As usual, you miss the problem by such an huge extent that you don't seem to see how you are making the problem even worse. Shooting down the paint example was something I could do quickly on my phone between life... Frankly I'm relieved that I did because your answer shows that I wouldn't have given you enough to even see your point of misunderstanding as a speck on the horizon let alone clearly. Don't complain about a "wall of text". My first thought was to say
"we should assume a standard party size of 4-6 players", but that's absurd because we are talking about tiny hut and "Nine creatures of Medium size or smaller can fit inside the dome with you. " so lets roll with it and assume a party of nine.
So on to your "solutions", I'll start with your
Clarified paint. I & others have pointed out multiple times that the blatantly adversarial gm
verses players atmosphere created by solving these problems itself is a bigger problem than coming up with ways to solve it only to have people keep assuming "bad gm" is the problem. Everyone in the party but the caster can go in & out freely for the duration. Tiny hut allows everyone inside to see out & nobody outside to see in unless the caster flips the switch. The idea the idea that someone could notice the dome, find some paint, & throw it over the dome well enough for nine characters to not notice or react to is frankly a stretch. The other eight people in that hut are going to rush out & slaughter the creature who stumbles in to notice the guy the second any of the nine notice it & nip the whole paint thing in the bud... But it gets
worse, if we assume that it was noticed by an
invisible patrol then ok he can come back with some paint & lets look at what happens with your ruling that as one action an invisible creature can throw paint at the 10 foot dome & cover it well enough to make seeing out notably difficult for this hypothetical party of nine is just silly & the problems don't end there. You've now either openly embraced the calvinball style of GM rulings or declared that a pc could throw a bucket of acid, poison, flammable liquid, 4gp/8 pounds of ball bearings, etc & evenly cover everything in a 10 foot block.... good jorb!
Now I had originally given you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that you were at
least a reasonably competent GM, from your replies I get the feeling that you just assumed anyone who would have issues with a spell like tiny hut is unworthy being given that level of respect. Turnabout is fair play so I feel like it might be important to point out a lesson many inexperienced GMs take a while to learn when it comes to
Calvinball. When we run & play d&d it's done with a consistant set of rules that everyone can agree on... If the GM is constantly shifting the rules as would happen if NPCs can make use of your revised paint idea to fully cover a 10 foot dome as an action but PC's can not then trust between gm & players breaks down leas\ding to a bitter adversarial type of gameplay where players are forced to think in terms of beating the gm rather than work with the gm.
Sure a lot of those problems go away if calvinball is your goal, but maybe you intended for a few dozen NPCs to throw their own bucket of paint & ust didn't stop to consider how unlikely it is for a few dozen gallons of paint to be as normal as a bar or two of soap?
Onward to Time. This might seem like a good idea, but any remote location even a cabin a few hours outside town severely limits most of the "just do X" suggestions from GM's I had given the benefit of the doubt as reasonably skilled. In a previous exchange with one of the other just do..." folks I mentioned te Mournland, Demon wastes, Xendriik, droaam, & more. Yes I could have my NPCs setup an ambust and mercilessly TPK my players every time I say "are you
sure about that" or "you don't feel safe" to the players, but TPKs are generally bad for the health of a stable group & doubly so when done because a GM mercilessly cranks the dial up past 11. There's also the fact that not every excursion has intelligent creatures as the threat & this solution limits the gm to only using intelligent creatures capable of setting up a TPK. If the GM only dials it to 11 or the PCs manage to pull off a miracle, good Jorb because now you've set precedent that the solution to a dungeon crawl is to kick in the door>nova>rest in an obvious hut & then use the zone border that 8 of the nine PCs can freely cross with only 5 feet of movement in order to handle the ambush untuk the GM just declares rocks fall or similar.
Yes burrowing & incorporeal creatures can freely enter from
underneath the dome as you suggest, but tiny hut's detractors have long pointed that out as the built in flaw.. contrary to discussion Crawford actually said
"There's no floor" as if that alone balances the absurdly munchkiny worded spell... not there is a floor
Just use
Portable cover might sound like a
grand idea, but that gets into all of the problems I pointed out in revised paint plus the TPK problem & taunt strategy of your Time solution. If you allow NPCs to introduce portable cover that far exceeds mere partial cover you then give the players the ability to cobble together such similarly effective barriers by setting precedent or devolve into calvinball. Remember, those barriers need to be capable of overcoming the fact that the PC's can take a short or long rest & continue to
nova their way through any encounter any time they can manage to hold a room for 10 minutes... such as the time immediately after using their just refreshed arsenal to push their way further.
It might sound good to simply "
Block off escape", but wall of force is a 5th level spell with only a 10 minute duration& this suggestion implies either solutions that the party of nine PCs can not simply smash or dig their way out of. Yes it works great if you limit the GM to nothing but tuckers kobolds in caves that can be collapsed.... but I may have been giving too much credit to the GMing skills of anyone who thinks that is a reasonable restriction to place upon gms. I'll give you credit though, someone mentioned mudslides & avalanches, that will indeed work
once & players will be wise to check the terrain with nine nature & nine survival checks from that point forward
Run away is an absurd solution that amounts to early in a session the gm simply saying "annnnd the bad guys leave, wish I could say good session but I'll br switching to the random tuckers kobold dungeon from now on instead of a campaign with an interesting plot & story... GG guys!". This "solution" is so poorly thought out that it fails to even consider what the next move will be or how the GM will be going forward after doing so.
Your "
Reinforcements/Ambushes/Traps " point is really just expanding on the "Time" & "Portable Cover" solutions, all of what I said about those applies
- Poison gas: Cloud kill is a 5th level spell (not a ritual one either) with a 10 minute duration, tiny hut is a third level ritually castable spell with an 8 hour duration. Are you suggesting that lethal poison gas is as common as the paintcan closet filled to the brim with paint cans & poison gas?... Also have you not considered how 8 of the nine party members could use this trivially available long lasting poison gasfrom the safety of their tiny hut where "
- The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside." Creatures Objects & spells not inside the dome can't enter after it gets cast, but "we leave the canisters of cheap & common VX gas outside the dome before he casts it" easily solves any of the problems that would hinder the party from using it.
- Cage: You do know that there are as many as nine pairs of eyes able to see out from the safety of their unbreakable wall of force? How exactly do you plan to secretly construct this cage & what kind of bizarre Gorean fantasy realm has cages as common as you seem to imply they would be for this?
- Flood the Room: Tuckers Koolds again... Good Jorb.
- Put something hazardous on top: Nine pairs of eyes and a dome that is completely transparent to those inside it unless the caster declares otherwise. I guess this works great if the caster is helping you & declaring the dome to be opaque to the party as well
- Prep hazardous terrain: This only goes so far & dives into many of the problems previously noted. That hazardous terrain would need to neutralize nearly on demand reset of limited combat resources
