D&D 5E Countering Rest Spells (Tiny Hut, Rope Trick, et al)

[Oofta]

@Tony Vargas good catch on the 4e version & thanks, my 4e experience was limited. Given that, making the 5e version a no cost ritual star trek type energy/force shield is even more egregious.


No, I choose to explain why your "solutions" are terrible, you just keep ignoring the problems with your solutions & continue on suggesting them as if nothing happened.

Or I just disagree, as do apparently multiple people who "liked" my post.

If you have any suggestions feel free to post.

 

[tetrasodium]

Or I just disagree, as do apparently multiple people who "liked" my post.

If you have any suggestions feel free to post.

I know it might be hard to see them from your lofty "best GM evar" throne, but multiple people have pointed out in both threads that the problem is more the resulting animosity that stems from your blatant examples of plot armor... Also "likes" do not equal validation any more than having people slow down to rubberneck you & the cops at a traffic accident you caused makes the guy in the ambulance at fault. If you wanted to improve your solutions rather than win an argument you didn't understand, you might try addressing the problems people have pointed out instead of complaining that the rabble dared criticize you upon your throne.

 

[Seramus]

Warning: this is a tangent for this thread. If the player can abuse the Tiny Hut while they are "on the offensive", could you find ideas on how to exploit it to the max as the BBEG who know the heroes are going to enter his throne room and challenge his reign of tyranny? I'd be very interested to see what people in this thread could come up with.

I've done it a few times, across different campaigns so the same players were not getting screwed by it.

First time was a BBEG who cast it during a fight, locking the ranged spellcasters outside and one of them stuck in a corner. Without their DPS, the BBEG forced the melee to retreat, allowing the BBEG to murder the guy stuck in the corner. And the party had to deal with it because only the melee could get back into the room for 8 hours.

Second time was a minion casting tiny hut behind the party, leaving them locked in a room with an amphibious BBEG while it began filling up with water.

Third time was a BBEG who was losing, cast the hut and started taking a long rest right in front of them (I made it transparent for drama). The party was very WTF and got to be the ones to beat the hut.

 

[Coroc]

Instead of continuing to hi-jack the other top-hated spells thread, I thought I'd start a thread on spells that allow you to rest. The poster child for this is the Tiny Hut, but there's also Rope Trick and Magnificent Mansion.

....

Really like your ideas, which gave me several ideas I had not thought of to counter such a spell if it is necessary somehow.

But two principal questions come to my mind:

1. When I do state similar threads/ posts about things like how I do not like the fly/teleport/levitate spell / misty step abilities etc. in some of my campaigns I sometimes get loads of beef because my take on that is:
If there is something in a campaign which I do not like because it crosses some main ideas of the setup then it simply is not available.
That applies to all fluff, and spells (as well as classes, races items etc. are fluff!)
So that is the easiest thing to circumvent the problems which these spells can cause-, of course your examples are eventually more fun at the table eventually which brings me to my second question:

2. So you as a DM decided everything is fair game, aka all RAW fluff is fluff in your campaign including those potentially pesky spells. As a good DM you communicated that to your players.
Up comes a resource straining encounter which leaves the party on the brink and in big need of rest.
So your players think "how do we resolve this best?"
Luckily out of the foreshadowing info you gave, the party mage expected some encounter which might be to tough for one take without good possibilities for a rest learned and prepared one of these spells.
So now your ideas are good if the party "abuses" the spell, e.g. they will not enter an encounter without a good nights of sleep in Leos tiny hut anymore, fully refreshed with complete spell contingent.
But if they use it in a very dire situation, then it would not be justified to counter it with one of your admittingly very sophisticated methods imho.
And you are right the enemy is not stupid, but it is also not genius either, maybe it is just a horde of orcs, and it is questionable whether they would realize at all what spell was in place etc.
So where do you draw the line, and maybe you have to invest more planning into encounter economy and campaign pace scheduling?

Generally, if I allow a spell in my campaign then I expect its usage, e.g. If I do not want the players to scale every city walls with levitate or fly, or to escape every jail with teleport then I simply do not allow those spells rather than retcon the city walls with magical laser canons and the jail cells with lead walls.

