Quote from: Christopher Brady;1067434But the game is LITTERED with save or die effects.  Charm, Flesh to Stone, the original Disintegrate, Power Word: Kill, Sleep...  What is one more?
And what happened to trusting your friends?

And you have repeatedly complained about how unfair OSR gaming supposedly is. And 5e has altered nearly all those effects to remove 'roll poorly on a single dice roll and die' effects. So I am not sure what your point is, unless you are literally just being contrary.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1067442Yes, it is a setting crater; its impact is larger than it should for its level and past value. That said, if such a spell does exist and is considered common enough to be in the PHB, then I would assume the setting would have acclimatized to it by then. Otherwise the world would be rendered safe by such an impact, so life MUST adapt to survive, just like if any common magic becomes common technology.

If makes you wonder why anyone with access to spellcasting (or money enough to hire a spellcaster) would ever be sleeping in a castle surrounded by sentries, or a stone crypt underground, or whatnot. Certainly why wouldn't they layer this on top of whatever other defenses they have. In which case everyone in the business of attacking people in their homes (be they assassins or adventurers) should be wandering around with as many countermeasures to this specific spell as they can. It's like the Hulking Hurler of 3rd edition - It does effectively infinite damage, which is fine because there are many ways around that (mirror image, insubstantiality, illusions, etc.), but then why are dragons and giants the top of the food chain, and not illusionists and ghosts?

Quote from: jhkim;1067454Having used the 5E version both as a player and a GM, I didn't find that it was game-breaking. It just was off in tone from what I'd prefer. ... Usually, the party is able to get *somewhere* to long rest - finding some bolt-hole and fortifying it. The logic of the spell here is that the logistics of going back to a bolt-hole, fortifying it, posting guards, etc. is largely busy-work that isn't very interesting. If their long rest is disrupted, that generally means that they're just going to retreat even further and try again to long rest. The logic is that all this retreating and fortifying isn't very interesting, so it's replaced by a simpler option.

As someone who enjoys some of the logistics game, this is the biggest issue. It is much like the 5e ranger, where their presence pretty much makes sure you will not be doing any wilderness adventures, because their base powers are to make all the penalties to wilderness travel nonexistent, making it as boring as walking down the sidewalk.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1067456OK scenario for you.  Players are in a 'megadungeon' or something large, dangerous and underground, and they're running low on resources, wizard is down to one spell, cleric is empty, hit points need recover.  So they pop Tiny Hut.  Are you going to be a dick and force them to walk ALL the way to the beginning, running into more monsters?  Or are crush them for using a spell to take a 'long rest' and recover their spells for the day (remember you can recover spells every 24 hours in 5e.)  Meaning that you're punishing them for going into the dungeon in the first place.

No one has suggested suddenly removing this spell from player's arsenals mid-dungeon. This would be a house-rules-made-while-starting-the-campaign scenario. Thus players wouldn't go deeper into the megadungeon than they had the resources to handle. And they would plan their spell and resource composition to match. And they could still find bolt holes and defend them, or use teleport to go home. All the things they would do if the wizard fell victim to a monster or trap.

QuoteYeah, I get it. You hate your players.

Every time I think you have turned a corner, you once again disappoint me (once Gronan left, you seemed to be doing better). I have dedicated entirely too much pity towards you, and it has never been rewarded. Here you have sacrificed the capacity to convince anyone other than yourself because you couldn't delay for yourself the gratification of your perennial self-congratulatory self-ascribed position of only-decent-person-amongst-monsters. This is one of the major reasons, as far as I can tell, no one around here thinks of you as a functional adult. If you cannot actually find a way that others are doing something wrong, or that you or what you stand for are genuinely the victim, deliberately misconstruing the words of others as though they are sadistic or horrible only makes you look desperate. Given that people have repeatedly declared that we all see through this show, it amazes me that you continue it.

Wait, Gronan left? Why?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1067484Wait, Gronan left? Why?

Officially, it was someone making some comments against religion or being religious or something (Gronan's wife is an... Episcopalian I think?... minister). The actual statement seemed entirely too much of an random offhand statement for it to have been the whole of it. He clearly hadn't been perfectly happy here for a while. I saw him and Chirine Ba Kal over on another site (which I think they both abandoned for Chirine's personal site soon after) and they both talked about, 'actually talking about gaming again.' Read into that what you will.

