Does anyone have a standard roll they use to check to see if a PC falls asleep while they're on watch at night?
(I tried searching and didn't come up with anything.)
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Does anyone have a standard roll they use to check to see if a PC falls asleep while they're on watch at night?
(I tried searching and didn't come up with anything.)
I think most people just assume that Big Damn Heroes don't fall asleep during their two-hour shift. Go figure.
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Most people, unless seriously sleep deprived, can stay awake for two hours (the usual length of a watch).
Incompetent NPCs fall asleep on watch, at which point the PCs take up their slack. Competent people (including the PCs) just don't do that.
Staying awake a whole night after an adventure, or while under serious conditions of sleep deprivation is another matter, and might require Fortitude or Will saves, or something like them, but 2 hours? Not so much.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
I usually do not call for a roll to stay awake during watch, but I could imagine a DC 10 CON check.
Ruyan.
Most people, unless seriously sleep deprived, can stay awake for two hours (the usual length of a watch).
Incompetent NPCs fall asleep on watch, at which point the PCs take up their slack. Competent people (including the PCs) just don't do that.
Staying awake a whole night after an adventure, or while under serious conditions of sleep deprivation is another matter, and might require Fortitude or Will saves, or something like them, but 2 hours? Not so much.
I should have clarified this. I'm specifically thinking brand new level one characters. So really, not too different from a NPC. And was kind of thinking about that middle watch ...
PC #1: *kick-kick* "Hey, wake up! It's your watch."
PC #2: "Huh? Oh okay." *pulls blanket around shoulders and slumps over*
PC #1: "Don't fall back to sleep!"
PC #2: "Whatever." *stares into the blackness*
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The last time I forced such a check on a player I used a fortitude or will save.
Under normal situation I would never ask for such a check. A hero walking around should not fall asleep during watch. Otherwise characters become the whim of bad dice rolls that sooner or later happen and they feel targeted.
So when did I ask for a check?
I did have a paladin sleeping on deck of a ship away from his comrades. Someone had stolen an item from him the night before and he wanted to catch the thief red handed. So he tried to 'pretend to sleep' which means he was all on his own, had to stay awake the whole night, didn't move but rather was in a position better suited to sleep.
I felt under these circumstances a low chance (must have been in the 25% range) was justified.
Still the player gave me a lot of grief that he didn't auto succeed.
A character actively on watch for a limited time at night will feel targeted.
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I should have clarified this. I'm specifically thinking brand new level one characters. So really, not too different from a NPC. And was kind of thinking about that middle watch ...PC #1: *kick-kick* "Hey, wake up! It's your watch."
PC #2: "Huh? Oh okay." *pulls blanket around shoulders and slumps over*
PC #1: "Don't fall back to sleep!"
PC #2: "Whatever." *stares into the blackness*
If you really want to emphasize their 'rookie' status, I guess a DC 10 Fortitude or Will save would probably be the way to go.
I wouldn't do that to the PCs, though. Falling asleep on watch in what amounts to a combat zone, after only a normal period between nights of sleep, even for a rookie, is a demonstration of lack of conviction. It's a choice to care more about your comfort than everyone's safety...or a lack of realization that there's real danger at all. In either case, it's not something primarily decided by physical tiredness, and not something that should be decided by a roll, any more than whether your PC will, say, run and save himself or act to save a downed comrade is. It's a test of character, and those shouldn't be rolled for.
I think I would only require a roll from a character who is fatigued, exhausted, or otherwise in less than optimum shape. Alternatively, have each player on watch attempt a DC 0 Fortitude save, with no real consequences unless everybody on watch fails the save. In the latter case, the DC would be raised significantly for characters with the fatigued or exhausted condition.
DC 10 will save for my game dose not sound bad but my players always have 2 people up rather then risk it
I would suggest you look at the rules for forced march (PFRPG 171).
I also agree heroes shouldn't just fall asleep at their post. I essentially role-play that rolling a 1 on your perception check means you were dozing off.