 

[Oofta]

Really like your ideas, which gave me several ideas I had not thought of to counter such a spell if it is necessary somehow.

But two principal questions come to my mind:

1. When I do state similar threads/ posts about things like how I do not like the fly/teleport/levitate spell / misty step abilities etc. in some of my campaigns I sometimes get loads of beef because my take on that is:
If there is something in a campaign which I do not like because it crosses some main ideas of the setup then it simply is not available.
That applies to all fluff, and spells (as well as classes, races items etc. are fluff!)
So that is the easiest thing to circumvent the problems which these spells can cause-, of course your examples are eventually more fun at the table eventually which brings me to my second question:

2. So you as a DM decided everything is fair game, aka all RAW fluff is fluff in your campaign including those potentially pesky spells. As a good DM you communicated that to your players.
Up comes a resource straining encounter which leaves the party on the brink and in big need of rest.
So your players think "how do we resolve this best?"
Luckily out of the foreshadowing info you gave, the party mage expected some encounter which might be to tough for one take without good possibilities for a rest learned and prepared one of these spells.
So now your ideas are good if the party "abuses" the spell, e.g. they will not enter an encounter without a good nights of sleep in Leos tiny hut anymore, fully refreshed with complete spell contingent.
But if they use it in a very dire situation, then it would not be justified to counter it with one of your admittingly very sophisticated methods imho.
And you are right the enemy is not stupid, but it is also not genius either, maybe it is just a horde of orcs, and it is questionable whether they would realize at all what spell was in place etc.
So where do you draw the line, and maybe you have to invest more planning into encounter economy and campaign pace scheduling?

Generally, if I allow a spell in my campaign then I expect its usage, e.g. If I do not want the players to scale every city walls with levitate or fly, or to escape every jail with teleport then I simply do not allow those spells rather than retcon the city walls with magical laser canons and the jail cells with lead walls.

For #1, I ban a handful of spells for thematic reasons or make minor modifications. For example I've decided that raise dead is difficult and resurrection is pretty much impossible because my campaign is based on Norse mythology where even gods (Baldur) can die. Others I've tweaked. Heat metal allows a con save for disadvantage and the disadvantage only lasts one round. I rule that way because otherwise it's simply too powerful because I have a lot of human or humanoid adversaries and disadvantage with no save is too powerful.

So for my group I discuss all this in my session 0/campaign overview that I send to people before inviting them. I do try to keep change fairly minimal, and yes every once in a while I'll have someone leave because they want to play an evil character which is something else I don't allow.

Basically I let people know what my rules and restrictions are (main one is limited race choices) and why as soon as possible. I try to work with people to compromise but the world has to make sense to me. Once a campaign has started if I find something problematic I normally won't change it for the rest of that campaign.

For #2, Tiny Hut can be useful on a pretty regular basis. Ogres for example are incredibly stupid, its good protection against a lot of wandering monsters out in the wilderness. People can try to camouflage if they're outdoors. Depending on what I've planned, every once in a while I'll have a holy shrine, a benign benefactor or even some hidden alcove where people can rest.

This is a bit difficult because I use the alternate rules for longer rests, so a short rest is overnight and a long rest is several days. So I try to not throw too much at people without giving them a rest. On the other hand ff they are doing something incredibly risky and I let them know how difficult it will be then I let the dice fall where they may.

I also throw sessions at people where they know there will only be an encounter or two before they get a long rest because going nova can be fun.

Does that answer your questions?

 

[uzirath]

It's good protection against a lot of wandering monsters out in the wilderness. People can try to camouflage if they're outdoors.

Your camouflage idea could be used as an interesting adventure seed for a side trek or unique encounter. The party comes across a camouflaged dome in the wilderness. It is opaque and nobody comes out to say hello. Do they ignore and proceed with whatever mission they're on? Use magic to try and dispel it (or divine who's inside)? Dig under it or otherwise come up with mundane countermeasures? Wait to see what happens when it drops?

 

[Oofta]

Your camouflage idea could be used as an interesting adventure seed for a side trek or unique encounter. The party comes across a camouflaged dome in the wilderness. It is opaque and nobody comes out to say hello. Do they ignore and proceed with whatever mission they're on? Use magic to try and dispel it (or divine who's inside)? Dig under it or otherwise come up with mundane countermeasures? Wait to see what happens when it drops?

