Is there any incentive to sleep with a bedroll?


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I'm surprised I can't find a core rulebook answer on this, or in the forums.

While adventuring in a dungeon, or setting up camp outside, is there any benefit to lugging around the extra weight of a bedroll and using that to rest versus not carrying the extra weight and just sleeping on the ground?

Thank you for reading my question.

Alex


I don't think the rules cover it, if anything I guess you might be fatigued as if you slept in medium or heavy armor.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Game mechanically, no, but having done much camping, I recommend a bedroll and a blanket.

All of my characters have one. I just think it makes more sense as part of the standard gear. There is so much that we hand wave as it is a game, it seems that lugging around a bedroll and blanket along with a waterskin, rations, and flint and steel should be basic. If it is an encumbrance problem, just drop the backpack as a free action at the start of combat or have the beefy types carry it for you on request.


It's a flavor item, unless the GM chooses to make it a requirement for productive sleep.


I think that's up to the GM. If the ground is particularly cold, hard, wet, or otherwise uncomfortable, the GM could say you didn't get a good enough night's sleep; you're fatigued, or you contracted a cold from sleeping on the freezing floor; you're sickened for 1d4 days. They're 5 lbs, so I wouldn't risk it.


I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.

LOL!! That's it! My character will explicitly stop going to the bathroom! I want to see the DM's eyes and reaction when I make that claim at the table...


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It messy when grog's bowels give out middle of battle..


alexperience wrote:

I'm surprised I can't find a core rulebook answer on this, or in the forums.

While adventuring in a dungeon, or setting up camp outside, is there any benefit to lugging around the extra weight of a bedroll and using that to rest versus not carrying the extra weight and just sleeping on the ground?

Thank you for reading my question.

Alex

Dinner, wine and chocolates helps?


Hendelbolaf wrote:
Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.
LOL!! That's it! My character will explicitly stop going to the bathroom! I want to see the DM's eyes and reaction when I make that claim at the table...

Roll a Fort Save!


I Dont Think the rules need to cover that sort of thing.

Grand Lodge

master_marshmallow wrote:
Hendelbolaf wrote:
Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.
LOL!! That's it! My character will explicitly stop going to the bathroom! I want to see the DM's eyes and reaction when I make that claim at the table...
Roll a Fort Save!

On a failed save, the Paladin of Iomedae throws up all over his armor from the smell, then has to say some prayers as he cleans himself off.

Scarab Sages

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I prefer to sleep with hot elf chicks with daddy issues, but there don't seem to be many rules for that, either.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Do you have one in your gear list? Otherwise...


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"Is there any incentive to sleep with a bedroll?"

Well, if the bedroll is really coming onto you, and you're not in an exclusive relationship....


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

I hear they have masterwork inflatable bedrolls ...


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"Is there any incentive to sleep ON a bedroll"

Not when there's a bed available.

Honestly does every action a character make in a game have to give a +1...


It is mainly for flavor having said that i had one gm who ruled that if you didn't have a bedroll to sleep on you had yo male a save to see if you got a good nights sleep.
All my characters have one it just makes sense to me


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.

Going to the bathroom is not an issue because the equipment list does not include a 20 pound latrine or roll of toilet paper. If either of those items were in the list, people would rightly be raising the question of what would be the consequences of not having them.


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alexperience wrote:

I'm surprised I can't find a core rulebook answer on this, or in the forums.

While adventuring in a dungeon, or setting up camp outside, is there any benefit to lugging around the extra weight of a bedroll and using that to rest versus not carrying the extra weight and just sleeping on the ground?

Thank you for reading my question.

Alex

I wouldn't sleep with a bedroll unless it bought me dinner first.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Note that the monk's kit is the only class equipment kit that lacks a bedroll (probably because monks start with such a ridiculously low amount of money). Do they spend 1st level fatigued most of the time, or should the DM award them a special "sleep without bedroll" ability?


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If you're a hardass who doesn't mind sleeping on bare ground, sure, don't bother with a bedroll. My druids and barbarians generally don't purchase bedrolls, and many of my rangers don't either.

If you're playing a pampered noble who ran away from from home to go adventuring, is used to feather-soft cushions and can't stand the thought of callouses, choosing to sleep without at least a bedroll is a bit out of character. Even a typical adventurer would prefer some sort of sleeping gear, though they're likely to have their horse carry it rather than carrying it themselves.

If you're looking for mechanics, there aren't any in general, though the GM (or module designer) is free to introduce some if they're appropriate. For example, Souls for Smuggler's Shiv introduces many new rules regarding the effects of having a substandard campsite. I don't recall if bedrolls were relevant to those rules, but it did include quite a few mechanical effects for things that would normally be considered "just fluff". This is fine, and I encourage fellow GMs to make situational judgment calls for such things.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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It beats sleeping alone.


Someone once posted that there was a magical bedroll that healed the character at twice the usual rate for resting for one night. He insisted that "everyone should have them or wasn't taking the game seriously". I spent a long time searching for that bedroll on the equipment lists and never found it. I assume it was a third-party published item.

