D&D 5E Hex Shenanigans

[Arial Black]

Excellent. We can keep having fun without an argumentative gamist who hilariously accuses the DM of 'cheating' in our midst, and you can bounce from table to table until you find a useless inexperienced and crappy DM and a game that is OK with bags-o-rats (in whatever cringeworthy form of game that looks like).

You do you and all, but I know who is getting the better end of the deal there.

You've picked a weird hill to die on here brother.

So expecting the DM to rule fairly and consistently is 'a weird hill to die on'?

Why would I want to play with a DM who rules unfairly and inconsistently?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Based on this thread, the better question is why don’t you DM, instead of demanding that all DMs that you play for follow what you say at all times?

I’ve heard of rules lawyers, but this is more of a backseat DM.

 

[Oofta]

False equivalence.

The commoner railgun does not merely 'follow the rules'. The commoner railgun fails because 'following the rules' results in the last commoner in the line receiving the object. Any thoughts on the object's imagined velocity are NOT 'rules', therefore the DM just has to follow the rules and the object ends up in the hands of the last commoner. Even that is ignoring the fact that the DM is already allowed to set a limit on the number of Free Actions allowed in the round, and that is built into the Free Action rule itself, no 'rule zero' needed. This was 3e, remember?

Pun-Pun is the same. Sure, plenty of rules ARE being followed, but the whole thing relies on Divine Ranks stacking to make Pun-Pun so powerful. But Divine Ranks don't stack. The DM doesn't need to rule inconsistently in order to show that Pun-Pun doesn't happen.

Those exploits rely on more than just following rules, they rely on assumptions beyond the rules.

But there is no such thing going on here. Chickens really are 'creatures'. They really ARE a valid target for hex. There are no assumptions beyond this; no real-life velocity calculations, no invalid stacking, no assumptions outside the strict parameters of the spell.

It's not an 'exploit', it's just that some people don't like it! That's not a rules problem, that's a 'you' problem.

This has obviously gotten to the "I'm right you're wrong" phase. I've explained how I would rule and why. If that didn't work for a player at my table, good luck and riddance.

At the end of the day the DM has to interpret the rules, not the player. Sometimes that means making a ruling on something they feel is unclear or feels like an exploit.

Have a good one. Oh, and good luck.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I'm free to ask? Great! Are chickens 'creatures'?

Targeting creatures is not an 'absurdist parody', even if the creature is a chicken. Especially in a game where an animated broom is a 'creature'.

The chicken is a gateway for any "bag of rats" type abuse, and those abuses do lead the game to devolving into an absurdist parody.

Ruling that hex doesn't work with a chicken is fair and consistent, as long as the NPCs and other PCs are held to the same limit.

 

[Flamestrike]

The chicken is a gateway for any "bag of rats" type abuse, and those abuses do lead the game to devolving into an absurdist parody.

Ruling that hex doesn't work with a chicken is fair and consistent, as long as the NPCs and other PCs are held to the same limit.

But thats CHEATING!

Next you'll be saying I cant bring Pun Pun to your table.

CHEATING!

 

[jmartkdr2]

There's really no need for house rules to deal with bag o' rats shenanigans. Just look sternly at the offending player and say something like "That's a bag o'rats exploit. Those aren't cool, don't do it".

I'm not disagreeing, but: what meta rule is actually being broken here? Like, I accept that it feels wrong, but why? What is wrong with it? What expectation is being broken?

 

[Fenris-77]

Not following their own rule is still cheating.

DMs are players, as mentioned on page 5 of the PHB.

And if I'm the DM, and I rule that the Chicken Proposition is a no-go, because it's obviously goofy and munchkin-y, then I would be following my own rule, wouldn't I? I am not obliged by the rules to allow goofy rules lawyering. In most cases this would be contrary to the social compact of a table, which generally tend to index not being a rules lawyering git, and the DMs job is to sand off rough edges like this. There's room in any rules set for RAW-based nonsense, but the game is not a court of law, and tortuous legal-style wrangling shouldn't be a feature of play.

 

[jasper]

But thats CHEATING!

Next you'll be saying I cant bring Pun Pun to your table.

CHEATING!

Poor Flamestrike. He has turned blue from holding his breath so we quit cheating. (JOKE).

 

[jaelis]

@Arial Black, you're being hyperbolic here. There's no rules about what does or does not constitute a creature, so there's no rule to break. And there's no rule that a DM's rulings have to be consistent, so that's not grounds for cheating either. You might have the opinion that an inconsistent DM is a bad DM; that's your prerogative. More likely I guess you just think that an inconsistent ruling is a bad ruling, which is on the whole a reasonable principle I think.

But as to the actual question, if you demand a DM provides universal and consistent rulings on what is a creature, then I think you owe us an example of such a ruling. My own opinion is that there's no reasonable way to make such a ruling in general, and that's probably why it isn't in the rules. So, at your table, what defines a creature?

For me, the chicken example is a bad one, since (a) I'm fine ruling that a chicken counts for hex and (b) the mechanical advantage obtained is pretty marginal IMO. I like the spider example a lot better. So do spiders and similar bugs count as creatures at your table?

Let's suppose you say yes; they are in the Monster Manual after all. So Grim Harvest triggers pretty much any time you cast an area damage spell in a natural environment? I'm not a fan of that. Worse to me is that the sleep spell won't work in a natural environment, since it puts all the bugs to sleep first. And it follows that every character should really carry around a bag of spiders, since that prevents them from being targeted by sleep. That I would not go for, and I have a hard time imagining that many people would.

 

[Phazonfish]

Me (as DM): 'Not for the purposes of this spell they dont. Try me again, and I'll boot you from the game'

Ask a simple question, get threatened with exile? Sounds fun.

Seriously, why are almost all of you anti-bag-o-ratters so insistent on making the matter about squashing the player rather than promoting fun play?

I've explained how I would rule and why. If that didn't work for a player at my table, good luck and riddance.

Emphasis mine. Y'all see this? Ya see how the player gets the chance to accept the DM's judgement and get back to having fun, rather than the DM tacking a "And screw you for trying" on the end regardless of how gracefully the player accepted the DM's call? That's called being a competent DM. I'm not even saying you have to accept the "exploit." Saying concentration through things like short rests is difficult would be perfectly fair, as the rules don't define how that works and the flavor fits the mechanics you want to implement. Just be civil, and try to be fair; if you can't do that, that's on you, regardless of how much you disagree with your player's style of play.

the game is not a court of law, and tortuous legal-style wrangling shouldn't be a feature of play.

All they want is rules unambiguous enough that I don't need to ask the DM a checklist of question on how they are feeling that day to determine if using a spell is a good idea or not. If the rules took a lot of effort to define I would probably put the blame on the player for having unreasonable expectations, BUT IT'S CLEAR YOU LOT CAN'T OFFER TWO SECONDS OF EFFORT TO RESOLVE THE SITUATION WITHOUT INSULTS. Here, I'll take a stab at it...

"If the target drops to 0 hit points before this spell ends and the target is above CR 0, you can use a bonus action on a subsequent turn of yours to curse a new creature."

TADA! Spell fixed! The DM is happy because they can make CR's such that the "exploit" doesn't work. The player is happy because the rules are consistent and they can make educated guesses at what creatures qualify.