D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[Maxperson]

I have offered multiple explanations but, again, you're not willing to see reason because you dont agree with it. The rules don't state the druid dies, the rules dont state piles of dust cannot be alive but you'd argue "a pile of dust cannot survive because it's a pile of dust" when the druid could've just been a shark swimming underwater for all we know. Again, there's no ambiguity only people being allowed to interpret it themselves in a way that is clearly not written by adding in their own wordings of certain events.

Rules dont say dust dies, rules say the druid reverts. You choose to kill the druid that's your business but the rules are clear, no ambiguity.

Even if you decide that the druid doesn't die when it turns to dust, it is still a living pile of reverted dust afterwards. Jeremy Crawford gave me a direct ruling that stated that becoming dust is not a change of form. That means that reversion of form won't undo it. Your strict interpretation still just leaves the druid a living pile of reverted dust with no way to become normal again.

 

[seebs]

Rules dont say dust dies, rules say the druid reverts. You choose to kill the druid that's your business but the rules are clear, no ambiguity.

There are two possibilities here:

1. You are intelligent and everyone disagreeing with you is stupid.
2. There is an ambiguity in the rules which you are not perceiving.

You seem to be pretty committed to the first, I would favor the second. And certainly, you're being plenty insulting ("you're not willing to see reason" is a pretty insulting thing to say; casting aspersions on other people's motives is not conducive to a productive discussion).

My usual assumption is that if one side of an argument appears to be unaware of what the other side is saying, and is insulting them, and the other side is saying things like "I can see that interpretation, but here's another way of looking at it which seems valid to me also", usually the second side has a better understanding of the rules.

 

[Pssthpok]

Guys, disintegrate is a damage spell. It makes as much sense to kill a wildshaped druid with disintegrate as it does to kill a fighter who just used second wind or an abjurer for breaking down their ward.

Obviously, temporary hit points and wildshape are different things, but conceptually there's little difference between hp-shields. Besides that, how many monsters can cast disintegrate anyway? Seems like a non-issue in the first place, whether or not your 13th-level druid can survive your party's 13th-level wizard going off the deep end.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[seebs]

To be honest, I don't really care one way or the other about this rules interpretation.

But I do think this debate provides ample opportunity that "save or die" is a much easier to apply mechanic.

You either die, or you don't- no fancy arguments about sentient dust.

The reason disintegrate is a weird case is that, historically, it intentionally bypassed the usual dying mechanic. In 3E, it dusted you at 0hp whether or not it did enough damage to kill you, so it's specifically intended that disintegrate can dust you when it has not done "enough damage to kill you" normally. (And I suspect that the same questions about order of operations would apply there, and indeed, I've seen arguments about it in Pathfinder.)

And no, disintegrate is not a pure-damage spell; it's a spell that has a specific extra rule which bypasses the normal damage rules to specify an outcome, and which has been part of the spell for ~15 years now, and which was clearly intended to result in death even when the damage was not enough to kill a target.

 

[Arial Black]

The order of operations is not quite so unambiguous. After all, in the absence of wildshape, you don't have to "apply all the damage completely". The moment you determine that you've done enough to reach zero, you're done. You don't care whether or not the excess damage is enough for an instant kill, because the target is turning to dust regardless.

That brings up a thought or two. In real life, I work in a casino. I've been dealing blackjack (among other things) for 27 years. In blackjack, when the dealer gets 17 he must stop drawing cards. Something about the disintegrate argument rings a bell.

The argument says that if the spell does, say, 80 damage to a beast form, then you do 1 point at a time until the beast form hits 0 hp, and then immediately check for dust, kill the druid and the rest of the damage is irrelevant.

Lets do this for blackjack. The dealer has 13, draws an 8, making 21. But wait! If you add those points one-at-a-time, it goes 14, 15, 16, 17, GAME STOPS! In fact, the dealer can never go past 17 because the game stops every single time!

It won't surprise you to learn that the game doesn't work that way. When you draw a card, you have to add ALL of the total, and THEN check to see if it's 17 or more.