After all, asleep means -10 to perception and an average roll is 10-11. You might as well have taken 10 while asleep.
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My drug addicted witch was on watch and failed a spot check so badly that the GM ruled he must have been asleep. Since he had just smoked some seriously powerful weed, I found it hard to argue. The rest of the party was displeased. I thought it was great.
Well... In my group, the heroes don't fall asleep during their watch. They just dramatically, almost comically fail their perception rolls to notice something sneaking up on the camp.
It was a rainy night in the jungle on Smuggler's Shiv. The cavalier on watch didn't manage to make the perception rolls vs dc 15, then 10 (and even vs dc 5, iirc). So a bunch of zombies started biting the people on the other side of the camp. I think he even did not recognize that there's a battle going on behind him for another round (rolled a 1 where a 2 would have been sufficient, or something like that).
Two of the other heroes also managed to sleep through half of the combat before someone woke them up. Fun times.
Anyway. I don't enforce rolls for not falling asleep apart from extraordinary circumstances. What I did once was letting someone roll to see when he thought his watch would be over (cloudy night, no hourglass or -candles).
I wouldn't usually require a check unless I think they are pushing beyond the usual, though if they do I'd :
I'd have them make both a DC 10 fortitude and will save only falling asleep when both fail, failing only the will save might give a penalty on perception checks (a -4 on wisdom based checks or so), failing the fortitude save might make the character fatigued. Possibly saves at higher DC for additional hours of guard duty for every previous save made.
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Are there rolls for "needing a major break" after walking in (even light, but deffinetly heavy) armor for more than 10 minutes?
No, there are some levels of break from reality you need to take to make the game work. Villains have hideouts that often don't communicate threats; allowing 5 to take out hundreds; and plot these hideouts with deadly traps, making it difficult for anyone to move around. Most of these hideouts have dubious means of getting food, and many don't have proper bathroom facilities. But somehow they work that way. When these villains appear and start devastation, it is always in the best interest of the city to pay 5 people the price they would normally pay an army to take it down. "High level" NPCs stay out of the way of "Low Level" NPCs, letting many of them fall before even investigating what was causing the problem.
The list goes on; the bottom line is, no roleplaying game recreates reality. Have you ever scooted along a tight ledge? Imagine doing it with a 20 pound backpack. But every low-dex armor-wearing average-Str cleric in this world does just this with no issue.
If the PC in question was fatigued or exhausted, I might ask for a Fortitude save (DC 15 or thereabouts) to stay awake... but if the PC in question is fatigued or exhausted, I hope his party members would let him sleep and split watch between them anyway.
My games run under a different style. Where most of the posters here think that having the label PC makes the character automatically a hero, we don't subscribe to that philosophy.
Becoming a hero is accomplished through the character's actions and achievements as they level. Not some magic PC title that automatically grants you superhuman status.
So falling asleep on watch after a hard day of fighting I would usually set a fortitude DC of 15. A light day of travel: DC 5-10
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DC 10 will save for my game dose not sound bad but my players always have 2 people up rather then risk it
I actually did mean DC 0 (zero) -- basically it takes bad luck (rolling a natural 1) or unfavorable modifiers to fail this save.
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Even if the DC is 0, you are saying a war-ready person in a dangerous position, well-fed and provisioned, has a 5% chance of falling asleep on the job. So instead of being "heroes" or normal guys, you are saying they are blatantly terrible at doing their job. In far less dangerous situations men are able to do the job; when you have constant tension around you, it's more likely you'll have trouble falling asleep than staying awake pm your guard.
Speaking of, should you check for insomnia? Check if someone is using the restroom or eating during each encounter? Micro-managing everything in the Pathfinder world eliminates the joy and, well, fun that people look for in the game. DND succeeded where many failed because it sacrificed some level of reality for simplicity.
war-ready person, well-fed, 5% chance of failure is a person terrible at their job...
You assume way too much.
I didn't realize all pc's were highly trained soldiers.
My groups don't play all of their characters as military trained.
Trying to say all pcs are and should never fall asleep on watch totally ignores the Pc's backstory.
