D&D 5E Warlocks and Hex and the "daily morning short rest"

[Werebat]

The Hex spell is a Warlock staple. It lasts for a long time, and needs Concentration to maintain.

As worded, it is clear that the spell can be moved from one target to another if the first target dies. What is not as clear is whether or not the Hex can be moved minutes or hours after a target dies, or ONLY immediately afterward.

It IS clear that the spell needs an initial target, but clever players will want to pull the old "Long Rest, then cast Hex, then Short Rest" routine and will find clever ways of doing so (the old bag of rats, for example).

I see this with other classes too -- the shadow monk's "YOU get Darkvision, and YOU get Darkvision, and YOU get Darkvision -- and now we do our daily morning short rest!"

What do you do with this (for the warlock and hex, specifically)? It smells like a rules abuse, but OTOH Hex DOES use up Concentration and the spell CAN be lost before it is ever used if the warlock takes damage before he can act. Do you just waive the target requirement because you do not want to deal with bag of rats nonsense?

 

[Werebat]

Replying to my own post here -- the "bag of rats" phenomenon may be self correcting anyway.

Why would a warlock cast Hex on a rat at the start of the day? To avoid having to spend an action casting Hex at the start of combat.

But the Hex cannot be moved until the rat dies, and it should take an action to kill the rat.

So in the end all the warlock does is eat up Concentration, and expose himself to the risk of losing the spell.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I've not had the problem, but a lot of this sort of thing - bag of rats, Barbarians punching themselves all day, etc - you just need to say to the player, "No, that is silly. Please stop trying to abuse things in a weird way that breaks immersion just for minuscule DPR gain." Just my gut feeling.

 

[kalil]

Hex is a bonus action to cast anyway. I simply cannot understand whh on earth you would go through all the bag of rats nonsense to conserve one bonus action.

 

[ThePolarBear]

[...] As worded, it is clear that the spell can be moved from one target to another if the first target dies. What is not as clear is whether or not the Hex can be moved minutes or hours after a target dies, or ONLY immediately afterward. [...]

"An apple" is not "the apple" and is not "that apple". "An apple" is "any apple".
"a subsequent turn" means any turn after the one where the creature dies. In case of Hex it's further specified to be a turn of yours; as such the warlock can only Hex someone on its own turns.

 

[jaelis]

Hex is a bonus action to cast anyway. I simply cannot understand whh on earth you would go through all the bag of rats nonsense to conserve one bonus action.

It's not the bonus action it's the spell slot. Cast your 8 hour hex on the rat, kill the rat, then take a rest and recover your spell slot.

IMO, if you don't do anything significant between two rests, the second one is just considered as a continuation of the first.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

There's no reason to bag of rats Hex. Like Kalil said, it's a bonus action to cast it. As for moving the hex, there is no reason why you can't move it a turn later, or 5 rounds later, or 59 minutes later, as long as concentration was maintained ( and of course the requirement is met of the last hex target being reduced to zero hit points ).

Off the top of my head I don't know about the Shadow Monk thing but it sounds legitimate also. I don't really see how short resting to get a resource back is abuse. The same classes are held back by these restrictions when a short rest cannot be taken.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My solution to the problem is simple. Story.

"Hey Warlock player! So you bargained for some power from an ultrapowerful otherworldly being in exchange for doing some things in that being's name... and you're using that being's power capriciously to curse a RAT? How many times do you think you can do that before the otherworldly being comes back here to tell you to stop farking around with the power they gave you? Just because they gave you these abilities doesn't mean they can't take them away, nor punish you for wasting their time and energy."

Of course I almost never have this issue with my players because they know going in that story trumps mechanics and don't try and circumvent any rules like that anyway.

 

[Ancalagon]

The duration of the spell *very strongly* implies that the spell can be transferred hours later. Why would the spell last hours otherwise?

The *real* question for me is "is it ok to cast it in the morning and then take a short rest right away to get the spell slot back".

 

[jaelis]

"Hey Warlock player! So you bargained for some power from an ultrapowerful otherworldly being in exchange for doing some things in that being's name... and you're using that being's power capriciously to curse a RAT? How many times do you think you can do that before the otherworldly being comes back here to tell you to stop farking around with the power they gave you? Just because they gave you these abilities doesn't mean they can't take them away, nor punish you for wasting their time and energy."

I don't know, torturing rats seems pretty well in line with the attitude of many patrons...