Imposing "realistic" limitations and liabilities on the party has its place. It's a good way to instill a sense of danger and survival, like thirst and hunger penalties play their part if the party were lost in the desert. However, I'm not inclined to impose a bedroll penalty unless I thought the group was being too off-the-cuff with their own survivability and I thought they needed to be reminded the world was a rough and dangerous place:

"Make a Fort save at +2 if you have a good bedroll, +4 if you have a masterwork bedroll, or wake up fatigued. If you're a survivalist, roll Survival instead."


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Owly wrote:

Someone once posted that there was a magical bedroll that healed the character at twice the usual rate for resting for one night. He insisted that "everyone should have them or wasn't taking the game seriously". I spent a long time searching for that bedroll on the equipment lists and never found it. I assume it was a third-party published item.

Imposing "realistic" limitations and liabilities on the party has its place. It's a good way to instill a sense of danger and survival, like thirst and hunger penalties play their part if the party were lost in the desert. However, I'm not inclined to impose a bedroll penalty unless I thought the group was being too off-the-cuff with their own survivability and I thought they needed to be reminded the world was a rough and dangerous place:

"Make a Fort save at +2 if you have a good bedroll, +4 if you have a masterwork bedroll, or wake up fatigued. If you're a survivalist, roll Survival instead."

Magic Bedroll from 3.5 (not Pathfinder), it allowed you to sleep for 8 hours and you healed 1 hit point per character level along with your normal hit points from sleep and rest. You also have Endure Elements as long as you are in it. There may be others but that is the one I recall from the Magic Item Compendium. Of course a Ring of Sustenance is really the way to go in that situation.


While I prefer not to go the route of enforcing penalties for not having one, I do not begrudge any GM doing so.

For my home game, I like the gentlemen's agreement that most characters should have one, and that not having one is the exception that requires some sort of in-character rationale.

What makes it game-relevant to me is that it does weigh several pounds, and accounting for that will make some players think twice about dumping their strength stat. My witch is a tiny little female elf with in-character reasons to have a low strength score. Even so, I had to deliberate quite a bit when it came to how low a strength score I wanted to give her, and it was the bedroll and blanket specifically that tipped me into medium load territory.

Dark Archive

Hendelbolaf wrote:
Owly wrote:

Someone once posted that there was a magical bedroll that healed the character at twice the usual rate for resting for one night. He insisted that "everyone should have them or wasn't taking the game seriously". I spent a long time searching for that bedroll on the equipment lists and never found it. I assume it was a third-party published item.

Imposing "realistic" limitations and liabilities on the party has its place. It's a good way to instill a sense of danger and survival, like thirst and hunger penalties play their part if the party were lost in the desert. However, I'm not inclined to impose a bedroll penalty unless I thought the group was being too off-the-cuff with their own survivability and I thought they needed to be reminded the world was a rough and dangerous place:

"Make a Fort save at +2 if you have a good bedroll, +4 if you have a masterwork bedroll, or wake up fatigued. If you're a survivalist, roll Survival instead."

Magic Bedroll from 3.5 (not Pathfinder), it allowed you to sleep for 8 hours and you healed 1 hit point per character level along with your normal hit points from sleep and rest. You also have Endure Elements as long as you are in it. There may be others but that is the one I recall from the Magic Item Compendium. Of course a Ring of Sustenance is really the way to go in that situation.

But it's a magic sleeping bag of always being toasty and warm!


As a personal note, if a character has Endurance, they can sleep on loose rocks for all I care.

Shadow Lodge

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Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.

Pathfinders are superheroes. Superheroes don't go to the bathroom.

Any food they eat gets turned into health.


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Avatar-1 wrote:
Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.

Pathfinders are superheroes. Superheroes don't go to the bathroom.

Any food they eat gets turned into health.

Unless that dratted elf shoots it.


The post comes across as a Player trying to figure out if he can drop some lbs off his encumbrance. Even if it isn't, if you didn't see it in the bedroll description or in anything in additional rules and the like, do you, as a DM, REALLY need an official ruling on this? Come on.


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Matt Thomason wrote:
Avatar-1 wrote:
Mojorat wrote:
I think it falls in the same area as going to the bathroom. Doesn't need to be menrioned but if your explicitly not doing it then the dm can apply whatever he feels.

Pathfinders are superheroes. Superheroes don't go to the bathroom.

Any food they eat gets turned into health.

Unless that dratted elf shoots it.

Use Magic to kill Death

Edit: Unless he shoots that too

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
blahpers wrote:

If you're a hardass who doesn't mind sleeping on bare ground, sure, don't bother with a bedroll. My druids and barbarians generally don't purchase bedrolls, and many of my rangers don't either.

Very few of even the most hardened modern day rangers or even bush tribespeople will sleep on bare ground without making at least some minimal effort to achieve some level of comfort, or at the very least protection from the creepy crawlies.

What penalties to apply? The sleeping in armor rules are a guideline. Then again if you went to the trouble to take the Endurance feat, I'll let you sleep any way you bloody well please.


