustenance as a time loop. They really only sleep two hours but because of the ring they have slept 8 hours. In armor.

Ring of Sustenance = Provide its wearer with life-sustaining nourishment. The ring also refreshes the body and mind, so that its wearer needs only sleep 2 hour per day to gain the benefit of 8 hours of sleep.

No were does it say anything about armor. So if you spend 2 hour of sleep in med or heavy armor... you would still become fatigued. (( if you have the Endurance Feat... then you can sleep in med armor without becoming fatigued. )).

That is a bit of a weird mental image though. Knight taking off his full plate, and then slipping into a chainshirt to sleep in.

Why exactly is that weird to you?

A compromise would be to have an armored coat besides you at night. Its only a move action to put on.

claudekennilol wrote:

In the scenarios I've played that actually last more than a day I've seen a GM neither ask if anyone took their armor off for the night nor penalize anyone for having not said they did as much.

It's not up to the GM to ask and assign penalties for that kind of thing. You know if your character was sleeping in armour or not, and you should assign the penalty yourself.

You'll usually decide what your character's default preference is, and announce it to the GM if he/she's doing something different that night.

The honour system applies.

The problem with this is a lot of new players have no idea that rule even exists.