Is Hex worth it at high levels?

[diplomancer]

I'd say it's not exactly new, it's also known as bag of rats or boil an anthill or sacrificial lamb/sheep. Basically, any game mechanic that triggers on death, the designers should test what happens if you use that mechanic on a critter or insect (and/or multitudes). If the players get power or utility out of doing so, then the mechanic needs to be revised because they absolutely will try that in game. Unfortunately that wasn't the case here.





It's not that it's "overpowered" - but clearly if they meant for Hex to be undetectable they wouldn't have given it a verbal component in the first place. Compare Hex to something like, say, the Friends cantrip, which is much more clearly intended to be subtly usable mid-conversation and not noticed when cast (though afterward is a different matter.)

A good example of the point I was making. "The devs clearly intended for moving the Hex to be noticeable, otherwise they wouldn't have added verbal components to the spell when you were casting it several hours before. Compare it to this spell, that requires you to do the very noticeable action of applying makeup to your face, this is a good example of a spell that they don't want people to notice that you're casting."

Not nessasarily, usually how this comes up for my group is hexing for a early combat in the day, and then it happens to persist, which isn't all that unintuitive.

3 kinda does, since it is predicated on non-combat and so would nessitate forcing a hex senario to get the full effect of unless your day happens to match up with what you need.

3 can be used out of combat, but can also be very effective for combats, like Hexing the initiative roll of the BBEG while he's monologuing.

Also: would you allow 3 if it happened "naturally"? I.e, there was a combat, the player used Hex, later there was a non-combat situation where he could use the debuff on an antagonist? Honestly, I don't like the "squirrel loophole", never used it, and would ask my players not to use it either (which I believe to be the correct way of dealing with all such loopholes the DM dislikes, a simple "please, don't"). But if they had used Hex earlier in the day for a combat, kept it throughout the day (at the opportunity cost of not casting any spells that take longer than an action, including ritual spells, as well as not casting any concentration spells) and then wanted to use it to Hex an antagonist at dinner unnoticed, I'd say more power to them.