I believe that he withdrew from at least one other forum too, The Ruins of Murkhill, IIRC.  Here we go:  https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39104-Video-There-is-no-quot-D-amp-D-Community-quot-Just-a-Marketing-Scheme-by-Hasbro-amp-SJW-Entryism&p=1043806&viewfull=1#post1043806 and his departure  https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39085-Questioning-chirine-ba-kal-part-III&p=1043807&viewfull=1#post1043807

Has the OP reached a conclusion on how to use Leomund's Tiny Hut in his campaign?   The spell doesn't strike me as one of the poorly thought out ones in 5e.  Look at Banishment or Hypnotic Pattern for those.

Quote from: Franky;1067492I believe that he withdrew from at least one other forum too, The Ruins of Murkhill, IIRC.  Here we go:  https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39104-Video-There-is-no-quot-D-amp-D-Community-quot-Just-a-Marketing-Scheme-by-Hasbro-amp-SJW-Entryism&p=1043806&viewfull=1#post1043806 and his departure  https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39085-Questioning-chirine-ba-kal-part-III&p=1043807&viewfull=1#post1043807

Has the OP reached a conclusion on how to use Leomund's Tiny Hut in his campaign?   The spell doesn't strike me as one of the poorly thought out ones in 5e.  Look at Banishment or Hypnotic Pattern for those.

Yes, I'm keeping most of its invincibility, but drawing out what I believe are the implications in the spell as RAW.

1) It stops attacks and magical effects. OK, no attacks or spells.

2) It makes the atmosphere dry and comfortable; so it has a decent heating, like a temperature controlled room, and doesn't let the rain in. However, it doesn't CREATE atmosphere, nor does it "purify" it so toxic fumes become clean.

3) It is an immobile force field fixed to a point that the players can move through, so that means while it has a bottom that stops things from coming up INTO it, the bottom doesn't actually support the players on it.

4) It stops attacks and magical effects, but not environmental ones; per #1 it doesn't produce oxygen, so it has to let oxygen through, and Crawford stated it doesn't stop fire either. From this we can infer that it stops "objects" from entering, but "object" as defined here is very specific to something you can have in your inventory or some sort of discrete entity, not things like smoke or molecules.

So to wrap it up, it still gives you a powerful defense for resting but isn't invulnerable. Intelligent bad guys with some time have relatively simple ways to get around it without having to collapse an entire cave on you, but it'll stop random monsters from barging on you in your sleep. You're safe from owlbears but not hobgoblins.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1067458Yeah, I get it.  You hate your players.

'No consequences', so most dungeons never get explored past two or three rooms then, because your players are terrified that you'll screw them over if they have bad rolls or miscalculate their resources.  What if a teleport trap puts them somewhere out of reach of an easy exit?  What if a random encounter (which by the by is UNAVOIDABLE because it's RANDOM) takes more out of them then they want on the way out, but because they are having bad luck with dice don't want to run the risk of another and killing them, ENDING THE CAMPAIGN.  Yes, they can make new characters and jump right in, but it's still a NEW campaign every time that happens, especially if you make them start at level 1 again (Which is fine, I mean, it's a new party, who are braving the depths of the Caves of Chaos, after all.)

I'm sorry, but you're reaction is a bit too harsh in my opinion.  If they have to use the Tiny Hut spell in MY anecdotal experience, it's because THEY HAVE TO.  Something went wrong, probably unexpectedly so, and I don't feel the need to punish them for things that just end up out of their control.

Maybe that makes me a coddle DM, so be it.

No I don't. I'm actually a huge softie as a DM who's always willing to at least halfway to make their crazy schemes work.

That's why I like playing with uncompromising rulesets, never fudging dice rolls and stuff like either detailed dungeons or random encounter tables to take the decision of "what critters will the players meet next" out of my hands so that my softie nature is balanced by the rules and things get to a fun midpoint.

My players go fairly deep into dungeons but they're always debating with each other when they should head back since they know that there's a trade off: short trips in and out mean less treasure and more wandering monsters, going in deep means more treasure but more danger.

For unaviodable random encounters my players aren't dumb enough to automatically attack everything they randomly encounter. And I'm not going to have every random encounter fight to the death and chase the PCs across the dungeon.

As far as ending a campaign, I don't think I've ever had a TPK. Had one guy lose a character in one session, roll up a new guy in the same session and lose him too but that's really rare and he was taking a lot of risks and being point man both times.

