D&D 5E Fun with Glyphs of Warding

[hejtmane]

You can have all types of fun trap wise stick a bunch of stuff in a chest (paper, rocks what ever) with a glyph on them have them go off when they open the chest boom mass damage.

 

[Pjack]

The line about a glyph doing harm was removed in the PHB errata.

 

[ThePolarBear]

(e.g. having a spell ward with the resurrection spell stored so that the party can bring the caster back to life)

RAW, i do not think this is possible. I still have problems identifying "dead something" as if meaning "creature" or "object". If the latter, as it would make sense consider a corpse as, it would be impossible to cast Resurrection in a Glyph of Warding.

 

[Croesus]

The line about a glyph doing harm was removed in the PHB errata.

Never mind - Google took me to an older version. The latest version of the errata does indeed remove this limitation. From the errata:

Glyph of Warding (p. 245). The first sentence clarifies thatthe magical effect needn’t be harmful. The final two sentences of the firstparagraph now read as follows: “The glyph can cover an area no larger than 10 feet in diameter. If the surface or object ismoved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken,and the spell ends without being triggered” (6th printing).

 

[Phazonfish]

Definition of Ward: "to avert, repel, or turn aside (danger, harm, an attack, an assailant, etc.) (usually followed by off):"

"When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph that harms other creatures".

Why would this need more definition? Feel free to house rule, but it's incredibly clear. This is a spell to set harmful traps, not to store buffs.

I was looking for them to define "harm" not "ward. Because there is certainly room for debate. Could you store the spell Slow in a ward? Yes, because it definitely negatively influences the target. No, because it doesn't inflict injury.

 

[MNblockhead]

RAW, i do not think this is possible. I still have problems identifying "dead something" as if meaning "creature" or "object". If the latter, as it would make sense consider a corpse as, it would be impossible to cast Resurrection in a Glyph of Warding.

It says that you "touch a dead creature . . ." So, I'm picturing you bringing the dead creature, and while touching it, activating the spell glyph.

I guess a DM may rule that the Glyph can only target whomever triggered the glyph, in which case I would make the trigger be that whenever a dead creature touches the glyph (or narrow to humanoid, human, elf, etc.)

Maybe I'm not reading the rules carefully enough, but I'm not seeing why this would not work with the RAW.

 

[schnee]

You do harm to other creatures. Buff to you from the glyph causes more harm to other creatures, thereby glyph causes harm.

That's an incredibly shaky, specious rationalization.

Like I said, your table, your call, but 'harm other creature' is clear. Not 'do a thing which through some completely unrelated circumstance that the spell itself could not possibly know about might cause some harm to someone I deem an enemy'.

The spell is a mousetrap, not a causal chain detection device.

 

[schnee]

I was looking for them to define "harm" not "ward. Because there is certainly room for debate. Could you store the spell Slow in a ward? Yes, because it definitely negatively influences the target. No, because it doesn't inflict injury.

Yeah, I agree with your call. That's a sensible reading of 'harm', and probably why they didn't narrow it down to direct damage spells with the word 'injure'.

 

[ThePolarBear]

It says that you "touch a dead creature . . ." So, I'm picturing you bringing the dead creature, and while touching it, activating the spell glyph.

This is something i've wondered ever since there was the errata and the podcast about targeting where JC explained what "target" actually means. And is another level of "problematic" that can be opened up.

I'll try to be brief, since i do not want to open a biiiig can of worms, just bring my perspective.

Glyph of Warding works with either a spell that targets a single creature OR with a spell that targets an area.

If we take at heart that a "target" is "someone that the spell affects", then pretty much NO spell can be put into a Glyph of Warding, since most spells have an effect on the caster and then on another "touched/pointed/selected" creature, making the spell have 2 targets, being inelegible to be put into a Glyph - making your described way of resurrecting "non RAW" because of "amounts of targets" - and not affecting an area.
Even if not going this route - why would Resurrection be any different than, i dunno, Melf's Acid Arrow? Why is not the creature activating the Glyph gaining the ability to "cast" the spell if this is how the Glyph works? Why should we distinguish between the two spells as one "attacking the triggerer" and the other "making the triggerer the caster"?

If we take that the target is only the "creature" that the spell actually affects - the one touched in the case of Resurrection - than we can have the effect working on a single target.
But... is a "dead creature" a "creature" or an "object"? It's something that, as i wrote before, i'm really unsure how it's fairer to adjudicate. It's clearly an object - it's a corpse. It was clearly a creature, and the is probably mostly what was in life. But... is the head of a dead creature enough to cast Resurrection? Possibly? Is half the body enough? Are those still "creatures"? Are the rests of a 99 years old dead creature still a "creature"?

But if it's a thing, then by RAW it's not possible to inscribe Resurrection in a Glyph of Warding even on this reading of "target".

I guess a DM may rule that the Glyph can only target whomever triggered the glyph, in which case I would make the trigger be that whenever a dead creature touches the glyph (or narrow to humanoid, human, elf, etc.)

Maybe I'm not reading the rules carefully enough, but I'm not seeing why this would not work with the RAW.

RAW Glyph of Warding can only "cast" single target spell that specifically target creatures OR spells with an area of effect. If the spell targets the single creature, the triggering creature becomes the target. The point of me being unsure is... is a "dead creature" a "whomever" or a "whatever"? To me, it's more of a "What" than a "Who" - making Resurrection not inscribable by RAW.

Again, as i've said, i'm not sure that the distinction is RAW, however. But, without thinking too much on it and seeing if the other way around could not break other things, i think this is the safest route to take.

In the end, again... is a "Dead creature" a "creature" or an "object", for targeting purposes?

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Little Late Disclaimer - Rule of Cool > anything, obviously. Just sharing a point of view about why i have some perplexities and i'm reticent of judging this as "RAW OK".

 

[MNblockhead]

The target is clearly "a dead creature."

If it simply said "creature," than your concern over whether a corpse is a creature or an object may be relevant, but it clearly states "dead creature." There is no ambiguity here.

The area where their is ambiguity is that the Resurrection spell states that "You touch a dead creature." Who is "you" when cast by a glyph? Is the object that glyph is on the "you" so that you can read it as "after touching the corpse to the glyph, the glyph casts resurrection..."

I would say that is how it works. A glyph shouldn't impart spell-casting ability to someone, rather it causes the magical effects of a spell stored there to go off. In effect, a spell caster has already cast the spell but by casting it into the glyph the spells effects are delayed until a trigger occurs.

What the DM has to rule on is whether all components for casting thee spell can be met so that it can be cast as part of creating the glyph.

With resurrection, it would be logical to rule that since you don't have the corpse with you at the time of the casting, and since the casting requires that you touch "a dead creature", then you can't cast the resurrection spell as part of creating the glyph.

On the other hand, in a high-magic setting, I think that it would be appropriate for a DM to allow it.