D&D 5E Hex Shenanigans

[Oofta]

It may not be a terrible idea for some patrons, but does that work for every patron? Does it make sense for a fey patron? Is a great old one who is probably not even consciously aware of your existence going to care about the sacrifice of something as insignificant as a chicken? I mean if you're going to make this a role playing point, what's to stop a DM from really interrogating it as to whether it's appropriate for the patron?

Who knows what a great old one thinks? Maybe they're really fond of chickens.

Then again, who even knows what a great old one even is? It could even be ...

 

[jaelis]

It may not be a terrible idea for some patrons, but does that work for every patron? Does it make sense for a fey patron? Is a great old one who is probably not even consciously aware of your existence going to care about the sacrifice of something as insignificant as a chicken? I mean if you're going to make this a role playing point, what's to stop a DM from really interrogating it as to whether it's appropriate for the patron?

I have no problem with that. If your patron is a summer fey and the DM says they wouldn't appreciate sacrificing innocent birds, then that's a legitimate point. But then maybe kill a creature of darkness like a bat or rat instead. The character, of course, is primarily concerned about activating his curse.

 

[jaelis]

That said, I disagree that a high level fighter knows he can survive a long fall. He knows he's tough and lucky, but I strongly disagree that he knows the fall can't kill him. The player knows, but that's not the same thing.

Well, I suppose that if I were playing at your table I'd need you to outline for me what my character is supposed to know about his abilities, and what he's not. Because I doubt that I would be able to guess...

 

[Fanaelialae]

Logical consequences of an action:

The Fighter tosses himself off a cliff "just because he can.." or because he's to lazy to walk - well That could be a problem when he faces the next encounter 60+ HPs down! He's just wasted seriously valuable resources (HPs, healing magic or the time to heal those HPs) for a seriously stupid reason and will now either get a Darwin award or a serious lecture from the rest of the group.

If he does this during downtime, or when it otherwise doesn't matter, well it's a pretty odd way to get your jollies, but you do you.

Is it really any better if he's wearing a ring of regeneration and therefore doesn't waste any resources? Is it really any better if he's in a relatively safe area and knows it won't matter because 60 hp less won't matter if he's attacked by goblins later?

Logical consequences are good, but IMO they work best when the people playing the game haven't thrown logic out the window and engaged the game purely as a game.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Well, I suppose that if I were playing at your table I'd need you to outline for me what my character is supposed to know about his abilities, and what he's not. Because I doubt that I would be able to guess...

Yup, I or one of the players would explain it to you if you didn't seem able to figure it out on your own.

 

[billd91]

Aside from aid and mage armor not being on the warlock spell list, I think they are interesting examples. If you dislike the chicken tactic, would you also be annoyed if the warlock cast those spells in the morning and then took a short rest to get back the slots? If so then it seems your issue is with the short rest mechanic, not the chicken. If not then I suspect it's a question of whether a chicken is a valid target. If the warlock snuck off before breakfast and killed a bear, would you have the same objection? Or maybe its this particular combination of gaming the targeting rules and the rest mechanic together?

So, looking at a long-duration spell actually on the warlock list like Hallucinatory Terrain (or really, even mage armor) - in these cases, there's a perfectly reasonable target of the spell. Mage armor would be the self or creature touched. Hallucinatory terrain could be an area outside. Both have long durations fitting to their purposes - passive protection, remodeling the look of a natural vista. They're defensive and utilitarian - useful in a fight, but neither is an attack. So settling in for a mellow start of the day and, effectively, getting a short rest doesn't feel like an abuse.

But Hex is an attack spell. You have to contrive a legitimate target in order to cue it up for use later in the day with the power driving it having been regenerated. Having a bag of rats or cage of chickens just so you can have a "legit" target you can safely butch with impunity is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way. Sneaking off before breakfast to pick a fight just so you can kill it and get more rest before the official start of the day is also kind of silly. As a DM, I'd be considering sneaking off before breakfast to "kill a bear" to be the start of the day - but what you encounter may be up to me... hopefully, you can handle it solo because we're going to handle it in full style. And if you do this every freaking day, chances are the other players are going to have words with you for wasting a lot of game time for a single spell slot.

 

[jaelis]

But Hex is an attack spell. You have to contrive a legitimate target in order to cue it up for use later in the day with the power driving it having been regenerated. Having a bag of rats or cage of chickens just so you can have a "legit" target you can safely butch with impunity is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way. Sneaking off before breakfast to pick a fight just so you can kill it and get more rest before the official start of the day is also kind of silly. As a DM, I'd be considering sneaking off before breakfast to "kill a bear" to be the start of the day - but what you encounter may be up to me... hopefully, you can handle it solo because we're going to handle it in full style. And if you do this every freaking day, chances are the other players are going to have words with you for wasting a lot of game time for a single spell slot.

Sure that is the main thing that bugs me about it too. And my inclination would be to rule that a random chicken wouldn't qualify as a target here. But it we established that it does in fact work in our imaginary world, I wouldn't have any problem with characters taking advantage of it.

