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

[CapnZapp]

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.

Nah.

It's not worth the extra effort writing rules that are lawyer-proofed against bag'o'rats. It's way simpler to simply stop playing with those who defend that sort of behavior.

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[CapnZapp]

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.

That's not what I said. Read what I said and try again.

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[Arial Black]

This isnt players 'doing something the DM doesnt like'. Its players actively trying to meta-game the system (in particular the rest mechanic). Its no different to 'bag of rats' rubbish, or a PC leaping into magma because 'I have enough hit points to survive'.

Its metagaming plain and simple, and should be shut down by any competent DM.

While I'm on board with your dislike of metagaming, I fundamentally disagree that 'taking a short rest straight after a long rest' is metagaming.

If I sit on my couch and watch TV for 6 hours, while recovering from being mugged, then after one hour of rest I'll ask the very reasonable question of, "Have I done anything strenuous this last hour?" If the answer is 'no' then I've just had a short rest and can spend hit dice. One hour after that, I ask again, "Have I done anything strenuous this last hour?" If not, then I've just had a short rest.

Although 2-3 short rests per adventuring day may by typical, it is neither a rule of the game nor a fundamental law of the game world. Your entire waking day may be rest after rest. If magic works such that you regenerate your casting power after one hour's rest, then that idle noble warlock could short rest, cast two spells in 12 seconds or so, short rest, cast 2 more spell, and so on, until he gets his well-deserved long rest after an arduous day of spellcasting.

Why? Because that's how Pact Magic works! That's how Ki points and Sorcery points and Superiority dice etc. all work. Pretending that they don't work that way just because you think it is somehow 'unfair' is your own bias.

Of course the events in the game world may conspire to make an hour's rest impossible, whether for any particular hour or for a whole day (the other side of the short rest mechanic), but ask yourself this: would those bears have attacked the party at breakfast if there were no short rest based PCs? Will the very existence of short rest PCs mean that the universe spontaneously creates PC-bothering bears at 59 minute intervals?

We've had a long rest, and get the benefits. At breakfast the ranger comes back with a brace of live rabbits that he trapped; he kills one, I kill the other, the halfling cooks them because stereotype. I also cast armour of agathys so, along with the hex I cast on my rabbit I have used both Pact Magic slots. The ranger, of course, had cast hunter's mark on the rabbit he killed.

One hour after I cast my last spell, I ask if we did anything strenuous in the last hour. If 'no', we have just rested for an hour; a 'short rest'! We get the benefits, which for me means I regain my Pact Magic slots. Why? Because that is exactly how Pact Magic works!

Is this 'metagaming'? No! It's how the world works! 'Resting' has benefits. If you have exerted yourself by using your spell slots, the way you get them back is by resting. This is not 'metagaming'! Random bears should not miraculously appear in order to punish some PCs for getting their breath back!!

 

[Sadras]

I allow warlocks to keep hex active with no enemy present but they can't cast it without an an enemy present. I also would not return the spell slot if the warlock had an active hex and kept it active through a SR. He could keep hex active through a SR but he would be down one spell slot on the other side of the SR. Anything else would not make sense. The warlocks spells are based on powers he draws from some divine being. Any time his hex is active he is drawing on those powers.

As I was reading through the thread, THIS is exactly how I would rule on the issue.
It satisfies both camps and makes the most sense.

Regarding the bag o' rats or a jar of locusts, I have no issue with it really. The fact is that the vermin would, at my table, not likely survive many of the adventuring environments/situations the warlock found himself/herself in.
For example, taking damage from area affecting spells (fireballs, ice storm...etc), being thrown about by a giant, swept away by the tail of a dragon or suffering from the cold aura effect of a lich or the unearthly scream of a banshee.

Personally this is a non-issue.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Players: OK DM. After our long rest, we rest an extra hour...
DM (interjecting): And as you're already rested from your long rest, you gain no benefit from it. Also, (rolls some dice, ignoring the result) your delay seems to have triggered a random encounter (rolls more dice, again disregarding the result, feigns looking worried and concerned for the players). As you sit around twiddling your thumbs, three fire giants stumble on your camp. They're 30' away from you; roll initiative.

