Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Balancing the Sleep Spell

The Sleep spell is useless in combat when enemies are able to shove each other to wake each other as a bonus action. The spell description in the core rules specifically states that waking a creature from this spell takes an action. In BG3 it is easy for enemies to attack on the same turn they would have otherwise already used their action, effectively giving the enemies two actions and wasting the player's spell slot.

And because many of the weakest goblins have been HP buffed.

It would be better most of the time, in my opinion, if we could simply roll for sleep HP instead of having it assigned as a fixed value. Same with point assign at character creation. Let us roll our characters damn it.

This is indeed a big change in balance with shove available as a bonus action Oo Especially with a fixed value for Sleep HP.


I think rolling for Sleep HP might be difficult from a technical aspect. But that would be nice if they find a way to implement that in a way that's fun.

Having Shove as an action seems like an easier fix.

Rolling for stats will most likely be possible according to that post and that article. Maybe a feature for the full release?

Easier... and necessary.

I am personally fine with pre-set amount of HP sleep can influence - from my experience with Solasta, I don't think rolling works too well, as the player doesn't get a clear feedback, as to how much they rolled. I also don't have too much issues so far, with how many enemies sleep encompasses either - it still seems like a good value for the spell. As it is right now, shove is the issue by being a cheap counter to a spell that uses valuable resource.

That said, if shove were changed to full action, how would that work on higher levels? With multiattack, a high level character could shove multiple times, no? Though, arguabbly enemy trading 3 attacks to wake up three companions is still more valuable, then 3 enemies using push to wake up companions and still attacking you just as many times. Especially with spellcasters, assuming multiattack will be properly implemented, that would mean choice between pushing companions, or casting a spell.

Sleep is one of the most powerful spells in the game even as things stand. Yes, to get the most out of it you have to pay attention to who's near your targets and what initiative order they're in.

But it's still undeniably one of the most powerful spells in the game. No saving throw. No random chance. And when you use it to your tactical advantage, it gives you a free critical against the target.

*

I don't care if shove wakes up sleeping targets.

--actually, it might be better that shove does wake up targets now that I think about it. Otherwise, the spell would be truly OP.

But anyway, that aside, if you do care and you do for whatever reason think it's a problem, it's worth noting that the "problem" has nothing to do with shove being a bonus action. Just change the rule to say that shove can't wake up sleeping targets, regardless of whether shove is a bonus action or not.

That's exactly how it should be IMO. Push should be a versatile additional function that I must decide to use. Either I use an attack / spell or I push an enemy off a cliff or I push a companion out of an AOE etc. pp. As it stands now, it devalues and makes the help ability obsolete.

In the case of attacking multiple times in one turn, enemies would still risk doing critical damage to their allies, which doesn’t really negate the value of the sleep spell. They would still waste their action waking their allies, which is the point.

No, I mean, that if shove was a full actions, wouldn't that mean that a single warrior could shove up to three times using multiattack?

I did a little bit of re-checking and research, and it seems that it is how it was intended (src).

Quoting the PHB about shoving :
Quoting Jeremy Crawford on the matter :

The description of the spell even specifies this.

Using shove instead of an attack or a spell seems (at least to me) like a fair trade compare to just have it as a bonus action.
But if that's how it is in BG3, I'll live \o/

+1. As I said, it needs to be a full action to wake a creature from this spell, as specified in the spell description.

This. Sleep is actually simultaneously buffed and nerfed in BG3.

Why it's buffed:

1) instead of rolling 5d8 (22.5 average), you are always guaranteed the 24 HP (no low rows, no RNG)
2) in BG3 - you KNOW precisely what the HP the enemies has, unlike Tabletop which you don't
3) no friendly fire

Nerfs:
1) In table top, enemies sleep for 1 full minute once it lands
2) In tabletop, need a full action to wake, or need to receive damage

Sleep is powerful in tabletop, but it's more of a artillery barrage. You launch it into a general area (away from your party) and hope it takes out a bunch of targets randomly. Sometimes it can win a fight outright, other times it does absolutely nothing. In BG3, it's much more of a precision tool that completely bypasses RNG, that you can toss into a crowd without fear.

