The thing people seem to forget about hex when assessing its effectiveness is how long the spell lasts.
You are a warlock and have 2 spell slots. Anytime you have more than 2 combats of any kind per short rest, hex hour duration becomes a whole lot more effective vs 1 min concentration spells like bless. Any time the DM throws out several small encounters to drain resources, hex starts to really shine.
At level 5, Hex last 8 hours. This means you can keep it up through a short rest, so you can have hex running, along with regaining your spell slots.
It does depend on your table/GM and how many encounters you have between rests but hex is a major part of a warlocks kit, and stretching the effectiveness of your few spell slots.
I'd definitely keep it over shatter unless you have no one else able to AoE. Even then shatter scales so poorly that I'd probably ditch by level 5.
if you're the dmg pc and you have lots of combat sure.
but there's a definite opportunity cost for that advantage to manifest.
you have to hit your attacks during a combat. then you have to hope the creatures you hex early also drop early. it helps to be in the dmg role so you don't waste a turn on another full action (you still might not trigger if you attack tho). also you can't lose concentration. i feel like hitting with EB, and succeeded on conc checks, get taken for granted.
then after you cast it, even when you pick it, you're saying "I'm gonna not prioritize concentration spells between combats even tho the spell I'm using likely will never help during exploration, and most dialogue." so no invisibility, probably no detect magic, no comprehend languages.
i tend to look at scaling like, if you're already doing something, you're doing it. bless helps everyone and isn't contingent. invisibility can help protect downed allies. spider climb can get you out of melee with minimal movement. with low level hex you'll hit with it anywhere from 1-5 times a combat? maybe you cast it on the tank without knowing?
i see that combat gets a lot of attention to talk about coz it's like one of the only things to talk about in mechanical baseline terms. that's a super specialized use of a whole casting build tho. like if it's good advice when people say "pick hexblade" then I'd go further and say pick a martial class.
sidenote, do you all try to take short rests when you need them? do your dm's fight you on that? i get the sense sometimes that short rests aren't looked at in realistic terms. or maybe some dm's don't adjust how they run them based on what makes sense for the campaign.
Hitting and maintain concentration isn't just taken for granted.
Attack rolls overall are going to land way more often than any save other that you will be using for damage. And EB has a 120ft range meaning you if its possible to stay in a safe spot they range will help allow for that.
You can use your spell slots for utility, out of combat but honestly you are probably best off if you let a ritual caster do this if at all possible. Sure, if you don't have a ritual caster and go Tome pact, and getting other concentration spells like guidance, detect magic etc, then holding Hex between combats is a lot less attractive. But in the end you still could choose to keep hex running or choose to drop it for other spells.
Combat gets attention in discussions because it has more clearly defined rules than exploration and social. Discussion of effectiveness of things outside of combat can kind of be useless due to how DM defendant it tends to be.
For example, I don't know what you mean by "realistic terms" when you are talking about short rests. How often should a group of adventures in a dangerous location with monsters be able to just take it easy for an hour? I mean just getting an hour to rest as an adult, not in a dungeon populated with actual monsters is hard enough.
Hitting and maintain concentration isn't just taken for granted.
Attack rolls overall are going to land way more often than any save other that you will be using for damage. And EB has a 120ft range meaning you if its possible to stay in a safe spot they range will help allow for that.
You can use your spell slots for utility, out of combat but honestly you are probably best off if you let a ritual caster do this if at all possible. Sure, if you don't have a ritual caster and go Tome pact, and getting other concentration spells like guidance, detect magic etc, then holding Hex between combats is a lot less attractive. But in the end you still could choose to keep hex running or choose to drop it for other spells.
Combat gets attention in discussions because it has more clearly defined rules than exploration and social. Discussion of effectiveness of things outside of combat can kind of be useless due to how DM defendant it tends to be.
