D&D General Has Tiny Hut actually affected your game? Or has it otherwise mattered?

[tetrasodium]

Generally requires a wizard.

Not seeing them much nowadays. New campaign 3/6 are talking about what they're playing. 0 wizards so far in an easy NPC arcane game.

I've seen a lot of bards take it and more than one wizard player literally nope out of playing to walk next door for a hotnready pizza from Little Caesars declaring they would remain in the "Bunker" to catch up after a warlock took a tiny hut scroll as an AL reward specifically so they could make the wizard scribe it to cast.

 

[Zardnaar]

Most problematic spells that have been with the game for a long time seem follow this particular trend that they only become problematic when they become easier to cast.

Light was once a 1st-level spell. Rarely used.

Goodberry has been a Druid spell for decades, but it always had this opportunity cost where you'd have to specifically go out of your way to have it, at the expense of other spells. 5e lets you prepare it and if you don't need it, you can use the spell slot for other things.

Create water has a similar history. I remember Dark Sun going out of it's way to nerf it because it would wreck the setting (which make sense), but at the time, I don't think I ever saw it used. Once 3e gave Clerics the ability to ditch needless spells for Cure spells, the opportunity cost went way down, much like Goodberry now.

Tiny Hut didn't really offer useful benefits for most situations in previous editions. Even when it was eventually powered up (I think in 4e), it wasn't used (mostly because Ritual casting was a pain in 4e, so only a few Rituals got much use). Ritual casting in 5e basically means it's a free spell that you don't even have to prepare, so it can get used more. If it cost you a Fireball, it probably wouldn't be used much.

Ultimately, camping in the wild is dangerous. Being interrupted by a night encounter used to be not only common, but the worst kind of encounter- if everybody takes a watch, there's the risk some not-so perceptive character will get ambushed. Then there's the inevitable checks to see who wakes up and can actually take part in the combat. Spellcasters won't have spell slots back, warriors might not have their armor- it's a real pain in the ass.

Things that mitigate this really should exist, one might say they need to in your typical D&D setting. But you run into this problem that if the spell can't actually prevent an ambush, then it's going to be used. So WotC said "hey, maybe it should prevent you from being snuck up on by Bugbears and strangled in your sleep, and give you time to respond". And that's great.

The problem is that it does more than that. I'm sure the anticipated play loop would be for the caster to immediately start casting spells, so the Hut would end on their turn. But like any open ended tool, somebody is going to find ways to use it outside of it's intended use.

Given the opportunity, gamers are going to game, and all that. "Hey, did you realize this thing is basically a level 3 Wall of Force that doesn't take a spell slot?"- yeah, someone is going to devote brain power to finding good uses for that.

Until it becomes a problem, however, it lurks unseen. If you don't routinely hit your players with ambushes for having the nerve to take long rests, or the players are just careful about where and when they rest, it's probably fine. Heck, even if all it does is prevent someone from dying in their sleep, also fine.

But when someone realizes it can be exploited, and lead to play patterns it wasn't intended to support, it is a big deal. You have to nerf it. Ban it. Have intelligent foes prepare for it's existence, despite the fact that it's not really something one should encounter super often in many games. It's like the time-honored chestnut of monsters dogpiling the healer, when in reality, most monsters don't use magical healing, and divine casters might not be all that super common. The game would become pretty lopsided if all enemies were ran as if they were ignorant of such things (though, amusingly, there are DM's who are happy to deny players such "basic information", lol).

I don't like that LTH can be a trap for the inexperienced, and that it can force a DM to worry about countermeasures for something that, realistically speaking, is a potent and sometimes vital exploration tool. In a world infested by dangerous monsters, you'd be foolish not to have some kind of portable fortification, be it an armored RV or a fortress in your pocket.

But ultimately, it's far from the only such thing in the game, and in the grand scheme of things, it's far from the worst thing players can do to warp the game with magic. One day, I might actually find myself in a high level game where I suddenly have to worry about things like Simulacrum, lol, and worries about LTH will seem like fond, nostalgic memories.

You're on to it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've seen a lot of bards take it and more than one wizard player literally nope out of playing to walk next door for a hotnready pizza from Little Caesars declaring they would remain in the "Bunker" to catch up after a warlock took a tiny hut scroll as an AL reward specifically so they could make the wizard scribe it to cast.

