Phazonfish
B-Rank Agent
This is great, I never thought of this.
D&D 5E Misty Step in manacles?
- Thread starter GlassJaw
- Start date
This is great, I never thought of this.
Yeah. If I allowed the characters to Misty Step out of manacles it would not be very long at all before one of them decided to Misty Step out of their clothes.
GlassJaw said:
Keep in mind that Misty Step only goes 30' to a space that is in sight. So the characters would see the wizard disappear and reappear 30' away and unable to cast anything but a cantrip.
Best to just gag him and ask yes or no questions.
Of course he could Misty Step 30' away, then Move and Dash to get 90' of distance. No one except a rogue or someone else with the ability to move an extra 30' a round is going to catch up to him. At which point the chase is on (with some excellent ideas for handling it above.)
Lucas Blackstone
Explorer
I would not allow it for manacles alone. Manacles attached to the wall would be left behind because they couldn't travel with you. I think we all agree clothing and gear are intended to go with the caster, and there isn't a reason manacles wouldn't go then. They are an item you are wearing, just like any other, except you don't want to be wearing them.
If your normal ruling was you leave everything behind, then I would be 100 percent behind manacles being left behind, along with the rest of your clothes, focus, spell component pouch, and so on. But like I said, I think most of us agree the intent of the spell is to move with what you have on you.
If your normal ruling was you leave everything behind, then I would be 100 percent behind manacles being left behind, along with the rest of your clothes, focus, spell component pouch, and so on. But like I said, I think most of us agree the intent of the spell is to move with what you have on you.
Henry
Autoexreginated
Were I ruling on this for my game, I'd give an Arcana check, like many others here, make it fairly easy but with a chance of failure (DC 10) where high-level characters have almost no chance to fail, but low-levels still have to worry about low rolls. That way it's not an automatic surety, but still rewards creativity and risk.
If the DM is being that obtuse, well ... time to find a new DM.
If the player is trying to game the system... Time to find a new player.
In my opinion it would depend on the style of manacles, the type that runs through a ring behind them would go with. However the style that is anchored to the wall it's debatable I would probably rule that the spell fails to have an effect and I would let the player know beforehand. Three points to support this.
-At the end of the day what's the difference between steel manacles and a steel bracelet.
-How does the general public (ie. town sheriff) deal with casters when they break the law? Do they just get to run amok doing whatever they want until somebody gets sick of their shenanigans and just offs them? Consider for example how (for lack of a better term) how primal that world is, wouldn't it make sense for people just to off casters immediately in order to keep the general public safe if 90% of the public can't do squat about casters? Does this mean that the world runs as it does because casters generally don't care for anything for some reason? Consider the power that magic would provide and the corruption that would quickly happen should any of our world suddenly get magic for some reason and try telling me that it's not going to happen there?
-Thirdly is ruling the player gets to decide would quickly lead to players attempting to exploit the system for their own benefit, what's the difference between a lizard skin cape and a lizard, how about if I just teleport the dragons skin? Ruling in a manner that gives the player the power in these situations has in my experience (6 years of pen and paper style rpg's) led to people trying to game the system for the own benefit.
My games now run with more then a little realism in them in order to avoid these types of behaviors.
I wouldn't rule the spell to fail, because escaping bonds is one of it's main purposes.
My reasoning is, if they want to contain spell casters, all they have to do is also gag them. No Somatic and no Verbal components means No spells. This is assuming they know about casters, or at least know that the pc is a caster. Either that or they can just gag every person they capture, on the general principle that they might be a caster.
[MENTION=6801219]Lanliss[/MENTION]
Except we know that this isn't the case. I'm sure you've been playing long enough and done interrogation scenes from both sides of the bars (not to mention captures) that you know this isn't the case in any campaign. I disagree that it's main focus is for escaping bonds as if you've gotten that far something has seriously gone wrong. I would allow it to be used to escape a grapple or a pit trap or really anything of that nature. Beyond that the (two lines I think?) are ambiguous enough that it's open to gm interpretation and I don't think it's intent is to be a true teleportation but more of a utility spell.
Except we know that this isn't the case. I'm sure you've been playing long enough and done interrogation scenes from both sides of the bars (not to mention captures) that you know this isn't the case in any campaign. I disagree that it's main focus is for escaping bonds as if you've gotten that far something has seriously gone wrong. I would allow it to be used to escape a grapple or a pit trap or really anything of that nature. Beyond that the (two lines I think?) are ambiguous enough that it's open to gm interpretation and I don't think it's intent is to be a true teleportation but more of a utility spell.
If it wasn't at least partly meant for escaping bonds it wouldn't have a verbal only component. It also says nothing about anything stopping the teleport. One could certainly rule, by the rules of their world, that certain materials stop the teleportation from happening, but that is not by RAW or, I believe, RAI.
Honestly I hadn't noticed that it only has a verbal component that does change things a bit and will require a rethink, however I never said anything about certain materials stopping it nor do I think would manacles (provided they aren't the full hand encompassing type) prevent a somatic portion of a spell being used. Nowhere that I can find does it say spells require your hands to be in front of you and imho if it did you would have a lot of trouble casting a lot of the old spells (and without knowing the full current spell list) and a lot of the new ones that deal with giving bonuses to NPC interaction "Your a friend right now but I just saw you wiggle your fingers at me and I've never seen you before in my life". IIRC in old editions the person became best friends.
At the end of the day how people see spellcasters, magic, and spells in the world changes what people think they can do. I had a conversation with a friend a few years back that really put it in perspective for me. Long story short he believed characters are born heroes while I believe characters become heroes. Magic could very well be put in that same light.
As an aside your pointing out that the spells doesn't say anything about manacles stopping teleportation it also doesn't say anything about being aloud to choose what you bring or that it doesn't bring certain things. It's two line descriptor really leaves it completely open to interpretation and assuming that it does what you want because of something unrelated (vocal component only) doesn't really support that.
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