Generally speaking unless the PC have some other condition on The like fatigued or exhausted there should be no reason to force a fall asleep roll.
If sll they're are doing is walking and fighting but they are otherwise getting their rest there is no reason to fall sleep on watch. Ifyou really want to do this they need to be hounded by other sources like enemies or haunts or such.
Without these sources PC's s either bigdamn heroes or training to be such don't usually fall asleep on a 2 he watch.
Does anyone have a standard roll they use to check to see if a PC falls asleep while they're on watch at night?
(I tried searching and didn't come up with anything.)
It's one of the optional ways I say surprise happens when they fail their perception checks.
If they fall asleep and nothing happens, then no one is the wiser.
One benefit of having a reputation for falling asleep on watch is my witch usually doesn't get assigned to watch anymore. ;-)
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I use willpower checks to see if sentries fall asleep at their posts. Although, so long as players arrange for shifts that I deem resonable, I don't bother. "2 hour watches? No worries. Oh, you plan on staying up all night doing the watch yourself? And you honestly believe that your saying 'I won't fall asleep' makes it so?"
Then again, I use willpower checks for any repetitive thing that players find it easy to declare but characters would find tedious to carry out. Staying up for hours while sleepy, always searching every wall/ceiling/floor for secret doors/traps.. always casting detect evil/magic..
Yeah. easy for you to say "always", not so easy to actually keep focus every second of every minute of every waking hour.
My games run under a different style. Where most of the posters here think that having the label PC makes the character automatically a hero, we don't subscribe to that philosophy.
I play roleplaying games to go beyond my humdrum existence. I want an adventure in the spirit of The Three Musketeers not the Three Stooges.
I don't make PC's roll balance check when they walk down a flight of stairs, even though many people are injured or killed every year in just such accidents. I don't roll to see if PC's come down with the common cold.
Would you really want to read a novel or watch a movie where in the end the protagonists are all killed because one of them fell asleep on watch after a light day of travel?
Not that the protagonists should always win every battle, but they shouldn't fail for mundane reasons.
I wouldn't be inclined to assess a roll under normal circumstances. Off the top of my head, then, the following system:
DC 0 Con check (Only 7 Con or lower can fail, no need to roll normally)
-2 if fatigued (Only 11 Con or lower can fail)
-4 if exhausted (you need to be pretty tough, 16+ Con, to have no chance of nodding off when exhausted, but it will still be something unusual).
I think it would be fun to fall asleep on watch. It's a common trope that is entertaining and challenging. I agree that it shouldn't happen often so DC 0 Fortitude would be fine with me. And, hey, just because you fall asleep during watch doesn't mean anything is going to happen. I would say the DM should only require a roll when he has already determined that an encounter is going to happen on a particular character's watch.
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Most people don't have 6 people; the majority of the argument assumes 5, where people either go 2-2-1 or just 1 each (the 1 each makes for 10 hours). I have yet to see a DM punish for going 12 hour sleep (2-2-1), so it's generally your better interest; and you are assumed to only travel for 8 hours per day.
Natural 1s do not auto-fail perception checks or saving throws! Natural 1s only auto-fail attacks and combat maneuvers. So a DC 0 doesn't mean a 5% chance of failure, it means no chance of failure at all unless there is a negative modifier involved.
Natural 1s do not auto-fail perception checks or saving throws! Natural 1s only auto-fail attacks and combat maneuvers. So a DC 0 doesn't mean a 5% chance of failure, it means no chance of failure at all unless there is a negative modifier involved.
Natural 1's do result in automatic failure of saving throws as noted at the bottom of the second column of page 180 in the Core Rulebook. You're correct about skill checks however.
So falling asleep on watch after a hard day of fighting I would usually set a fortitude DC of 15. A light day of travel: DC 5-10
Do you have them make fortitude saves after a few minutes hard fighting to avoid being fatigued?
