D&D 5E Create or Destroy Water spell ruling

[BigVanVader]

By the time you got to this point face to face, I'd ban you from the table...

In organized play, I'd ask the coordinator to remove you for disruption.

In other words, no.

Not if I stapled my legs to the chair and bribed every single coordinator in your area. We're gonna turn a human being into a container and then destroy the water inside him. I am that says I am!

 

[fjw70]

Back in my youth we used the 1e version of this spell to kill monsters. We were young and it was fun.

 

[Piratecat]

Bonus XP for creativity and sheer tenacity...but no, I would not alter my ruling.

I dunno. If he's been appraised by the container guild as a container, I think the answer is pretty clear. I'm a little more concerned that he's normally full of blood, not water.

 

[Tormyr]

I dunno. If he's been appraised by the container guild as a container, I think the answer is pretty clear. I'm a little more concerned that he's normally full of blood, not water.

So the spell would not kill him. He is already dead! That is what you get for letting the humours out of his body. Next time you send him to the barber, skip the bloodletting.

[video]https://screen.yahoo.com/medieval-barber-000000006.html[/video]

 

[Grazzt]

Specifically, the destroy part of the spell.



One of my players just asked if he can just kill with this spell, since the majority of most creature's body is filled with water anyways. I ruled that since A) a creature is not a container, and B) a creature is definitely not open (at least in the beginning anyways), he cannot just outright kill every humanoid he comes across with this.

What are your thoughts?

I would also say no. If the player insists, then the next NPC party they encounter: all clerics, armed with create/destroy water spells. Have fun.

 

[Jonah Byrne]

why not cast it in their mouth? I'm pretty sure a mouth contains things (and it's technically open through the nasal cavity).

 

[Lanefan]

Loads of reasons why you were right not to allow this. Among them, in addition to those above, you could add that the liquids in a creatures body are not water, they are solutions that contain some water. Blood is not water and the spell specifically states create or destroy water not 'create or destroy water based solutions'.

Which raises a perhaps-more-relevant tangential question: can the spell destroy the water component of an open bucket of, say, whiskey? Or ketchup? Or mud?

It can destroy salt water, we know this, but salt water is not pure water by any means...so at what point does the spell hit a "purity" line beyond which it won't work?

I long ago ruled that Destroy Water has no effect if targeted on or within a living being, though for purely game-mechanical reasons (it's not supposed to be an insta-kill effect); and I wanted it to still work if cast on a corpse to more or less provide instant mummification.

 

[Lanefan]

I dunno. If he's been appraised by the container guild as a container, I think the answer is pretty clear. I'm a little more concerned that he's normally full of blood, not water.

Reminds me of our line back in the day whenever someone new turned out for broomball: "Nice. New blood. Still in the container, too."

 

[practicalm]

What if you had a water elemental in a human suit? A human who had been skinned so the water elemental was hiding inside and infiltrating human society?

 

[Quickleaf]

Specifically, the destroy part of the spell.

One of my players just asked if he can just kill with this spell, since the majority of most creature's body is filled with water anyways. I ruled that since A) a creature is not a container, and B) a creature is definitely not open (at least in the beginning anyways), he cannot just outright kill every humanoid he comes across with this.

What are your thoughts?

So your player wants to treat a 1st level spell like the 8th level Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting?

You know, as DMs we have tools for situations like this. They're called "rocks fall, you die, the tarrasque devours your bones."