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

[Flamestrike]

That's really the only solution as there is no "rules solution." Here are the relevant rules...

"Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with concentration." - Pg. 203

"[A character taking a short rest can do] nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds." - Pg. 185

I call 'eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds' = normal activity. And 'normal activity' doesnt interfere with concentration.

I mean, If I can maintain concentration while stabbing someone to death for an hour (attacking), then kicking back for an hour over a hot brew and eating a trail ration doesnt interfere either.

You lose concentration when injured (sometimes) when you cast another spell with a duration of concentration or when incapacitated.

Not during a short rest.

The intent of spells with 8/24 hour durations is that they last for the whole [6-8 encounter/ 2-3 short rest] adventuring day unless shut down via damage or casting another spell.

This is confirmed by the Devs. I see no reason to punish Warlocks by changing this rule.

 

[Flamestrike]

You really aren't helping yourself.

Neither are you mate.

I'm just saying Im not afraid to come down hard on players who attempt to game the system. I do the same with players who attempt to hide behind tenuous alignment justifications (Murdering children is totally a LG act to perform -they're Orc babies after all!), only ever play 'CN murderhobo orphans' and/or metagame. I dont care what your justification is. Ive been around the traps long enough now to know when a player is trying to game me or the system, and when he isnt. Often a stern glance, or an explanation that it wont fly at my table is all that's required. Sometimes it takes more.

It only happens the once. They either reign themselves in and we can get on with playing the game, or they find another table where that kind of stuff is the norm, and the DM is much more permissive.

Either way, everyone is happy.

I dont need a whole swathe of rules to stop abusive builds, gaming the system, metagaming or ridiculous justifications for bad behaviour at my table. I just either talk to, punish, or boot out players that try it on. Break the social contract at your own peril.

I expect the same treatment when I crawl from behind the screen and play.

 

[Ganymede81]

I call 'eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds' = normal activity. And 'normal activity' doesnt interfere with concentration.

Be careful. When you call "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds" normal activity, and the rules say that "moving and attacking" is normal activity, the inevitable implication is that moving and attacking is as strenuous as eating and drinking as they are all normal activity. Therefore, moving and attacking does not disrupt a short rest. You don't want to go there.

If you don't intend that implication, then what's the point of the classification? If you're going to call it all normal activity but still say that some can be done during a short rest but others can't, then you're back to square one.

But anyways, it isn't whether a short rest disrupts your concentration, it is whether you can actually benefit from a short rest while concentrating on a spell. No one disputes that you can maintain concentration on a spell while eating a corn dog, the issue is whether you can get the full restful benefit from that corn dog while concentrating on a spell.

This is confirmed by the Devs. I see no reason to punish Warlocks by changing this rule.

Mike Mearls' tweets are his own rulings on how he'd play. They are not rules, errata, or official explanations of how the rules work. They aren't worthless, sure, but I am turned off by their off-the-cuff style and occasional contradictions.

 

[Flamestrike]

Be careful. When you call "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds" normal activity, and the rules say that "moving and attacking" is normal activity, the inevitable implication is that moving and attacking is as strenuous as eating and drinking as they are all normal activity. Therefore, moving and attacking does not disrupt a short rest. You don't want to go there.

False logic brother.

If dashing, hiding, searching and attacking someone with an axe dont disrupt concentration (and are 'normal activity'), then neither does eating, sitting around a campfire and drinking.

But anyways, it isn't whether a short rest disrupts your concentration, it is whether you can actually benefit from a short rest while concentrating on a spell.No one disputes that you can maintain concentration on a spell while eating a corn dog, the issue is whether you can get the full restful benefit from that corn dog while concentrating on a spell.

And the answer is 'you can'. Its both RAW and RAI (confirmed by the devs).

There is zero reason to nerf Warlocks so hard by ruling otherwise. They now have 1 slot to last them 2-3 encounters between short rests (with the other being required for Hex). The longer duration of Hex assumes from time to time that itll be maintained during a short rest giving the Warlock the occasional block of 2-3 encounters with 2 slots + Hex.

Are Warlocks dominating your games or something?

 

[Xeviat]

False logic brother.

If dashing, hiding, searching and attacking someone with an axe dont disrupt concentration (and are 'normal activity'), then neither does eating, sitting around a campfire and drinking.



And the answer is 'you can'. Its both RAW and RAI (confirmed by the devs).

There is zero reason to nerf Warlocks so hard by ruling otherwise. They now have 1 slot to last them 2-3 encounters between short rests (with the other being required for Hex). The longer duration of Hex assumes from time to time that itll be maintained during a short rest giving the Warlock the occasional block of 2-3 encounters with 2 slots + Hex.

Are Warlocks dominating your games or something?

The issue isn't whether a short rest disrupts concentration, it's whether a character should be able to concentrate while resting. Is the act of concentration too focusing to be able to regain your energy?