For example, I don't know what you mean by "realistic terms" when you are talking about short rests. How often should a group of adventures in a dangerous location with monsters be able to just take it easy for an hour? I mean just getting an hour to rest as an adult, not in a dungeon populated with actual monsters is hard enough.
Even then, Hex has its uses in social interactions. Like the spell explanation says, cast it on a high charisma diplomat.
sidenote, do you all try to take short rests when you need them? do your dm's fight you on that? i get the sense sometimes that short rests aren't looked at in realistic terms. or maybe some dm's don't adjust how they run them based on what makes sense for the campaign.
A lack of short rests is definitely a problem with the current meta; when you look at various new releases we've seen a trend towards racial traits in particular being swapped from once per short rest to multiple times per long rest, so I wonder what that might mean going forward towards 5.5e in 2024. I'm very much expecting an updated Dungeon Master's Guide to include a "no short rests" variant rule that somehow lets you convert short rest abilities into long rest ones instead, though I don't know how I feel about it (I'd prefer for them to emphasise the use of short rests more, but then I often feel like most DM's don't read as much of the DMG as they should).
I've definitely experienced this same issue, and had to really push for short rests sometimes, to the point that I'm taking catnap on one of my characters so I can argue for a 10 minute rest instead, but that's sadly a bit awkward to get on a Warlock. It sucks if you're the only character dependent on short rests as it can feel like you're fighting the DM and your party just to remain competitive, it's easier when you aren't alone, e.g- if there's a Fighter or Monk in the group as well, or a Bard once they have Song of Rest and Font of Inspiration).
There's definitely value from the long duration on hex regardless of whether you can short rest or not, as once it starts lasting 8 hours you can short rest during its duration to get the slot back without losing the spell, and even if you don't get the chance it's good value for a single slot spent. However as others say the duration is a double edged sword as the longer a concentration spell lasts, the more likely it is to get interrupted; less of an issue for ranged Warlocks, but a major drawback on melee focused ones. It's a good spell, but it's far from mandatory.
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sidenote, do you all try to take short rests when you need them? do your dm's fight you on that? i get the sense sometimes that short rests aren't looked at in realistic terms. or maybe some dm's don't adjust how they run them based on what makes sense for the campaign.
A lack of short rests is definitely a problem with the current meta; when you look at various new releases we've seen a trend towards racial traits in particular being swapped from once per short rest to multiple times per long rest, so I wonder what that might mean going forward towards 5.5e in 2024. I'm very much expecting an updated Dungeon Master's Guide to include a "no short rests" variant rule that somehow lets you convert short rest abilities into long rest ones instead, though I don't know how I feel about it (I'd prefer for them to emphasise the use of short rests more, but then I often feel like most DM's don't read as much of the DMG as they should).
I've definitely experienced this same issue, and had to really push for short rests sometimes, to the point that I'm taking catnap on one of my characters can argue for a 10 minute rest instead, but that's sadly a bit awkward to get on a Warlock. It sucks if you're the only character dependent on short rests as it can feel like you're fighting the DM and your party just to remain competitive, it's easier when you aren't alone, e.g- if there's a Fighter or Monk in the group as well, or a Bard once they have Song of Rest and Font of Inspiration).
There's definitely value from the long duration on hex regardless of whether you can short rest or not, as once it starts lasting 8 hours you can short rest during its duration to get the slot back without losing the spell, and even if you don't get the chance it's good value for a single slot spent. However as others say the duration is a double edged sword as the long a concentration spell lasts, the more likely it is to get interrupted; less of an issue for ranged Warlocks, but a major drawback on melee focused ones. It's a good spell, but it's far from mandatory.
What people seem to forget that eating, having a short rest when exploring, hunting and foraging are all necessary and normal part of a day for a party. If you don't do these things, exhaustion and starvation kicks in.
sidenote, do you all try to take short rests when you need them? do your dm's fight you on that? i get the sense sometimes that short rests aren't looked at in realistic terms. or maybe some dm's don't adjust how they run them based on what makes sense for the campaign.