I said generally.

Bards I probably wouldn't bother but I can see why some would.

 

[Marc17]

I would have expected that if it was disruptive, it would be in unexpected uses of an nigh-indestructible dome. Protecting the Mcguffin from the bad guy for 8 hours. Sealing off a gate or mountain pass from the enemy. All sorts of weirdness could come from the DM's judgement on casting the thing on a ship I would imagine. Stop up a flooding tunnel. Etc.

 

[Teemu]

Honestly?

Tiny Hut is extremely problematic in white-room game theory analysis, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen that spell actually get used in the game. And I've been playing for decades.

I've had it used by both a wizard and a bard in two separate 5e (2014) games to very good effect. The real power of the spell as a ritual is how easy it becomes for the party to ignore environmental challenges from things like weather or supernatural phenomena / weather.

As a DM in 5e I often like to use the environment to put a drain on the party resources without having to go through combat encounters whose purpose is the same but that take much more time to resolve. Tiny Hut is very powerful in those situations and just makes my job as a DM that much harder. If Tiny Hut wasn't available as a ritual but instead always cost a spell slot or even a scroll, it would make it more reasonable, especially because some times the caster maybe wouldn't have that 3rd-level spell left at the end of the day, or that spell slot would have a tangible impact if they used Tiny Hut to circumvent an environmental challenge during the adventuring day instead of at the end of it.

 

[AlViking]

I mentioned & linked to the old Tucker's kobolds dragon mag bit. It seems like they very much would absolutely fall under "just have the antagonists take an intelligent approach" even if posting from my phone ate the attempted (and now fixed) bolding. Should I take the lack of elaboration over an intelligent approach as evidence of the problem or take guesses on your intent?

Since this isn't about weather effects and LTH I thought I'd move my response over here.

I mentioned that if someone sets up a hut in an area that the antagonists are going to detect it (and if not then the hut wasn't necessary), they will take an intelligent approach in response. I had a slightly longer answer above...

I don't really do random encounters, but I do try to run enemies as intelligent. Let's say the characters are invading a hobgoblin keep. If they notice a hut, what are they going to do? Shrug and go on with their day or gather everyone around to figure out what to do with the intruders? Exact details of what they prepare whether that's ambushes, traps, get someone with dispel magic, summon reinforcements, pack up and leave are all going to depend on the scenario.

But sure, go from potentially picking off enemies in small groups to facing every hobgoblin in the keep that are aware of your presence and have had time to get ready.

The response depends on the enemy. Animal intelligence? They'll likely just avoid the area if attacked. Even low level intelligence like ogres aren't going to continually attacking futilely if they can't do anything. But they might stand back and start throwing things from behind cover - they've go 8 hours after all and the hut isn't going anywhere. This would likely be a go-to tactic for most giants, just bury the hut in debris. Once it's buried so people on the inside can't easily get out, bury it some more. Could even be a tactic for more militarily minded/organized war bands like those hobgoblins. Many others would simply gather up forces just out of sight with everything prepared to alpha-strike once the hut goes down.

A lot depends on the terrain and location of course. In the middle of a forest, goblins might leave multiple fire bundles in the underbrush surrounding the hut. Once the hut drops, start a forest fire with the characters in a ring of fire (queue Jonny Cash "Well it burns, burns burns, that ring of fire"). In a dungeon they may seal almost everything off, but pile up anything that would cause a lot of smoke. Hut ends, start fire, finish sealing off the exits.

If the characters are after the Golden McGuffin the enemy takes it to parts unknown. Trying to stop a ritual, the timing of the ritual is moved up. That princess they're supposed to rescue just became a midnight snack. They summon a nearby caster to come cast dispel magic. The response will be appropriate to the scenario, but at the enemy has potentially hours to plan and put those plans into motion. What they do depends on the enemy, the enemy's goals, resources and intelligence. At the level LTH is going to be used, I assume most monsters will be at least somewhat literate in what spells the enemy can cast. If I'm not sure whether they would know what it is I'll roll for it.

D&D is not a video game. Monsters don't sit around waiting to be triggered based on when you cross some magic activation line.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm still not sure what stops the party from going "oh look, we are being attacked", fight the monsters, and then recast Tiny Hut and go back to resting after the encounter.

