[RPG] In Eberron: Rising from the Last War, can warforged become exhausted if they decide not to take a long rest

conditionsdnd-5eracial-traitsrestswarforged

In Eberron: Rising from the Last War (p. 36), the warforged's Constructed Resilience trait includes the following benefit:

You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

The Sentry's Rest trait also says:

When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inactive, motionless state, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn’t render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

Now, I've noticed that this is a change from the original version of Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, in which the corresponding benefit of the warforged's Warforged Resilience trait (p. 68) read:

You don’t need to sleep and don’t suffer the effects of exhaustion due to lack of rest, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

In the final version of warforged, if this living construct refused to take a long rest, would it suffer exhaustion that a normal humanoid of the flesh would likely take? Or would it be safe from that kind of exhaustion?

Best Answer

It's safe from exhaustion, most likely

First of all, going without sleep causing exhaustion is already a variant rule of sorts, introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything (p. 78), which specifically states that you "can use these rules if you want to account for sleep deprivation". I assume they removed the "you don't suffer exhaustion" line to keep it from being confusing, because anybody who doesn't have Xanathar's would be hard-pressed to locate the rule where you get exhaustion.

The optional rule on going without a long rest states:

A long rest is never mandatory, but going without sleep does have its consequences. If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation on characters and creatures, use these rules.

Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.

It becomes harder to fight off exhaustion if you stay awake for multiple days. After the first 24 hours, the DC increases by 5 for each consecutive 24-hour period without a long rest. The DC resets to 10 when you finish a long rest.

While the text seems to make a bit of a mess of the general theme of it, considering it says "whenever you end a 24 hour period without finishing a long rest", the general theme here is sleep deprivation. Your warforged does not require sleep, so they will not have to fight sleep deprivation, there's no real sensible reason to apply a rule "to account for sleep deprivation" on a character or creature that does not need sleep.

If you use the rule, pure RAW, your Warforged will get exhausted because they are sleepy despite not needing to sleep. Reading the entire text however should, in my opinion, make it fairly clear that a creature that does not require sleep will not have to fight against sleep deprivation.

I mean, talking pure RAW, you could sleep 7 hours, walk 1 hour, sleep 7 hours, walk 1 hour, sleep 7 hours, walk one hour and you're now suffering from sleep deprivation because you didn't finish a long rest.

In the end, this is an optional rule so it's entirely up to your DM how it works, but logic suggests your Warforged should be a-ok.

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