Recovering from Fatigue Caused by Missed Sleep

[Captain Joy]

From B427: You can only recover from fatigue caused by missed sleep by sleeping for at least one full sleep period. This restores 1 FP. Further uninterrupted sleep restores 1 FP per hour.

1. So, if you're suffering fatigue due to missed sleep, and you have a middle watch--sleep 4 hours, watch 4 hours, sleep 4 hours--you would recover 0 FP, but you'd not lose additional FP for another 12 hours? (8 hours sleep allows you to stay awake 16 hours; you subtract 4 hours because of that middle watch.)

2. What do you think of this house rule? For every 1 hour you sleep, you can either stay awake 2 hours without losing FP or regain 1 FP due to lost sleep. The recovery of FP happens before "stay awake" hours are accumulated.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

1
2. What do you think of this house rule? For every 1 hour you sleep, you can either stay awake 2 hours without losing FP or regain 1 FP due to lost sleep. The recovery of FP happens before "stay awake" hours are accumulated.

Too much. it takes time to gt into deep enough sleep to recover.
Buy reduced Sleep. 1 level is realistic IMHo and maybe 2.

[gilbertocarlos]

3 levels are realistic, even more so for old people.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Refplace

it takes time to gt into deep enough sleep to recover.

Agreed, I'm sacrificing realism for playability. My house-rule compared to RAW is more playable (IMHO), but is it even more unrealistic than RAW? Are you advocating that "stay awake" hours should be accumulated before FP-due-to-lost-sleep should be recovered--which I guess is basically the RAW?

Originally Posted by Refplace

Buy reduced Sleep. 1 level is realistic IMHo and maybe 2.

I'm wanting to limit this thread to human norms.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

1. So, if you're suffering fatigue due to missed sleep, and you have a middle watch--sleep 4 hours, watch 4 hours, sleep 4 hours--you would recover 0 FP, but you'd not lose additional FP for another 12 hours? (8 hours sleep allows you to stay awake 16 hours; you subtract 4 hours because of that middle watch.)

Originally Posted by GURPS Basic, pg 427: Getting Up Early

If you sleep for less than your full sleep period, you’ll still be tired when you wake up. Subtract twice the hours of missed sleep from your day to determine how long you can stay awake. For example, if your sleep period is eight hours and you sleep only six hours, you’ve missed two hours of sleep. You will suffer the effects of staying up late after only 12 hours: your usual 16-hour day, minus four hours (twice your hours of missed sleep).

So ... you'd go to sleep, wake up four hours early and be able to stay awake eight hours before suffering the effects of Staying Up Late.
(16 - (4 * 2) ) = 8

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

2. What do you think of this house rule? For every 1 hour you sleep, you can either stay awake 2 hours without losing FP or regain 1 FP due to lost sleep. The recovery of FP happens before "stay awake" hours are accumulated.

That it produces decidedly non-human behaviors if applied as the human norm for a setting but that you've already stated that you are discarding realism in this case for the sake of playability. It looks playable.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Agreed, I'm sacrificing realism for playability. My house-rule compared to RAW is more playable (IMHO), but is it even more unrealistic than RAW?

Yeah, it is; you should have a penalty for trying to sleep 4 hours twice instead of 8 hours once. On the other hand, it's dubious whether fatigue is the right mechanism for sleep deprivation in the first place, the primary effects of sleep deprivation are degraded thinking and reflexes, which basically means IQ and DX penalties.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yeah, it is; you should have a penalty for trying to sleep 4 hours twice instead of 8 hours once. On the other hand, it's dubious whether fatigue is the right mechanism for sleep deprivation in the first place, the primary effects of sleep deprivation are degraded thinking and reflexes, which basically means IQ and DX penalties.

Back in 3e when Fatigue was literally a temporary reduction in ST, I considered a "mental fatigue" (IQ reduction) for sleep deprivation, magic/psionic use, or mental assaults. Now, I'd probably use the penalties from The Last Gasp for all FP loss, even if I didn't use the rest of the article.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

which basically means IQ and DX penalties.

Which is part of the effect of missing sleep in the RAW.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Which is part of the effect of missing sleep in the RAW.

I assume you're referring to the Drowsy condition that kicks in at 1/2 FP lost to lack of sleep. By a strict reading of it, it's entirely possible to avoid the Will roll (and thus avoid the penalties) simply by staying active - though that may carry its own FP cost, depending on the specific activity. Going more by the spirit of the rule than the letter would have the penalty kick in as soon as you become Drowsy, in which case you'd be entirely correct.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I assume you're referring to the Drowsy condition that kicks in at 1/2 FP lost to lack of sleep. By a strict reading of it, it's entirely possible to avoid the Will roll (and thus avoid the penalties) simply by staying active - though that may carry its own FP cost, depending on the specific activity. Going more by the spirit of the rule than the letter would have the penalty kick in as soon as you become Drowsy, in which case you'd be entirely correct.

That may be somewhat realistic. The staying-active part, I mean. In my experience, staying up late works for some hours past the usual 16-or-so, but advanced brain function is impaired.