Cost of Less Sleep vs Doesn't Sleep

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Icelander

... default in a hard science campaign is that drugs meant for one species will not work the same way against other species.

That seems like a very unrealistic default. Species are not that far apart bio-chemically that it should be a default the soporifics would for certain not be effective.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

That seems like a very unrealistic default. Species are not that far apart bio-chemically that it should be a default the soporifics would for certain not be effective.

They won't work the same way, though, if they work at all. If anyone in the real world plans to drug an animal, he has to do at least a minimal amount of research. That minimal amount of research would indicate that for species X, drugs that cause sleep don't work. Making the immunity slightly less useful than a lollipop with male primary sex organ flavour, since no one who wasn't actually retarded* would ever try to drug the character with sleep drugs. Not when tranquilisers that inflict FP damage are faster, more reliable and more adaptable to a variety of species.

In a campaign set in the real world, I very much doubt that there exist any drugs that only cause Sleep and no other effect in GURPS terms and will work on tortoises. That doesn't mean that I would stat tortoises with an immunity to such drugs that was worth actual points. If anyone wanted to knock out a tortoise, they'd use tranquilisers anyway.

*Traditionally not a challenging group of opponents.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Icelander

They won't work the same way, though, if they work at all. If anyone in the real world plans to drug an animal, he has to do at least a minimal amount of research. That minimal amount of research would indicate that for species X, drugs that cause sleep don't work. Making the immunity slightly less useful than a lollipop with male primary sex organ flavour, since no one who wasn't actually retarded* would ever try to drug the character with sleep drugs. Not when tranquilisers that inflict FP damage are faster, more reliable and more adaptable to a variety of species.

In a campaign set in the real world, I very much doubt that there exist any drugs that only cause Sleep and no other effect in GURPS terms and will work on tortoises. That doesn't mean that I would stat tortoises with an immunity to such drugs that was worth actual points. If anyone wanted to knock out a tortoise, they'd use tranquilisers anyway.

*Traditionally not a challenging group of opponents.

My only point is that it's not 'safe' to say it's a default that a drug that makes humans sleep will not make dogs, for example, sleep.

For made-up drugs, the GM should decide. For real world drugs, research would be required to truly know.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

My only point is that it's not 'safe' to say it's a default that a drug that makes humans sleep will not make dogs, for example, sleep.

There is an excellent chance that a dose that will make a human sleep will either kill or have negligible effect on something that isn't human. Though 'sleep' drugs mostly don't exist.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There is an excellent chance that a dose that will make a human sleep will either kill or have negligible effect on something that isn't human. Though 'sleep' drugs mostly don't exist.

Dosage is a practical concern, but a different question.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Dosage is a practical concern, but a different question.

As far as I know, no 'sleep' drug actually results in the physiological effects of sleep anyway, drugs used to treat insomnia are attempting to block the processes preventing sleep, not actually induce sleep, and sedatives induce unconsciousness, not sleep (once sedated, you can shift into regular sleep, but that's not a direct effect of the drug). In any case, no realistic effect that produces natural sleep is likely to be effective in a combat-relevant timeframe, meaning that immunity to sleep is mostly relevant for resisting supernatural abilities such as sleep spells.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

As far as I know, no 'sleep' drug actually results in the physiological effects of sleep anyway, drugs used to treat insomnia are attempting to block the processes preventing sleep, not actually induce sleep, and sedatives induce unconsciousness, not sleep (once sedated, you can shift into regular sleep, but that's not a direct effect of the drug). In any case, no realistic effect that produces natural sleep is likely to be effective in a combat-relevant timeframe, meaning that immunity to sleep is mostly relevant for resisting supernatural abilities such as sleep spells.

Who said it's necessarily in a combat timeframe?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Who said it's necessarily in a combat timeframe?

It doesn't have to be in a combat timeframe, but immunity to a rare out-of-combat effect really isn't very valuable.

[JCurwen3]

On another note, it seems to me that a level of Less Sleep is like having an extra hour in your day, at least insofar as the time use rules go in GURPS.

Any thoughts on what the cost of Less Sleep would be if it didn't acually reduce the number of hours per day you needed to sleep, but rather increased the effectiveness of your waking hours by 1/24th? This would affect time-related things not covered by ATR (even with Super-Speed or Non-Combat Speed), like learning, special abilities, Concept rolls when inventing, and interactions with others - you're not faster, just 1/24th of an hour per level more effective each hour.

I'd almost say it's a -0% modifier, since it wouldn't reduce the real campaign time need for continuous sleep of default 8 hours per 24 hours. But I'd feel better with a Cosmic, +50% which allows unlimited levels, doesn't reduce actual sleep needs per actual 24 hour period, and circumvents natural time-based actions like study by doing the equivalent of giving you "more hours in a day" for the purposes of campaigns where rigorous time use sheets are kept, and useful in no other contexts than things like study and inventing, stuff that isn't at all aided by ETS, ATR, or any other advantage except for (maybe) the somewhat ambiguously defined Control Time. It'd represent someone who was really very effective with the time they have, not actually having some supernatural "extra hours" or any higher mental or physical speed as such.

For a normal human (16 waking hours out of every 24), under that scheme, Less Sleep 16 (Cosmic, Makes time use hours more effective, +50%) would be [48], which would have the same effect as having a Talent at level 5 (assuming you allow the higher cap of -50% learning time from Talent as discussed in Talents) in every trainable thing in your game, in addition to some other perks that would double any of their waking time for time use purposes. If you had Doesn't Sleep or Less Sleep 8 (means you don't sleep normally), you'd need Less Sleep 24 (Cosmic, Makes time use hours more effective, +50%) [72] to do a full doubling; each level of this Cosmic Less Sleep would just make you 1/24 of an hour more effective per hour.

Does that seem reasonable, Less Sleep (Cosmic, Makes time use hours more effective, +50%) [3 per 1/24 hour more effective per in-game hour] as I've described it?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

As far as I know, no 'sleep' drug actually results in the physiological effects of sleep anyway, drugs used to treat insomnia are attempting to block the processes preventing sleep, not actually induce sleep, and sedatives induce unconsciousness, not sleep (once sedated, you can shift into regular sleep, but that's not a direct effect of the drug)....

Bull. Antihistamines make me drowsy, more prone to sleeping, and sleep for longer than otherwise. That makes it a sleep drug for me.