A lack of short rests is definitely a problem with the current meta; when you look at various new releases we've seen a trend towards racial traits in particular being swapped from once per short rest to multiple times per long rest, so I wonder what that might mean going forward towards 5.5e in 2024. I'm very much expecting an updated Dungeon Master's Guide to include a "no short rests" variant rule that somehow lets you convert short rest abilities into long rest ones instead, though I don't know how I feel about it (I'd prefer for them to emphasise the use of short rests more, but then I often feel like most DM's don't read as much of the DMG as they should).
I've definitely experienced this same issue, and had to really push for short rests sometimes, to the point that I'm taking catnap on one of my characters can argue for a 10 minute rest instead, but that's sadly a bit awkward to get on a Warlock. It sucks if you're the only character dependent on short rests as it can feel like you're fighting the DM and your party just to remain competitive, it's easier when you aren't alone, e.g- if there's a Fighter or Monk in the group as well, or a Bard once they have Song of Rest and Font of Inspiration).
There's definitely value from the long duration on hex regardless of whether you can short rest or not, as once it starts lasting 8 hours you can short rest during its duration to get the slot back without losing the spell, and even if you don't get the chance it's good value for a single slot spent. However as others say the duration is a double edged sword as the long a concentration spell lasts, the more likely it is to get interrupted; less of an issue for ranged Warlocks, but a major drawback on melee focused ones. It's a good spell, but it's far from mandatory.
What people seem to forget that eating, having a short rest when exploring, hunting and foraging are all necessary and normal part of a day for a party. If you don't do these things, exhaustion and starvation kicks in.
Sure, but many DMs (unfortunately) handwave that stuff. Luckily, for those at tables where those things are relevant one can easily maintain concentration on a spell while doing all those things, and then hex can help with the hunting. Not as well as hunter’s mark, but still…. Just be sure to choose Strength checks to hex to put the whammy on the prey’s Athletics checks.
What people seem to forget that eating, having a short rest when exploring, hunting and foraging are all necessary and normal part of a day for a party. If you don't do these things, exhaustion and starvation kicks in.
Travel is the other one I usually try to argue as well; a cart and a draft horse is only 65 gp, or 135 gp for two horses and a wagon, this should enable party members to rest on the move as in a fantasy setting most settlements should be hours apart even on horseback.
I think the whole camping/exploration/survival/travel aspect of the game is generally overlooked in favour of combat and "action", which is partly the fault of DM's focusing on the "cool" stuff they want, but also on the books not always doing a good job of emphasising that the parts in between are an important aspect of the game as well. I've been hoping for an exploration focused book release for a while but I doubt we'll ever get one, but it'd be nice to have more written examples of fun encounters you can have on the road (that aren't just rolling on a monster table), more examples of time sensitive objectives (get there sooner to get better results, to reduce over reliance on long rests at weird times), more examples of how to handle making camp as a regular element of a campaign in a way that stays interesting and so-on. Or even just a big page on "when to rest". The current section on rest (and the Adventuring section in general) is way too light on detail IMO.
Getting a bit of off-topic, but I think it ties into the general problem of the current meta; way too much focus on combat, which isn't actually the best part of 5e (when it comes down to it, D&D's combat has always been clunky as hell, and 5e is no different, combats can really eat up a lot of the time in a session and too much can get boring fast). But this leads people into the bad habits of not having any of those quiet moments when short rests are supposed to fit in, so a player ends up feeling like the bad guy when you suggest a short rest like you're the one slowing the game down (even though a TPK will definitely slow it down more 😂).
Not really an issue with hex specifically, but it's why long durations can be so important for a Warlock; I do tend not to use a lot of instantaneous or short lived full spells on a Warlock unless I know I'm in a boss fight, because you just don't know how long you might have to ration out those two pact slots you have for most of a campaign.
