Sleep Deprivation

[ideasmith]

Sleep Deprivation:

 

If you have slept fewer than eight hours in the past day, you have one level of sleep deprivation per hour you are short. If you have not slept in the past 48 hours, you have one additional level of sleep deprivation per 24 hours without sleep after the first 24 hours. Thus a character who has not slept in a week has 14 levels of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is recalculated as needed.

 

Each level of sleep deprivation inflicts one level of incompetency (6E1 page 419). In addition, you regain one less Stun and one less End per level of sleep deprivation each time you take a recovery. The incompetency is ignored on any phase in which you spend Endurance, but the recovery penalty is not.

 

Sleep Deprivation and Life Support: A character with Diminished Sleep replaces 'day' in the above with 'week' if 1 point of diminished sleep or 'year' if 2 points of diminished sleep. A character with 3 points of diminished sleep is immune to sleep deprivation.

[薔薇語]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Those rules seem a little harsh to me. IIRC, the old 4th ed Horror HERO book has rules on Sleep Deprivation. I could be wrong though, it has been a while seen I read through it. Someone want to open up their copy and confirm this.

 

La Rose.

[jtelson]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Funny, I was just asking about this.

 

I think the effect should vary by genre - Dark Champions and Horror would likely have more harsh rules than Golden Age Champions or Pulp.

[ideasmith]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Those rules seem a little harsh to me.

 

Does the edit fix this, or is it still too harsh?

 

IIRC' date=' the old 4th ed Horror HERO book has rules on Sleep Deprivation. I could be wrong though, it has been a while seen I read through it. Someone want to open up their copy and confirm this. [/quote']

 

I haven't read that book.

 

Funny' date=' I was just asking about this.[/quote']

 

Not coincidence, as it happens. Your question inspired me to post this system.

 

I think the effect should vary by genre - Dark Champions and Horror would likely have more harsh rules than Golden Age Champions or Pulp.

 

Any specific suggestions?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Do you mean one level of sleep deprivation per hour short? Many people never sleep 8 hours a night.

 

Where are the 'sleep deprivation' rules? 6.1.419 does Dependence, which is not quite the same...

 

I'd say you would not start accumulating 'sleep deprivation' unless you lose two half night of sleep one after the other (so miss an entire night or two half nights). For each additional half night lose another point: you lose 14 a week that way, if you do not sleep.

 

The effect of sleep deprivation, in fact, is not constant - you go up and down - sometimes almost asleep (and pretty useless) other times fully alert. Then, after about 12 days, you die.

[Vondy]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

I'm not married to the idea that you need eight hours of sleep in twenty-four hours. It seems a bit high. Some people function fine on 6-7 hours per night. I sleep six hours per night. On the sabbath I take a two hour nap. I think Sean's formula is a good start.

[薔薇語]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

I'm not married to the idea that you need eight hours of sleep in twenty-four hours. It seems a bit high. Some people function fine on 6-7 hours per night. I sleep six hours per night. On the sabbath I take a two hour nap. I think Sean's formula is a good start.

 

Speaking of which, I have a co-worker who on average gets three to four hours of sleep and feels fine. I, for example, can goes with as little as two or three hours of sleep and operate normally (although I much prefer my 10 hours of sleep).

 

La Rose.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Is this meant to supersede or to coincide with the Long Term Endurance rules?

[薔薇語]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

I think the goal would be to add to them. One can become sleep deprived without engaging in an end requiring act.

 

La Rose.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Fair enough. Thanks!

[jtelson]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

Do you mean one level of sleep deprivation per hour short? Many people never sleep 8 hours a night.

 

Where are the 'sleep deprivation' rules? 6.1.419 does Dependence, which is not quite the same...

 

There aren't any (from Steve)

 

Re: Sleep Deprivation

There are no specific rules for that, and until I have time to do some research so I can be sure I'm covering all the bases, I'd rather not just whip some up. However, I think it'd be easy enough for a GM to apply common sense to figure out some rough guidelines -- reductions to INT and END probably, and no doubt some Skill Roll penalties.

 

I'd say you would not start accumulating 'sleep deprivation' unless you lose two half night of sleep one after the other (so miss an entire night or two half nights). For each additional half night lose another point: you lose 14 a week that way, if you do not sleep.

 

The effect of sleep deprivation, in fact, is not constant - you go up and down - sometimes almost asleep (and pretty useless) other times fully alert. Then, after about 12 days, you die.

 

As someone operating on 2-4 hours of sleep a night for more than a year now. I can say with certainty that for me it is not sufficient, but I know people for whom it works.

 

So first we need to establish a baseline >1 hour but < 8 hours (As 1 hour or less gets into LS, and >8 hours might constitute a complication - maybe set the minimum higher @3 hours/night so as to not let someone effectively CON their way to free LS - or make that also Campaign Specific) - Maybe Con, 10 con requires 8 hours sleep -1 hour per X points of Con based on Genre to the campaign minimum.

 

So High Fantasy or Pulp might have - Min 3 hours X= 2, so 14 Con=6 hours required and a 20 Con hits the minimum of 3 hours while Dark Champions might have 5 min X=3 and Golden Age 2 min X=1 - establish the range for setting by setting (influenced by the genre)

 

Once the baseline is established we can look at how characters are affected. Incompetency's a nice option to use (6E1 page 419). Applyig 1 level for each Y hours of needed sleep missed with a minimum of 1 level; Y being campaign specific. Remove 1 level for each Z hours slept. Set a maximum value to Y, based on Con or Ego after which you absolutley fall asleep or if yu cannot for some reason Max Y x 5 goes insane and +x5 dies. Throw in some ego and con rolls to temporarily stave off the effects and Bob's your uncle.

 

This is all predicated on you caring one way or another and don't want to just wing it - it's never really come up in the 20 + years I've been playing Hero - the only reason I even thought about it was is I had an adventure idea while reading the Kamarathin world book ('No Sleep til Endson' One of Duke Velan's bastards is using magic to steel dreams to power a takeover of his 'rightful' inheritance - sleep doesn't bring rest and the players need to find and stop him)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Sleep Deprivation

 

-1 on all rolls per 'level' might be a bit steep: we roll on 3d6 so anything in the region of -4 or more makes even the simplest tasks almost impossible.

 

Perhaps...

 

1 'level' = -1

2 levels = -2

4 levels = -3

8 levels = -4

16 levels = -5

 

So after 2x 1/2 nights without sleep you are at -1, after 3X 1/2 nights you are -2, after 5x half nights you are -3, and after 9 half nights without sleep you are -4...that would mean if you go 9 days not getting enough sleep, or 5 days of not sleeping at all, you are at -4 on all rolls.

 

Someone who is normally pretty competent (12- skills) will be functioning a t a very basic level by that point (8-).

 

You might also decide that you can temporarily banish the penalty (say for 1 hour) with a CON roll...but that takes the relevant penalty when making the roll.

 

Making all this up, but it seems reasonably fair.