If the players know the DM won't bail them out if they fuck up and that encounters won't be balanced then they'll be more careful and not end up in a position where they need to be bailed out. Especially if they have a softie DM like me (who's willing to give their goofball plans a good chance of actually working).

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1067495Yes, I'm keeping most of its invincibility, but drawing out what I believe are the implications in the spell as RAW.

1) It stops attacks and magical effects. OK, no attacks or spells.

2) It makes the atmosphere dry and comfortable; so it has a decent heating, like a temperature controlled room, and doesn't let the rain in. However, it doesn't CREATE atmosphere, nor does it "purify" it so toxic fumes become clean.

3) It is an immobile force field fixed to a point that the players can move through, so that means while it has a bottom that stops things from coming up INTO it, the bottom doesn't actually support the players on it.

4) It stops attacks and magical effects, but not environmental ones; per #1 it doesn't produce oxygen, so it has to let oxygen through, and Crawford stated it doesn't stop fire either. From this we can infer that it stops "objects" from entering, but "object" as defined here is very specific to something you can have in your inventory or some sort of discrete entity, not things like smoke or molecules.

So to wrap it up, it still gives you a powerful defense for resting but isn't invulnerable. Intelligent bad guys with some time have relatively simple ways to get around it without having to collapse an entire cave on you, but it'll stop random monsters from barging on you in your sleep. You're safe from owlbears but not hobgoblins.

This sounds entirely reasonable.  And probably very much like how I would use it.    I'd allow certain spells/magical effects to be cast on it, like dispel magic, for example.

There is definitely an oddity in assumptions here. I certainly don't recall us talking about Leomunds Tiny Fortress.

As someone who GMs more than he plays I have no problems with players dedicating a spell slot so they can get a good, safe, night sleep... though I'm not adverse to smarter beasties taking advantage of laxity if it makes sense.

But players dropping a Tiny Hut right in front of the Big Bad, or Slavering Hordes, or what have you to get a long rest while taunting the bad guys?   That would be a problem, and one I'd see to with a furious vengence using every tool at my disposal... and as the GM I get to make the call about what works and what doesn't, so most of the player-centric arguments posted in this thread about how impervious the Hut is would probably be ignored.

Because that sort of behavior is anti-fun outside of certain genre-type play.


Cutting away the bullshit, that is what this thread is about, isn't it?   No one is complaining (except maybe the ranger) about PCs tromping through the woods using LTH to avoid getting mauled by wolves in the night or other obviously intended uses. They're arguing about the feasibility of setting it up for a convienent Long Rest in mid-dungeon crawl, or right before they fight the Big Boss so they can Alpha-strike every fight, reducing the challenge of the game to the bare minimum.

Solutions:

 Every time the players cast LTH, end the game session.  One problem with the 15min adventuring day is that characters are forced to endure long bouts of boredom while the spell casters rest up and re-memorize. Great for the casters, not so great for the Rogue who's poisoned blade is going to have to be re-poisoned, or the fighter who's got plenty of fight left in him. What do they do for the seven or eight days the party actually takes to clear 'Castle Doomstone', instead of the day it should have taken?  

Dispel Magic:  Not only should this work, by a strict reading of the spell in 5E (if I got it right, and I think I do...) it should actually be quite easy, as LTH is only a 3rd level spell.  Start using more intelligent monsters, and always include at least one 'caster' enemy who can be called up to deal with any pesky magic domes that his minions find.  If the players abuse the spell, abuse the counter-spell.

Ambushs:  The party is in a fixed location doing a fixed thing for a fixed length of time.  If they use it unwisely, even relatively weak monsters can set up brutal ambushes just out of sight of the dome for when the spell ends.


The problem isn't the spell nearly so much as its players abusing it thinking they've found a cheat code for the game.  But as a GM I am not a computer, forced to blindly accept cheating behavior due to limitations of my coding (well......), so the solution is as it has always been: To GM against the problem behavior until it stops.  This was the classic solution to Shadowrun snipers (to start sniping the PCs in every fight...), its the solution to most problems in the game.