Also to be clear, it's not all DM's, but my experience has been that most DM's handwave the stuff they think will be boring, even though it doesn't have to be. Players can also be to blame as well since some are too combat obsessed, but as well optimised as my characters sometimes are for combat, it's everything else that I usually love most as it's rarely the combats that I come away from a session remembering.
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What people seem to forget that eating, having a short rest when exploring, hunting and foraging are all necessary and normal part of a day for a party. If you don't do these things, exhaustion and starvation kicks in.
Travel is the other one I usually try to argue as well; a cart and a draft horse is only 65 gp, or 135 gp for two horses and a wagon, this should enable party members to rest on the move as in a fantasy setting most settlements should be hours apart even on horseback.
I think the whole camping/exploration/survival/travel aspect of the game is generally overlooked in favour of combat and "action", which is partly the fault of DM's focusing on the "cool" stuff they want, but also on the books not always doing a good job of emphasising that the parts in between are an important aspect of the game as well. I've been hoping for an exploration focused book release for a while but I doubt we'll ever get one, but it'd be nice to have more written examples of fun encounters you can have on the road (that aren't just rolling on a monster table), more examples of time sensitive objectives (get there sooner to get better results, to reduce over reliance on long rests at weird times), more examples of how to handle making camp as a regular element of a campaign in a way that stays interesting and so-on. Or even just a big page on "when to rest". The current section on rest (and the Adventuring section in general) is way too light on detail IMO.
Getting a bit of off-topic, but I think it ties into the general problem of the current meta; way too much focus on combat, which isn't actually the best part of 5e (when it comes down to it, D&D's combat has always been clunky as hell, and 5e is no different, combats can really eat up a lot of the time in a session and too much can get boring fast). But this leads people into the bad habits of not having any of those quiet moments when short rests are supposed to fit in, so a player ends up feeling like the bad guy when you suggest a short rest like you're the one slowing the game down (even though a TPK will definitely slow it down more 😂).
Not really an issue with hex specifically, but it's why long durations can be so important for a Warlock; I do tend not to use a lot of instantaneous or short lived full spells on a Warlock unless I know I'm in a boss fight, because you just don't know how long you might have to ration out those two pact slots you have for most of a campaign.
Also to be clear, it's not all DM's, but my experience has been that most DM's handwave the stuff they think will be boring, even though it doesn't have to be. Players can also be to blame as well since some are too combat obsessed, but as well optimised as my characters sometimes are for combat, it's everything else that I usually love most as it's rarely the combats that I come away from a session remembering.
LAst table I played at, and was not the DM, we had a cart pulled by two giant goats. Fun times :)
I think part of the problem is they went with an hour short rest mechanic. Yeah, outdoor encounters, city encounters odds are you can short rest right after them. But raiding a X, sneaking into a Y and its harder to rationalize a hour break. 5 minutes like 4e, and yeah you can visualize getting 5 minutes in almost any circumstance. An hour and people have a harder time buying in outside understanding the mechanical aspect of short rest classes.
Because you can wake up from a long rest, cast Hex, and hopefully take another short rest (if you have a really nice group) or wait a bit and take one asap, you can essentially have Hex up and get your 2 spell slots back which is convenient. Warlocks lvl 3 spells aren't super damaging (unless you're a Hexblade as Spirit Shroud with Polearm is great damage), but there are other great concentration spells that could be useful like Fear and Hypnotic Pattern. But again, the bonus here is, if you need to drop Hex to cast one of those spells, you can because its essentially free since you've likely taken a short rest while maintaining concentration on it.
Now after lvl 6, i'd consider dropping Hex. The dmg it gives is pretty poor at this level compared to other classes, even if its free. So maybe for really small fights that you don't feel like wasting a new spell slot, sure keep Hex up since you cast it in the morning anyways. But with 4th lvl spell slots now available. You have Summon Aberration, Summon Undead (you had at 3rd lvl too but not that great at 3rd lvl) which can both attack twice from a really far distance meaning even with their low HP they won't die and do consistent dmg. So anything even remotely tough i'd switch to one of those summons (they also do either psychic or necrotic so pretty good for resistances).
