D&D 5E The Dangers of Overreliance on Leomund's Tiny Hut (3rd Level Spell)

[Inchoroi]

I've seen a lot of discussion on how much a party of PCs can benefit from using Leomund's Tiny Hut, and the woes of some DMs having to deal with parties that rely on the spell too frequently.

Over-reliance on the spell does not come without its drawbacks or dangers however.

Here are some potentially overlooked facts.

1. Although the dome is opaque from the outside, it is not invisible to other creatures.

2. The dome does not necessarily block the sounds and odors produced from inside from being detected outside the dome. It may prevent the production of particularly powerful stenches (such as from defecation) inside it (since it keeps the atmosphere inside dry and comfortable), but other smells that would not normally bother the PCs will freely travel beyond the dome.

3. Although the dome is transparent from the inside, it does not illuminate the surrounding area, nor can it prevent materials from covering the dome (effectively blocking the party's view of the outside).

4. The dome does not provide privacy. If anyone needs to excrete bodily wastes, they will have to either leave the dome for privacy or find some other way to hide their bodily maintenance procedures.

5. The dome does not anchor the ground that it is cast upon to the position it is in. If the ground breaks apart or otherwise shifts, the dome may shift with it (for example in the case of an earthquake or effect produced by a creature).

6. Spending time inside the dome does not freeze the time outside of it. Other things may be going on while the PCs are resting...

I don't think that the spell is broken as written. It will definitely make certain types of adventures much easier, but using it too much could lead to situations that are dangerous for the party, or can result in objective failures.

What do you think?

I would giggle with Machiavellian glee if my players decided to use this spell in a dungeon they hadn't completed yet. My answer would be, "Sure!" *evil toothy grin* It helps that 90% of my dungeons have wandering monster tables, with the occasional smart monster or NPC running it. On the other hand, I also sometimes, if the dungeon is particularly large, provide areas that can be mostly secured to rest in. Not often, and sometimes they're hard to find, but they're there.

 

[pemerton]

The wording is very clear - with no mention of hemisphere, so underneath, it's vulnerable.

The range being hemispherical does not prevent it being a dome

Take a ping pong ball. It's a sphere, correct? Now cut it in half to get a hemisphere. Does it gain a "floor" or is it a hollow hemisphere? Kind of in the same shape as a dome perhaps?

In more than 30 years of GMing I've never seen this spell used. I don't anticipate that changing soon. And so I don't care whether or not it has a floor.

But the assertion that there is "no mention of hemisphere" is manifestly false. The range of the spell is defined as a hemisphere about the caster. The falsity of the claim isn't refuted by arguing that some domes are hemisphere. This latter argument also sits uneasily against earlier arguments from Caliburn101 that seem to rest on contrasting "dome" with "hemisphere".

Since my dome tent has a floor, and it a dome and hemisphere, I will rule Tiny Hut has a floor.

Right. I think arguments for or against a floor that turn heavily on the semantics of "dome" vs "hemisphere" are not very persuasive, especially as both words are used in the spell's text.

 

[Oofta]

Right. I think arguments for or against a floor that turn heavily on the semantics of "dome" vs "hemisphere" are not very persuasive, especially as both words are used in the spell's text.

Let's take two examples. A wiffle ball (a hollow plastic baseball) and a standard baseball. Cut both in half.

They both represent a hemispherical shape. However, the wiffle ball does not suddenly gain a "bottom". The baseball only has a bottom because it is a solid object.

The wiffle ball could form a dome above and around a miniature as the text for Leomund's Tiny Hut states. A baseball would just smush the miniature I spent hours painting into the dirt. That would make me quite sad. I don't like being sad.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION], telling me about wiffle balls doesn't tell me whether or not the LTH dome has a floor. As I said, this is yet another instance of what I think is normally the case - semantic arguments don't help.

The analogy is not very apt either. The wiffle ball dome has to be lowered and placed over your miniatures. The LTH is spontaneously created about its occupants, who in any event can move through its surface, and so there is no analogue to things being squashed.

 

[Oofta]

[MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION], telling me about wiffle balls doesn't tell me whether or not the LTH dome has a floor. As I said, this is yet another instance of what I think is normally the case - semantic arguments don't help.

The analogy is not very apt either. The wiffle ball dome has to be lowered and placed over your miniatures. The LTH is spontaneously created above and around occupants,

Fixed that for you.

who in any event can move through its surface, and so there is no analogue to things being squashed.

So now I can't even make a light hearted joke about something that has become increasingly inane?


I simply don't see a solid hemisphere fitting the definition of a "dome". A dome is a hollow hemisphere. Domes are frequently set on floors, they do not have to be.

Anyway, good gaming!

 

[LordEntrails]

Didn't someone already quote Mearls or someone official saying that the LTH has a floor? So why keep discussing the semantics?

 

[raleel]

Didn't someone already quote Mearls or someone official saying that the LTH has a floor? So why keep discussing the semantics?

https://xkcd.com/386/

 

[MarkChevallier]

Just wanted to say, in topology and geometry, a sphere is defined as being hollow (it's the set of all points at distance r from an origin if we're in a metric space, of dimension d). So cut it in half, and it has no floor.

Plus game sense, too. It shouldn't have a floor because otherwise it is a touch too powerful. As it is, it still confounds many enemies but those prepared for it who are disciplined and clever can circumvent it. My pcs always keep watch anyway, so if a patrol of hobgoblins started sapping it from under them, they'd get stuck in.

 

[Caliburn101]

In more than 30 years of GMing I've never seen this spell used. I don't anticipate that changing soon. And so I don't care whether or not it has a floor.

But the assertion that there is "no mention of hemisphere" is manifestly false. The range of the spell is defined as a hemisphere about the caster. The falsity of the claim isn't refuted by arguing that some domes are hemisphere. This latter argument also sits uneasily against earlier arguments from Caliburn101 that seem to rest on contrasting "dome" with "hemisphere".

Right. I think arguments for or against a floor that turn heavily on the semantics of "dome" vs "hemisphere" are not very persuasive, especially as both words are used in the spell's text.

A dome covers a hemispherical area, a hemisphere is not a dome.

This isn't complex stuff - look them up in a dictionary. I am not making an argument, I am explaining that a mistake has been made in interpretation.

To use a simple illustration;

Get a glass bowl and turn it upside down. This is quite literally a dome. Then turn it back around for ease of use and fill it with water. The water fills a space which is a hemisphere.

The glass is the force effect and the water is the environmental effect (maintenance of comfortable conditions).

Now use ONE word to describe the area of the spell in its entirety?

That's right, it's a hemisphere - there is no other word for it.

HOWEVER - at no point however did a glass 'floor' suddenly appear on the bowl because we used the word hemisphere to describe the area taken up by the combination of the entirely different force (glass) and environmental (water) elements of the spell.

The glass bowl is still a dome, and one with no 'floor'.

I cannot see how it can be any clearer... (pun intended...)

 

[S'mon]

While it's not necessarily overpowered, I find adjudicating it to be annoying. The metagame intent of the spell seems to be to allow PC groups to evade the dangers of camping in wilderness or dungeon. I don't really get why that is desirable. For one thing it encourages "15 minute adventuring day" and discourages any possibility of "6-8 encounters per adventuring day" since it encourages camping whenever resources are depleted.

I do think that a generous interpretation of the strength of the forcefield makes it overpowered compared to Wall of Force, the traditional benchmark for force spells, and allows abusive/creative treatments. I think overall it's a very poorly designed spell, comparable to 2e Stoneskin or 4e Moment of Glory in its detrimental effects on the game.