D&D 5E Hex Shenanigans

[MGibster]

I wouldn't allow a character to maintain concentration during any rest period. But so long as the character is able to maintain concentration I'd certainly allow them to keep Hex up for as long as they're able to.

 

[NotAYakk]

As pointed out, the whole chicken this is down to people not understanding how the spell works, and not reading carefully.

No there is a cheesy loophole involving a chicken.

It just isn't the OP's example.

You are a warlock. You wake up from a long rest. Maybe a bit earlier than everyone else.

The first thing you do is buy a live chicken. Then you cast Hex on it. Then you kill it.

Now you take a short rest.

After the short rest, you both have Hex, which you are concentrating on, and all of your spell slots back. Hex (once you are level 5) lasts far longer than a short rest; by level 9 it lasts 24 hours.

You cannot cast hex without a creature to cast it on, and you cannot get it "free floating" without reducing that creature to 0 HP. Without the chicken, you'd be forced to wait for the first fight of the day, burn a spell slot on hex to cast it, defeat the creature, then take a short rest before the second fight of the day.

With the chicken sacrifice first thing in the morning, you enter that combat with a Hex you can drop on a target without casting a spell.

This is a clear "bag of rats" situation.

There are five approaches I can see here.

1. Nerf concentration through short rests.

2. Nerf regaining spell slots while concentrating on a spell from a that spell slot.

3. Nerf all concentration spells longer than a few minutes.

4. Nerf using hex on "bag of rat" targets; your patron is not amused.

5. Accept this case, because sacrificing a tiny animal for a small amount of power is thematic for a Warlock.

I consider 3 to be heavy handed and pitied the players of the DM who resorts to that kind of thing.

The other ones all seem reasonable to me. I'd bias towards (5) myself, because I don't see a huge balance problem here. If I found it to be a problem, I might move towards (4) or (2).

I might also use (4) because it is a delicious plot-hook.

Note that 1, 2, 3 are ruled out by tweet-rulings; concentrating through short rests is intended to work.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Feel free to rule differently. Have a good one.

SIGH. It's not about "ruling differently". You claimed there was a "cheesy loophole" where no loophole exists.

You can't sleep while maintaining concentration for one.

Why are you mentioning this? Because RAW/RAI, sleeping, for most races, will automatically break Concentration. Sleeping means you're Unconscious (DMG p248 in case anyone wants to argue). Unconscious means Incapacitated. Incapacitated means you can't maintain Concentration. Period. The only people getting regularly getting 24 hours out of a spell are Warforged, Elves or similar (Sentry's rest explicitly doesn't render you unconscious and the Elven trance appears not to).

Note that it is actually totally RAW/RAI to ask for Concentration checks in relation to environmental stimuli (rather than the mere passage of time). To wit:

"The GM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you’re on a storm--tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain Concentration on a spell."

I wouldn't allow a character to maintain concentration during any rest period. But so long as the character is able to maintain concentration I'd certainly allow them to keep Hex up for as long as they're able to.

RAW/RAI characters can potentially maintain Concentration through Short Rests and some characters can through Long Rests (only ones that don't go Unconscious whilst resting). All that not allowing that does is break the functionality of a small number of spells which are specifically designed to persist for a long period. It's basically a narrowly-targeted nerf that makes very little sense, because all the "problematic" Concentration spells like powerful summons have durations of 1 hour or less (and thus RAW couldn't last though even a Short Rest because of that).

It strikes me as making up a rule to cover up a situation that isn't actually a problem because you're not actually looking at the specific details involved. Which is how most really needless and pointless house rules get made.

 

[Oofta]

SIGH. It's not about "ruling differently". You claimed there was a "cheesy loophole" where no loophole exists.



Why are you mentioning this? Because RAW/RAI, sleeping, for most races, will automatically break Concentration. Sleeping means you're Unconscious (DMG p248 in case anyone wants to argue). Unconscious means Incapacitated. Incapacitated means you can't maintain Concentration. Period. The only people getting regularly getting 24 hours out of a spell are Warforged, Elves or similar (Sentry's rest explicitly doesn't render you unconscious and the Elven trance appears not to).