I may have to do that at some point.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Warning: this is a tangent for this thread. If the player can abuse the Tiny Hut while they are "on the offensive", could you find ideas on how to exploit it to the max as the BBEG who know the heroes are going to enter his throne room and challenge his reign of tyranny?

I suppose the BBEG could have fast regeneration or something, and a tame caster to keep a Hut ready at all times (3 times a day, the BBEG has to stand around for 10 min to be in the area when it's created, so, y'know, doesn't fit all Villain personality types). When bearded in his lair, he fights until badly injured, then retires to the Hut to regenerate, sallying forth to mess with anything the PCs try. I suppose he could have some backup in there, too.

But, ultimately, L.Tiny Hut isn't primarily a combat bunker, it's an "I rest" button, or, rather, a reasonable guarantee of safety while taking a standard long rest (or a 'gritty' short rest). That's a minimal benefit to most monsters.

Though, a Lich that was a wizard in life could surely pull all the same shenanigans. When pesky adventurers start poking about in his lightless domain, he confronts them with whatever spells he has left over from the day's researches, preferably killing or long-term cursing one or more of them, escapes, and locks himself in a Hut or other magical place of safety, to emerge fully tricked out for combat with the party.

 

[jasper]

Ok, as adventure league DM, I have no major problems with tiny hut. Some counters I have use are

Time and Time Pressure. It was a short rest in 04-14 (Final of Ravenloft), but the module suggested only one rest. Group took 2 so I shorten the ritual by 4 rounds and send the pcs wedding invitation to Strahd new girl. AKA the bad guys won.

From below. By group DM input, we give a floor. So we disagree on how the spell works.

Cover. Never used.

Block of escape. Why? Station a kobold to ring a bell to when it sees an adventure. Poor Kenny Kobold is not going to survive but his buddies will try to kill the party.

Reinforcements. I have used this. Gee. Y’all cleared room 14,15,16. The mad mage has called in a favor and now a bigger monster is in room 15.

Preplanned Counters. This hard to do due AL but a Dispel Magic gets rid of it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One elephant in this room, is that these spells only seem OP because resting has such a profound and uneven effect on play.
A huge part of that is class design, so one solution is to re-balance them around encounters. It's not a complicated undertaking, but it's extensive.
For every long-rest-recharge resource, divide the number of uses by 8 to convert to an encounter resource, for short-rest recharge, divide by 2.

Just a little out-the-box thought.

So, if we apply the above to daily slots for a typical full-caster progression, well, that'd be no slots, because the most slots you get of a single spell level is 4. That's not all bad, though - you could still use cantrips, and learn, prepare & cast rituals.

More reasonably, we could group slots together - with 4 1st, 3 2nd, & a 3rd, for instance (not an instance that exists, but bear with me) that'd be the ability to cast a 1st-level spell 8 times a day, which'd divide out to 1 first-level slot! PER ENCOUNTER. Which is really a lotta casting on a long day, when you think about it. In 5e, that actually kicks in at 5th level, when you get a total of 9 slots. By 8th level, you have 8 slots of level 2-4, over and above 4 1st-level slots, so you'd get a 2nd level slot. At 11th, you get 16 slots, so that'd be 2, and the break point after the first 8 is 3rd, so you'd get a 1st and 3rd level spell to cast Every. Single. Encounter.
You never actually get 24 slots per day, so:

Level	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1​	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2​	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3​	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4​	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5​	1	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-
6​	1	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-
7​	1	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-
8​	0	1	0	0	-	-	-	-	-
9​	0	1	0	0	0	-	-	-	-
10​	0	0	1	0	0	-	-	-	-
11​	1	0	1	0	0	0	-	-	-
12​	1	0	1	0	0	0	-	-	-
13​	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	-	-
14​	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	-	-
15​	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	-
16​	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	-
17​	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
18​	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
19​	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
20​	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0

Cantrips would be the same, and you'd still learn/know/prep/book as many spells as ever (thus the 0s), you'd just only be able to use the higher level ones as rituals.