Disintegrate instructs you to do (say) 80 damage. Doing 80 damage to the beast form works the same for this source of damage as it does for any other damage source: the druid reverts and the excess reduces the druid's hp. Until you have done the whole 80, you haven't followed the instructions. The 80 points is a single amount, not 80 separate sources. Before that 80 points is applied, the dust check is pointless. The 80 points is applied; all of it, after which, the druid has reverted. You have no instruction to turn the 80 points into two separate damage totals. When you do the dust check, you are checking a reverted druid. You can no more apply some of the 80 points before doing a dust check than you can add some of the 8 to the blackjack card total, stopping at 17.

I also think I see another flaw with your argumentation. Under the usual model I've seen people used, the overall conclusion on a revert-to-natural-form is "you were not dropped". Your model distinguishes between the beast form and the druid (or polymorphed) form much more strongly, such that the beast form is in fact being destroyed by the drop to 0hp.

Whatever example I used there, I have been consistent since my earliest posts here that the druid reverts instead of being reduced to 0 hp, removing its own trigger without suffering ANY of the effects (death/unconsciousness/dust) that the druid would have suffered if he didn't revert instead. This is consistent with the Orc/Barbarian abilities, and with things like the shield spell.

 

[seebs]

The argument says that if the spell does, say, 80 damage to a beast form, then you do 1 point at a time until the beast form hits 0 hp, and then immediately check for dust, kill the druid and the rest of the damage is irrelevant.

I have certainly not advanced that argument, and I don't think anyone else has.

It seems to me that if you can't accurately describe the arguments that other people are advancing, you should perhaps be asking questions about those arguments instead of trying to rebut them.

 

[seebs]

I am starting to think there's been some serious misconceptions going on here.

Here is my understanding:

I don't think "reduces" vs. "drops" is a meaningful distinction. I think that all the rules that talk about "reduced to 0 hit points", or "X drops you to 0 hit points", or "the damage reduces the target to 0 hit points" are referring to the same thing.

Normally, if the amount of damage you take is equal to or greater than your current hit point total, you are reduced to 0 hit points, and are knocked unconscious or killed, and if the remaining damage exceeds your hit point maximum, you are definitely killed. (If "you" are an NPC, you might just be killed anyway.) Unless it's a melee attack and the attacker wants you to live, in which case you live.

There are a few rules in the game that specify something else to happen when you are reduced to 0 hit points. Wild shape and some polymorph effects state that you revert to your natural form, and take any remaining damage against the hit points that form had. There's an ability which lets barbarians make a con check, and if they succeed, they are instead left at 1hp, with the only limitation being that the damage has to not be enough to instantly kill them. But they just end up at 1hp, regardless of whether they were reduced to 0 exactly or were reduced to 0 with 20 more hit points incoming. The great weapon master bonus attack on dropping an opponent is attached to "reduced to 0 hit points" too.

The issue here is that there's nothing telling us in which order to apply multiple such abilities. If a barbarian is hit by disintegrate, does their ability trump disintegrate? If they're hit by a great weapon master, and reduced to 0, and make the con save and are actually at 1, does the great weapon master get another attack?

And the answer is "we don't know". It is never specified. None of these abilities offer clarification like "if, after all other effects, you are still at 0 hit points". A few say "1hp instead" (emphasis mine). The polymorph (and druid) powers specify that extra damage is applied to the reverted form, which sort of implies that this happens instead of things that proc off hitting 0, but unlike the barbarian power, it doesn't specifically state "instead". Probably because, if there's enough damage coming in, or you were badly injured when your shape was changed, you might well end up at 0hp anyway.

But there's nothing that tells us how these apply. I've seen one person argue that, while druids don't get dusted, absolutely the great weapon master should get their bonus attack for knocking a druid's wild shape to 0hp. I don't see any obvious wording differences to explain why these two "if the damage you do reduces a target to 0 hit points" effects would behave differently, but it seems obvious to someone that they should.