Note that it is actually totally RAW/RAI to ask for Concentration checks in relation to environmental stimuli (rather than the mere passage of time). To wit:

"The GM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you’re on a storm--tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain Concentration on a spell."



RAW/RAI characters can potentially maintain Concentration through Short Rests and some characters can through Long Rests (only ones that don't go Unconscious whilst resting). All that not allowing that does is break the functionality of a small number of spells which are specifically designed to persist for a long period. It's basically a narrowly-targeted nerf that makes very little sense, because all the "problematic" Concentration spells like powerful summons have durations of 1 hour or less (and thus RAW couldn't last though even a Short Rest because of that).

It strikes me as making up a rule to cover up a situation that isn't actually a problem because you're not actually looking at the specific details involved. Which is how most really needless and pointless house rules get made.

I'm not arguing about this. Stop. Thanks!

 

[Ashrym]

I wouldn't allow a character to maintain concentration during any rest period. But so long as the character is able to maintain concentration I'd certainly allow them to keep Hex up for as long as they're able to.

Sleep breaks concentration because unconscious applies incapacitation. Short rests don't.

That also means if a PC doesn't need to sleep they can maintain concentration during the long rest too. Aspect of the Moon allows maintaining that concentration on hex through the long rest. It's entirely possible for a warlock to have hex up indefinitely because the slot recovers before the concentration ends. Losing or giving up concentration what's stopping this.

DM's can change that if they want, but that's the default.

 

[MGibster]

RAW/RAI characters can potentially maintain Concentration through Short Rests and some characters can through Long Rests (only ones that don't go Unconscious whilst resting). All that not allowing that does is break the functionality of a small number of spells which are specifically designed to persist for a long period.

I think it's a bit cheesy that a character can get all their spells back while maintaining concentration but you are correct. So in the face of new evidence I must capitulate and agree that you can maintain concentration during any rest so long as the character doesn't go to sleep.

 

[NotAYakk]

I was referring to the hex a chicken and get all your spells back when you wake up. You can't sleep while maintaining concentration for one.

This is not an argument, but rather a clarification for something you might have missed.

Warlocks, the only casters of Hex, get spell slots back on short rests. They don't need to sleep to get all(*) their spell slots back. They just need to spend an hour having dinner or day dreaming or whatever.

The cheesy trick is to take an extra short rest, not a long one, at the start of your adventuring day.

* Offer not valid for mystic arcanum or multiclassed characters

 

[Oofta]

This is not an argument, but rather a clarification for something you might have missed.

Warlocks, the only casters of Hex, get spell slots back on short rests. They don't need to sleep to get all(*) their spell slots back. They just need to spend an hour having dinner or day dreaming or whatever.

The cheesy trick is to take an extra short rest, not a long one, at the start of your adventuring day.

* Offer not valid for mystic arcanum or multiclassed characters

I'm not arguing about this. Feel free to rule differently. As far as pitying my players you have no clue what kind of DM I am.

Again ... I'm asking politely. Stop.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No there is a cheesy loophole involving a chicken.

It just isn't the OP's example.

You are a warlock. You wake up from a long rest. Maybe a bit earlier than everyone else.

The first thing you do is buy a live chicken. Then you cast Hex on it. Then you kill it.

Now you take a short rest.

After the short rest, you both have Hex, which you are concentrating on, and all of your spell slots back. Hex (once you are level 5) lasts far longer than a short rest; by level 9 it lasts 24 hours.

You cannot cast hex without a creature to cast it on, and you cannot get it "free floating" without reducing that creature to 0 HP. Without the chicken, you'd be forced to wait for the first fight of the day, burn a spell slot on hex to cast it, defeat the creature, then take a short rest before the second fight of the day.

