Sleeping In Armor

[fnwc]

I haven't seen anything in the rules regarding this. In 3.0/3.5, the Endurance feat allowed characters to sleep in medium/heavy armor without penalty.

I'm currently allowing characters to sleep in light armor, but not heavy armor. However, this causes some real problems when characters are ambushed at night, particularly defenders.

Of course, being ambushed at night is already a disadvantage, my current ruling seems to punish certain builds a lot more than others.

Any suggestions?

 

[Nightson]

a) Ignore it.
b) Use Endurance checks, dock healing surges for failures
c) Give some sort of bonus for sleeping without armor

Remember to ask whether your players are having fun when tasked with worrying over whether they wear their armor to bed or not.

 

[ppaladin123]

I haven't seen anything in the rules regarding this. In 3.0/3.5, the Endurance feat allowed characters to sleep in medium/heavy armor without penalty.

I'm currently allowing characters to sleep in light armor, but not heavy armor. However, this causes some real problems when characters are ambushed at night, particularly defenders.

Of course, being ambushed at night is already a disadvantage, my current ruling seems to punish certain builds a lot more than others.

Any suggestions?

There are no rules about this in 4e. The assumption is that you have trained extensively in your armor and have learned to sleep in it without penalty. There are a bunch of assumptions like this added into 4e. For example you'll note that you don't take a penalty for firing a ranged weapon into melee combat. In 3.5e you had to spend a feat to gain this.

The 4e philosophy is that those feats are, "taxes," on entire categories of characters (heavily armored types or ranged combatants). Every character within that category will have one less feat to spend because they'll have to take the crucial feat. So instead, 4e just assumes that somewhere during your before you became an adventurer you learned the necessary skills.

So what you have is a house-rule. A lot of people don't like the 4e approach to this sort of thing so you'd be in good company if you decided to keep that house rule. And of course it is your game.

p.s. 4e seems to have failed to achieve its own ideals in the inclusion of new weapon and implement expertise feats. Those classes that wield both implements and weapons (swordmages, paladins, clerics, bards) are "taxed" relative to those that don't.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

My group had an encounter where we got ambushed in our sleep...it was one of the most difficult encounters we ever played because I (the Fighter) had an AC of like, 13 (10 + 1 for 1/2 level, +2 after I put my heavy shield on) IIRC. I simply COULD NOT do my job as a Defender with an AC that low. I ended up running away from the main fight with a few hit points left to hide behind the Wizard, because he had like an 18 or 19 AC. It completely ruins any sort of encounter balance and totally screws players with Heavy Armor. I'm seriously considering getting Summoned Armor just to avoid such an issue in the future.

Plus, there's also the fact that we were level 2. If you were to ambush a level 30 character in no armor, it would be different...and by different, I mean worse. A Fighter wearing +6 Godplate gets 20 points of AC from his armor, all of which is now gone. That's a HUGE punishment compared to the Light Armor classes (most of whom would've been within a few points of the Fighter's AC anyway) get no penalty whatsoever. While it might be "realistic" (and even that is debatable as there are stories of people sleeping in armor), it's simply unfair and tosses balance out the window.

 

[Regicide]

There are no rules for sleeping like there are no rules for pooping. Characters don't do it in 4th. Things break when the frail old wizard hobbling around on his cane has the paladin cowering behind him because the wizard is MUCH better at dodging blows to the tune of 5 to 10 AC.

 

[Piratecat]

There are no rules for sleeping like there are no rules for pooping. Characters don't do it in 4th.

This is why I've created the Paragon Path "Scatologist." For Primal origins only, it emphasizes the Call of Nature, and uses a bear as the PC's animal companion. (Does he? If you're playing a Scatologist, he sure does!) It also gives heroes -- or as we call them, PeeSees -- a bonus to perception. I think it's bound to be very popular amongst my simulationist friends.

But yeah. No penalty to sleeping in armor.

 

[Storminator]

This is why I've created the Paragon Path "Scatologist." For Primal origins only, it emphasizes the Call of Nature, and uses a bear as the PC's animal companion. (Does he? If you're playing a Scatologist, he sure does!) It also gives heroes -- or as we call them, PeeSees -- a bonus to perception. I think it's bound to be very popular amongst my simulationist friends.

But yeah. No penalty to sleeping in armor.

There's a 3e Dungeon adventure where the PCs have to wander all over a mountain side in search of goblins. One of the encounters is a dire bat that attacks if provoked.

I was DMing for my son and his teenage friends... and right when the PCs were at the landing above the dire bat, one of them yells "hey! we've been on this mountain for 3 days and no one has ever gone to the bathroom*" And next thing I know the entire party is hanging over the side of the cliff above the dire bat.

Oh, and I ruled they were out of their armor.

PS

*not actual language used

 

[the Jester]

This topic came up in my campaign a few weeks ago. I settled, at least for now, on "sleeping in heavy armor burns a healing surge (to represent fatigue, etc)". But pretty much all my heavy-armor wearing pcs are doing it, so I may want to revisit this ruling, since it has essentially become a heavy armor healing surge tax. I may add the caveat that an Endurance check will let you do it without losing a surge. Dunno, still under review.

 

[webrunner]

One thing about being able to sleep in armor, is that it kind of reduces the value of the storing armor over the impostor's armor..

 

[Regicide]

And next thing I know the entire party is hanging over the side of the cliff above the dire bat.

As a group? I guess none of them had the character flaw: "performance anxiety."