D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[Jester David]

Normally I answer questions like this with a "it might vary from table to table" and say how I would rule. But, honestly, I might change how I rule this based on the situation.

If the druid was in a tiny animal form (say scouting as a bird) and gets blasted with a disintegrate I might be inclined to just let the damage transfer over, knowing it's going to hurt. So it doesn't ash the druid.
If the druid is a moon druid who has kicked butt the last few sessions, is near full health, and I hit it with the d-ray, I might be more inclined to have the effect kill outright. Because it's an in-combat risk.

 

[Maxperson]

Normally I answer questions like this with a "it might vary from table to table" and say how I would rule. But, honestly, I might change how I rule this based on the situation.

If the druid was in a tiny animal form (say scouting as a bird) and gets blasted with a disintegrate I might be inclined to just let the damage transfer over, knowing it's going to hurt. So it doesn't ash the druid.
If the druid is a moon druid who has kicked butt the last few sessions, is near full health, and I hit it with the d-ray, I might be more inclined to have the effect kill outright. Because it's an in-combat risk.

I think the ruling should be consistent. Besides, how many high level wizards are going to be going around casting disintegrate at little birds? Not very many. It's really only a risk for druids who are battling in other shapes.

 

[Jester David]

I think the ruling should be consistent. Besides, how many high level wizards are going to be going around casting disintegrate at little birds? Not very many. It's really only a risk for druids who are battling in other shapes.

I don't disagree that rulings should probably be consistent. Or at least consistant in a campaign.
However, the chances of killing a wildshaped druid with disintegrate twice in one campaign is pretty low. So it's pretty easy to change your mind between rulings.

 

[Li Shenron]

Disintegration is clearly just a damage-dealing spell, so the Druid in wildshape first reverts to normal form, then takes the eccess damage.

 

[Pssthpok]

Disintegration is clearly just a damage-dealing spell, so the Druid in wildshape first reverts to normal form, then takes the eccess damage.

Basically this. It doesn't make the druid tougher or disintegrate weaker to just run it by the rules.

 

[Azurewraith]

I would have to rule dust

 

[77IM]

Disintegration implies death but doesn't explicitly say that it kills the creature. It says that the creature "...can only be restored to life..." but what if the creature got disintegrated but didn't die?

So one interpretation is that disintegration reduces the beast-form to 0, disintegrates it, but then the druid (who isn't dead yet!) reverts to druid form, and if they're not at 0 hp due to excess damage, they are not knocked unconscious and no longer disintegrated (since they reverted to druid form).

 

[Reinhart]

This is a general problem isn't just restricted to just disintegration, but all target hit-point dependent spells. For instance a polymorphed or wildshaped character may be stripped of their intended defense against spells like Divine Word. I suspect that the final implementation of the polymorph rules came too late in the design process for these interactions to be detected. Still, these kinds of spells are relatively rare and some unintentional interactions were bound to crop up because of the ad hoc way that spells and class features are designed in D&D.

 

[Kalshane]

For damage-dealing spells with a "at 0hp" rider like Disintegrate, I'd allow the Druid to revert and the damage to carry over. For spells that specifically target "current HP" like Sleep or Power Word Kill, I'd definitely have them affect the Wildshaped druid based on whatever the current HP of their form was.

 

[Maxperson]

Disintegration is clearly just a damage-dealing spell, so the Druid in wildshape first reverts to normal form, then takes the eccess damage.

The only way this could possibly be true is if disintegrate only did damage and had no turn to ash ability.

These are all facts.

1) disintegrate does damage.
2) if disintegrate reduces a creature to 0 hit points, you are turned to ash.
3) a wild shaped druid can be reduced to 0 hit points.
4) the wild shaped druid hits 0 hit points BEFORE reverting to his normal form.
5) there is no language in wild shape that can unwind death or other such effects like ash.
6) there is no language in wild shape that says that the reversion happens instead of being reduced to 0 hit point.

Given all of those facts, disintegrate by RAW does ash a wild shape the moment it hits 0 hit points prior to reversion. The result is a full hit point reverted pile of ash.