Leomund’s Tiny Hut 5e

Leomund’s Tiny Hut has seen plenty of changes since the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, when it was essentially a comfy place to lay your head rather than an impenetrable defensive position.

Plenty of players have questions about the different ways to use Leomund’s Tiny Hut in and out of combat situations, DMs have questions about how to counter players who lean too hard on this spell, and both players and DMs are always asking how Leomund’s Tiny Hut is meant to function, rules-wise. Let’s cover all that.

Who Can Cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut in 5e?

The following classes have Leomund’s Tiny Hut on their spell list:

• Bard

• Wizard

The following subclasses get Leomund’s Tiny Hut for free:

• Cleric (Twilight Domain) (TCoE 34)

What Does Leomund’s Tiny Hut Do in 5e?

Leomund’s Tiny Hut creates a 10-foot radius immobile dome that fits up nine medium creatures and the caster inside. Creatures and objects inside the area upon casting the spell can move through it freely; other creatures and objects cannot. Spells and magical effects can’t pass through the dome (into or out of).

The dome is transparent from the outside but opaque from the outside, and the lighting within the dome can be adjusted by the caster. The atmosphere inside the dome is comfortable regardless of environmental conditions.

Leomund’s Tiny Hut ends if the caster leaves the area of the dome or after 8 hours. It is not a concentration spell, so the caster can sleep after casting it.

Important notes on Leomund’s Tiny Hut:

• It can be ritual cast. It takes 10 extra minutes to do; 11 minutes in total (PHB 201).

• All creatures and objects inside the dome upon casting can move freely through it. This includes ammunition, meaning players inside LTH can shoot out of it, but creatures outside of LTH can’t shoot/attack into it.

• It’s stationary relative to where it’s cast. So if you cast it on a ship, it moves with the ship, for example. It also cannot be moved/flipped over by magical or mundane means.

Now onto the more hotly-debated rules of LTH…

What Are the Rules for Leomund’s Tiny Hut in 5e?

The rules for Leomund’s Tiny Hut in DnD 5e are as follows:

• Leomund’s Tiny Hut has a floor (so it can’t be entered from below). According to this Sage Advice thread, LTH has a floor. Therefore, it can’t be entered from below from things like burrowing creatures, incorporeal beings like ghosts, etc.

  Note that this is a somewhat contentious ruling that depends on your reading of “hemisphere” (not defined in any DnD sourcebooks), and your DM might rule differently.

• You can shoot out of Leomund’s Tiny Hut. As long as the arrows, bolts, etc. were inside Leomund’s Tiny Hut at the time it was cast, they “can move through it freely.”

  Yes, this does allow for players to snipe creatures outside of LTH with relative safety, if they’re stupid enough to remain in the archer’s line of sight.

• Nothing can get through Leomund’s Tiny Hut (except maybe Dragon’s Breath). This is another contentious ruling, but the Sage Advice Compendium confirmed that a Dragon’s Breath attack isn’t magical and, since it’s not an attack either, it appears to get through the protection of Leomund’s Tiny Hut (SAC 21).

  Note that this ruling is often thrown out by DMs who consider it a slippery slope to too many other “what-if” scenarios like fire, noxious gas, and other damaging effects that are neither attacks nor magic.

• You can be an unseen attacker attacking from Leomund’s Tiny Hut (and trigger Sneak Attack). Since the outside of the dome is opaque (not transparent), an attacker attacking from inside of LTH can be considered an unseen attacker (PHB 194-5).

  Being an unseen attacker gives you advantage on attack rolls (and can therefore be used to trigger Rogue’s Sneak Attack.

• You cannot cast some spells from inside of Leomund’s Tiny Hut. At least, not if the spell has to go “through” Leomund’s Tiny Hut. For this one, it helps to turn to a somewhat unrelated Sage Advice thread where Jeremy Crawford confirmed that you can Misty Step, but not Dimension Door, “through” the layer of the Prismatic Wall spell that prevents spells from being cast through it.