Quote from: Spike;1067598Cutting away the bullshit, that is what this thread is about, isn't it?   No one is complaining (except maybe the ranger) about PCs tromping through the woods using LTH to avoid getting mauled by wolves in the night or other obviously intended uses. They're arguing about the feasibility of setting it up for a convienent Long Rest in mid-dungeon crawl, or right before they fight the Big Boss so they can Alpha-strike every fight, reducing the challenge of the game to the bare minimum.

Quote from: Spike;1067598The problem isn't the spell nearly so much as its players abusing it thinking they've found a cheat code for the game.  But as a GM I am not a computer, forced to blindly accept cheating behavior due to limitations of my coding (well......), so the solution is as it has always been: To GM against the problem behavior until it stops.  This was the classic solution to Shadowrun snipers (to start sniping the PCs in every fight...), its the solution to most problems in the game.

My opinion:  If as GM, you don't like LTH, then just disallow the spell - or weaken it to your tastes.

But if you give players the spell, then it's not cheating for them to use the spell to it's maximum effect. It's good play, in my opinion. Sane characters shouldn't be trying to give monsters a fair chance to kill them - they should be trying to kill monsters unfairly with the least risk to their own lives. If they have a very powerful resource, then they should be using it to maximum effect, and reducing challenge to the bare minimum.

I've had natural consequences to PCs using the spell, which can include ambushes and other enemy preparations during the time that they rest. But that's not me trying to punish the players for bad behavior, trying to stop their cheating - that's me making the game better and more interesting for them.

Quote from: jhkim;1067651My opinion:  If as GM, you don't like LTH, then just disallow the spell - or weaken it to your tastes.

I am pretty sure everyone engaging in this thread in a serious manner is discussing this. How they think the spell should work in their campaign, as stipulated ahead of time, before their players get to select the spell, much less use it.

QuoteBut if you give players the spell, then it's not cheating for them to use the spell to it's maximum effect. It's good play, in my opinion. Sane characters shouldn't be trying to give monsters a fair chance to kill them - they should be trying to kill monsters unfairly with the least risk to their own lives. If they have a very powerful resource, then they should be using it to maximum effect, and reducing challenge to the bare minimum.

First of all, agreed. The word cheating is not appropriate. Cheating is rolling a 5 and saying it was a 19. Nothing here is cheating. Whether it is allowed is another question (and again, part of the pre-established table consensus).

Characters should always use whatever tactics are available to them to maximize their survival and success. Players should not be criticized for using what is allowed at the table in the ways that best enable their characters to succeed. There are, however, such things as soft bans or table consensus no-go zones. A great example was 3e D&D and Wall of Iron and Fabricate. We all knew that there was a weak spot in the rules where those two spells could be combined to garner the PCs enough wealth (up until they destroy the iron market or crash the whole economy) which could be converted (via WBL) into untold power. Obviously there would have been other ways to fix this problem (like I said, crater the economy, get rid of magic item purchases, send angry iron miners out after the PCs, etc.), but instead we had a kind of unspoken truce where the DM wouldn't get rid of either spell, so long as no one did specifically that with them. In that way, I can totally get behind a 'this spell is for traipsing through the woods and avoiding bears at night, not dropping before the BBEG fight' kind of ruling (again, if it is pre-established). In effect, the characters never really had the option (so they are not failing to use an option at their disposal), because the players have established that this is a no-man's-land.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1067660First of all, agreed. The word cheating is not appropriate. Cheating is rolling a 5 and saying it was a 19. Nothing here is cheating. Whether it is allowed is another question (and again, part of the pre-established table consensus).

Characters should always use whatever tactics are available to them to maximize their survival and success. Players should not be criticized for using what is allowed at the table in the ways that best enable their characters to succeed. There are, however, such things as soft bans or table consensus no-go zones. A great example was 3e D&D and Wall of Iron and Fabricate. We all knew that there was a weak spot in the rules where those two spells could be combined to garner the PCs enough wealth (up until they destroy the iron market or crash the whole economy) which could be converted (via WBL) into untold power. Obviously there would have been other ways to fix this problem (like I said, crater the economy, get rid of magic item purchases, send angry iron miners out after the PCs, etc.), but instead we had a kind of unspoken truce where the DM wouldn't get rid of either spell, so long as no one did specifically that with them. In that way, I can totally get behind a 'this spell is for traipsing through the woods and avoiding bears at night, not dropping before the BBEG fight' kind of ruling (again, if it is pre-established). In effect, the characters never really had the option (so they are not failing to use an option at their disposal), because the players have established that this is a no-man's-land.

