When is the 2024 sleep spell likely to remove more targets from combat than the 2014 sleep spell?

Question

I want to know if I should still prioritize sleep as a first level spell when making a wizard using the 2024 rules. Under many older rule sets, including the 2014 rules, the sleep spell was one of the most effective options for first level casters for removing multiple opponents from combat. Most opponents early on have few hp, and sleep could be cast safely from the back rank, while other options like burning hands or thunderwave needed you to get into melee range.

In the 2024 rules, the mechanics of the spell have materially been redesigned. Now, instead of removing up to 5d8 hp worth of enemies with no save in a 20 foot radius, it has no hit point cap any more and only works on a 5 foot radius, and opponents get to make two saves before fully being down and out for the duration, one when you cast sleep, to avoid becoming Incapacitated for a turn, and then another one to avoid falling Unconscious.

Obviously, this will work better at high levels, where you can still knock out opponents with a level one spell in spite of them having lots of hit points. And obviously, this will work better against monsters with low wisdom saves and lots of hit points, and worse against mobs of kobolds with very few hit points. Ogres for example are not something that you usually face at first level, as they could very easily lead to PC death, while kobolds or goblins are.

I still think it will not be a bad pick - Hideous Laughter for example is a fantastic first level spell, and this new Sleep can take out not just one opponent but multiple of them, and they only get two saves to escape, not one every round. But especially as a crowd control option, how effective is this now?

When would the new version be expected to remove more targets from combat then the old one (in the sense that they fall asleep or become Unconscious)?

My primary interest is how good a crowd control spell this now is, but as you never get your picks back, ideally I would like to see how good this is also for higher level play, as I'd prefer to pick evergreen spells with staying power to be of use during the whole campaign. Shield never gets old.

Answer 1

When There Are Mixed Groups

So this specific issue came up for me yesterday at an AL game where I'm playing a Sorcerer with Sleep. At current, we are only level 2, so neither we nor our enemies are really swimming in hit points.

The situation was that on the left was my sorcerer, to the right was a goblin, and above me was another goblin. Notably, I had taken a beating so was at risk of going down (maybe 6 hit points left), one of the goblins was near death, and the other unscathed. Furthermore, the quarters were relatively tight.

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For this specific situation, it would have been difficult for me to cast Sleep under the 2014 rules and affect just the goblins because of the need to place to place a point 20' away that hits both goblins but omitted myself (walls aren't shown but are probably 10' away from us). However, under the 2024 rules, this a perfect situation for me because:

Each creature of your choice in a 5-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point within range

So now, I can force just the goblins to save and choose to leave myself out of the effect.

To quantify: This means in a Tier 1 situation, I was able to effectively cast the 2024 version of Sleep and I removed 1 enemy (the other saved). Had I used the 2014 version, I could have gotten them both and probably myself as well.

Beyond Tier 1 and Against High Hit Points

The biggest problem with Sleep under the 2014 rules was it lacked staying power. 5d8 worth of hit points is, on average, only 22.5. Granted you can upcast it adding 9 to that average for each spell level, but you also have a lot better choices for control spells when you have access to 2nd and 3rd level spells.

A CR2 ogre under the 2014 rules has 59 hit points. If your party knocks half of those off then you might manage to put the ogre to sleep if you roll well on your 1st level spell, or you might not roll well and get nothing.

Conversely, under the 2024 rules while we don't know how many hit points ogres will have until the revised Monster Manual comes out, we don't need to worry about that anymore. It's just a Wisdom save and generally ogres aren't very wise, so it's pretty reliable that they will fail. It's true that the ogre will get a second save to shake off the effect, however, they will still spend that first round being Incapacitated which means they can really only just move. This is a massive limitation to an enemy who is meant to both be a road block of hit points and deal a bunch of damage on its turn.

Regardless, whether you're dealing with enemies at Tier 1 with a lot of hit points relative to the party, or at Tier 4 where everyone has a minimum of over 100 hit points, the 2024 version of Sleep can offer a form of battlefield control now. If you see a clump of enemies together, it's a target for Sleep.

To quantify: In these high hit point scenarios, under the 2014 rules you're generally either getting 0 or 1 enemies depending on how well you roll. Under the 2024 rules, you can generally get 1 or more if you choose your targets carefully.

Where It's Worse

A notable change for the 2024 version is that it is now a Concentration spell. In the early game, this should be fine as you probably don't have a lot of spells that are in competition for your Concentration. But when you get to Tier 2 and higher, it's very likely that as an arcane caster casting Sleep may not be your first choice for control on the battlefield.

However, you might still want to prepare it. You can't usually predict where enemies will be in a battle and while spells like Haste are still very powerful areas to put your Concentration towards, you still might have a situation where 3 brutes are clumped together that you can simply cast Sleep and have a pretty good chance of taking 1 turn if not all their turns with a single 1st level spell.

