D&D 5E Leomund's Tiny Hut

[travathian]

Imagine casting this on the only bridge across a major river as an army of orcs marches towards a helpless city. Or in a tunnel. Or the footbridge/drawbridge leading into a keep/castle. Or a stone paved road through a marsh. Or a mountainside path. Or major trade route between cities.

Assuming you have the full minute to cast it . . . wow. And it is a ritual, so you can just re-cast it every 8 hours, and with a good supply of rations/water or a create food/water spell you can just camp that spot until a caster with dispel magic or something similar removes it.

 

[DaveDash]

Yeah.

I ended up house ruling this saying you cannot attack out of it, otherwise the potential for cheese is great.

 

[PnPgamer]

So the protective ward that enables comfortable and safe sleep can be used to be the most impenetrable barrier, turning the tides of battles.

Seems legit.

 

[Celtavian]

I don't mind it. It is one of the most useful ritual spells. It is open to abuse, but abuse is still very rare. We used it to block a tunnel. We moved in and out of it firing ranged attacks at the enemy. Very powerful in the right circumstances.

The main downside is the wizard casting it is out of the battle. He can't move in and out to attack. He has to sit in the hut and do practically nothing. If it is taken down, you won't be bringing it back up quickly because of the casting time.

I don't mind situationally useful ritual spells. It's the most useful Leomund's Tiny Hut has ever been. I'm glad to see the named spells have uses, even if only in certain circumstances.

The hut also messed us up another time. We tried to use it to camp inside a giant's lair. He waited outside for anyone to exit with a few fellow giants crowding the exterior and hammered us. That wasn't fun. That's why I don't think it would be very useful on a road or in the situations you listed unless you can force creatures away from the hut or have strong fighting guys that can take hits to drive a force back. If an army was coming, they could crowd outside the hut preventing anyone from exiting but one or two at a time, then gang attacking them as they did. That would be no fun for the PCs. You have to use the hut tactically. It's not smart to use it when hoards of monsters can crowd the area outside of it preventing you from moving in and out without getting hammered.

 

[Riley37]

"Absolutely impenetrable by any force" plus "has volume on Prime Material Plane" is a combination inherently abusable in a variety of niche situations. If what you want is "Guaranteed Safe Rest Place", then a spell which creates a pocket dimension or extraplanar venue is much less likely to be game-breaking in siege warfare etc.

 

[iserith]

Per the Basic Rules, the goals of play - the only way to "win" at D&D - are to have a good time together and create an exciting, memorable story as a result of play. Players who understand that and act in good faith don't abuse game mechanics to negatively impact the game experience or else they risk "losing" at D&D. Players who want to abuse game mechanics are the problem - not the game mechanics themselves. So I don't worry about spells like this being a problem because my players aren't a problem.

No game rules can protect us from players who want to act in bad faith.

 

[Cernor]

Of course nothing's stopping the army from laying wooden planks over the top of the Hut and simply walking over. Or piling dirt over the top to bury everyone inside alive. The big question would be whether they slowed the army down enough to give the helpless city time to prepare.

 

[Tormyr]

The party was participating in the gladiatorial games. The head of the games was trying to get them bumped off. They were advancing through the stages and were starting to get popular. They decided to cast LTH so it covered the entrance to their dorm room. The bad guy had sent the previously defeated barbarian dwarves to kill the party. He knew they were dealing with a couple spell casters, so he gave them a scroll of dispel magic and sent the guards on a mission to get them out of the way. They got up to the door, opened it and saw the hut. I successful dispel magic from the Int 8 dwarf barbarian later, the party was getting carved up in the middle of their long rest.

So LTH is great, but it is usually easily dealt with. Opponents can usually go over, around, or dispel it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Per the Basic Rules, the goals of play - the only way to "win" at D&D - are to have a good time together and create an exciting, memorable story as a result of play. Players who understand that and act in good faith don't abuse game mechanics to negatively impact the game experience or else they risk "losing" at D&D. Players who want to abuse game mechanics are the problem - not the game mechanics themselves. So I don't worry about spells like this being a problem because my players aren't a problem.

No game rules can protect us from players who want to act in bad faith.

I don't agree that using Leomund's Tiny Invulnerable Fortress to block a chokepoint is acting in bad faith. It's a situational niche, not guaranteed to work and vulnerable to a number of countermeasures, but when it works it's pure awesomesauce. And awesome is why we have magic in D&D in the first place.

Not only would I not veto this, but I wouldn't even pull out the "correct" countermeasures at first. The invading hobgoblin army (for example) has never seen one of these huts before--it's a new development, and it should take a while for them to develop a tactical doctrine to use against it. Eventually they will learn to simply leave a screening force in place and bypass it (just like any other fortification), but at least initially it will stop them cold.

If I ran a high-magic world where high-level wizards were ubiquitous I might play it differently.

 

[iserith]

I don't agree that using Leomund's Tiny Invulnerable Fortress to block a chokepoint is acting in bad faith. It's a situational niche, not guaranteed to work and vulnerable to a number of countermeasures, but when it works it's pure awesomesauce. And awesome is why we have magic in D&D in the first place.

Not only would I not veto this, but I wouldn't even pull out the "correct" countermeasures at first. The invading hobgoblin army (for example) has never seen one of these huts before--it's a new development, and it should take a while for them to develop a tactical doctrine to use against it. Eventually they will learn to simply leave a screening force in place and bypass it (just like any other fortification), but at least initially it will stop them cold.

If I ran a high-magic world where high-level wizards were ubiquitous I might play it differently.

One might imagine a single use of the spell in this fashion wouldn't be abuse. When it grows tiresome and no longer entertaining through abuse, then it's a problem for achieving the goals of play.