808
(dnd 5e) Prove me wrong, RAW (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/rpgmemes@ttrpg.network
170 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Disclaimer: this is purposefully obtuse.

Other effects in the game which explicitly state they kill you:

Shadows, succubi, massive damage, death saving throws, beholder death ray (notably not even their disintegration ray kills you), power word kill, vampires, mind flayers, night hags, drow inquisitors.

Clearly, if they intended for disintegration to kill you, they'd have said so. Since specific overrides general, and there is no general rule that disintegrated creatures are dead, I rest my case. QED.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 84 points 2 years ago (3 children)

A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing and carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust. The creature can be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell.

Why would you need to be "restored to life" if you weren't dead?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 93 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Because you could later die. So a creature that has been disintegrated, and then later dies, can only be brought back by those means.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    If this was the intent of the rules, it would be expressed in explicit, unambiguous language. They don't write contingency rules for possible future events that haven't happened this way, and if you interpret rules documents this way, then everything becomes an argument.

    The implication of "the creature can only be restored to life by (x)..." is present tense. It applies to the current state of the game following the events described. The language "unattended objects catch fire" in fireball doesn't mean "unattended objects in the area of a fireball will catch fire if someone sets fire to them." it means they catch fire.

    Language in rules doesn't ambiguously cater to a potential future state of the game that may not occur. It is describing the current state of the game, like the rules do in all other situations.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    To the contrary, if it were intended to kill you it would be explicit. See all the examples I included in the OP.

    The "present tense" argument doesn't hold water when you look at how spells are worded. Let's take a look at Alarm:

    You set an alarm against intrusion...

    Present tense. It describes a state change to the game world.

    ...Until the spell ends,...

    Describes an ending to that state. We can conclude that the alarm state lasts until the spell ends.

    Disintegration does not describe any such end to the changed state. We can conclude that this rider effect comes into play if the character ever dies in the future.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    The "present tense" argument is that "the creature can only be restored to life" describes the current state of the creature. It's currently possible to restore the creature to life using wish, and therefore they are currently not alive. This is a plain reading of the RAW, and it's inconsistent with the entire cohort of the rules to claim otherwise.

    If that's not good enough for you, then it's also the intention of "reduced to a pile of grey dust" is that players will be intelligent enough to know that dust is an object, and not a creature. There's no statblock for the dust because objects don't have creature stat blocks.

    If THAT'S not good enough for you, it's the intention of the rules that the players use common sense when reading them.

    If THAT'S not good enough for you, Crawford has explicitly stated that if disintegrate reduces you to 0hp, you're killed - and he wrote the rule.

    Any of these four arguments should be enough for a DM to be able to make a sensible ruling here, although normally I don't rely on an appeal-to-Crawford for rulings.

    If you want to play a slapstick comedy style campaign where your DM allows things to happen outside of RAW because they're silly or fun or whatever - there's nothing stopping you. The joy of DnD is you can play the game however you like, so long as your group are happy with that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Edited, because you edited your comment as I was replying: The "current state" of the creature is that it can only be brought back to life by the means mentioned in the spell, I agree with you there. But it does not mean that the creature need be dead for that to be a true statement about its state.

    Would you agree with me that the normal, default state of a creature is "can only be brought back to life by [exhaustive list of all reviving magic]"?

    Nothing says you become an object. Compare to True Polymorph, which has a section for turning a creature into an object.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    It's assumed that the player is clever enough to know that dust is an object, as the player's brain is assumed to not be made of dust.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm not looking for assumptions, I'm looking for RAW. I don't know about you but at my table we play by the rules.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    The RAW makes a lot of assumptions about the reading comprehension of the reader though. If you want the RAW to hold your hand through understanding basic English, then you're always going to have these problems.

    Look, in your opening post, you state "Clearly, if they intended for disintegration to kill you, they’d have said so."

    They HAVE said so. Crawford has explicitly clarified this.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Well, regardless of anything, WotC can't prevent this kind of argument by "writing better rules." This isn't the kind of "gotcha" edge case they should need to cover - that's what the DM is for.