If you want to get fun with it and you have access to magic weapons, find a +1 shortsword and use Summon Fey at lvl 4, the Fey uses a shortsword for its attacks so you give it the magic one, and it now does magic slashing with a +1 extra to hit and dmg. It is melee so more chances to get killed vs the other ranges summons but still fun and powerful.
Hex never drops off as a 1st level spell. The disadvantage mechanic alone is still useful at 20th level.
That said I would not use 3rd level or higher pact slots with it. There are far better spells you can cast with a 3rd level slot.
On a single class warlock I would probably take either Fey Touched feat or Magic Initiate feat if I wanted to keep Hex beyond 4th level. That would give me a free once a day cast without having to use a higher-level pact slot.
Hex never drops off as a 1st level spell. The disadvantage mechanic alone is still useful at 20th level.
That said I would not use 3rd level or higher pact slots with it. There are far better spells you can cast with a 3rd level slot.
On a single class warlock I would probably take either Fey Touched feat or Magic Initiate feat if I wanted to keep Hex beyond 4th level. That would give me a free once a day cast without having to use a higher-level pact slot.
At 3rd level you can have it last through short rests, and multiple combats. This means you can have hex up, while you get back all of your pact slot. At 5th level you can have it up for 24 hours and have it up through multiple long rests.
The way 5e is suppose to work: "page 84 DMG "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day."
If the DM is doing anything close to this hex is pretty much the only way you are going to keep up decent damage for that many encounters as a warlock.
At 3rd level you can have it last through short rests, and multiple combats. This means you can have hex up, while you get back all of your pact slot. At 5th level you can have it up for 24 hours and have it up through multiple long rests.
While hexcan be great value, it's worth keeping in mind that it's a concentration spell (so the longer it lasts, the more likely it is you'll eventually fail a concentration saving throw) and also maintaining it for a long time relies on you being able to kill every target you assign the hex to (as you can only transfer it once the current target is reduced to 0 hit-points).
The concentration aspect means the longer durations are more useful to a ranged blaster warlock rather than a melee build, as you'll be less likely to lose concentration the less likely you are to take hits.
The transfer requirement however is out of your control, as you might be unlucky enough to mark the one target that the DM was planning to have teleport away for narrative reasons – a generous DM might give you a free transfer in that event, or ignore the the 0 hit-point requirement (as I don't think transferring it at will would be especially broken), but a stricter DM could leave you regretting spending a pact slot on it.
I'm of a similar opinion to ECMO3 that it's good value as a free use from a feat; an hour can still cover a lot of game time, if the feat allows you to use your own slots then you can still do-so, but it's not forcing you to spend one of that limited resource so you keep your flexibility for other things that arguably scale better depending upon your build.
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Hex never drops off as a 1st level spell. The disadvantage mechanic alone is still useful at 20th level.
That said I would not use 3rd level or higher pact slots with it. There are far better spells you can cast with a 3rd level slot.
On a single class warlock I would probably take either Fey Touched feat or Magic Initiate feat if I wanted to keep Hex beyond 4th level. That would give me a free once a day cast without having to use a higher-level pact slot.
At 3rd level you can have it last through short rests, and multiple combats. This means you can have hex up, while you get back all of your pact slot. At 5th level you can have it up for 24 hours and have it up through multiple long rests.
The way 5e is suppose to work: "page 84 DMG "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day."
If the DM is doing anything close to this hex is pretty much the only way you are going to keep up decent damage for that many encounters as a warlock.
