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

[AlViking]

You really have 3 options. Make using the spell worse. Make it better. Or make it equal.

Now if you proposed some way to telegraph when it would be better or worse or equal I could get behind that as a meaningful decision point for the players, but when your only reaction is -‘make it worse for the players to have attempted it than not’. That’s a hard pass. I think that’s where 99% of the pushback is coming from.

If I have an issue with any spell I have a discussion with the group and talk about why it's a problem. In my campaign, sometimes the hut will be beneficial, sometimes it won't. But it won't be automatically guaranteed to be successful.

The example of the hobgoblin mercenary army was from a previous campaign. I let the players know that they were aware of enemy patrols and that hobgoblins are organized and militaristic. So when they set up the hut they were careful when they chose to use it and took extra steps to camouflage and picked a location less likely to be noticed. That won't always be the case though, taking a long rest when the enemy is likely looking for you is always going to carry at least some risk.

 

[AlViking]

The problem is the fail state for when it is not useful that you are describing is 1) catastrophic failure. All the enemies in the dungeon converge on you at once for using this spell. Whereas without it you might have had your rest interrupted and possibly be ambushed if your watch failed.

It’s also not clear why said patrol wouldn’t go get reinforcements to the same degree if you didn’t have tiny hut up and they found you resting and were themselves unnoticed. The only answer is dm fiat as far as I can tell.

I've explained what I do and why. Taking a long rest when the enemy is aware that some dangerous group is in the area is going to be risky.

 

[GrimCo]

So I thought the same thing as you did. But when someone asked Crawford about it, he very emphatically said that the Hut has a floor.

Well, they (wotc and design team) had ample oportunity to add it in official errata. It's 3 words (and floor bellow) to add to spell description. Since they didn't, by official, RAW, Tiny hut (2014) doesn't have floor. What Crawford said on social media, is his personal opinion, not official rule as written from WoTC.

You can rule otherwise of course, but at the time I was stuck (AL game) and forced to concede, preventing an encounter of incorporeal enemies from slipping inside.

AL uses opinions from social media? Well, that just sucks.

 

[FrogReaver]

If I have an issue with any spell I have a discussion with the group and talk about why it's a problem. In my campaign, sometimes the hut will be beneficial, sometimes it won't. But it won't be automatically guaranteed to be successful.

The example of the hobgoblin mercenary army was from a previous campaign. I let the players know that they were aware of enemy patrols and that hobgoblins are organized and militaristic. So when they set up the hut they were careful when they chose to use it and took extra steps to camouflage and picked a location less likely to be noticed. That won't always be the case though, taking a long rest when the enemy is likely looking for you is always going to carry at least some risk.

That’s a bit better but still not great. What does being militaristic and organized have to do with the amount of resources they devote to a patrol finding a tiny hut where it shouldn’t be. How the heck can the players make any decision about whether tiny hut is likely to be beneficial here or not based on the info you provided?

 

[FrogReaver]

I've explained what I do and why. Taking a long rest when the enemy is aware that some dangerous group is in the area is going to be risky.

So what do you envision the players should do assuming they really need the rest? Leave the area? Isn’t that also dangerous?

 

[AlViking]

So what do you envision the players should do assuming they really need the rest? Leave the area? Isn’t that also dangerous?

Up to the players. Maybe they need to regroup and try a different approach. Maybe they can't achieve the particular goal they had in mind. Maybe they push on and hope for the best. Maybe they do the hut thing and hope they aren't discovered or if they are that they can come up with some kind of counter. I don't guarantee safety or success.

What won't happen is that they automatically get a long rest wherever and whenever they want.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Like Simulacrum and Simulacrum+Wish, Conjure Animals, and anything in 3e involving wizards in personal Demiplanes sending Ice Assassins at each other, the situation with Leodmund's Tiny Hut has come up exactly once per gaming group. In each case, it has followed some variation of the same routine:

1. Someone reads the spell or reads about the controversy surrounding the spell online.
2. They bring it to the group.
3. A large conversation happens that looks vaguely like this (including what the actual limits are, ways to defeat it, how often it will come up, whether it is cheap/cheesy, whether it is OP, how to DM around it, when to DM around it, and whether it adds anything to the game)
4. The, either 1) there are 1-2 sessions where it is played with and then it is put away (usually with option to re-choose for any caster that took it), or 2) we end up not playing with it.

And then it is not a problem for said group. Well, it is a problem in terms of opportunity cost/lost opportunity. In that there could be an interesting and moderately useful spell by the same name that would actually see use in our group. Occasionally that happens (with this and spells/items/etc. like it), but oftentimes not.

I dislike the way it plays out, and would rather see the hut lose its forcefield capability.

I would rather all the force spells lose their existing forcefield capacities. Make this one an actual hut, sure, but also make Force Cage something you could definitively and inarguably defeat as one would an actual cage (bashing, squirming, etc.). The whole invincible/undefeatable/'only way to circumvent is _______' paradigm is an interesting choice for an exception-based game, and certainly favors some ways of addressing problems over others in a way I don't love.

 

[FrogReaver]

Up to the players. Maybe they need to regroup and try a different approach. Maybe they can't achieve the particular goal they had in mind. Maybe they push on and hope for the best. Maybe they do the hut thing and hope they aren't discovered or if they are that they can come up with some kind of counter. I don't guarantee safety or success.

What won't happen is that they automatically get a long rest wherever and whenever they want.

That’s not the question. It’s what would be their optimal choice based on the info they have. You as dm should have a good idea of this.

 

[Umbran]

So, as the thread title says, has it been of any meaningful affect in your game, and if so, how so?

Nobody in my Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign took the spell, so it had no effect.

But, for that game, the party was largely trying to avoid getting into fights. That meant it wasn't a game pushing hard on resource management most of the time, so whether the PCs were safe while regaining resources wasn't a big question.

 

[AlViking]

That’s not the question. It’s what would be their optimal choice based on the info they have. You as dm should have a good idea of this.

I can't provide a specific response without knowing the details of the specific scenario. But it goes back to the players decide and I don't guarantee success or safety.