Waking Sleeping Ally - AoO?

[Carrauntoohil]

So, it's not listed on the table of actions in combat. The closest is probably stabilizing a dying ally IMO

What say ye?

Does waking an ally that was put to magical sleep provoke an AoO?

Is there RAW anywhere?

If not, what do you think?

[MrCharisma]

I think the default is that actions Don't provoke unless otherwise specified. So no it wouldn't.

Rememeber that damaging an ally will wake them, so putting 1 hit into an ally as part of a full attack is often the best course of action in the mid-to-late game, since 1 attack likely won't really do much, and losing 1 attack from a full-attack is the smallest loss of action economy to wake your ally. Since that action decidedly wouldn't provoke, spending a standard action to do so certainly shouldn't either.

[Carrauntoohil]

MrCharisma wrote:

I think the default is that actions Don't provoke unless otherwise specified. So no it wouldn't.

This part is interesting to me and I am curious to learn more about it. Is there anywhere this is outlined better?

Quote:

Rememeber that damaging an ally will wake them, so putting 1 hit into an ally as part of a full attack is often the best course of action

I think there are RP and flavour reasons to make this not a tactic to be relied upon by NPCs, but at the same time realise that this puts the party, who will damage each other without issue knowing that it will likely be healed later, at an advantage.

Quote:

Since that action decidedly wouldn't provoke, spending a standard action to do so certainly shouldn't either.

This again is interesting and also seems pretty reasonable to me.

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In this specific instance, I am the DM and the party (lvl6) has a slumber witch. They were fighting cultists with heavy picks, so a cvultist putting an attack into a sleeping ally had the potential for an x4 crit. Seems dodgy.

The sleeper in question was a SBEG (a minor villain for this particular 'episode', not even a story-arc, of a much larger campaign). So I'm not overly worried about how he went down in the end.

Three cultists noticed his predicament and tried to wake him. Two never even made it to him because of AoOs and other attacks along the way as they distractedly ran toward their leader. One managed to bend down and try to wake him. She lost her last 4 hitpoints to a musket in the face from AoO.

To be honest, the party deliberately delayed giving SBEG the old Coup de Grace as soon as possible to allow one party member get the kill who had a reason for vengeance. So I can't fault their RP intentions and probably wouldn't punish that level of IC thinking and support.

Since we've a slumber witch, the inevitable next time might play a little differently. I'm already talking to the witch player about it now.

[zza ni]

sleep (and the slumber hex which say it work like it) has this in it's info:

" Slapping or wounding awakens an affected creature, but normal noise does not. Awakening a creature is a standard action (an application of the aid another action)."

slapping\wounding doesn't provoke. and aid another also doesn't provoke. so ether way it can be done without provoking.

you will notice that the 2nd sentence is separate. it mean that a sleeping creature awakes if slapped or wounded, but the normal way (the one npc would probably use in the example you put above) is using aid another to wake him up. i seem to recall reading someplace that it mentioned that this involve rigorous shaking him, but i can't remember where i read that.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Slapping someone is basically making an unarmed attack on them and as such would follow the rules of making an unarmed attack. Making an unarmed attack only provokes an AoO from the person being attacked it will not provoke an AoO. Since the sleeping person is considered helpless, they cannot make an AoO. So, waking someone does not provoke an AoO from anyone.

[Carrauntoohil]

Thanks folks.

I hadn't thought that there would be more detail about the AoO eligibility in the Sleep spell but that makes it pretty clear.

Given the SBEG that I'd built, that one AoO entirely had a big impact on the success of the battle for the party.

All good, there were a few other things that could have turned it in either direction so I think I'll just move on from here and make sure that everyone knows for next time about waking people not provoking.