 

[Xetheral]

I think it says a lot about you that you consider a multiclass monstrosity like Fighter 3/Sorcerer 4/Rogue 7 to be "effective" and not "multiclass munchkin monstrosity with a scotch-taped on story"

Whether or not a Fighter 3/Sorcerer 4/Rogue 7 is acceptable a given table is, of course, up to that table. But I'm not sure I'm comfortable saying that a Fighter 3/Sorcerer 4/Rogue 7 is a "multiclass munchkin monstrosity" even at a table when such characters are unacceptable. I think more neutral terms would be more useful to avoid any implication that a Fighter 3/Sorcerer 4/Rogue 7 is a "multiclass munchkin monstrosity" at every table.

 

[Xetheral]

Because you're not thinking of this as rules for a game that happen to take place in an imaginary world.

Instead, you are trying to say that the rules define this imaginary world.

In other words, in your conception, a 20th level fighter says, "Hey, I don't have time to wait for feather fall, so I'll just jump down that 200' chasm since I know it won't kill me, and I don't feel pain, or anything like that."

It's a completely different understanding of, um, playing D&D. It's okay, but it's different.

I think you've correctly identified the source of much of the divide in this thread. I don't see the split as perfectly distinct, however, because personally I use both approaches simultaneously for different elements of the game world.

I assume the game world largely works like the real world when it comes to the elements they share. For those elements the rules are an abstraction to be used when they are useful for modelling action resolution in a fun and believable way, and modified on the fly when they aren't. (Although to ensure fun, in practice the on-the-fly modifications are almost always to let the PCs do something the rules don't cover, rather than going outside the rules to stymie the PCs.) So the rules don't define the game world at my table with respect to elements shared with the real world.

But the game world has many elements (e.g. magic) that aren't shared with the real world. I assume these elements are defined by the rules, because that's the common material the DM and the players have to work with. So seeing as how characters with Pact Magic have spells that last longer than it takes to recover the slot used to cast them, I'm fine deducing from the rules that in the game world Pact Magic casters routinely cast such spells before resting. Hex has an extra step to take since usefully casting it ahead of time requires both a valid target and that target's death, so I'm also fine with deducing that animal sacrifice is a routine part of using Pact Magic in the game world. (Given the association of curses and animal sacrifice in literature, I'm actually thrilled with maintaining that connection in the game world.)

Of course, not all inferences that can be drawn from the rules about how magic works in the game world are going to be positive, and which ones are positive and which ones are negative is entirely subjective. If I didn't like an implied link between curses and animal sacrifice in my game world, I wouldn't use it, and would add some element to the game world to explain why Pact Magic casters don't sacrifice animals to allow them to pre-cast Hex.

As an aside, I do think there needs to be some shared understanding between the DM and the players regarding how the fantastical elements of the setting work. Extrapolating from the game rules is one approach, but detailed setting-specfic lore also works. Strong tropes might also be a workable substitute, although the large variation in tropes from fictional work to fictional work makes it tricky without an explicit discussion of which tropes define a particular setting.

It seems like some posters in this thread are definitely using this last approach, and their objection to hexing chickens stems from it violating the (possibly unspecified) set of tropes they're using to define how magic works in their world. Where it gets tricky is when a player doesn't understand what the defining tropes are, and thus has no way to know whether the DM will consider hexing a chicken to be wildly in-theme or problematically silly. Politely asking first is therefore undoubtedly wise.

 

[Helldritch]

Really? The warlock is not a very popular class in your games? I wonder why?

Helldritch: Okay guys, what classes are you all playing for my upcoming campaign entitled, 'The Totally Fair Campaign'?
Player 1: Cleric.
Helldritch: Cool! Every party needs one, am I right?
Player 2: Fighter.
Helldritch: Always need meat shields!
Player 3: Rogue, but I'm not, repeat not going to steal stuff from my own party!
Helldritch: Controversial, but I'll allow it.
Player 4: Er...warlock...?
Helldritch: Oh, trying to cheat are we? Right, here's a contract that your character has to obey or get eaten by Santa, effectively taking control of your character away from you!
Player 4: Okay, okay, I'll play a paladin instead!
Helldritch: No problem!

A wee bit condescending aren't you?
You do not know anything about my games and yet you assume this much.
Not all parties have clerics and paladins.
Some have had assassins, shadow monks, druids in brief, any kind of characters. Variety is the key here.

I DM/play with these principles:-
1) The DM sets the character creation parameters, and designs and plays the NPCs.

Great! Just like any DM.

2) The player designs their own PC according to the parameters, and plays them however they want.

Bad. Really bad.
Character creation is a much a player's decision as it is a DM's decision. It must be a cooperative thing. Otherwise you might end up with things like: " I am the Wizardking's heir, I start with a staff of the archmagi, a robe of the archmagi and an amulet of health." kind of sillyness. Or having evil PCs alongside good aligned pc. This is a receipe for disaster and PCs infighting. I would never encourage such a behavior at my table. Characters are build with the DM and the players. They all decide which characters will be made and who will play them. At session "0" we talk about the kind of group they want, the orientation and the campaign type that will be played (only the general theme).

3) The universe obeys its own laws. NPCs react realistically.

Nope. It obeys the laws of the gods.
Yep, they do.

From what I garner from your posts; you must really like to impose your view to any DM that comes your way. Unfortunately, not every DM will abide by your personal views.