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

[Oofta]

A hostile NPC doesn't need to because they tend to have home team advantage & can make use of a locked & barricaded doors/secret door/relocation trinket/trap/etc & the result is more interesting than "they cast tiny hut, it's opaque & you don't know what's going on.... nobody has dispel magic handy?... awww...."

The scenario is that the NPCs are invading someplace the PCs are guarding.

How would your PCs counter the NPC's tiny hut? If you don't have an answer that's fine. Ask your group when you get a chance.

 

[Retreater]

I apologize if this advice has been given in the previous 11 pages, but I haven't read through the entire thread...
I once read that the best way to counter high level character abilities is to not try to counter them, but REQUIRE them. Let the players feel awesome for circumventing the challenges that used to plague their low-level characters.
If your characters are using these abilities, put in devastatingly dangerous random encounters through the night, a creeping fog that enfeebles or confuses the characters, an unnerving chanting that prevents rest and causes exhaustion.
You are eating up resources and spell slots that can be used for other encounters.
(One of the best examples of this was the high-level 3rd edition module "Black Ice Well." I recommend taking a look at this for ideas.)

 

[Derren]

I apologize if this advice has been given in the previous 11 pages, but I haven't read through the entire thread...
I once read that the best way to counter high level character abilities is to not try to counter them, but REQUIRE them. Let the players feel awesome for circumventing the challenges that used to plague their low-level characters.
If your characters are using these abilities, put in devastatingly dangerous random encounters through the night, a creeping fog that enfeebles or confuses the characters, an unnerving chanting that prevents rest and causes exhaustion.
You are eating up resources and spell slots that can be used for other encounters.
(One of the best examples of this was the high-level 3rd edition module "Black Ice Well." I recommend taking a look at this for ideas.)

Tiny hut in its ritual form does not require any ressources.

 

[Asisreo]

Lol, so all your BBEGs have large quantities of wooden boards, hammers nails and other things you need to craft a fortification lieing around everywhere (as the way to the storage room is blocked by the PCs)?

You are quite clearly creating nonsense scenarios to counter a single 3rd level ritual which alone is evidence for it being OP.

Hope that you never have any players who are creative and don't follow railroads about how they are supposed to play.

You're BBEG don't have spells that can make traps like Glyph of Warding? Or just plain know dispel magic? Why not? The adventurers are at tier 2 of gameplay so it's not that unfair. Heck, counterspell works well if you catch them in the middle of casting.

 

[Asisreo]

Presumably It's in the credibility straining cupboard beside the extradimensional closet where they store 500gallons of paint vials of permanent vx gas. A number of people are stuck unable to imagine a game that doesn't boil down to tuckers kobolds & constant doom clocks so keep saying that the spell is fine because your a bad gm if you don't contort your game into tuckers kobolds with constant doom clocks. Unfortunately there seems to be extreme unwillingness to accept that the problem is less figuring out ways to counter the spell's abuse than it is how blatantly obvious the adversarial countering becomes & how that animosity harms the game



A hostile NPC doesn't need to because they tend to have home team advantage & can make use of a locked & barricaded doors/secret door/relocation trinket/trap/etc & the result is more interesting than "they cast tiny hut, it's opaque & you don't know what's going on.... nobody has dispel magic handy?... awww...."

Y'know. Have you ever noticed that the act of long resting is broken. I mean, come on, they get out of combat and they can just heal? What?! Players can enter one room of a dungeon, fight, and leave the dungeon to take a full rest and repeat until they are at full health.

Anyone saying you could interrupt the rest is just adversarial. Why would the enemy bother to attack them when they could just stayed holed up in the dungeon? That's why I decided to ban rests from my game. It's illogical that a scout would walk outside to check or that there's a deadline. Real life doesn't have deadlines!

That's why I decided that rests are banned from my game, it's too much hassle to balance around.

/s

 

[Bacon Bits]

It still requires the enemy to use a readied action and if you rule that hitting two hands sticking out of a wall are as easy to hit than a full person standing before the wall don't be surprised if your players will have fits of laughter or stare at you in disbelieve.
And if you are using a crossbow its hard to explain why you would need to expose your hands at all.

Yeah, I explain it like this:

"Either you are inside the dome and under it's protection and unable to attack targets outside the dome, or you are outside the dome and able to attack targets outside the dome but cannot benefit from the dome's protection. They are indivisible states. There is no such thing as halfway through. You are either inside the spell's area of effect or you are outside the spell's area of effect. It's never both."

The spell just follows the intent. You don't have to explain how it physically does that; it's magic.

Indeed, this is how all spell effects already work. You are either inside the area of effect or you are not. It doesn't matter if we're talking about Wall of Fire, Magic Circle, Grease, Spike Growth, etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's why I decided that rests are banned from my game, it's too much hassle to balance around.

That was funny, but, surprisingly, could actually be done.
You'd just re-balance the game around individual encounters and be done with it.

 

[Bacon Bits]

That was funny, but, surprisingly, could actually be done.
You'd just re-balance the game around individual encounters and be done with it.

That's what 4e did. The addition of daily powers and healing surges is the only variable.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Lol, so all your BBEGs have large quantities of wooden boards, hammers nails and other things you need to craft a fortification lieing around everywhere (as the way to the storage room is blocked by the PCs)?

You are quite clearly creating nonsense scenarios to counter a single 3rd level ritual which alone is evidence for it being OP.

Hope that you never have any players who are creative and don't follow railroads about how they are supposed to play.

Bud, no.

You need large physical objects and a way to bind them together to make fortifications. That’s it, and now the PCs are being waiting out by enemies on the other side of a death tunnel.

In the odd occasion where PCs actually manage to get the most out of the spell, awesome!

Most of the time it just protects them from random encounters in the wilderness.

 

[tetrasodium]

Y'know. Have you ever noticed that the act of long resting is broken. I mean, come on, they get out of combat and they can just heal? What?! Players can enter one room of a dungeon, fight, and leave the dungeon to take a full rest and repeat until they are at full health.

Anyone saying you could interrupt the rest is just adversarial. Why would the enemy bother to attack them when they could just stayed holed up in the dungeon? That's why I decided to ban rests from my game. It's illogical that a scout would walk outside to check or that there's a deadline. Real life doesn't have deadlines!

That's why I decided that rests are banned from my game, it's too much hassle to balance around.

/s

It's trying to represent something like Fate's stress track, but it lacks fate style consequences or a starfinder type health/stamina/resolve tightrope to make getting hurt even a little quite risky so you wind up with d&d's heroic fantasy levels of power just being over the top. dmg267 has gritty realism variant rests, but it's not "gritty" at all & winds up with all kinds of problems due to heroic fantasy power levels & time periods of stuff based on normal 1/8hr rests combining into awkwardly rough edges that can lead to mythic type gameplay rather than just gritty.