The issue is you will usually prefer doing a different concentration spell to hex. I think Ghostdragon4 had the right idea. Cast it at wake up, short rest during breakfast and keep it going until you are in a fight where you think casting fear etc is more worthwhile. There are plenty of fights where I see no reason to cast a spell other than eldritch blast, but hey if the first encounter of the day asks for you to use a different concentration spell don't feel trapped into keeping hex up because it was effectively free. If you have a slot left before any short rest, cast it again, get your slots back and keep that philosophy going.
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The thing people seem to forget about hex when assessing its effectiveness is how long the spell lasts.
You are a warlock and have 2 spell slots. Anytime you have more than 2 combats of any kind per short rest, hex hour duration becomes a whole lot more effective vs 1 min concentration spells like bless. Any time the DM throws out several small encounters to drain resources, hex starts to really shine.
At level 5, Hex last 8 hours. This means you can keep it up through a short rest, so you can have hex running, along with regaining your spell slots.
It does depend on your table/GM and how many encounters you have between rests but hex is a major part of a warlocks kit, and stretching the effectiveness of your few spell slots.
I'd definitely keep it over shatter unless you have no one else able to AoE. Even then shatter scales so poorly that I'd probably ditch by level 5.
if you're the dmg pc and you have lots of combat sure.
but there's a definite opportunity cost for that advantage to manifest.
you have to hit your attacks during a combat. then you have to hope the creatures you hex early also drop early. it helps to be in the dmg role so you don't waste a turn on another full action (you still might not trigger if you attack tho). also you can't lose concentration. i feel like hitting with EB, and succeeded on conc checks, get taken for granted.
then after you cast it, even when you pick it, you're saying "I'm gonna not prioritize concentration spells between combats even tho the spell I'm using likely will never help during exploration, and most dialogue." so no invisibility, probably no detect magic, no comprehend languages.
i tend to look at scaling like, if you're already doing something, you're doing it. bless helps everyone and isn't contingent. invisibility can help protect downed allies. spider climb can get you out of melee with minimal movement. with low level hex you'll hit with it anywhere from 1-5 times a combat? maybe you cast it on the tank without knowing?
i see that combat gets a lot of attention to talk about coz it's like one of the only things to talk about in mechanical baseline terms. that's a super specialized use of a whole casting build tho. like if it's good advice when people say "pick hexblade" then I'd go further and say pick a martial class.
sidenote, do you all try to take short rests when you need them? do your dm's fight you on that? i get the sense sometimes that short rests aren't looked at in realistic terms. or maybe some dm's don't adjust how they run them based on what makes sense for the campaign.
Hitting and maintain concentration isn't just taken for granted.
Attack rolls overall are going to land way more often than any save other that you will be using for damage. And EB has a 120ft range meaning you if its possible to stay in a safe spot they range will help allow for that.
You can use your spell slots for utility, out of combat but honestly you are probably best off if you let a ritual caster do this if at all possible. Sure, if you don't have a ritual caster and go Tome pact, and getting other concentration spells like guidance, detect magic etc, then holding Hex between combats is a lot less attractive. But in the end you still could choose to keep hex running or choose to drop it for other spells.
Combat gets attention in discussions because it has more clearly defined rules than exploration and social. Discussion of effectiveness of things outside of combat can kind of be useless due to how DM defendant it tends to be.
For example, I don't know what you mean by "realistic terms" when you are talking about short rests. How often should a group of adventures in a dangerous location with monsters be able to just take it easy for an hour? I mean just getting an hour to rest as an adult, not in a dungeon populated with actual monsters is hard enough.
Even then, Hex has its uses in social interactions. Like the spell explanation says, cast it on a high charisma diplomat.
A lack of short rests is definitely a problem with the current meta; when you look at various new releases we've seen a trend towards racial traits in particular being swapped from once per short rest to multiple times per long rest, so I wonder what that might mean going forward towards 5.5e in 2024. I'm very much expecting an updated Dungeon Master's Guide to include a "no short rests" variant rule that somehow lets you convert short rest abilities into long rest ones instead, though I don't know how I feel about it (I'd prefer for them to emphasise the use of short rests more, but then I often feel like most DM's don't read as much of the DMG as they should).
