D&D General Beholders and anti magic

[Flamestrike]

Are you sure I'm still wrong?

Yes. I am 100 percent convinced of that fact, and a cursory google search will reveal you're in the absolute minority view.

The Devs explained in plain English how it's supposed to work for you in Sage Advice on their own website and you're obtusely and wilfully ignoring that. It is utterly impossible for someone to read that article on how the rules work, and draw the conclusion you're drawing here.

You're smarter than that. Stop being obtuse and at least admit that clearly, the intent of the rules is that Golems function just fine in an AMF (barring any abilities they have that are expressly noted as being magical like the Stone Golems Slow) and Dragons dont fall out of the sky in one either.

How many other monsters have Anti-Magic Susceptibility? Right. So animated objects are the only ones affected by an AMF. Homunculus and shield guardian don't have it. I guess they're not magical. /snark

No, Homonculi and Shield guardians are 'magical' (use background magic that is explicitly unaffected by an AMF) but not 'magical; for the purpose of game effects.

Just like Dragons and Beholders and Demons and Angels and Monks using Ki to walk on water are 'magical' but not magical for the purpose of game effects.

That suggests an intent that goes beyond what spells do.

It suggests nothing of the sort. You're wrong on this one.

Rule differently in your own game man. Go nuts.

Just dont sit here claiming otherwise is 'RAW'. You're dead wrong on that.

 

[werecorpse]

first, thanks for the responses and both sides of the argument. It helped. I’m gonna go with the sage advice style interpretation but

Ok I have run stage 1 of my beholder trap.
I ruled that weapons that were magical but were in an AMF would affect a creature that was immune to non magic weapons as if they were resistant to them. They fought some helmed horrors (Who didnt fly because they didn’t need to but I would have ruled couldnt while in the AMF), skeletal creatures and a troll. They managed to defeat the creatures but didnt lay a glove on the beholder and their sorcerer got disintegrated (it got complicated).

couple of questions that came up (and how I ruled)

• the life cleric hit someone with his staff, would he get his bonus d8 radiant damage? I ruled yes at the time because I was trying to let them know not ALLL magic (Ie non earth reality stuff) was shut down, but I think I should have ruled it didn’t work - still up in the air.
• If a 0hp unconscious person in an AMF is fed a potion of healing do its effects kick in immediately when they leave the AMF? (This didn’t happen but I would have ruled yes they do - it’s suppressed while in the AMF but the magic liquid is in the body and once the AMF goes away the healing happens).

 

[dave2008]

Giants - why? I hear T-rexes were pretty tall. So are elephants.

By the square cube law a Huge giant (of the same proportions as a human) would be approximately 50x heavier, but its bones and muscles would be less 14x as strong. So it is real issue for giants. Elephants and dino's have specific modifications that allow them to function. Heck, if you look at the changes in a T-Rex through its life cycle it is a pretty interesting essay on the problems of increase mass and maintaining mobility. In the end, the full grown T-Rex is much stockier and more plodding than its graceful youth.

Since giants, as depicted in D&D, are just big humans (pretty much the exact same proportions), then the explanation for why they are so similar is typically magic, other wise they would have a hard time moving around. Think an 800lb person with a 160lbs persons bones.

PS there is an official response to this issue and AntiMagic in 5e will not drop a flying dragon or cancel its breathweapon.

 

[dave2008]

The 7 guidelines might not specifically reference a flying dragon, but feel free to reference the end of my post, which quotes the Basic Rules (and PHB?) as referring to a "fantastic monster" as a "minor" evidence of magic. I would like to make the extension that a flying, ancient, white dragon is a Major evidence of magic.

A dragon is not summoned or created by magic - that is the guideline for creatures in the anti-magic spell. Therefore it is not affected by anti-magic. Simple really

 

[Stalker0]

One of my favorite monsters for my last CR 20 dungeon.... an Adamantine Golem in an AMF. Took the party a bit to figure that one out

 

[GMMichael]

The horse is dead, dave.

By the square cube law a Huge giant (of the same proportions as a human) would be approximately 50x heavier, but its bones and muscles would be less 14x as strong. . . Elephants and dino's have specific modifications that allow them to function.

Quoted and filed under "obvious retort."

PS there is an official response to this issue and AntiMagic in 5e will not drop a flying dragon or cancel its breathweapon.

I 99% guarantee this is because dragons are a sacred cow. Although you'll note that I noted (above) some conditions regarding AMFs and dragons.

A dragon is not summoned or created by magic - that is the guideline for creatures in the anti-magic spell. Therefore it is not affected by anti-magic. Simple really

Far out, man.

 

[werecorpse]

Yeah, sorry guys I didn’t mean to necro the thread to revisit those arguments. It’s pretty clear that DMMike and various others have settled in different corners on this particular argument and won’t now change their mind - so be it. I’m in the corner with the people other than DMMike but if that’s how you want to play AMF so be it.

 

[dave2008]

The horse is dead, dave.

Quoted and filed under "obvious retort."


I 99% guarantee this is because dragons are a sacred cow. Although you'll note that I noted (above) some conditions regarding AMFs and dragons.


Far out, man.
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My apologies for responding. I noticed after my post that others hard already covered the same material more clearly and in more detail and you still fail to agree with the RAW or the RAI. Which is fine, I do it for many things, but I own when I do.

I also didn't realize this was a necro'd thread.

 

[wingsandsword]

I’m building the lair of a beholder who is meant to be smart connected and powerful. I see that animated object monsters like flying swords have anti magic susceptibility but golems don’t. Does this mean that such a creature works as normal in an antimagic cone?

So the beholder could say disintegrate a room so it had a covered position 100’ above an entrance then loose a creature immune to non magic weapons (say a golem) and under an anti magic cone let it beat the party up?

how would you interpret anti magic Ray in this circumstance?

You didn't specify 5e in this, you tagged it as general, so I will note that this scenario could work very differently in other editions.

In 3e, for example, creature abilities were explicitly labeled as "Extraordinary", "Supernatural" or "Spell-like", the latter two would be suppressed in an anti-magic field, the former wouldn't. So dragons could fly in anti-magic (for example). Golems or other constructs wouldn't cease to exist though. Removing these clear distinctions I think was a real weakness of 5e, there's a reason these sorts of things were included in monster entries. . . specifically for these questions. I remember plenty of arguments over these points back when playing 2e that I welcomed the clarifications in 3e and realized why they were there.

Also, creatures weren't immune to non-magic weapons in 3.x, they had damage reduction, they might take 5 or 10 or even 15 points less damage unless hit with the right kind of weapon (magic, silver, adamantine, etc), which meant that an anti-magic field might make something stronger by depriving PC's of magic weapons, if it required a silver or adamantine weapon to hit, they didn't stop being those metals just because of an anti-magic field.

Just providing a bit of perspective on how other editions besides the one you're probably thinking of would have handled the situation.