Leomund's Infiltration - how to 'instantly' deploy Leomund's Tiny Hut in a far place.

[Renduaz]

As we all know, Leomund's Tiny Hut is a pretty useful spell. I won't expand too much on what has already been stated about it's usage by myself or others, except to generally stress that if one does manage to put themselves in a position where they are inside the hut before or during initiating combat, but their enemies are not, then they pretty much completely control the terms of engagement, be it with intelligent or better yet unintelligent enemies. Objects such as ammunition that were present in the hut as it was cast can be fired from within it, summoned creatures can be unleashed, and of course party members can just step out and back in as they please to unleash their respective actions. There's also my pioneered Invoke Duplicity method, but I can touch that on later.

Anyway, the problem with that has of course always been that it takes a minute to cast, and thus isn't very reliable in a lot of hostile territories. But there might be a fix for that. First, let's say for the record that you could cast Leomund's Tiny Hut while moving if you wanted to, waiting until the last few seconds before bursting in somewhere and springing the hut around you, since nothing about the spell requires a stationary space ( and the ritual involves a small crystal bead ). Even more than that, what you certainly can do is cast any spell you want while not moving yourself but traveling on something - e.g a ship, a cart, etc as long as you fulfill any of the spell's optional requirements, and certainly this happens many times in the official modules.

But let's say that we wish to deploy the hut in a compound, or dungeon, or the type of place one typically adventures into where waiting until the last moment is not viable or the enemy would already be alerted to your casting. In that case, this combination comes in - Arcane Eye, Arcane Gate, and some kind of Trolley. It's rather simple and effective - You start off by casting Arcane Eye from 500 feet away into whichever location you're seeking to infiltrate until you find your mark ( Say, the Big Bad's throne chamber ). With the eye's mental visual transmission ( Unlike Find Familiar or Gaze of Two Minds and other effects, it is expressly not stated that you are blinded to your own senses ), you select a point within 10 feet of you and another 500 feet away and cast Arcane Gate, which immediately breaks the eye's concentration, but that's fine. Ideally you want to position the gate near a wall or something of that nature with the non-visible, non-portal side ( the rings are only visible form one side ) facing your enemies to avoid undue alarm.

The second part does require a second cast, which would have to be either a Simulacrum or a party member. Whoever it is, they'll have to sit down on a trolley ( or anything else which can be pushed and moved ) and begin casting Leomund's Tiny Hut. When it comes down to the last few rounds or so of the casting, With the eye's mental visual transmission ( Unlike Find Familiar or Gaze of Two Minds and other effects, it is expressly not stated that you are blinded to your own senses ), you select a point within 10 feet of you and directly in front of the trolley and another 500 feet away and cast Arcane Gate, which immediately breaks the eye's concentration, but that's fine. Someone, be it your or another, or something for that matter then pushes it straight through the portal, with any other party member using their movement to tag along, and as soon as the other side is reached - Leomund's Tiny Hut pops up around the caster.

Which does also comes along with a pretty nice cinematic momentum, with a bunch of clueless enemies turning their heads in slow motion to see a group with a rolling caster at their head emerging from a glowing misty ring, only to sprout an an invulnerability bubble and slaughter everyone in sight. Bonus point if you step outside the ring and block off their exists with something like Wall of Force/Stone and so on ( Unless you want to keep concentrating on the Gate ). Needless to say, you could also utilize other variants at higher levels with Gate or Magnificent Mansion and so forth, but I figure the high-level spells are already taken for granted.

Solo Version

This one is a lot less convoluted and enables you to perform a similar feat at a lower level and without a second caster, without the Arcane Gate or the Arcane Eye, but it does require a bit of summoning. You'll likely need either Summon Greater Demon or Infernal Calling depending on your decision, along with Planar Binding. There are essentially two good candidates for the job, being of minimal CR, most readily available and capable of achieving what we need - the Nightmare ( Fiend ) and the Dybbuk ( Demon ), both of which would need to be Planar bound to remove concentration constraints from their initial summoning spells.

Technically, there is no indication anywhere that being teleported breaks concentration, and a Dybbuk has infinite Dimension Doors, which it has able to bring someone along for. This means that if you were to go alone, if you have advance knowledge of the your destination's layout, you could get there even from thousands of feet away by beginning the casting of Leomund's Tiny Hut and letting the Dybbuk teleport ahead with you 500 feet per turn, or just wait until there's 1 round left from 500 feet away. The Dybukk could then even fetch all your party members in very short order since it can just teleport into the hut. The second candidate is the Nightmare, which can shift with 3 other creatures into the Ethereal Plane and back again. Hop onto it with some party members, start casting the hut, and let it bring you straight to where you need be via the ethereal plane.

And that's pretty much how you set up Leomund's Tiny Hut by surprise almost anywhere of your choosing. It's pretty efficient in almost any predetermined assault as long as you have two casters or the right spells.

Disclaimer: Do not try this if you are going to be fighting creatures that have Dispel Magic or Anti-Magic Field. If for some reason it needs to be said, 90% of combos that require a sustained magical effect are obviously going to fail if attempted against a substantial threat with Dispel Magic or Anti-Magic.

[CheddarChampion]

Neat idea.

I think it's pretty rules abusive though. If I were your DM I'd rule that casting concentration spell "A" while concentrating on another spell "B" breaks concentration on "B" before spell effect "A" takes place, and in the case of Arcane Eye that would mean you can't see where it is you want to cast Arcane Gate.

But maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much: at a level where the wizard can cast Arcane Gate, not having an enemy that can cast dispel magic is just asking for trouble. Same deal with a dungeon that this would work on: a normal dungeon isn't challenging at such high levels.

[Renduaz]

Neat idea.

I think it's pretty rules abusive though. If I were your DM I'd rule that casting concentration spell "A" while concentrating on another spell "B" breaks concentration on "B" before spell effect "A" takes place, and in the case of Arcane Eye that would mean you can't see where it is you want to cast Arcane Gate.

But maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much: at a level where the wizard can cast Arcane Gate, not having an enemy that can cast dispel magic is just asking for trouble. Same deal with a dungeon that this would work on: a normal dungeon isn't challenging at such high levels.

To my understanding of the RAW, spells mechanically take place in the span of the casting time, which would be one action, and without any noted delay between the effects listed in the description unless it is actually written ( I.E, Spells which allow you to undertake an effect in a subsequent turn as an action or a bonus action ). So if you were to cast Arcane Gate which has a casting time of 1 action, by taking said action ( which triggers the spell ), then all the effects listed in the description manifest themselves - the choosing of the points and appearance of the portals alike.

I don't think the other interpretation could follow chronologically - if we we agree that a spell's description takes effect as soon as the casting time is met, which in this case means simply using the action on our turn, then taking the action means choosing the points and creating the portals as part of it. There's no time delay in the RAW's mechanics. In order to break concentration, we must use our action to cast the spell, and if that happened, then the portals have been pinpointed and created as part of that Action. And if we say that that the spell hasn't truly been cast, then concentration wouldn't be broken either.

This could be viewed as absuive/counter-intuitive due to the expectation that a mortal would need to linger for at least a few miliseconds or so in order to choose the points on the ground after casting the spell, even though RAW itself doesn't register time delays in that manner when casting spells of 1 action. But on the other hand, if you already know the points you're going to pick, then we're talking about either an infinitesimal fraction of time or none at all based on however the hell weaving magic inside your brain is supposed to work, so we're talking about an almost non-existent difference. Which I think makes it perfectly safe to accept the standard given mechanics ( Everything described under 1 action takes place without sequencing when that action is taken ), which means that concentration can only be broken after the ground points were already selected and the portals created.

As to the challenge, honestly I've seen tons of campaigns where there are plenty of encounters and entire dungeon crawls or arcs with almost no Dispel Magic or Anti-Magic Fields to be seen at 10th-11th level, and even above. Certainly it is true for the official WOTC modules which are full of such encounters featuring monsters or humanoids that can't Dispel, even some of the CR30 bosses can't do it. Dispel and Anti-Magic are pretty rare among creatures in D&D, though naturally in forums like this there is a much higher percentage of people who pack ( Or say they do ) dispel into a lot more encounters due to witnessing shenanigans being posted on a daily basis, but not so much at your average D&D group, particularly if they're playing an official module.

The biggest problem is actually with teleportation. There are maybe about 200x as many creatures that can use short teleportation bursts/ethereal movement than there are creatures with anti-magic abilities, but you also get a lot of mixed encounters, so on the upside you could at least keep any creature that can't teleport at bay while fighting the ones that can individually. Of course at much higher levels, the hut could be upgraded into Mordekainen's Mangificent Mansion.

[greenstone]

I think the biggest problem with the first option is that casting leomund's tiny hut requires concentration, because its casting time is longer than a single action or reaction.

The second seems OK, but if you want your party members to be in the hut with you then you need a dybbuk for each of them. If you can summon that many dybbuks then you probably don't need the tiny hut. :-)

[Keravath]

Unfortunately the Arcane Eye/Arcane Gate plan does not work.

PHB 203
"Some spells require you to maintain concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends."

"Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can't concentrate on two spells at once."

Arcane Eye is concentration up to 1 hour.

Arcane Gate:
"Choose two points on the ground that you can see, one point within 10 feet of you and one point within 500 feet of you."

Arcane Eye ENDS as soon as you begin casting Arcane Gate. There is no overlap. As a result, you can't see the other end of where you plan for the gate to go so it doesn't work as far as RAW goes.

[Renduaz]

I think the biggest problem with the first option is that casting leomund's tiny hut requires concentration, because its casting time is longer than a single action or reaction.

The second seems OK, but if you want your party members to be in the hut with you then you need a dybbuk for each of them. If you can summon that many dybbuks then you probably don't need the tiny hut. :-)

Yes, which is why it's stated that a second caster is needed in the first option.

Unfortunately the Arcane Eye/Arcane Gate plan does not work.

PHB 203
"Some spells require you to maintain concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends."

"Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can't concentrate on two spells at once."

Arcane Eye is concentration up to 1 hour.

Arcane Gate:
"Choose two points on the ground that you can see, one point within 10 feet of you and one point within 500 feet of you."

Arcane Eye ENDS as soon as you begin casting Arcane Gate. There is no overlap. As a result, you can't see the other end of where you plan for the gate to go so it doesn't work as far as RAW goes.

I've addressed that in my reply to Cheddar. You don't 'begin' casting Arcane Gate. It's a spell with a casting time of 1 action - all of the spell's workings are met and resolved in the very same action you use to cast it, RAW wise. You don't 'begin' casting an have it 'finish' in either 1 second, or 3 seconds, or 8 seconds, or 5 minutes - there's no such a thing in the game mechanics, unless it's explicitly stated in the duration or description. You take the action, and the spell has already been cast, everything in the description immediately takes place.