Mearls has said it's fine. As I'm looking at changing all casters to a warlock mechanic so we can have the game based around short rests, this is an important consideration for me.

I'm going to have to say that, no, you cannot take a short rest while concentrating on a spell. But, this is my ruling and I'll be upfront about it. For typical D&D, anything more than two short rests in a full adventuring day will sway things towards fighters and warlocks.


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[Immoralkickass]

The bag of rats thing is just pure meta-gaming. If you ever done it, don't sugar-coat it and just admit you were doing something as ridiculous as keeping rats in your inventory, and killing them at certain times just to save a spell slot. People like that also intend to gain temp HP from Dark One's Blessing. This one is easier to tell them NO. It clearly states 'hostile' creature, so little creatures are not hostile to you.

On the Hex and Short Rests, its important to be consistent. If you argue about the RAI, then follow it. By RAI, the spell was intended to last through short rests (as long as you don't sleep), and it was also NOT intended to be transferred around through critters and bugs.

Oh and btw, when Mike Mearls/Jeremy Crawford says something, they are not telling you how to run your game. They are clarifying stuff since so many people like to misinterpret rules and do ridiculous stuff, or just have poor reading skills.

 

[pemerton]

I'm just saying Im not afraid to come down hard on players who attempt to game the system. I do the same with players who attempt to hide behind tenuous alignment justifications (Murdering children is totally a LG act to perform -they're Orc babies after all!), only ever play 'CN murderhobo orphans' and/or metagame. I dont care what your justification is. Ive been around the traps long enough now to know when a player is trying to game me or the system, and when he isnt.

This isnt players 'doing something the DM doesnt like'. Its players actively trying to meta-game the system (in particular the rest mechanic).

<snip>

I play a Warlock and I regularly push for a short rest early in the day (after a few encounters, as the story permits) to rest up and recover the expended slot (while keeping Hex up during the rest). I dont do it as some kind of gamist '9 hour short rest with my bag-o-rats' gaming of the rest mechanic, and I would expect to be shut down by the DM if I tried.

I think the alignment stuff is a bit weird - I'm not 100% sure what sort of "gaming" of the alignment system you have in mind (it is really such a privilege to be able to write "Lawful Good" in the box on my sheet?).

But as far as the Hex/rest thing is concerned - the practical difference between what you're condemning, and what you do, seems to be one spell slot over two or three encounters. That's obviously not nothing (or else warlock players wouldn't angle for it) but it doesn't look game breaking either.

So to me this looks more like something for each table to sort out, based on its tolerance of vermin sacrifice (I liked [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]'s discussion of the sociology and psychology of these things on the first page) and a sense of exactly where the balance point for a warlock lies. I don't think it's anything to moralise about.

 

[CapnZapp]

You can't cast Hex, rest, and get your slot back.

Not only is it a cheesefest and against RAI, it's also against RAW: if you don't have an encounter the DM is free to rule the rest is just an extension of the previous long rest.

If the designers had intended Warlocks to be able to cast Hex plus two slots, they would have said so.

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[The Crimson Binome]

The bag of rats thing is just pure meta-gaming. If you ever done it, don't sugar-coat it and just admit you were doing something as ridiculous as keeping rats in your inventory, and killing them at certain times just to save a spell slot.

If the actual laws of magic within the game world state that this behavior will increase your chance of survival, by letting you conserve a spell slot, then it would be pure meta-gaming to not do it. You may think that's a silly thing for the laws of magic to say, and I might agree with you, but that doesn't make the warlock a silly person for accepting it as truth.

If any particular DM thinks that this sort of behavior is silly, and they don't want it to happen in their game, then they should alter the rule (or choose a different interpretation) so that it is less silly. For example, when I ran my game, I didn't want the warlock to go through the hassle of killing off local wildlife before each short rest, so I altered my interpretation of the spell to let it be cast without a target. The other not-silly option would be to say that it just didn't work, but since that seemed counter to the intent of the rules, I didn't want to intentionally make the warlock weaker than it should be.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You can't cast Hex, rest, and get your slot back.

Not only is it a cheesefest and against RAI, it's also against RAW: if you don't have an encounter the DM is free to rule the rest is just an extension of the previous long rest

The concept of "encounter" doesn't have any real definition within the game mechanics; it's an abstract concept which is used to describe certain situations, which may or may not include combat. There's no rule or hint or suggestion that you must have an "encounter" before you can take a short rest, or else it would be possible for a party to die from a series of traps while they still had full hit dice because they weren't allowed to take a short rest and spend them.

If it wasn't intended for the spell to last through a short rest, then they wouldn't have allowed it to last for 24 hours when upcast in a sufficiently-high-level spell slot. The likelihood of them including that option if they didn't intend it to last through a short rest is so small as to be negligible; the added benefit would have been far too situational to justify the added complexity.