I think you've distracted others from the good point that you make by answering bad player behavior with bad DM behavior - which is what rolling dice when the result isn't uncertain is, because you can have a monster encounter happen without a roll if you want to, so adding a false roll is only adding that you as a DM lie even when it doesn't serve any actual purpose.

The better solution, in my opinion, is to simply point out that a rest - whether long or short - is not a precisely timed thing. A short rest is at least 1 hour, so 3 hours spent resting is just a single short rest taking longer than the minimum required time, and a long rest is at least 8 hours, so 9 hours spent resting - even with a spell cast 8 hours into it - is just a single long rest taking longer than the minimum required time.

And when (or rather, if, since the situation is not inevitable) players try to insist they have stopped resting because of X reason and they want to rest again, all it takes is to point out that if they are intent upon immediately returning to rest without actually having accomplished something, that sounds like resting longer, not again to you.

 

[Ancalagon]

You can concentrate on a spell while fighting, engaging in exercise, or during a juggling routine so I figure you can concentrate on one during a short rest.

You're going it at it in reverse. The real question isn't "can you concentrate while short resting". It's "can you rest while concentrating". Is concentrating on a spell too mentally taxing so you can't relax and get a rest? THAT is the question.

 

[Charles Rampant]

A lot of these problems arise because the game combines mechanical concerns (recharging powers via rests) with narrative descriptions (waiting an hour, sleeping overnight). That causes issues, since the narrative concerns and the mechanical concerns do not always coincide nicely, as demonstrated by 'rest for nine hours to save a spell slot' ideas. One dramatic but permanent way to deal with that is to disengage the two, and say that sitting still for an hour is not always a rest. Turn the short rests into a discrete resource that the players have to spend, and you'll likely not find them taking such narratively odd ideas as casting a spell for free by sleeping in, since they'll want to save their limited resource for maximum gain.

Not a solution for everyone, and certainly the linkage between narrative and mechanical was made for a reason (simplicity, I guess), but I suggest it as one way to resolve it.

 

[ThePolarBear]

You cannot benefit from a short rest if you do anything more strenuous "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds." Whether or not short rests incapacitate the character is not the issue; the issue is whether concentrating on a spell is more strenuous than "eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds."

I would focus on the "reading" and "tending wounds" as between the examples provided are those that are most stress inducing and the ones that actually call for "concentration" on part of those doing the action.

Reading requires concentrating on what is actually being read to understand what is happening. It's not a lot of concentration - you are not studying something -, nevertheless a modicum of brain activity is required to process information.
Tending wounds is (better, can be) a stressful activity, expecially when wounds are close to be lethal and when there's actual "medicine" to be done. Even when on the receiving end of such attentions there's stress and possibly pain to be had.

Both are actions that are very difficult if not outright impossible to do in some situations where a concentration check to mantain a spell would be required (and i mean "concentrating on it", not actually performing)... it seems like it would be less stressful to actually mantain concentration on a spell than reading or tending wounds while also the required "concentration" to mantain a spell is less than what is required to do the other 2 activities.
In the end, you can mantain concentration AND read a book.

Personally i'll mark it as non stressful at all... something that is a bit more conscious than "breathing" or "making the heart beat", and requiring just a bit more effort.

 

[Ganymede81]

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.

I already addressed this point in my immediately prior point when I said, "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."

No one says that eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds breaks concentration on a spell. You can maintain concentration on a spell during all of those activities.

That undisputed fact is also not the point.

The point is whether you can actually benefit from a short rest while concentrating on a spell. Will concentrating on a spell while you relax by the campfire spoil your short rest?

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

I already addressed this point by saying "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."

If you like how Mearls runs his games, go ahead and do it that way, but those tweets of his are not actual rules.

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?

Those sound like gameplay idiosyncrasies, not actual requirements. Not every warlock even has Hex.

But yeah, let's not suggest ulterior motives. How about we just take each other's words at face value?

 

[MrHotter]

For me this was an easy interpretation. In my game recovering hit points (or other resources) during a rest takes meditation or sleep. I had set up this house rule to make quick wound recovery make more narative sense. That means that a short rest would break concentration at my table.

Players should just see what their DM thinks and then pick their spells accordingly.