My Short Rest DM trick...

[Valdier]

It's especially annoying that the characters can attack creatures outside of the hut [with weapons] while remaining invulnerable.

Of course a hut doesn't have a floor, and if you're like my player's PCs using this they may eventually be asking "Why are they piling dry wood on top of the hut?" Followed by "Why are they pouring oil on the wood and placing lit torches on the pile so that when the hut goes away the pile will start on fire?"

There are frequently ways of getting a rest. That just give the NPCs time to gather reinforcements and set appropriate traps.

Right but this wouldn't work, because the pc's can safely shoot all the bad guys bringing in wood.

 

[Oofta]

Right but this wouldn't work, because the pc's can safely shoot all the bad guys bringing in wood.

Not if the hobgoblin troops are using wooden "walls" to give themselves total cover while they just toss the dry brush over the top. Eventually the PCs have to come out (and get sniped) to clear the obstruction or the brush will cover enough to block sight. The troops can then bring in more wood, oil and torches.

Hypothetically, of course.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It's especially annoying that the characters can attack creatures outside of the hut [with weapons] while remaining invulnerable.

"Invulnerable" is a bit of an overstatement. Weapons that come out of the hut can go back in, so if the baddies on the outside get a hold on some of said weapons they can attack with them, though that will probably be at disadvantage (or possibly auto-miss by picking the wrong space to attack) because the hut being opaque from the outside means not being able to see your target.

Which has me wanting to arrange an encounter with some ready-to-disarm monsters while the party is resting in a tiny hut and see if my players can be baited into making melee attacks through the hut, and how they react if one of their weapons gets turned against them... too bad, the campaigns I was running that had characters with the spell are indefinitely on hold, and the campaign I am still running isn't likely to have any character with access to the spell. Maybe the players will decide to bring along an NPC at some point and I can fit in the scenario that way.

 

[Oofta]

"Invulnerable" is a bit of an overstatement. Weapons that come out of the hut can go back in, so if the baddies on the outside get a hold on some of said weapons they can attack with them, though that will probably be at disadvantage (or possibly auto-miss by picking the wrong space to attack) because the hut being opaque from the outside means not being able to see your target.

Which has me wanting to arrange an encounter with some ready-to-disarm monsters while the party is resting in a tiny hut and see if my players can be baited into making melee attacks through the hut, and how they react if one of their weapons gets turned against them... too bad, the campaigns I was running that had characters with the spell are indefinitely on hold, and the campaign I am still running isn't likely to have any character with access to the spell. Maybe the players will decide to bring along an NPC at some point and I can fit in the scenario that way.

Well, the bad guys can always dig underneath the hut, bury it and so on.

But attacking the creatures within? What happens when the PCs are using ranged weapons? At what point does a weapon become something that the PC is holding (and allowed to reenter the hut) vs a weapon that the NPC is holding (and not allowed to enter the hut).

The hut is very powerful against unintelligent creatures if it's cast on a solid stone surface.

 

[Lancelot]

Well, if that works for you & your group.... But from the outside this seems a bit absurd.
Question: Does this influence the types of adventures or classes your players choose? After all, if I were playing in a game where the DM was screwing with long rest recovery like this I wouldn't pick something like a wizard to play.

Why? Surely not for verisimilitude. There is no logical reason you can't get a good rest in the wilderness if you know how to take care of yourself and your fellow travelers. I can see requiring the party to make their own safe, temporary "settlement." If they took a beating, they may need a bit more comfort and care than a tent, but why not let them use their survival skills to find and create a safe place to recuperate.

I only allow Long Rests in safe settlements for balance reasons, not for verisimilitude. Let's take an example: the classic module X4 Master of the Desert Nomads. Although it could be a whole bunch of other modules; most of the Dragonlance saga, many Mystara or Dark Sun modules, really anything with a hex-based map. The combat encounters are miles and miles apart.

Let's say the average overland journey is 100 miles. It certainly is in my campaign world, with 36 mile hexes. That's four days of travel. Now, the DMG clearly outlines the expectations around number of encounters per day. This means that I have three choices as a DM for handling overland travel:

1) Nothing happens, and I just hand-wave the journey. Encounters only occur in set-piece locations (dungeons, caves, etc) where I can "force" a certain number of encounters per day. But that limits my ability to tell a story. Lots of classic fantasy tales feature "events on the road". Unacceptable.

2) Sufficient encounters occur over those four days so that the balance guidelines are met. That means 16-20 combat encounters just to travel 100 miles between Town XX and Ruined Keep YY. That's incredibly boring. It'll take my group four sessions (four weeks, real-time) just to get to the Ruined Keep. Also, it ruins the story just as much as having no encounters; the journey to the Ruined Keep took four times as long, and was four times as dangerous, as the Ruined Keep itself.

3) They have just 1-4 encounters over the journey; enough to keep it interesting and tell a story for being on a dangerous and unknown road, but not enough to draw out the trip to ridiculous lengths. But here we have a challenge. Either every single one of those events occurs in a single day (unlikely in a four-day trip, and incredibly unlikely in a 10-day or 20-day trip), or they're only going to face maybe one encounter per day. Most wilderness modules explicitly state that there is a percentage chance of one encounter per day. Many wilderness modules even go so far as to define events that occur on certain days (Day 32: Draconians Attack! Day 41: Snow Storm!).

