D&D 5E What exactly is an "object" for purposes of the Reduce spell?

[aco175]

It is odd that when used on a person, all their parts, i.e. clothes, weapons, armor, etc... shrink as well. When used on an object like a door, the DM asks which part you are trying for.

I get the idea that it sucks when you shrink and are naked, similar to turning invisible and your clothing does not. It makes sense for game purposes. Saying an item is different than a person may be ok to get around this, but then you open interpretation to parts of objects and things saying a door is part of a castle or dungeon and not a separate object. Then the player wants to shrink the whole castle instead. Even a simple frying pan may have parts such as a wooden handle and not simply one piece of metal.

I would be leery about allowing too much, but would still want to reward cleverness. Say a door is made up of several parts and you just shrink the lock or hinges to force the door to open or fall off, maybe sounds fine. Could I shrink the rope holding up a drawbridge and hope that the rope now breaks from not being thick enough to bear the weight? Sounds ok on its face. There should be some limits on the use though.

The next question would then be castles and doors with anti-reduce enchantments if this trick is soo easy.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, and there's a reason for that. 5E and all the designers within keep telling all of us that the DM should make a ruling that makes sense for their table. It's literally the DM's job to interpret the rules and make the decision.

But yet all these people STILL keep bugging Jeremy (aka Sage Advice) about "what's right?". "What's RAW?" Because they won't take "What your DM decides" for an answer. So instead, Jeremy just gives the most straightforward, nitpicky, English language interpretation of the rules language he can and says "This is what the rules say." Even if HE HIMSELF does not actually play the game that way. It's simply his way of telling these people "Be careful what you wish for." Cause I believe he hopes that if the people who read the ruling go "That's STUPID!" that they will ignore Sage Advice and make their own ruling instead.

Which is what they should have been doing in the first place.

I agree with you that he gives the most literal interpretation of the letter of the rules possible, but I don’t think he’s playing 4d chess, trying to give intentionally poor rulings so people won’t listen to him any more. Rather, I think that when people ask for an “official” ruling, they’re rejecting the DM’s authority in favor of the designers’ authority. But if the design intent was to defer to the DM’s authority, the only other authority left to turn to is the letter of the rules.

Of course, early Sage Advice took a different approach, giving detailed exploration of RAW, RAI, and RAF, so as to give the DM as much information as possible with which to make their own ruling. I wish Jeremy would have kept that approach up. I can only imagine it got to be too much work.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd put some sort of size or mass or volume limiter on the spell, that increases with level, such that a 4th-level wizard can't hope to touch something like Thorbardin's 40-ton door but a 17th-level wizard casting the same spell could affect it.

As for the specific question: to me it'd depend on how the door is made. If it's one big piece of wood then I'd probably let it work. If it's made of a series of planks then the spell will get one plank only (which would likely render the door kinda useless anyway).

 

[Shiroiken]

I'd be fine with it for multiple reasons.

1. It fits within the concept framework of object. If a door is a single object (per the description) then a gate would be the same. They provide exactly the same function, meaning if the gate was just a large door it would be exactly the same. The only thing that's changed is the name of the object.
2. The player could simply shrink the lock on the gate itself, opening it anyway.

 

[turnip_farmer]

It is odd that when used on a person, all their parts, i.e. clothes, weapons, armor, etc... shrink as well.

They do? I see no sign of that in the rules. I would expect my shrunken players to be naked and unarmed.

 

[Charlaquin]

They do? I see no sign of that in the rules. I would expect my shrunken players to be naked and unarmed.

The spell literally says “If the target is a creature, everything it is wearing and carrying changes size with it.”

 

[toucanbuzz]

I'd put some sort of size or mass or volume limiter on the spell...

Which hits my secondary concern about my ruling. If I permit this fortress gate, which is roughly a 15' wide and 10' tall series of tightly wrapped logs that can be moved side to side, to be interpreted as a "big door," am I creating precedent later for the Thorbardin gate?

EDIT: The 5E version may be a combo of the original 1st level enlarge person and 3rd level shrink item. That previously had a limit of: "touch, object up to 2 cubic feet per level." They envisioned then a limit.

 

[Lanefan]

Which hits my secondary concern about my ruling. If I permit this fortress gate, which is roughly a 15' wide and 10' tall series of tightly wrapped logs that can be moved side to side, to be interpreted as a "big door," am I creating precedent later for the Thorbardin gate?

If it's made of individual logs you're already off the hook: the spell only gets one log. If the logs are so well wrapped the caster can't get at any logs, then the wrapping gets shrunk instead.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you shrink the hinges, the door will snap right off under it's own weight. Problem solved.

If you shrink the latch you can just push the door open.

A door may well be made of multiple parts, but they are all required for the door to function. Shrinking any one of those parts is as effective as shrinking the whole door.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I've kept puzzling through D&D 5E as Crawford's "look at the DMG p246" Sage Advice answer seemed less than satisfactory. So, keep with "if a door is an object that can be reduced, is a gate of any size also an object?" Both have essentially the same design and function, along with multiple parts.

I went looking for a wooden fortress door and this fits the dimensions of the fort in question:

In short, yeah, it's probably an object, much like the "door" of Daern's Instant Fortress. A building has to have walls; it doesn't have to have a door. So, that's why doors are considered "discrete."

But, I don't like the precedent I could create with a ruling that the size of the object doesn't matter. Otherwise, the largest statue in the world could be affected by a 3rd level novice wizard. So, I'm thinking we have to rely on "DM discretion" for this, especially since I came from an edition where reasonable limits were put on how much volume could be affected by "shrink item."