Evocation-based sleep spell cast in Combat

[YPU]

Actually, the book does discuss having consequences disappear if it makes sense, even if they haven't taken their full recovery time. I seem to remember the books mainly discussing in game time taking such a leap that the consequence should be removed, such as a drunken consequence from a social encounter being removed after a month of in game time passing.

That got me thinking. The consequences you inflict on an enemy and the time they last are more a reward for the attacker then anything else. Reducing the duration of your attacks is only lessening you reward really. If you want to inflict the severe consequence "more asleep then awake" because you want this to be a soft sleep spell rather then a hard burn out your body sleep spell then heck why shouldn't you? Is it really that different from inflicting a drunk result on somebody, then having it disappear because a few days passed?

[Taran]

You could make it an offensive block. The target resists with endurance, and as long as the block is up, it can't do anything. Though a block that blocks everything should be able to be overcome by everything, which kind of makes this a weak option.

I like this and this is why:  the person is asleep.  Loud noise would wake them (block vs perception), any stress would wake them etc...

I'm not sure a sleep spell is an automatic take-out.  I wouldn't think it would be ultra-useful in combat.  It'd be great for sneaking past guards or other non-combat situations.  It would have to be a VERY powerful sleep spell to make sure the person doesn't wake in the middle of everything going on in combat.

EDIT: YPU makes a good point regarding consequences as well

[Haru]

Hmm, if you go that route, a sleep spell is nothing to use in a conflict, it is something to prevent a conflict. So you could make it a "veil", putting someone to sleep, so you can sneak past them. Or you can make it a maneuver spell and tag it on a subsequent stealth roll for the same purpose.

[Todjaeger]

I like this and this is why:  the person is asleep.  Loud noise would wake them (block vs perception), any stress would wake them etc...

I'm not sure a sleep spell is an automatic take-out.  I wouldn't think it would be ultra-useful in combat.  It'd be great for sneaking past guards or other non-combat situations.  It would have to be a VERY powerful sleep spell to make sure the person doesn't wake in the middle of everything going on in combat.

EDIT: YPU makes a good point regarding consequences as well

Part of the whole issue I've been running into with modelling the spell is that a player wants to have a sleep-type spell which they can cast in combat, specifically to put a target to sleep during combat.

This came up during an actual game, and as a bit of handwaving, I let the player do this, albeit it took the player several castings before they could put the target to sleep so that they player could capture the target.  The other part of this is that I didn't have the target (who is a significant, recurring NPC) take any consequences to avoid falling asleep and then being captured.

Went I sat down afterwards to determine how effective sleep spells would be in the future, that's when it appeared that sleep-type spells wouldn't be particularly effective, especially in combat.  A sleep spell cast as a Maneuver on a target, so that a night watchman can get a Temporary Aspect of Sleepy, or as a sleep-based Block on actions seems workable. 

But future attempts to use Evocation to put a target to sleep in a fight doesn't seem workable, except possibly against mooks.  I just wanted to double check to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

-Cheers

[Taran]

It's not completely useless in combat.  A grapple is a block against all actions and it's a viable way to neutralize someone.  If you did a sleep as a block against all actions, and limit some actions - or skill uses(a gm can limit what weapons are useable in a grapple), as long as the block was high enough, it could work - at least temporarily.  I just think it would have to have a fairly high block strength to be useable in combat as things such as loud noises would trigger Awareness checks that might overcome the block.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Just remember that you can never block defense rolls.  That's an important design element in Fate.

[Taran]

Yeah.  Which makes the block kind of weird because a sleeping person really shouldn't be able to dodge effectively.  Although it'd be easy to say that an attack against the sleeping target automatically breaks the block, although I'd think there'd be some kind of advantage to attacking a sleeping target.  You could always make a declaration that they were prone (since they were sleeping) and tag it for a bonus...I don't know...I guess it's not a smooth solution afterall.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Yeah.  The fact that you can't penalize defense rolls (except by tagging an aspect to boost your attack) breaks verisimilitude a lot for me in Fate.  However, it also keeps things from getting very broken.

You could place a grapple like block, then on your next turn maneuver to place "Deep Sleep" which could then be invoked to have them defend at Mediocre (treated as an ambush). 

[vultur]

I'd say it would be possible. but *really* difficult. Because that's effectively soft-touch psychomancy, it's a very grey area within the Laws, and converting Thaumaturgy to Evocation always results in prohibitively high power costs. There's also the question of being able to control the magic sufficiently well to put someone to sleep temporarily, rather than permanently. we know Molly does it in GS, but other than that there's nothing to suggest it's possible when the target is resisiting.

The Gatekeeper does it in TC, but he's really strong, and has a lot of weird & possibly-unique tricks.

[Todjaeger]

The Gatekeeper does it in TC, but he's really strong, and has a lot of weird & possibly-unique tricks.

The Gatekeeper certainly did some sort of mental attack in TC which put several people to sleep, with Harry (just barely) managing to raise his mental defenses to fend off the sleep compulsion.  However, the Gatekeeper might well has used some form of Thaumaturgy (psychomancy?) to launch the attack, since Harry didn't initially realize the attack was underway.

-Cheers

[Jimmy]

Another thing to consider with the sleep spell idea, is that magic cannot change the laws of physics etc. A sleep spell would definitely be usable out side of conflict, but in combat? Not a chance. To make someone fall asleep you'd have to remove enough oxygen from their blood to put their brain into sleep mode, if you wanted to do this through physiology. That would require some knowledge of physiology. The only other way I can think of to make someone sleep during a conflict (when their brain is very much active and alert) is to break one of the Laws of Magic and use mental suggestion. Remember your spells still have to be explainable to real world physics like how Harry does it in the books.

A sleep spell in my games would be a delicate thing to achieve, not something you could do in a conflict without taking them out with stress hits.