Contrary to ccs's quote, Option #3 is what causes problems with character choice. If you know (or can reasonably expect) that you will be Long Resting after nearly every wilderness combat, there is no incentive to conserve resources at all - and it screws with party balance. The wizards and clerics burn off every single spell, massively overwhelming the short-rest types (monks, fighters, etc). Further, wilderness encounters nearly always have to be "Deadly" (as defined by the DMG) to provide any kind of challenge. Even if you shake things up and surprise the party with two encounters in a single day, they both have to be pretty damn hard to challenge the average party. And that, again, harms the story. If every fight in the wilderness is potentially lethal, how do regular folks even survive out there?

My approach (Long Rest only in safe towns) effectively forces the same type of balance as a typical dungeon-based adventure. The party has no idea what they could encounter. It could be a single Deadly encounter, or several Medium-Hard encounters, or a bunch of Easy encounters. The full casters will need to conserve some spells, because they have no idea if they will hit other fights on the road before they reach Waterdeep (just like if they were exploring a dungeon of unknown size). I can increase or decrease the difficulty of the adventure simply by adding or removing encounters, because the party can't simply reset after each fight by camping. And I achieve a level of world realism; several fights with wolves are a legitimate threat, because they will drain party resources over a week of travel - as opposed to every wilderness fight being with a ton of werewolves, because I know that the wizard and the cleric will be dropping every spell slot (and then the party will simply break out the tents, and restore to max).

It works for my group, at any rate. It adds a sense of danger to the wilderness. That 200-mile stretch of desert becomes a real challenge, because the PCs won't be regaining any hit dice or spell-slots until they get to the oasis on the other side; no matter how many days it takes them. There's now a reason for avoiding unnecessary combats, conserving spells, and using caution.

 

[Oofta]

I only allow Long Rests in safe settlements for balance reasons, not for verisimilitude.

I do similar, except that I play it more by ear and what makes sense for the story. I agree that if you allow multiple long rests during a caravan escort mission there's little reason to not go nova every fight.

Going nova now and then is fun, but it works against the balance of D&D.

I do occasionally give the PCs a long rest while on the trail because they stop at an oasis or stop for a few days in a peaceful glen to rest the horses or so on. It's more about not needing to be constantly on watch or dealing with inconsequential skirmishes then being in a "civilized" locale.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

But attacking the creatures within? What happens when the PCs are using ranged weapons? At what point does a weapon become something that the PC is holding (and allowed to reenter the hut) vs a weapon that the NPC is holding (and not allowed to enter the hut).

The hut doesn't allow things in or out based on who is holding it; the only check to determine if something can pass through the hut freely is whether it is a creature or object that was within the dome when the spell was cast - and that doesn't change no matter how many times a creature or object goes out and then back in.

So, any thrown weapon can certainly be thrown back, though I doubt the players are likely to throw anything out of the hut after the first time an enemy throws something back in.

Ammunition is a bit trickier. Not because it has a different check to determine if it can pass back into the hut or not, but because it's usability might be in question after it has been fired out of the hut. At my table, we don't track mundane ammunition at all, so there'd be no reason why the baddies outside the hut can't fire ammunition pulled from their own wounds or picked up off the ground back into the hut - but at another table ammunition that gets fired out might be less certainly usable. I think the default 5e rules would suggest that only half the ammo that gets fired one way could be reused to fire the other way, since you can only normally recover half your spent ammunition after an encounter.

The hut is very powerful against unintelligent creatures if it's cast on a solid stone surface.

Absolutely. I'm not in disagreement that the hut is very good at doing what it does (which is permit safe rest in a wide variety of otherwise unsafe scenarios), just saying characters inside it are "nearly invulnerable" rather than "invulnerable."

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Leomund's Tiny Hut?

Cover it in paint/tar/pitch. Now everyone inside is blind. Good thing about large magical domes that last a fair while is you can lob stuff, at extreme range (disadvantage) and bank on hitting it, eventually.

Too much effort? Is the dome over earth? Grab a spell caster with Move Earth.

Creatures and objects within the dome when you cast this spell can move through it freely.

Is the ground an object? Does the earth encompassed by the dome get the same immunity? Honestly, no idea. But if it doesn't...

So, if you affect a 40-foot square, you can create a pillar up to 20 feet high, raise or lower the square’s elevation by up to 20 feet, dig a trench up to 20 feet deep, and so on. It takes 10 minutes for these changes to complete.

Everyone inside has 10 minutes before things get uncomfortable.

At the end of every 10 minutes you spend concentrating on the spell, you can choose a new area of terrain to affect.

Good thing time is on our attacker's side!

Dome not on earth? As AaronTB mentions - build a fire. Build a big fire.

[sblock]And this is before we get into a discussion about magical domes, conduction, convection and radiation.

The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside.

But can a firey death barricade really be classed as weather? Probably not. Still, if the DM is feeling naughty..

Adventure Hot-Pot anyone?[/sblock]

None of the above? Let the poor doomed souls rest! They'll find their way into danger soon enough.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

As AaronTB mentions - build a fire. Build a big fire.

Credit where credit is due, it appears to have been [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION], not me, that actually brought fire into the discussion (he said, fully expecting the universe to make him look a fool by it having been someone before that to mention fire vs. hut in this thread and he inadvertently missed it when checking to see who to give credit to).

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Credit where credit is due, it appears to have been @Oofta, not me, that actually brought fire into the discussion (he said, fully expecting the universe to make him look a fool by it having been someone before that to mention fire vs. hut in this thread and he inadvertently missed it when checking to see who to give credit to).

Fine. Both you and Oofta get drinks. Inexpensive, small, very small drinks.

Aw to heck with it - Inexpensive, small, very small DRINKS ALL ROUND!