With the chicken sacrifice first thing in the morning, you enter that combat with a Hex you can drop on a target without casting a spell.

This is a clear "bag of rats" situation.

There are five approaches I can see here.

1. Nerf concentration through short rests.

2. Nerf regaining spell slots while concentrating on a spell from a that spell slot.

3. Nerf all concentration spells longer than a few minutes.

4. Nerf using hex on "bag of rat" targets; your patron is not amused.

5. Accept this case, because sacrificing a tiny animal for a small amount of power is thematic for a Warlock.

I consider 3 to be heavy handed and pitied the players of the DM who resorts to that kind of thing.

The other ones all seem reasonable to me. I'd bias towards (5) myself, because I don't see a huge balance problem here. If I found it to be a problem, I might move towards (4) or (2).

I might also use (4) because it is a delicious plot-hook.

Note that 1, 2, 3 are ruled out by tweet-rulings; concentrating through short rests is intended to work.

All of them seem like ludicrous overreactions to a very minor thing to me. The situation you describe isn't even really "bag of rats". It will occur naturally with some frequency.

To wit:

1) You wake up from a Long Rest.

2) You fight some monsters in the morning, and you, being a Warlock, cast Hex, and it's cast at 4th or higher because of the way Warlocks work (it's unlikely the fight even lasts enough rounds to use all your spell slots, note).

3) You have Hex up and running.

4) You take a Short Rest, because Warlocks do that. RAW/RAI and by design, you can and should maintain Concentration (if it hasn't broken already) and get your spell slots back. That's what being a Warlock is about.

5) Eventually Concentration breaks or you go to sleep, and you start over.

That's it.

It's ludicrous to react in any way to that. To make house-rules for that. Laughable. The scenario nets you a grand total of 1 spell-slot per day. Something Warlocks are already not short of. Something they get all of back every Short Rest! I mean, if you consider this an "exploit" or "cheesy trick", you basically consider the very existence of Warlocks to be an "exploit" or "cheesy trick".

So of your options - I would suggest pick 6 - accept that this is how the class works, and it's really not a problem. Don't make up weird house rules for no reason at all.

 

[NotAYakk]

Again ... I'm asking politely. Stop.

At this point you have made more posts about the topic after you are no longer talking about the topic than when you where talking about it.

If you don't want to talk about a topic, stop posting about a topic. If you want to keep talking about a topic, keep responding to posts about it.

"I want to have the last word, and this is it, no replies" isn't being "polite". It is passive aggressive.

Feel free to rule differently.

All of them seem like ludicrous overreactions to a very minor thing to me. The situation you describe isn't even really "bag of rats". It will occur naturally with some frequency.

"Bag of rats" is when you use a trivial foe for a combat-based spell in order to extract a benefit from the side effect of casting the spell on the creature.

Chicken-hexing is literally a "bag of rats" situation.

To wit:

1) You wake up from a Long Rest.

2) You fight some monsters in the morning, and you, being a Warlock, cast Hex, and it's cast at 4th or higher because of the way Warlocks work.

No, this isn't the chicken-hex situation I was describing at all. You fought some monsters and used Hex in that fight.

It's ludicrous to react in any way to that. To make house-rules for that. Laughable. The scenario nets you a grand total of 1 spell-slot per day.

So, it is very common in many D&D play styles that you only get 1 encounter/day. I know, I know. Or even a mere handful without short rests in between.

In that situation, warlocks go from 2 spell slots to 3 using the chicken-hex trick.

In general, carrying hex over between fights saves you 1 spell slot per short rest. That can be huge.

So of your options - I would suggest pick 6 - accept that this is how the class works, and it's really not a problem. Don't make up weird house rules for no reason at all.

Sure, you straw manned my example and removed the chicken from the situation, and made it look ridiculous.

I'm talking about the "wake up, hex and kill a chicken, take a short rest" situation, narrowly. Which is a bag-of-rats situation, and a bit cheesy.