D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[Bleys Icefalcon]

There's no need for either of those solutions. The game works fine, you just have to follow the rules for how these game elements interact.

Yes, and no. Any character that simply cannot be killed is o/p imho. Advantages are fine and dandy. I do not believe the intent of this ability was to annex the ability of doing someting stupid. Case in point: I wild shape, my LAST wildshape of a given day, into a Chimpanzee, and as a Chimpanzee I am climbing a cliff face. For some god-awful reason I get knocked off that cliff face and fall, oh, 1000 feet is a nice round number. I go SPLAT. Then I revert to my Druidic natural form, hop up, no worse for wear.

SPLAT is SPLAT

 

[Noctem]

Yes, and no. Any character that simply cannot be killed is o/p imho. Advantages are fine and dandy. I do not believe the intent of this ability was to annex the ability of doing someting stupid. Case in point: I wild shape, my LAST wildshape of a given day, into a Chimpanzee, and as a Chimpanzee I am climbing a cliff face. For some god-awful reason I get knocked off that cliff face and fall, oh, 1000 feet is a nice round number. I go SPLAT. Then I revert to my Druidic natural form, hop up, no worse for wear.

SPLAT is SPLAT

The intent of wildshape is not to make you unkillable, you can be killed in numerous ways including but not limited to outright death (like disintegrate if it brings the druid's actual HP bar to 0 and he fails a save). It does make the druid very resilient, granted.

In your example, the fall would presumably deal damage. That damage would then be applied to the current HP of the wildshaped druid. If that damage brings the wildshaped form hp to 0, the druid would revert. Any remaining damage would then be applied to the druid.

If as the DM you determine that the druid has no chance of surviving the fall, hence your splat is splat comment, then that's fine. That's your prerogative as the DM. However if you get into dealing damage with the fall, you can't then complain that you didn't actually kill the druid because the wildshape HP provided enough of a buffer for him/her to survive the fall. And also, killing the character with said fall should not be your goal as the DM to be clear

And to be even more direct, if you were to fall 1000 feet, by the rules you would then take 100d6 damage with an average damage of probably around... 400~? So the odds of you surviving the fall, with damage rolled (and god who wants to stare at the DM rolling 100 d6's...), are basically 0%. I wouldn't even roll in this kind of situation if it really came down to someone falling 1000 feet after all the steps I would have taken to prevent that from happening.

Though this does remind of me an encounter in Eberron where one of my players decided he wanted to jump across 2 balconeys in the city of Sharn (Both the other players and myself warned him it was a bad idea) and he fumbled his athletics. Lucky for him though he was a vampire and transformed into a bat 500 feet down when his turn came up to save himself. It was very funny to watch him fumble the roll though.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

I agree with you! What I do not agree with is Wild Shape Chimpanzee falls from great height. It has 20 HP. It takes A GAZILLION HP damage when it goes splat. It reverts to Druid true form... un-harmed.

 

[jaelis]

I agree with you! What I do not agree with is Wild Shape Chimpanzee falls from great height. It has 20 HP. It takes A GAZILLION HP damage when it goes splat. It reverts to Druid true form... un-harmed.

Unless I completely misremember, the rules explicitly explain that it does not work this way. If you take damage that reduces your wild shape form to zero, you revert an any excess damage is applied to your normal form. So if you're a chimp with 10 hp and take 30 hp from the fall, you'll carry 20 hp of damage over to your normal form.

I don't have my books on me, but I'm pretty that's how it works...

 

[Noctem]

It is yes. I think he's more opposed to people saying that's how it works than actually saying it works that way himself.

 

[epithet]

I think a fall of 1,000 feet isn't 100d6 damage, it is 99d6 because you get 10 feet free. I could be wrong.

Anyway, 100d6 is an average 350 hit points of damage. The chimp would take 20 and revert to the druid's natural form. The druid would then take 330 hit points of damage and almost certainly be instantly killed, no death saves permitted.

What people are not considering is that if you handle the disintegrate issue correctly, there is still a chance of ashing the druid. If the druid is in a fragile form, like a bird doing reconnaissance, then almost all of the damage from the disintegrate spell will be applied to his druid health pool, which could very possibly bring him to zero and -poof- goodbye. Wild shape is not an "I Win!" button.

 

[Maxperson]

No he's not correct. The target of the spell is the druid, not the wildshape form. The druid, which is the target of the spell, is never reduced to 0 hit points. Just like if you had temp HP, you would not be turned to dust just because you went to 0 temp HP. He's completely wrong.

I can't be completely wrong. The target is the druid who assumes the beasts hit points. He has a pool of X hit points where = the beast he assumed. When that pool hits 0, the druid hits 0. He THEN reverts and re-assumes his old pool. That's how RAW is written. You are making things up when you say otherwise. Druid hit point while in wild shape are not temporary hit points and cannot be treated like them because they are different.

The only way to change that order is if the game element specifically states that it does. Wildshape specifically says that you revert back to druid form during the resolution of damage, if that damage would reduce the wildshape form to 0 hit points AND that you take any remaining damage after reverting. Disintegrate does not specify anything like that for turning stuff to dust and instead would be restricted to having the turned to dust effect happen in the 3rd step of Making an Attack. At which point, the druid has already reverted back to druid form. The check is then made vs the current HP pool and not against the wildshape hp pool like if it was a seperate target of the spell. The druid is never turned to ash unless the spell deals enough damage to cause the wildshape to revert and the druid to be reduced to 0 hit points.

This is also making things up. There is no rule that says that the check which happens at 0 does not happen when the wild shaped druid hit 0, OR that the ashing effect somehow unchecks itself once the damage continues on to the druids second pool of hit points.

 

[Maxperson]

No I'm suggesting the opposite, that the target is the druid, not the wildshape form because the wildshape form is not something that can be specifically targeted the way maxperson is saying.

Um. I've said repeatedly that the target is the druid with a separate health pool for the wild shaped creature. You must be thinking of some other Maxperson.

The wildshape form being reduced to 0 hp is not even capable to trigger things that trigger from a target or creature being reduced to 0 HP from damage. It is not a separate creature which can proc those effects. The only way those effects can proc is by the DRUID being reduced to 0 HP. That's why Jeremy Crawford said that disintegrate doesn't proc from reducing wildshape to 0 HP. It is not the target of the spell.

It doesn't have to be a separate creature. It just has to be a separate pool like RAW writes it out to be. Crawford also never said that it does not proc from wild shape (two words by the way. Look it up) hitting 0 hit points. He in fact carefully AVOIDED saying that and instead told me the intent of the rule, not whether the rule as written causes the effect to proc.

 

[Maxperson]

The rules say, "When you (the druid) transform, you (the druid) assume the beast's hit points and hit dice." The only rational interpretation is that the druid assumes those hit points as a separate pool from his own. It's impossible for it to be a shared pool, because if it was, the druid would have more hit points than the beast. Further, the rules say, "You (the druid) automatically revert if you fall unconscious, revert to 0 hit points, or die." The only rational interpretation is that the druid, since it says the druid, hits 0 hit points, since it says he hits 0 hit points, and it happens prior to reversion.

Those arguing that the above is wrong don't know what they are talking about.

 

[Noctem]

And what you're bringing up now is irrelevant to the discussion...