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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kerbarian" data-source="post: 2969851" data-attributes="member: 40393">It's "impervious to most magical effects" (including Sp and Su), with the exception stated later that "The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field".It's true that the D&D rules do an imperfect job of representing physics, but they do try to represent real physics.  In your example, the D&D rules for lava would result in the immediate death 99.9%+ of humans who are submerged in it.  Some edge cases may not be realistic, but the typical effect of lava on humans in the D&D rules is about what I'd expect from real physics.Making the orb spells work as nonmagical would require amazing contortions of physics in some cases (e.g. an orb of fire would have to be plasma of nuclear temperatures which travels to its target within microseconds to avoid exploding in the caster's face -- it clearly couldn't appear as an orb of flames with a visible travel time as described in the spell) and is flat-out impossible in other cases (orb of cold or sound).I'm not saying that my interpretation is the only possible one -- I'm just saying that it's consistent with the RAW and is, IMO, a more plausible explanation for the spell's effects than the interpretation that the conjuration is complete when the orb is still at the caster's palm.Your interpretation is also consistent with the RAW -- you just have to make up lots of non-real-world physics for it to work.If I conjure a wall of stone, break off a chunk, and bash someone over the head with it, does it not deal damage just because the spell doesn't mention it?  Orb of Force doesn't say anything about the properties of the nonmagical orb that's left over -- it just states how much damage is dealt directly by the spell.  If we go with your interpretation that the leftover orb is forever incapable of dealing more damage, though, what happens if I cover the underside of a 20-ton stone block with orbs of force and drop it on someone?  Does it not deal damage?  What if I cover my body with orbs of force and then let ogres bash me with clubs?  Still no damage?Incidentally, my interpretation also avoids this messy problem.  Just say that the normal behavior of a nonmagical orb of force is to immediately wink out of existence.  The conjuration keeps it around for the instantaneous duration of the spell (including the impact against the target), and then the spell ends and the leftover, nonmagical orb winks out.The conjuration is complete by the end of the instantaneous duration.  What doesn't fit about that?An orb appears at your palm -- that means that the conjuration has had at least some effect at that point, but that doesn't mean it's complete.  Per the description of instantaneous conjuration (creation) spells, the orb is "assembled through magic".  There's nothing that says that process happens in zero time.  Plenty of other instantaneous duration spells involve a sequence of events that take noticable time -- e.g. fireball, which involves a bead that travels to the target location and then explodes, all during the instantaneous duration.</blockquote>

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