In addition, while you are playing a Wizard, their counterpart of Sorcerers have a means to reduce enemy save success via the Heighten Spell metamagic. My point is, in Tier 2 and beyond, Sleep remains a choice. And it's now in competition with other choices.

To quantify: Under the 2014 rules Sleep is almost definitely going to be on your list of spells you prepare when in Tier 1, but past that point it's very likely going to be replaced with something that's either more reliable or impactful. However, for the 2024 rules Sleep is likely to stay on the prepared list for awhile as it remains a useful option to shutdown targets who are likely to fit the 'big dumb' category.

Answer 2

When you are dealing with CR 1/2 or higher opponents

Summary: the new version is slightly less effective against the weakest mob monsters but overall even on tier one holds up pretty well, and does better starting at CR 1/2 opponents. The smaller spell area also will weaken it slightly as a crowd control tool, but not by much. In addition, this version of sleep scales a lot better to higher levels. The biggest downside of this is likely that it hugs Concentration.

Old version benchmark: As indicated in this answer, the old version initally could put about 6 CR 0 creatures to sleep, which usually do not matter for combat. Looking at opponents you can be expected to actually fight, it will hit 3 CR 1/8 creatures like bandits, guards or kobolds, 1 to 2 CR 1/4 creatures like goblins or wolves, and 1 CR 1/2 creature like an orc, hobgoblin, thug, or worg (based on how many hit points typical opponents at low CRs have in the Monster Manual have).

I'm comparing the level one versions here, as comparing a level one spell against an upcast say, level 8 version of the old spell is not really comparing apples to apples, and also because even with upcasting, the monster hp or crowd sizes at higher levels of play outpace the old spell so much that it has relatively little impact.

Saving Throws. One big upside of the old version was its inevitability: with some experience how much certain kinds of monsters would withstand, you could essentially be assured to knock out one or two of them when you cast the spell, at no risk. Maybe the third one was a toss-up, or if you went for broke against an opponent with many hp, it was a gamble. But in many cases, you knew what you'd get. The new version trades this in exchange for working also at high level. The CR 1/8 to 1/2 monsters that you could hope to catch multiple of in the old version typically have a chance of about 22.5% to make their Wisdom save. This is averaged over all of the monsters, and assumes the caster has maximized their spellcasting ability bonus. Obviously it may differ a bit for a specific monster, but the variance here is relatively low.

With this, the chance that they fail both saves in a row is 77.5% * 77.5%, or pretty close to 60%. That means you can expect to put one of two targets to sleep, or two targets out of three. This is materially worse at low levels as mob control against the weakest CR 1/8 monsters, about even for CR 1/4, and better for CR 1/2, where you always only could expect to get one before.

Spell Area: One important aspect here is the clustering of opponents - how many can you expect to catch with your spell area? If you only can get one or two, it does not matter how many you could down. In the old DMG (p. 249), there is guidance that for a sphere or circle area in narrative combat, you divide the radius by 5 and round up to determine how many you would affect. That means, with the old sleep, you could catch four, with this new version, only one. Now, I think this is in practice underestimating what you can get at the low end, as you are more likely to cast the spell if the opponents are clustered conveniently together, and you could still catch 4 opponents with the new version, if they are all right next to each other. You often will be able to catch two or more opponents when dealing with a mob, especially in narrow corridors or at doors.

Considering that in practical terms with the hit point pool of the old version you usually would only be able to put 1-3 relevant opponents to sleep, getting more targets than that in your area did not really matter unless you upcast. Because of this, while I think the smaller area will cost you a target or two at times, the impact of this is less negative than appears at face value.

(In addition, as @Pyrotechnical points out in their answer, the old version did not allow you to exclude your allies, and the large radius therfore could also be a real downside, when you would hit your friends or yourself.)

At higher levels: the consensus is that sleep used to become unattractive to use after maybe level 7-8, outside of some special applications to take out wounded opponents non-lethally early or such. This new version does not suffer from that effect, as the Wisdom saving throws for many high challenge rating monsters are not that much better than for those at low challenge ratings, the average saving chance really only goes up by a few percentage points. You can put a Grey Render at CR 12 to sleep just as easily as a Kobold at CR 1/8.

Concentration. Again, as pointed out by the accepted answer, one of the major detriments to the new version is that is hugs your concentration. But given that it is able to take out very powerful opponents this is a reasonable tradeoff. Compare this, for example to Tasha's Hideous Laughter, another level 1 spell that can take out nearly any opponent, and in some ways is stronger than higher level options like hold person (which also is limited to humanoids). Sleep of course does not quite work against any opponent: those that need no sleep or are immune to exhaustion are immune. And there is quite a lot of those, 39 in total out of 392, or nearly 10%. But on the other hand, the ones it can affect get only 2 chances to save, and then are out for the minute, unless shaken awake or hurt. With laughter, the victim gets to re-save every round. On top of that, you can take out two giants that are standing next to each other with this first level spell. It would be much too strong without concentration in that form for a high level caster with enough spell slots to spam it every round.

This answer may change again when the new Monster Manual comes out.