LazarX wrote:
blahpers wrote:

If you're a hardass who doesn't mind sleeping on bare ground, sure, don't bother with a bedroll. My druids and barbarians generally don't purchase bedrolls, and many of my rangers don't either.

Very few of even the most hardened modern day rangers or even bush tribespeople will sleep on bare ground without making at least some minimal effort to achieve some level of comfort, or at the very least protection from the creepy crawlies.

What penalties to apply? The sleeping in armor rules are a guideline. Then again if you went to the trouble to take the Endurance feat, I'll let you sleep any way you bloody well please.

True, maybe I should turn up the occurrence of vermin/snakebites when characters don't at least use some sense. A little Survival skill should mend most of that though. Then again, a successful Survival check should have the character suddenly remember that they should have brought a friggin' blanket or two.

Again, we're in the wonderful world of table variance here. : D

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Removed an unhelpful post and reply. Flag and move on.


alexperience wrote:

I'm surprised I can't find a core rulebook answer on this, or in the forums.

While adventuring in a dungeon, or setting up camp outside, is there any benefit to lugging around the extra weight of a bedroll and using that to rest versus not carrying the extra weight and just sleeping on the ground?

Thank you for reading my question.

Alex

I do not believe that there are any rules for this. There is a fatigued condition and forced march (or hustle) rules that people sometimes use for not getting a good nights sleep, or you could look at the effect of sleeping in heavy armor without having the Endurance feat.

If you wanted to simulate roughing it, I would think a DC 10 Survival check with a half-hour to an hour of work would suffice, with modifiers for how harsh the terrain is. Getting off the ground in a forest and some cover is one thing, but without bringing stuff into a cave you aren't going to make it very cozy.

There's always pack animals or having a pack that you can drop for combat as options (though there are drawbacks to both as well).


Speaking of bedrolls, that made me think, are there any incentives to wearing clothes? In 3.0 clothes didn't count towards encumbrance, but I believe they do now.

Sczarni

Yes, they do. The rule stating you get a free set that does not count towards encumbrance has been removed.

referring to clothes, not bowel movements of bedrolls.


Hair can actually weigh a decent amount. If I'm .1 below encumbrance but I have long, silky Fabio hair, wouldn't that actually put me over encumbrance? Is there a ruling on this yet? If I just got out of a bath and didn't fully dry off am I over encumbrance as well?


: /


:)

And as far as DM Fiat(which should be applied here) it seems reasonable that nearly anyone could sleep a day or two on the ground. I've done it when tired and it didn't end me. After a few days through it's going to start getting to you. Other things like not being able to get comfortable and bugs are going to affect your sleep as well. If I felt like enforcing this, I'd be stacking fatigue modifiers to certain things for every day sleeping in the dirt.


I always felt like there should be a condition that's similar but less severe than fatigued, like how fear effects go from shaken<frightened<panicked. Maybe...

Tired: You are tired. A tired character takes a -2 penalty to strength, dexterity, concentration checks, and on Will saves against sleep effects. Doing anything that would normally cause tiredness causes the tired character to become fatigued. After 2 hours of complete rest, tired characters are no longer tired.

Grand Lodge

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This is in fact a wonderful thing for power gamers to ignore. No power gamer wants those extra, unnecessary pounds of encumbrance.

But as a GM I LOVE power gamers. What? No bedroll? Really? Okay, you had a hard time sleeping last night, and all the creepy crawlies kept bothering you. Make a Fort save against fatigue. Maybe next time you will bring your bedroll...


No Rules based incentives for a lot of things. A GM is free to impose their own penalties however. No soap? Take a penalty to Charisma based checks based on how long you've been travelling.


Meh...I prefer to have a folding chair and sleep in that with a blanket.

*EDIT* My brother fell asleep drunk outside after a family BBQ. He woke up covered in slugs.
THAT is why you need a bedroll!


Robert A Matthews wrote:
No Rules based incentives for a lot of things. A GM is free to impose their own penalties however. No soap? Take a penalty to Charisma based checks based on how long you've been travelling.

I also like having DM imposed penalties, but for PFS play there really cannot be.


master_marshmallow wrote:
Robert A Matthews wrote:
No Rules based incentives for a lot of things. A GM is free to impose their own penalties however. No soap? Take a penalty to Charisma based checks based on how long you've been travelling.
I also like having DM imposed penalties, but for PFS play there really cannot be.

That's simply because the PFS GM (i.e., Michael Brock) doesn't choose to use them. It doesn't change the fact that the GM is empowered to do so.

Grand Lodge

blahpers wrote:
master_marshmallow wrote:
Robert A Matthews wrote:
No Rules based incentives for a lot of things. A GM is free to impose their own penalties however. No soap? Take a penalty to Charisma based checks based on how long you've been travelling.
I also like having DM imposed penalties, but for PFS play there really cannot be.
That's simply because the PFS GM (i.e., Michael Brock) doesn't choose to use them. It doesn't change the fact that the GM is empowered to do so.

Nor does it prevent the PFS GM from applying a circumstance modifier, if it is deserved.

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