    Rules lawyers will always appeal to the "the rules don't explicitly state a caveat the one weird edge case I made up that's plainly not intended" as if it's a valid position. You can't build a system this complex and exhaustively cover every take, and the intended mechanism for handling this is that the DM decides if they'll accept such things or not. That depends on your DM and table culture.

    As a general piece of advice, this is an extreme level of "the rules don't explicitly say the exact thing I think they should say with the exact wording I demand of them, so therefore my take is RAW". Most DMs would probably not want to keep running a game where this happens regularly. It's exhausting, and they'd rather be getting on with the game, or they'd rather be crafting new NPCs and side-stories. My advice would be to talk things over with your DM away from the table to see what style of game they enjoy before deploying something like this at the table.

    You specifically asked for where in RAW it says you can't do this. Cephalotrocity correctly identified the part of RAW that's supposed to do that for you. It's up to you whether you want to accept that or not. It's up to your DM if they want to play with you or not.

    Given all this, you asked "where does the RAW say you can't do this" and you've been shown the section that's supposed to do that I don't have much more advice for you - your question has been answered.

    I'm going back to drawing silly comics instead.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    (my brother in Mystra, we're in a meme community. I'm fucking with you.)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
    • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    You're misreading the language. It is present-tense, not future.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 46 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm not misreading anything. "The creature can only..." applies a new state to the creature. After that state has been applied, or somehow reversed (unaware of any way to do this by RAW), then the creature can only be brought back to life by the means mentioned in the spell.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Yes you are. You're intentionally abusing a weakness in English language (present and future tense are often written the same way so must be inferred by context) to assume something clearly not intended by the 2 sentences considered holistically.

    It's a funny joke. +1, but, ain't no DM takin dis Hail Mary from a player seriously. 😂

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 41 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Just playing the game RAW.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's like this for all TTRPGs. Someone always be tryin to game the system. 😎

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    It's like this for all TTRPGs. Someone always be trying to rules lawyer away someone's fun. 😎

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    I actually love rules lawyering, but it has to be done away from the table, and done with a certain amount of good faith. And don't get mad when others rules lawyer you back.

    In 7th Ed 40k, I found a way to make the Tau Stormsurge to be even more ridiculous than it already was. It clearly conflicted with RAI. I had to talk it out with another Tau player, who was a real lawyer, to find a way to invalidate it. He had to pull out actual lawyer tricks of carefully reading the rule to disentangle it, and he agreed it wasn't at all obvious.

    But I never played with that interpretation, and never intended to. Tau players already have a reputation for playing like dicks.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    ain't no DM takin dis Hail Mary from a player seriously

    I absolutely would, my players would need to be creative to allow this dust pile to communicate and do anything, but I'm quite sure they could manage

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    New villain is a cleaner with a feather duster +1.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I was legit imaging a pile of dust that learns telepathy to communicate with their party members and screams in an angry scotch accent to be thrown at their enemies so that their particles might sting the bastards eyes and blind them

    They'd be deathly afraid of any and all cleaning staff, but also the party would have a broom and catch pan of some sort for when their buddy get a lil spilt

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago*

    I was thinking they might learn or get enchanted with a minor wind cantrip that they can cast on themselves infinite times, and rearrange themselves into words.

    They can communicate with any literate character, but slowly, only in words that are short enough. Otherwise they have fo finish the word on their next turn.

    If it's genuinely windy in game, the player has to write their communication with their off hand, blindfold whilst someome shakes them or the paper randomly.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Wanna bet?

    I'd make it an absolute realistic pile of dust, unable to move, unable to cast magic, fight, or anything but be carried along by whatever picked it up, and when enough of the dust gets separated, death is automatic.

    But I'd still allow it as an interesting edge case once.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm sorry, I don't know enough about the English language to recognise the difference. What would the phrase be in future tense?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
    • load more comments (3 replies)