D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[Maxperson]

In other words, you have both. You have both the hit points of the beast form, and your original pool of hit points. They are both your remaining health.

Again, this does nothing about the fact that the druid hits 0 hit points before he engages the second pool of health. Disintegrate doesn't read, "So long as you have health left.." It only cares if 0 is hit.

The reason it works this way, is because the Druid is supposed to transform back to his old self whenever he takes too much damage. This allows the Druid to be a little bit tanky. And Disintegrate is a damage based spell. So I see no reason why that would suddenly replace the core mechanic of a class.

That's reasonable, but it's not how RAW reads when it comes to the non-damage portion of disintegrate. WotC got the wording wrong on this one, which is also reasonable. Nobody can get every interaction right in a game like this.

Yes, disintegrate does say in its description that anything that reaches 0 hp is dusted. What they should have said, is anything that has no life left is dusted instead. Now we have a pointless circle discussion over something that could be ruled either way, but of which the original intent is pretty clear.

Agreed. The wording is bad.

So does anyone still feel that vague rule descriptions are better than clear rules?

Absolutely. The current wording allows groups who want the game to be more dangerous to use RAW, while at the same time allowing people who don't want it to be more dangerous to use RAI.

 

[Noctem]

I don't think it's fair to say that a solid base would prevent people from making houserules. In fact I don't think that makes any sense at all.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think it's fair to say that a solid base would prevent people from making houserules. In fact I don't think that makes any sense at all.

I've seen it happen many times. I've also seen many DMs who will change rules, clear or not. Many DMs are loathe to change a rule with crystal clear meaning. However, pretty much all DMs will make rulings on rules that are open to interpretation, thereby creating a new house rule for that group.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

If you want the DM to control the game play Advanced, 2nd, 3.0-3.5 and 5e. If you don't play 4th...=P

 

[Maxperson]

If you want the DM to control the game play Advanced, 2nd, 3.0-3.5 and 5e. If you don't play 4th...=P

3e was the hardest for me to DM, though the most fun. The reason being was that each rule was spelled out to the nth degree. That gave the players more to fight me on if I wanted to rule something differently.

 

[Imaculata]

I've seen it happen many times. I've also seen many DMs who will change rules, clear or not. Many DMs are loathe to change a rule with crystal clear meaning. However, pretty much all DMs will make rulings on rules that are open to interpretation, thereby creating a new house rule for that group.

I don't think a rule book should encourage people to decide for themselves what the rule should be. That seems like the opposite of what a rule book is supposed to do. And yet when you leave descriptions open to interpretation, that is exactly what you do.

It would not have hurt the game one bit if Disintegrate had an extra sentence that explained how it interacts with Wild shape and other such transformations.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think a rule book should encourage people to decide for themselves what the rule should be. That seems like the opposite of what a rule book is supposed to do. And yet when you leave descriptions open to interpretation, that is exactly what you do.

They aren't deciding on what the rule should be so much as deciding details of a rule provided. An example. The rule is a fork. The DM isn't deciding whether the rule is a fork or a spoon. It's a fork. He's just deciding whether it has three tines or four.

It would not have hurt the game one bit if Disintegrate had an extra sentence that explained how it interacts with Wild shape and other such transformations.

I agree. Disintegrate isn't an example of a rule written vaguely. It's an example of an oversight on interactions due to the designers being human.

 

[Arial Black]

Disintegrate isn't an example of a rule written vaguely. It's an example of an oversight on interactions due to the designers being human.

It's vague enough that two opposing opinions both think that the contrary opinion is unsupportable.

The wording could have been such that there would be no doubt. For example:_

"If, after completely resolving the damage from this spell, the target has no hit points remaining, the target is turned to dust," etc.

 

[Noctem]

It's vague enough that two opposing opinions both think that the contrary opinion is unsupportable.

The wording could have been such that there would be no doubt. For example:_

"If, after completely resolving the damage from this spell, the target has no hit points remaining, the target is turned to dust," etc.

To be clear Arial your example is already how it's supposed to work by following the Making an Attack section of the PHB which covers all forms of attacks (melee, spell, etc..) I feel that most people who say it's ambiguous after the clarification from JC and everything else just don't understand the rules as a whole that they are trying to discuss. Just need to spread the info from the various sections of the PHB which are relevant imo...

 

[seebs]

Yes, disintegrate does say in its description that anything that reaches 0 hp is dusted. What they should have said, is anything that has no life left is dusted instead. Now we have a pointless circle discussion over something that could be ruled either way, but of which the original intent is pretty clear.

I don't think it is actually clear, because if it were people wouldn't have reached contradictory conclusions from it.

So does anyone still feel that vague rule descriptions are better than clear rules?

If "clear rules" are "rules about which discussions like this don't happen", I have never seen "clear rules". Ever.

There's a spell in Pathfinder that lets you restore life to someone who was killed within the last round. It can in theory be cast on someone who was disintegrated. What happens? Well, there was a thread much like this one on the topic.