Sleep and "current hit points"

[SheckyS]

What does "current hit points" mean in terms of the Sleep spell?

If the party is fighting a single monster and it has 60 hit point, but 50 wounds, does that mean that a sleep spell would affect is (as long as the 5d8 roll is more than 10)?

That seems to be the way it's written, but doesn't that seem a bit overpowered?

[ddavison]

That's how my group handled it.

It is powerful, but is it any more powerful than a spell that would have done the final 10 points of damage?

[spite]

I agree with ddavison. It lends itself to the idea of having sleep as the "capture" spell, that you spend the fight whittling away at something until it is exhausted and run down and more susceptible to a sleep spell.

[Griogre]

It should also be remembered it is a first level spell that works OK on low HD monsters as well. The remaining HP means the spell is still useful at higher levels in close fights instead of worthless. It bears mentioning that you can normally only knock people out with *melee* attacks and sleep gives you a ranged capture option like Spite mentioned.

[Zacchaeus]

Well, I and my group have been reading this spell a bit wrong. Or should I say not really reading it at all properly. As a consequence the consensus was that this spell was pretty much useless. A considerable re-evaluation of this conclusion is now necessary.