D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[Maxperson]

So you can notice a slight change in wording, that slowly creeps into this spell with each new edition. At first it was instant death, and with 3rd edition it actually became damage based. The Forgotten Realms wiki states it as follows:

"Older versions of Disintegrate made the target disappear no matter if it was a creature, or magical matter or 1" cubic volume of other material. The newer versions spell struck and injured a target, and if killed, the ray caused the creature to disintegrate into a pile of fine dust, although any equipment is not affected. The ray can also disintegrates as much as one 10-foot cube of nonliving matter, even objects constructed entirely of force, but cannot effect magical effects such as a globe of invulnerability. Only one creature or object can be affected per casting."

No, this is incorrect. It IS a pure damage spell from 3rd edition and upwards. The Forgotten Realms wiki backs this up. Starting with 3rd edition, the spell only does its effect at 0 HP or less. This is because in 3rd edition you don't actually die until you are at less than -10 hitpoints. So any damage that would put you in the "dying" or "bleeding out" state, triggers the effect. But it does require the damage to bring you down to the level where you would be dying.
It has no longer been the insta-kill spell for two editions already.

3e says 0 or fewer hit points = disintegrated. 0 doesn't kill a PC, but it does disintegrate him. 0 is also not dying in 3e, so that is wrong as well. You have to be -1 or greater to be dying. So no, it's not pure damage, nor does it need to kill. The FR wiki doesn't change that. At best, it becomes a house rule for the spell for that setting only.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Maxperson]

When the question is an ambiguous rules question, involving the order of operations for a wild-shaped druid and a disintegrate spell-

That's not what Arial Black is arguing, though. He's arguing that his house rule which adds "instead" to the wild shape rules that not only do not use that word, but don't even imply it, is "reason" and a part of the rules. By that "reason", my house rule that disintegrate doesn't ash a wild shaped druid, but instead causes him to smell like fresh roses is also part of the rules.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Arial Black]

The game is exception-based. It sets out the rules, and then every spell/special ability breaks certain rules in the exact way specified in the spell/ability.

Although each spell/ability tells you how it alters the basic rules, they do not tell you how they impact other spells/abilities that also break the same rules! For this, we are expected to use our reason; more so in 5E than in 3E or 4E.

Reason tells us that the orc/barbarian abilities, the new monk ability from SCAG, Wild Shape, etc. do not have the character actually die/fall unconscious and then heal, but that the special ability removes its own trigger, just like the shield spell.

 

[seebs]

In second edition this certainly was the case:



And in 3rd edition:



So you can notice a slight change in wording, that slowly creeps into this spell with each new edition. At first it was instant death, and with 3rd edition it actually became damage based. The Forgotten Realms wiki states it as follows:

"Older versions of Disintegrate made the target disappear no matter if it was a creature, or magical matter or 1" cubic volume of other material. The newer versions spell struck and injured a target, and if killed, the ray caused the creature to disintegrate into a pile of fine dust, although any equipment is not affected. The ray can also disintegrates as much as one 10-foot cube of nonliving matter, even objects constructed entirely of force, but cannot effect magical effects such as a globe of invulnerability. Only one creature or object can be affected per casting."



No, this is incorrect. It IS a pure damage spell from 3rd edition and upwards. The Forgotten Realms wiki backs this up. Starting with 3rd edition, the spell only does its effect at 0 HP or less. This is because in 3rd edition you don't actually die until you are at less than -10 hitpoints. So any damage that would put you in the "dying" or "bleeding out" state, triggers the effect. But it does require the damage to bring you down to the level where you would be dying.
It has no longer been the insta-kill spell for two editions already.

Uh, that's exactly the thing I was pointing out. Disintegrate kills you at 0. It doesn't have to reach -10. It doesn't have to make you fail three death saves. It kills you even if it has not done enough damage to kill you.

A "pure damage" spell cannot kill you in 3E if you don't get dropped to -10 hit points.

 

[seebs]

The game is exception-based. It sets out the rules, and then every spell/special ability breaks certain rules in the exact way specified in the spell/ability.

Although each spell/ability tells you how it alters the basic rules, they do not tell you how they impact other spells/abilities that also break the same rules! For this, we are expected to use our reason; more so in 5E than in 3E or 4E.

Reason tells us that the orc/barbarian abilities, the new monk ability from SCAG, Wild Shape, etc. do not have the character actually die/fall unconscious and then heal, but that the special ability removes its own trigger, just like the shield spell.

The "removes its own trigger" is not particularly obvious to me, and is only stated for some of them. And it's not at all obvious that they are intended to prevent other procs such as the cleave effect.

Any time you have to say "reason tells us", but you haven't actually outlined an argument that everyone else agrees is persuasive, the chances are that the argument is not actually fully persuasive, and there's something other than just "reason" informing the decision.

 

[Arial Black]

The "removes its own trigger" is not particularly obvious to me, and is only stated for some of them. And it's not at all obvious that they are intended to prevent other procs such as the cleave effect.

Any time you have to say "reason tells us", but you haven't actually outlined an argument that everyone else agrees is persuasive, the chances are that the argument is not actually fully persuasive, and there's something other than just "reason" informing the decision.

If these things that move you to 1 hp (or, in the case of the druid, to his own hp pool) when reduced to 0 hp don't remove their own trigger then the target suffers the consequences of 0 hp.

Druids fall unconscious or die and then move to their own hp, orcs/barbarians actually fall unconscious/die and then heal 1 hp. Even wizards actually get hit (and that hit could kill them!), and then cast a shield spell (while dead!) which somehow draws the javelin back out of their brain, actually heal to the hp total they had before the hit, and the javelin now moves forward again and bounces off a mystical shield which wasn't there when the javelin actually pierced your brain.

If you run your games like this....good luck to you. But don't pretend that this interpretation and the 'removes its own trigger' interpretation have equal merit.

No-one can actually prove that The Easter Bunny did not create the entire universe, but I wouldn't teach that in schools and claim I'm 'teaching the controversy'. Just because it's possible to come up with an interpretation does not mean that every interpretation is equally likely to be true.

Although, at first glance, you could think that both interpretations are fair because of the wording, once you think it through you realise that the consequences of the 'trigger still actually happened' interpretation lead to absurdity, therefore that this interpretation is highly unlikely, to say the least.

 

[Pssthpok]

The phrase "remove their own trigger" is misleading. Reactions and other such effects "interrupt" their triggers. You can cast shield and still get hit, for instance.

By this logic, you can get reduced to 0 hit points in wildshape and the moment when you revert to your own hit point total can be seen as an interruption of the normal steps invoked upon reaching 0 hit points. In fact, that's almost exactly what it is.

Same with disintegrate. Disintegrate is the trigger, which the wildshape reversion interrupts, thereby denying it the "at 0 hit points" trigger unless the remaining damage, per the wildshape rules, is enough to reduce the druid to 0 hit points in their true form.

Basically, disintegrate can't invoke it's "reduce to ash" trick until a) the target is reduced to 0 hit points from the damage dealt and b), the spell is done dealing damage. Effects that interrupt the damage of the disintegrate spell don't trigger the "reduce to ash" trick.

 

[seebs]

If these things that move you to 1 hp (or, in the case of the druid, to his own hp pool) when reduced to 0 hp don't remove their own trigger then the target suffers the consequences of 0 hp.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. You're instantly being healed, so you're not at zero hit points, even though you were reduced to zero hit points.