  What this tells us in the context of LTH (possibly) is that spells with a range of self can probably be cast inside of LTH because they’re not traveling “through” it, but spells with a range cannot be cast inside LTH.

  Again, your DM might rule differently — this is just my best attempt to parse the rules as written/developer-commented-on.

• Physical attacks cannot hit you inside Leomund’s Tiny Hut. Unless the weapons were inside Leomund’s Tiny Hut when it was cast, they cannot pass through the barrier of LTH.

• Leomund’s Tiny Hut cannot be lifted. It is immobile. However, if the floor beneath it falls, it’s up to the DM whether the Tiny Hut also falls or defies gravity and remains aloft in the air.

• “Above” means the absolute direction of “up” – it’s not relative to the caster’s head. So no, you cannot cast LTH as a bowl or massive sideways shield, if you wanted to do that for some reason.

• Leomund’s Tiny Hut only extends as far as the space allows. As per the rules, “if no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn’t included in the spell’s area” (PHB 204).

• You can cast spells via Find Familiar outside of LTH. Since you can deliver touch spells via Find Familiar, this is one way to cheese your way around LTH’s ban on spellcasting within it. Since the familiar (and therefore the spell effects) aren’t passing through LTH, it works within the rules.

How Do I Use Leomund’s Tiny Hut in 5e?

Here are a few ways to use Leomund’s Tiny Hut in DnD 5e:

1. Get off free attacks from safety. Because of the stipulation that allows arrows inside the hut at the time of casting to pass freely through the dome’s barrier, you can essentially use LTH as an impenetrable turret from which to take pot shots.

   And if line of sight gets in your way or you’d like to pop off a ranged spell, you can always run outside of the hut, do your thing, and then run back to safety. Just look out for savvy DMs who Ready attacks for the first unfortunate player to pop their head out.

   Oh, and the caster can’t pop out, or LTH will disappear.

2. Take long rests more safely. Historically, this is the main purpose of Leomund’s Tiny Hut. An 8-hour duration coupled with no concentration requirement means that LTH is the perfect thing for making an unsafe place slightly safer to take a long rest in.

   Do note that safer doesn’t mean completely safe, as DMs and their monsters will likely react to an unknown and impenetrable structure in their midst.

3. Make a stationary fortress on choke points. The fact that the dome blocks space can be used to your advantage for plugging up chokepoints, escape routes, and the like. Even without attacking from the hut/fortress, this can be a potent effect, similar to a knock-off Wall of Force.

4. Be an unseen attacker. Making use of the hut’s opaque-from-the-outside nature is a way to double down on the offensive potential that LTH affords. Getting free advantage on even one attack is great, but note that DMs might rule that your position is given away (those are the rules, PHB 195), requiring the use of an action to Hide to replicate the efffect.

   Which, of course, is no problem for Rogues with a bonus action to spend on Hiding every round (and the most incentive to do so, what with Sneak Attacks triggering off attack advantage).

5. Consider your environment. Before setting up camp for the night with Leomund’s Tiny Hut, it pays to think about what kind of foes are around. Things that can burrow or pass through solid objects are a real threat from below, unless your DM rules against JC and says LTH has a floor.

   Beyond that, though, monsters can plan for your exit with reinforcements, traps, hazardous terrain, etc. Just because you’re safe inside the hut, doesn’t mean that the world doesn’t continue on outside the hut. Be sure to pick your spot carefully, or you may wake up to a seriously disadvantaged fight.

6. Survive the elements. The dry and comfortable aspect of Leomund’s Tiny Hut can be extremely handy if your party is taking on dangerous terrain like tundras, deserts, or marshlands. While some DMs handwave the danger around this element of DnD’s roleplaying, LTH can still make for a satisfying spell to use in such scenarios.

7. Save your spell slot. Finally, do remember that you’ll rarely need to actually waste a spell slot on Leomund’s Tiny Hut because every class that can cast it has the Ritual Casting feature.