If the answer is "there's too many enemies", ie, overwhelming force, then nothing was going to save them. I keep getting the impression that a lot of these responses are the DM going "oh ho, you think you're going to rest? Here's an extra dangerous encounter for having the nerve!"- as if they wouldn't be in this mess if they didn't try to use LTH in the first place?

If we assume that the party is equally in danger if they don't rest and keep fighting or do rest and have to deal with the monsters that come to them, I don't really see how anything changes.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm still not sure what stops the party from going "oh look, we are being attacked", fight the monsters, and then recast Tiny Hut and go back to resting after the encounter.

If the answer is "there's too many enemies", ie, overwhelming force, then nothing was going to save them. I keep getting the impression that a lot of these responses are the DM going "oh ho, you think you're going to rest? Here's an extra dangerous encounter for having the nerve!"- as if they wouldn't be in this mess if they didn't try to use LTH in the first place?

If we assume that the party is equally in danger if they don't rest and keep fighting or do rest and have to deal with the monsters that come to them, I don't really see how anything changes.

Mostly yea.

1. Case: LTH Doesn't matter
If they party didn't need to rest then LTH doesn't come into it.

2. Case: LTH always matters
If the party did need to rest then continuing on wasn't a good plan anyways. (LTH is of universal benefit here. You are much better having it than not in this scenario as it at least offer some protection and anything enemies could do to the LTH party, they could do to the non-LTH party.)

3. Case: LTH might be better/worse
If the party uses some resources but rests before they really need to, this can be done with or without LTH. LTH just makes players feel safer doing so, increasing the liklihood that they may try it.

3.i. We can look at what happens to this non-LTH premature rest party
They rest long before they need to while in hostile territory. GM has monsters attacking them during the rest, which psychologically justifies the players decision to prematurely rest (ie. it would have been bad if they had depleted most of their resources and then were attacked during a rest, so being attacked now justifies the premature rest). So now the player entrenches himself in this playstyle of premature rests. Honestly this probably works fine for a game loop, though is going to be overly anti-climatic from a narrative perspective.

3.ii. LTH finally comes in
The LTH case isn't much different than the 3.i. case, except the player has protected himself against many types of opponents the DM could have attacked him with during the rest. Anything enemies could do in the LTH case they could do in the non-LTH case, but they won't. It's mostly just that the DM won't have them do those things if they can attack the players. This actually fundamentally changes the game loop. Now the DM isn't just bringing known enemy forces to the player for a traditional encounter, he's having to decide how said enemies would react to coming into contact with people in a protective bubble they cannot readily harm. At this point what would have otherwise yielded a straightforward encounter, now places the outcome on narrative and possibly even DM fiat (ie. i've got to mount an attack against the players to challenge them so i'll justify allies, or terrain features, or whatever and the enemy intelligence to use those things so that I can challenge the players).

The reality is the players wouldn't be in whatever mess the DM puts them in while long resting in hostile territory without LTH, he'd have just attacked them while resting and called it a day.

 

[Seramus]

My group quickly realized it could be used to establish bunker fallback points in any situation where there was time to set it up, and they could lure enemies back to it. It saw some use in dungeon style environments as they would bunker up, lure enemies to the bunker, advance to another chokepoint, then bunker up again. Etc.

But it was only a few games before they decided this wasn't a fun way to play long term and refrained from doing so except in a handful of future cases.

 

[tetrasodium]

Since this isn't about weather effects and LTH I thought I'd move my response over here.

I mentioned that if someone sets up a hut in an area that the antagonists are going to detect it (and if not then the hut wasn't necessary), they will take an intelligent approach in response. I had a slightly longer answer above...



The response depends on the enemy. Animal intelligence? They'll likely just avoid the area if attacked. Even low level intelligence like ogres aren't going to continually attacking futilely if they can't do anything. But they might stand back and start throwing things from behind cover - they've go 8 hours after all and the hut isn't going anywhere. This would likely be a go-to tactic for most giants, just bury the hut in debris. Once it's buried so people on the inside can't easily get out, bury it some more. Could even be a tactic for more militarily minded/organized war bands like those hobgoblins. Many others would simply gather up forces just out of sight with everything prepared to alpha-strike once the hut goes down.

