D&D 5E Hex Shenanigans

[jaelis]

That would still be a bit silly, but definitely an improvement. I mean, how would that work? Is the warlock hiring NPCs to keep the chickens safe from predators while the party is exploring the dungeon? Taking them into the dungeon would be a bad idea, but you can't just leave them penned in the woods...

Well what else are you going to keep in your portable hole?

Ooh, or its a great use for a demiplane.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, I guess there's also the benefit of being able to use the chicken after blood sacrifice as ammo for your Catapult spell. Eat chicken, dirtbag! Perhaps there's a way to jury-rig the portable hole into some kind of hopper to use as part of a gravity-fed chicken cannon?

 

[Oofta]

The Hex spell says you can target creatures with it. Are chickens creatures? Can you find statistics for them in the Monster Manual, the PHB, or anything published for 5th edition? If not, well, it looks like they're not really creatures. Of course that's silly. But if we're going to interpret the rules as being the universe, well, okay. Find me the statistics for chickens.

Oh, man. Someone's going to find stats for a chicken and then I'm really going to have egg on my face.

There is an Abyssal Chicken in Descent into Avernus according to DndBeyond. I'm not about to buy it just to get stats, but it does exists.

Wonder if it's eggs have always gone bad and smell even more of sulfur than normal?

But really my issue is that I don't consider a chicken a viable target given my understanding of the intent and nature of the Hex spell.

 

[Mort]

Man, if a player told me his fighter was going to jump off a cliff I'd give him a warning that this would kill him. I don't care if the rules say the fall will only do 15d6 and I can't possibly roll high enough to kill the character. I will flat out kill the character should he choose to jump. But, like I said, I'd warn the player first.

By the time a character is high enough level to jump of a cliff and have no chance of dying - you're already approaching epic fantasy (the threshold is what? around 11+ level depending on HPs). Jumping off a cliff is likely not the worst thing that happened to the character that day!

One of the most misguided forwards to a book I ever saw was the one for Villain's Unlimited (a supplement for Palladium's Heroes Unlimited - a superhero game):

Kevin Siembieda (the author of the forward) flatly states (paraphrasing) - If your character jumps on a grenade, he's dead no matter how many HPs he has (in that game it's SDC and HPs). And I just thought "in a supers game!?!" What an odd outlook!

As I said above, context matters!

 

[Xetheral]

That would still be a bit silly, but definitely an improvement. I mean, how would that work? Is the warlock hiring NPCs to keep the chickens safe from predators while the party is exploring the dungeon? Taking them into the dungeon would be a bad idea, but you can't just leave them penned in the woods...

Depending on the style of the game (and the remoteness of the dungeon site) logistics may already be an important factor. In a game where supplies aren't hand-waved and the PCs are doing full-time dungeon delving, a weeklong expedition (plus travel time) may require a supply train (and guards) anyway.

In other words, in a game where the PCs are expected to routinely coordinate and manage their supplies, making sure those supplies include chickens isn't a big deal. If one hand-waves logistics and assumes the PCs carry everything on their back (without the modern conveniences of ultra-lightweight materials) then I can definitely see where bringing along chickens comes across as more absurd.

 

[jaelis]

OK then, here I present my exhaustively researched compilation of reasons you might dislike the chicken-hex exploit:
1. A background creature like a chicken is not a suitable target for a combat-oriented spell like hex.
2. You can't just take multiple rests in a row without doing something meaningful in between (and killing a chicken is not meaningful).
3. Concentrating on a spell is too strenuous to do while resting (note this has pretty significant impact on non-chicken game mechanics.)
4. It assumes a high level of in-game understanding of the rules mechanics from characters
5. Constantly carrying chickens around to make this usable on demand would be too much trouble for a character to reasonably take.

 

[Dausuul]

Let's just assume I accept all of that. So you spam your fireballs but you get hit and lose hex. Are you now going to rest for 2 hours (two short rests) and sacrifice another chicken because it's such a huge advantage?