   If you have 1 minute to cast the spell, you probably have 11 minutes to cast it as a ritual (in most scenarios, anyway).

Is Leomund’s Tiny Hut 5e a Good Spell?

Yes, Leomund’s Tiny Hut is a good spell. For players and parties who go all in on its defensive combat capabilities, it can be incredibly potent. And for providing pure and simple utility in the form of more convenient long rests, it’s almost always worth having the spell in the spellbook of at least one party member.

That being said, players should be careful about abusing Leomund’s Tiny Hut to completely trivialize the danger of taking a long rest in a hostile setting or to attack enemies without any consequence at all.

This sort of cheesy gameplay invites adversarial DMing, which is no fun for anyone. Make good and conservative use of Leomund’s Tiny Hut, and your DM (hopefully) won’t find any reason to try to nerf/counterplay the spell.

Leomund’s Tiny Hut 5e Compared to Rope Trick

Rope Trick is essentially the second-level, less comfortable, lower duration version of Leomund’s Tiny Hut. It also doesn’t allow for the taking of potshots from a strong defensive position.

Basically, it boils down to Rope Trick being the spell you use to get off an easier short rest as a party, while Leomund’s Tiny Hut is the long rest version that comes with some extra bells and whistles.

Leomund’s Tiny Hut 5e DM Tips

For starters, we left DMs with two semi-unresolved rules questions:

• Does a Dragon’s Breath Attack get through Leomund’s Tiny Hut? While the rules as written answer appears to be “no,” the spirit of LTH seems to suggest that it blocks all uncomfortable effects. Dragonfire, noxious gas, smoke, etc. — all these things should be blocked by LTH, in my opinion.

• Does Leomund’s Tiny Hut have a floor? Yes, according to Jeremy Crawford, but that doesn’t mean you need to agree. Hemisphere and dome are not well-defined terms in DnD 5e, and his tweet on the subject is much less clear-cut than some of his more easily-understood rulings.

  So if you feel that the threat of burrowing creatures/ghosts is a fun way to keep LTH-spam-happy players on their toes, go for it.

Okay, now for the other ways to counteract Leomund’s Tiny Hut. I’m not suggesting that you automatically employ these strategies as a baseline response to players casting the spell — most of the time, it should just accomplish what the players want it to accomplish.

But if you feel that players are trivializing encounters with Leomund’s Tiny Hut, here are a few tools you can use to counter them:

1. Dispel Magic. Simple and straightforward, Dispel Magic can make Leomund’s Tiny Hut disappear instantaneously. And it’s not like it’s that uncommon of a spell among spellcasters.

2. Battle preparation. This is the best way to teach players a lesson about snoozing in the middle of a busy dungeon full of wandering monsters. Maybe a few goblins stumble upon the strange hut and call to their bugbear boss, who alerts the hobgoblin captains…Now all of a sudden an entire dungeon’s worth of encounters are waiting for the players when they wake up.

3. Create hazards. Fires, traps, pits, etc. — this can be a part of larger battle preparations or the solitary action of a mischievous actor.

4. Pile on top. Just because the dome is impenetrable, doesn’t mean it’s permanent. Piling on heavy stones can put the players between a rock and a hard place (literally) when the spell’s duration is about to run out.

5. Noise and/or smells. Tough to get a long rest if a whole horde of baddies is outside your tent making a ruckus. Some players may argue that a “comfortable atmosphere” prevents smells from entering the dome, but I find it makes for funny RP moments when players get skunked out of a safe location.

6. Bait the party. Trigger warning: violence. For players who are comfortable with this sort of narrative, doing something like torturing NPCs while the players watch from safety can make for a serious incentive to leave the safety of LTH or lose their shiny good-guy badges.

7. Ready actions. Lastly, for parties that abuse the “pop out, pop in” strategy to snipe your monsters with no repercussions, you can always use the Ready action to prepare attacks.

   That way, the second the Rogue pops out, you can pepper him with every single Kobold’s sling.