Even with a DC of 5-10, on average one member of a standard 4 person party would fall asleep each night. If it is the first person on watch then there is a good chance the whole party would sleep the night through. If the party is that inept then they deserve to get eaten by the first wandering monster - assuming they survive the day that just passed.
Even if the party is not full of "heroes", if they are not completely knackered when night falls there should be virtually no chance they'll fall asleep on watch.
One benefit of having a reputation for falling asleep on watch is my witch usually doesn't get assigned to watch anymore. ;-)Does anyone have a standard roll they use to check to see if a PC falls asleep while they're on watch at night?
(I tried searching and didn't come up with anything.)
It's one of the optional ways I say surprise happens when they fail their perception checks.
If they fall asleep and nothing happens, then no one is the wiser.
My 3.5 sorcerer got tagged for mid-night watches on ocassion, and the party would HOWL when they found out how he stood watch. He would wake his familar, ask him to wake Kurt if he spotted something threatening or unusual, and then I (the character) would go back to sleep, leaving my familiar with the higher Spot/Listen ranks on duty.
The other players didn't like it. Until I pointed out that my wee little pseudo-dragon actually HAD Spot/Listen, and I didn't.
Master Arminas
master, my druid does much the same thing with her tiger. She tells the group that's why she trained him.
My witch recently picked up a hawk. Just a hawk. It's a combat trained hawk though (hunting hawk). He picked it up because he's a gravewalker archetype with a poppet instead of a familiar, but he passes himself off as a wizard mostly, so he felt that the hawk would pass for his familiar.
He just needs an alarm clock now and he could tell the hawk to watch while he gets some well-deserved shut-eye...
Anyone got any idea what would work for a quick and dirty cheap alarm clock that would wake up a character without waking the whole party so he could wake up just long enough to wake up the next watch person?
There are rules for sleeping in Carrion Crown. But nothing standard other than that as far as I am aware.
Staying awake for 1 night is really not that big a deal to be honest...
You would think so. Doing my military service I would some times stand in the middle of the night, on guard, in a pitch black forrest, after days of gruelling excersices and very little sleep, in a setting where shame and punishment for falling asleep where both severe. And I would wake when I hit the ground or just before. I ran a marathon those days, so my body was not weak or unacostumed to strain. But it can be real, real hard, and it is not a concious choice. It starts with semi-hallucinations, dreaming while awake. After you have jumped, shaken your head, pinched yourself the first 20 times, the next time brings you down faster than you can react. The ground will wake you up though ;-).
Being deprived of sleep, rest, nutrition, and body heat over the course of days can wear most people down. Don't try guarding from a hidden position in this state.
It is completely different if patrolling, approaching a target, marching, or the like. But standing guard, that should have saves if you are fatigued or the like in game terms.
Okay, Just to point out one thing, I am a Soldier in real life, there was a training exercise were I was getting about four hours of sleep a night during sleeping for this week we still had watches so if you came up then yes, you only got two hours of sleep after a long day of whatever happened that day. It sucked but no one fell asleep.
A lot of things play into that, what would your friends do to you if they found out, slight paranoia (especially in a situation where you KNOW there are things out there who want to kill you if a DM uses night attacks often.) also you have had to have lost a LOT of sleep before falling asleep standing up is really possible so walking around auto saves.
If the character is already fatigued or exhausted then okay, make them save but i doubt the party would let the exhausted guy have first or second watch, maybe last watch. If they do put him out there they deserve whatever they get lol.
but yeah, in theory it sounds like it would be hard but it isn't. especially for people who craft during watch's that will naturally keep them awake (maybe loose some perception and or take a loss on the craft check) simply walking around or organizing gear.
The save makes sense but it should not affect PC's after a "normal" day. Muscles get conditioned for this sort of thing. I rarely apply real life to my games but if anything it shouldn't be harder for the characters to simple stuff than real life.
endrant>
What he said. 4 hours a day is pretty good. 4 hours in 4 days will bring you to the edge. I once saw a 3 meters tall hen (yes, the bird that lays egg) out of the corner of my eye on a march. That was actually very fun for everyone :-).