Every time somebody trots out this logic - "Would your character, who is in a deadly dangerous scenario where they are risking death at every turn, really do this moderately inconvenient thing just to improve their chances of survival?" - I am bewildered by the implied priorities. If I am truly roleplaying my character in this situation, the answer is HELL YES. That extra spell slot could mean the difference between walking out with a sack of gold and jewels, and getting eaten by a monster. It's insane not to take every scrap of advantage you can get.

This is a variation on the 5-minute workday problem. If the adventure is one where the party can stop and rest without consequences, it is absolutely reasonable and realistic for them to do so after every. Single. Fight. Real-life soldiers devote many, many, many hours to boring, repetitive activities, just to slightly tilt the odds in their favor for the few seconds they are in actual combat. What would you choose, a week of tedium ending in riches or a day of excitement and terror ending in death?

Now, if the adventure is one where there are serious consequences to stopping and resting for 2 hours, obviously one takes that into account. But if there aren't, the rational in-game decision is to rest every chance you get. As a player, I choose to rest less often than my character realistically would, due to metagame considerations (keep the game moving, get to the fun stuff). But when I make that choice, I am quite deliberately putting those metagame considerations above roleplaying.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Well what else are you going to keep in your portable hole?

Ooh, or its a great use for a demiplane.

Demiplane would work (although that's a really high level spell just to hex chickens).

The chickens would suffocate in a portable hole though. Plus that's seems like it's bordering on animal abuse.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Every time somebody trots out this logic - "Would your character, who is in a deadly dangerous scenario where they are risking death at every turn, really do this moderately inconvenient thing just to improve their chances of survival?" - I am bewildered by the implied priorities. If I am truly roleplaying my character in this situation, the answer is HELL YES. That extra spell slot could mean the difference between walking out with a sack of gold and jewels, and getting eaten by a monster. It's insane not to take every scrap of advantage you can get.

This is a variation on the 5-minute workday problem. If the adventure is one where the party can stop and rest without consequences, it is absolutely reasonable and realistic for them to do so after every. Single. Fight. Real-life soldiers devote many, many, many hours to boring, repetitive activities, just to slightly tilt the odds in their favor for the few seconds they are in actual combat. What would you choose, a week of tedium ending in riches or a day of excitement and terror ending in death?

Now, if the adventure is one where there are serious consequences to stopping and resting for 2 hours, obviously one takes that into account. But if there aren't, the rational in-game decision is to rest every chance you get. As a player, I choose to rest less often than my character realistically would, due to metagame considerations (keep the game moving, get to the fun stuff). But when I make that choice, I am quite deliberately putting those metagame considerations above roleplaying.

Except that if you've read my posts I've already stated I'm fine with doing this when you're in a dangerous situation (although, if you can routinely sit around for two hours without anything happening is it all that dangerous).

I've been talking about doing this as a routine. Every morning whether you think you might need to or not.

John McClain with his gun drawn in the skyscraper full of terrorists is fine. John McClain going to the deli (filled with normal folks going about their day) with his gun drawn on the off chance someone tries to rob the deli is not fine.

 

[NotAYakk]

Now, if the adventure is one where there are serious consequences to stopping and resting for 2 hours, obviously one takes that into account. But if there aren't, the rational in-game decision is to rest every chance you get. As a player, I choose to rest less often than my character realistically would, due to metagame considerations (keep the game moving, get to the fun stuff). But when I make that choice, I am quite deliberately putting those metagame considerations above roleplaying.

Yes, talking about "realistically" is different than "maintain the genre conventions we want".

And that second is often way more important.

If you don't like the image of someone sacrificing chickens for magical power every morning in your fantasy game, that's fine. But saying that it is because someone wouldn't realistically do that isn't nearly as reasonable.

Hence, way way way up thread, when I listed responses to this particular issue a DM could do, I went with ... let the player sacrifice a chicken (or other small creature). And the deciding factor for me was because it actually does fit the flavor of the warlock.

It isn't seriously imbalancing example of bag-of-rats. It fits flavor-wise. And it doesn't lead to an unfun overhead.

Heck, the image of the Warlock religiously and ritually sacrificing a chicken (or other small creature) at dawn, noon and dusk, then meditating on his mentors desires, even works.

But I never said that the other responses aren't also reasonable.