I've definitely experienced this same issue, and had to really push for short rests sometimes, to the point that I'm taking catnap on one of my characters so I can argue for a 10 minute rest instead, but that's sadly a bit awkward to get on a Warlock. It sucks if you're the only character dependent on short rests as it can feel like you're fighting the DM and your party just to remain competitive, it's easier when you aren't alone, e.g- if there's a Fighter or Monk in the group as well, or a Bard once they have Song of Rest and Font of Inspiration).
There's definitely value from the long duration on hex regardless of whether you can short rest or not, as once it starts lasting 8 hours you can short rest during its duration to get the slot back without losing the spell, and even if you don't get the chance it's good value for a single slot spent. However as others say the duration is a double edged sword as the longer a concentration spell lasts, the more likely it is to get interrupted; less of an issue for ranged Warlocks, but a major drawback on melee focused ones. It's a good spell, but it's far from mandatory.
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What people seem to forget that eating, having a short rest when exploring, hunting and foraging are all necessary and normal part of a day for a party. If you don't do these things, exhaustion and starvation kicks in.
Sure, but many DMs (unfortunately) handwave that stuff. Luckily, for those at tables where those things are relevant one can easily maintain concentration on a spell while doing all those things, and then hex can help with the hunting. Not as well as hunter’s mark, but still…. Just be sure to choose Strength checks to hex to put the whammy on the prey’s Athletics checks.
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Travel is the other one I usually try to argue as well; a cart and a draft horse is only 65 gp, or 135 gp for two horses and a wagon, this should enable party members to rest on the move as in a fantasy setting most settlements should be hours apart even on horseback.
I think the whole camping/exploration/survival/travel aspect of the game is generally overlooked in favour of combat and "action", which is partly the fault of DM's focusing on the "cool" stuff they want, but also on the books not always doing a good job of emphasising that the parts in between are an important aspect of the game as well. I've been hoping for an exploration focused book release for a while but I doubt we'll ever get one, but it'd be nice to have more written examples of fun encounters you can have on the road (that aren't just rolling on a monster table), more examples of time sensitive objectives (get there sooner to get better results, to reduce over reliance on long rests at weird times), more examples of how to handle making camp as a regular element of a campaign in a way that stays interesting and so-on. Or even just a big page on "when to rest". The current section on rest (and the Adventuring section in general) is way too light on detail IMO.
Getting a bit of off-topic, but I think it ties into the general problem of the current meta; way too much focus on combat, which isn't actually the best part of 5e (when it comes down to it, D&D's combat has always been clunky as hell, and 5e is no different, combats can really eat up a lot of the time in a session and too much can get boring fast). But this leads people into the bad habits of not having any of those quiet moments when short rests are supposed to fit in, so a player ends up feeling like the bad guy when you suggest a short rest like you're the one slowing the game down (even though a TPK will definitely slow it down more 😂).
Not really an issue with hex specifically, but it's why long durations can be so important for a Warlock; I do tend not to use a lot of instantaneous or short lived full spells on a Warlock unless I know I'm in a boss fight, because you just don't know how long you might have to ration out those two pact slots you have for most of a campaign.
Also to be clear, it's not all DM's, but my experience has been that most DM's handwave the stuff they think will be boring, even though it doesn't have to be. Players can also be to blame as well since some are too combat obsessed, but as well optimised as my characters sometimes are for combat, it's everything else that I usually love most as it's rarely the combats that I come away from a session remembering.
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LAst table I played at, and was not the DM, we had a cart pulled by two giant goats. Fun times :)
I think part of the problem is they went with an hour short rest mechanic. Yeah, outdoor encounters, city encounters odds are you can short rest right after them. But raiding a X, sneaking into a Y and its harder to rationalize a hour break. 5 minutes like 4e, and yeah you can visualize getting 5 minutes in almost any circumstance. An hour and people have a harder time buying in outside understanding the mechanical aspect of short rest classes.
