[RPG] Can you cast a Suggestion on a sleeping target

dnd-5espells

The question is pretty straightforward. I'm looking for an sources regarding suggestion targeting a sleeping target. To me, the pertinent bit of the spell is

You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two) and magically influence a creature you can see within range that can hear and understand you.

I suppose the followup question is can a PC who is asleep hear and understand the caster? It's pretty obvious they can hear you. As DMs how would you handle whether you can be understood by a sleeping target?


For background, I'm planning to have the party be ambushed by a Yuan-ti pureblood. However, if the party does not post a rotating guard at night, I want her to use suggestion to kidnap a party member, and I'm trying to decide if she can do that without first waking the target.

Best Answer

No, a sleeping target can't hear you unless you wake them up first. A sleeping creature has the unconscious condition:

You can also apply conditions on the fly. They're meant to be intuitive for you to do so. For example, if a character is in a state, such as sleep, that lacks consciousness, you can say that the character is unconscious.

And a creature with the unconscious condition is unaware of their surroundings:

An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.