I think I actually find the BG3 version more powerful. It gives you another powerful tool to bypass RNG - which I find more valuable to have than another AOE RNG CC spell. The combination of controlling other characters to be able to set-up combos, AND having the team initiative / order be so clear is another huge tool in BG3 Sleeps' favor.

Except that all buffs are removed by the single bonus action nerfs

I personnaly never use that spell and consider it a total waste of time and ressources : it cost a lot less to wake someone up than to make him fall alseep...

IMO the BA shove currently balances it out a bit, otherwise it's almost too good. It means you can't just spam this spell recklessly and auto-win a fight - compared to PnP it's way too easy to catch 2-3 enemies within the AOE right now.

But I can see changing the benefit of changing it just so there's less cases of "this spell did nothing for me", though it's still difficult to balance.


Right now, you can't just toss it into a group of enemies without checking the initiative - and I can see that being a bit too meta-gamey. But even just the Zero RNG -> Advantage + Auto-crit is just such a powerful tool, especially if you have someone running GWM (i.e. Lae'zel) since that gives you a BA attack

The AI also almost prioritizes waking their companions up, so if you're really evil you can even try exploit that. Timing it with initiative - shove enemy 1 outside of enemy 2's movement range, THEN put them to sleep. Now enemy 2 will burn both a dash BA to wake up Enemy 1 who's already lost their turn.

Sleep is still my #1 tool for stomping say the Gith Patrol with no other cheese or pre-buffs. It's that good.

1.) 1 HP hardly makes a difference when I can typically either hit 3 goblins, one goblin and a booyagh, or one bugbear either way. The spell typically only affects one enemy or nothing later on in the game anyway when cast at level 1.
2.) Fair enough. I don't disagree that being able to see enemy ability scores and HP is an unnecessary luxury and a sign of the times in cRPG gaming.
3.) Friendly fire isn't an issue if you have an evoker. Why anyone else would know a spell with that radius and effect is beyond me. But you're right, the spell should affect all within, with a few exceptions.

Either way, I don't approve of the game changing rules to spells that are actually quite a bit stronger than the game allows. Sleep is a good spell. It's disappointing to see it so badly nerfed.

I will just say that nothing was quite so satisfying in BG1 as that first time putting an entire village of Xvarts to bed. Sleep kicked thorough ass in that game hehe. The combo of mage on Sleep and the cleric on Command was essentially unstoppable in virtually every combat/encounter that didn't feature undead or fey creatures.

One self restriction was to use Color Spray rather than Sleep as the interrupt, cause it was slightly less op and had some wildness with the cone and the friendly line of fire aspect. Even there though, making a gang of Xvarts taste the rainbow was still pretty enjoyable and op.

Sleep was insane in BG1. It had a definite charm over edging with a fireball or web too, which felt more meta than just kicking in door charging into the room and putting everyone to sleep lol. I do hope we get a proper Xvart smackdown at one point though. Nothing quite says Baldur's Gate like climbing atop a mountain of Xvart corpses. The other brother Darryl being no exception there. I hope we get a Xvart with a really massive dome and an annoying yip bark that just makes you want to go no mercy. Even Ursa couldn't help but go mauling there heheh. Sorry slightly off topic, but yeah, Sleep. That's a tough one

The only and real challenge on this map was to kill Borda and he was not only immune to sleep. xD

It is not op by any means, if anything disarming shot is op. Sleep only guarantees a critical, if your relying on critical and not abusing mechanics or totally destroying the game, the AI, and the physics your not enjoying the game enough LOL. Not only does sleep use up a spell slot- you can take almost anything else that also knocks down an enemy to steal a round and actually does damage. The fact its not even a cantrip makes it a totally trash tier spell, many cantrips are more useful.

If sleep was a cantrip it would go from F- tier to C+. I highly recommend you do not use it. [not the OP, but to those who say its actually good. Its not.}

In BG1 sleep and blindness were strong level 1 spells for sure. Sleep even gave you a decent chance versus Ankhegs from the very start, though it is not reliable enough for no-reload runs (too high a chance of them making the saving throw).

And blindness was effectively another save-or-die spell which was great at the start against single enemies too high level for Sleep, e.g. Greywolf.

For BG 3 shove being a bonus action remains a mess balance-wise - sleep is just another example of this. Make it a standard action please.