I agree that is also a reasonable option separate from banning or weakening the spell. Just talk to the players and say what you want.

Though in this case, I think weakening the spell is relatively easy to get that kind of use. It can be secure from any casual intrusion or attack, but can be collapsed by intelligent, concerted effort.

I think its a fairly simple call that Fabricate simply doesn't work on magically conjured materials. I'm sure if I wanted to sit down with the spell list I could work out some really fancy sounding metaphysical leagalese that would explain exactly why such combinations shouldn't work, but that might risk accidentally wrecking other, more acceptable synergies...

however, as I'm not really familiar with 5E yet, I had to look up Wall of Iron in the PHB... and couldn't find it. But Wall of Stone, which I recall as working more or less identically in previous editons (except for being, you know, Stone...) has a modest duration in 5E. Assuming I can find WoI in, I dunno, Volo's or something (seriously, 'Players Companion' may sound boring, but i never have to wonder what's in the book...so no learning curve for grabbing the right book... christ, I'm getting old...), I'm going to assume that it too is not a permanent hunk of iron cluttering the landscape.

So, Fabricate away. You've got about two hours before the Lynch Mob of angry weapon merchants and npc adventurers start forming.

Quote from: Spike;1067598As someone who GMs more than he plays I have no problems with players dedicating a spell slot so they can get a good, safe, night sleep... though I'm not adverse to smarter beasties taking advantage of laxity if it makes sense.

But players dropping a Tiny Hut right in front of the Big Bad, or Slavering Hordes, or what have you to get a long rest while taunting the bad guys?   That would be a problem

• Leomund's Tiny Hut is a ritual, so it can be cast without a spell slot by taking extra time. And a character with the Ritual Caster feat (for wizard spells) can learn to use it.
• It takes a minute to cast even with a spell slot, and that's ten rounds, so you're probably not going to taunt someone.
• Bonus observation about the stuff I didn't quote: if you did use a spell slot, you could make dispel magic a little more difficult by using a higher level spell slot.

Quote from: rawma;1067700

• Leomund's Tiny Hut is a ritual, so it can be cast without a spell slot by taking extra time. And a character with the Ritual Caster feat (for wizard spells) can learn to use it.
• It takes a minute to cast even with a spell slot, and that's ten rounds, so you're probably not going to taunt someone.
• Bonus observation about the stuff I didn't quote: if you did use a spell slot, you could make dispel magic a little more difficult by using a higher level spell slot.

Well, yes? I mean... I did most of my D&D playing in AD&D and 3E, I played two sessions of 4 and so far have mostly just sniffed my 5E books, so I'm gonna forget Rituals are a thing now.

And yes, I probably did get very mildly hyperbolic about about using the word 'taunt', to put the LTH debate into the silliest possible light regarding 'bad player tricks'.

From the quick glance I gave many hours ago: as a third level spell, Dispel Magic simply... works. Perfectly. Casting LTH as a fourth level spell appears to call for a reasonably likely to succeed check, but Dispel can ALSO be cast at higher levels.

Quote from: Spike;1067701Well, yes? I mean... I did most of my D&D playing in AD&D and 3E, I played two sessions of 4 and so far have mostly just sniffed my 5E books, so I'm gonna forget Rituals are a thing now.

It's pretty significant for Leomund's Tiny Hut, because the wizard doesn't have to commit a spell slot to it (and more so in earlier editions where spells had to be chosen up front).

QuoteFrom the quick glance I gave many hours ago: as a third level spell, Dispel Magic simply... works. Perfectly. Casting LTH as a fourth level spell appears to call for a reasonably likely to succeed check, but Dispel can ALSO be cast at higher levels.

Even with perfect knowledge of the rules, the difficulty in using Dispel Magic is committing to use a 3rd level spell slot with the possibility that it may not work because the spell was cast at a higher level, not that it might fail against the lowest level casting of Leomund's Tiny Hut. I have cast Mass Cure Wounds as an 8th level spell to make Counterspell hard (4th tier play seems to be mostly a battle of Counterspells). If you're going to cast Leomund's Tiny Hut to take a long rest, it probably makes sense to cast it with the highest remaining spell slot; it goes up quickly and might fend off a Dispel Magic. But maybe you want the spell slot in case there is a fight before the long rest is done, so LTH does not completely negate interesting choices.