Because you can wake up from a long rest, cast Hex, and hopefully take another short rest (if you have a really nice group) or wait a bit and take one asap, you can essentially have Hex up and get your 2 spell slots back which is convenient. Warlocks lvl 3 spells aren't super damaging (unless you're a Hexblade as Spirit Shroud with Polearm is great damage), but there are other great concentration spells that could be useful like Fear and Hypnotic Pattern. But again, the bonus here is, if you need to drop Hex to cast one of those spells, you can because its essentially free since you've likely taken a short rest while maintaining concentration on it.
Now after lvl 6, i'd consider dropping Hex. The dmg it gives is pretty poor at this level compared to other classes, even if its free. So maybe for really small fights that you don't feel like wasting a new spell slot, sure keep Hex up since you cast it in the morning anyways. But with 4th lvl spell slots now available. You have Summon Aberration, Summon Undead (you had at 3rd lvl too but not that great at 3rd lvl) which can both attack twice from a really far distance meaning even with their low HP they won't die and do consistent dmg. So anything even remotely tough i'd switch to one of those summons (they also do either psychic or necrotic so pretty good for resistances).
If you want to get fun with it and you have access to magic weapons, find a +1 shortsword and use Summon Fey at lvl 4, the Fey uses a shortsword for its attacks so you give it the magic one, and it now does magic slashing with a +1 extra to hit and dmg. It is melee so more chances to get killed vs the other ranges summons but still fun and powerful.
Hex never drops off as a 1st level spell. The disadvantage mechanic alone is still useful at 20th level.
That said I would not use 3rd level or higher pact slots with it. There are far better spells you can cast with a 3rd level slot.
On a single class warlock I would probably take either Fey Touched feat or Magic Initiate feat if I wanted to keep Hex beyond 4th level. That would give me a free once a day cast without having to use a higher-level pact slot.
At 3rd level you can have it last through short rests, and multiple combats.
This means you can have hex up, while you get back all of your pact slot. At 5th level you can have it up for 24 hours and have it up through multiple long rests.
The way 5e is suppose to work: "page 84 DMG "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day."
If the DM is doing anything close to this hex is pretty much the only way you are going to keep up decent damage for that many encounters as a warlock.
While hex can be great value, it's worth keeping in mind that it's a concentration spell (so the longer it lasts, the more likely it is you'll eventually fail a concentration saving throw) and also maintaining it for a long time relies on you being able to kill every target you assign the hex to (as you can only transfer it once the current target is reduced to 0 hit-points).
The concentration aspect means the longer durations are more useful to a ranged blaster warlock rather than a melee build, as you'll be less likely to lose concentration the less likely you are to take hits.
The transfer requirement however is out of your control, as you might be unlucky enough to mark the one target that the DM was planning to have teleport away for narrative reasons – a generous DM might give you a free transfer in that event, or ignore the the 0 hit-point requirement (as I don't think transferring it at will would be especially broken), but a stricter DM could leave you regretting spending a pact slot on it.
I'm of a similar opinion to ECMO3 that it's good value as a free use from a feat; an hour can still cover a lot of game time, if the feat allows you to use your own slots then you can still do-so, but it's not forcing you to spend one of that limited resource so you keep your flexibility for other things that arguably scale better depending upon your build.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The issue is you will usually prefer doing a different concentration spell to hex. I think Ghostdragon4 had the right idea. Cast it at wake up, short rest during breakfast and keep it going until you are in a fight where you think casting fear etc is more worthwhile. There are plenty of fights where I see no reason to cast a spell other than eldritch blast, but hey if the first encounter of the day asks for you to use a different concentration spell don't feel trapped into keeping hex up because it was effectively free. If you have a slot left before any short rest, cast it again, get your slots back and keep that philosophy going.