A lot depends on the terrain and location of course. In the middle of a forest, goblins might leave multiple fire bundles in the underbrush surrounding the hut. Once the hut drops, start a forest fire with the characters in a ring of fire (queue Jonny Cash "Well it burns, burns burns, that ring of fire"). In a dungeon they may seal almost everything off, but pile up anything that would cause a lot of smoke. Hut ends, start fire, finish sealing off the exits.

If the characters are after the Golden McGuffin the enemy takes it to parts unknown. Trying to stop a ritual, the timing of the ritual is moved up. That princess they're supposed to rescue just became a midnight snack. They summon a nearby caster to come cast dispel magic. The response will be appropriate to the scenario, but at the enemy has potentially hours to plan and put those plans into motion. What they do depends on the enemy, the enemy's goals, resources and intelligence. At the level LTH is going to be used, I assume most monsters will be at least somewhat literate in what spells the enemy can cast. If I'm not sure whether they would know what it is I'll roll for it.

D&D is not a video game. Monsters don't sit around waiting to be triggered based on when you cross some magic activation line.

There are three basic solutions mentioned here. The first is throwing "things"to completely bury the hut and moving on. Second is dispel magic. Thirdly is a variation of "Mario the princess is in another castle"


Right out of the gate is the fact that all three flatly ignore the fact that players/pcs can see out and the opponents can not see in. As a result they all depend on the players not using the toxically adversarial rest rules to set a watch at zero cost to all but the smallest of pwrties -OR- Worse is the idea that they depend on they depend on players noticing they are discovered but choose to do nothing. All good f those are serious enough problems for the scenarios that follow for serious problems of credibility in the hypothetical scenario right from the start. While I have seen players react to being discovered during a rest i 5e by continuing their rest, the results were god awful and players were outraged even without tiny hut. Once you clear that gate is the problem 5e uniquely introduced with malicious compliance in the shift away from ADEU to attrition based adventuring days with the introduction short rest classes. Those PC's only need to be uninterrupted for one hour in order to regain enough nova capability to obliterate any wanderers who discovers their rest when backed by other changes undermining the attrition over adventuring day model like unlimited at will cantrips. The short rest PC's can go full nova on whoever discovered their rest because it's so easy to recover from it anyways. I don't know if you've ever tried to dig a hole of any size, maybe even level out a few cubic feet of your yard, but it's long backbreaking work that very much would be discovered before players are at any risk of being entombed unless monsters have iceman style powers.

I'm not aware of many monsters competing with Bobby Drake on that front, so we move on because that first example is one that depends on questionably believable players who choose not to react and nakedly adversarial fiat empowered foes. That beings it to the dual rest/recovery cycle. Yes, eight hours is a long time where monsters could accomplish a lot , but the party doesn't need 8 hours, they need one. The volume of patrols and wandering monsters needed to thwart that shifts from d&d to half minute hero eal quickly without video game style unlimited monster spawns fueling it or something.

On the cast dispel via slot/scroll front you immediately crash into the massive world building implications of what having dispel magic that common triggers. I'm not even going to thought experiment what that nightmare realm might look like but the closest I can imagine would probably look a lot like the world of Peter V Brett's demon cycle where relatively mindless monsters spawn and try to kill anything living every day after sundown... Roger half grip may have been the best example of abats I've seen in fiction,but I can't imagine running or playing d&d in such a world

All of your solutions pretty much dependon the players not being willing to do the thing they are so heavily incentivized to do by the system design and all of them quickly encourage the players to take on a more adversarial players vrs gm mindset where they view thegn as an opponent to win against. That's a toxic mindset that does horrible things for the longevity of a campaign.

Finally is the monsters leave with the mwcguffin. Great quickly one of two things is going to happen. Either your world descends into a crap sack world akin to golarian's darkest timeline where all APs failed in the worst possible way or the players notice it doesn't matter anyways. Those two are obviously new problems of their own and still have not solved the initial problems tiny hut caused

I think that the only things you've shown is that your players have never pulled the campaign on the sacrificial alter in ways that made you take a good hard look at the spell while daring you to stop them . Adversary creatures acting intelligently is not the problem. The results of invoking so much fiat and overtly drawing on litrpg dungeon core style powers required for they intelligent reaction to matter given the stratospherically high bar set by tiny hut and 5e'sbdusl track overly generous rest/recovery mechanics is why tiny hut unreasonably creates problems.