Does damage wake someone from the Sleep spell?

Question

The sleep spell puts a target into a slumber for 1d10 rounds causing them to be helpess. Does taking damage wake them? The spell does not say and nowhere in the corebook does it say...or at least that I can find.

As a GM I can see it both ways, more so because Warhammer has an old school fantasy feel to all their stuff and magic is both dangerous for the caster and those that are effected by the spell. On the other hand a balancing standpoint could be argued that they would wake up, however many spells and effects stun a target for x rounds which can be as deadly.

Answer 1

Its up to the GM

The Sleep spell does not clearly specify what happens.

Sleep

Casting Number: 6
Casting Time: Half action
Ingredient: A piece of down (+1)

Description: Your touch causes one opponent to fall into a slumber for 1d10 rounds unless a successful Will Power Test is made. Sleeping characters are considered to be helpless. Sleep is a touch spell.

The only relevant information here is that the target is asleep (fall into a slumber) and helpless. Slumber is not really a condition well defined by the rules, and Helpless (pg 133) says:

Helpless: The character cannot defend himself due to wounds, incapacitation, or some other circumstance. Attacks against the character automatically hit and inflict an extra 1d10 damage.

But how deep are they sleeping? I know I sleep like a rock sometimes, and probably even a sword stab wouldn't wake me up, but not everybody is like that, some people are really light sleepers.

I know that the spell Winter's Long Slumber (Realms of Sorcery, pg 141) puts the (willing) target to sleep for several months and the spell clearly states that normal damage has no effect on them, they must wake up on their own will. On the same book, the Lucidity Tonic also will put you to sleep without interruptions for several hours.

If we check the definition of the word Slumber, we see that it is most commonly associated with a light sleep (to my surprise, I always thought it was the opposite), so I personally would say that if the target takes any damage, they should wake up.

Keep in mind that helpless targets take an additional 1d10 damage, but that is more aimed towards being attacked by an enemy trying to kill you, not an ally trying to wake you up. So it's better to ignore that rule when the objective is not to kill the slumbering target.