Sleep in battle

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Sleep in battle
« on: May 10, 2011, 01:12:25 PM »
How asleep is a "light sleep"?  If I stab a guy in the middle of combat w/ the sleep poison do they sleep instantly, and if so for how long? 

How does hitting a group with sleep work?  Or any poison for that matter. 

We also had some argument about Daze.  If done in battle how long would it last?  If it is a monster that is being attacked will Daze just not take effect?  I can see it being good for crowd control on a single monster, but it seems pointless (perhaps purposely so) to do it on the monster the warrior is in combat with.

-side note-  Rapiers are still weight 2 (more than a spear).  They're known for being dainty swords.

*

sage

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Re: Sleep in battle
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2011, 01:54:02 PM »
We're changing rapiers, thanks for the catch.

Sleep is, well, sleep. The target instantly falls asleep. It's a fictional condition, like much of Dungeon World. It's up the GM, who is (per their agenda) portraying the fantastic world, to portray. The amount of time depends on the circumstances. In combat, it might only last a few moments, until the sleeper is stumbled over or stabbed. If given to a nightwatchmen doing a boring duty watching the walls, though, it might last minutes or more, if no one disturbs him.

Daze always takes effect, at least for a moment, but casting it on someone the fighter's about to stab is pretty pointless. They'll stand and drool, get stabbed, and then pop out of it. It does let the fighter just deal their damage, or let the thief backstab them, though, since the target won't be fighting back. It's mostly for taking someone out of the fight so you can focus on others. (I also just modified it a bit, so it only effects lower level creatures.)

As for how both of these work on groups, that needs to be clarified, but I think they don't, really. To daze a gang of goblins, you'd need a roughly equal number of casters. To poison a warband of orcs, you'd need a dose for each. I'll make that clear in the rules.

Re: Sleep in battle
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2011, 02:40:15 PM »
dont know about poisons but perhaps the adept hireling would allow you to affect 1 group larger (eg a crowd) with a spell like that?

Re: Sleep in battle
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2011, 06:12:25 PM »
the sleep spell can already sleep multiple people.