And the thing is, the druid wild shape power does imply partial application of damage, because it refers to "excess damage". If you're at 4hp in wildshape form, and take 6 points of damage, you don't end up at -2 hit points. You take 4 points of damage, then something interrupts this, and then you take 2 more points of damage. And if you had 1hp left before wildshaping, you don't actually have your hit point total go down by 2, either; you lose 1hp, you end up at 0, and the rest of the damage goes away. (You can't be killed by it because wild shape shows up at 2nd level, so you had at least 2hp maximum. Probably.)

So disintegrate and wild shape are both specifying things which happen at 0hp instead of what would normally happen. And there's nothing that says which one wins, or that either of them is prevented because the other happened. You could quite reasonably conclude that the beast form turns to dust, and then reverts. You could conclude that you revert and are then dusted. You could conclude that the wild shape doesn't get to proc, or that the disintegrate doesn't get to proc. Nothing in the rules answers that question, any more than it has in any previous edition.

 

[Arial Black]

The issue here is that there's nothing telling us in which order to apply multiple such abilities. If a barbarian is hit by disintegrate, does their ability trump disintegrate? If they're hit by a great weapon master, and reduced to 0, and make the con save and are actually at 1, does the great weapon master get another attack?

While you, personally, haven't advanced every argument, the argument has been made. If you are reduced to 1 hp instead of 0 hp, then you were never at 0 hp; the ability removes its own trigger.

How do we know? Because we can use our reason. If the ability meant that you actually do have 0 hp and then heal 1 hp, then you would fall unconscious (or die) when you reached 0 hp, fall prone, let go of hand-held objects, and (if dead) your soul would travel to its afterlife. Then you would heal 1 hp (impossible for a dead body BTW), wake up (or be raised from the dead) and then...what? Still be prone and weaponless? Magically stand up at no action cost, hands full of weapons?

Does anyone think that, with the orc/barbarian abilities, Wild Shape, the shield spell, that the thing that triggers the ability actually happens, causing injury/death/prone/etc, and then they 'get better'? Does the wizard get hit by an attack, have the javelin pass through his brain, fall dead to the ground, then cast shield, causing the javelin to slide out, the wizard to come back to life with his staff in his hand and standing up?

That is the logical implication of that argument. That argument has the druid actually falling unconscious/dying, and then returning to life.

I submit that this shows the absurdity of that argument. The save to have 1 hp instead of 0 hp represents the inherent toughness and willpower of refusing to die, not actually dying and returning to life! The shield spell does not actually wait for you to get hit before you cast the spell (despite its trigger); it represents using a shield made of mystical energy to block an attack that would hit unless you cast the spell. And Wild Shaped druids revert instead of reaching 0 hp, despite the trigger.

None of these abilities make sense after analysis if you imagine that the trigger also happens. Applying reason to each interpretation quickly arrives at the intended answer, and semantics should not get in the way if the only result of those semantics is absurdity.

 

[Imaculata]

The reason disintegrate is a weird case is that, historically, it intentionally bypassed the usual dying mechanic. In 3E, it dusted you at 0hp whether or not it did enough damage to kill you, so it's specifically intended that disintegrate can dust you when it has not done "enough damage to kill you" normally. (And I suspect that the same questions about order of operations would apply there, and indeed, I've seen arguments about it in Pathfinder.)

In second edition this certainly was the case:

This spell causes matter to vanish. It affects even matter (or energy) of a magical nature, such as Bigby’s forceful hand, but not a globe of invulnerability or an antimagic shell. Disintegration is instmtaneous,
and its effects are permanent. Any single creature can be affected, even undead. Nonliving matter, up to a 10’ x 10’ x 10’ cube, can be obliterated by the spell. The spell creates a thin, green ray that causes physical material touched to glow and vanish, leaving traces of fine dust, Creatures that successfully save vs. spell
have avoided the ray (materid items have resisted the magic) and are not affected. Only the first creature or object struck can be affected. The material components are a lodestone and a pinch of dust.

And in 3rd edition:

A thin, green ray springs from your pointing finger. You must make a successful ranged touch attack to hit. Any creature struck by the ray takes 2d6 points of damage per caster level (to a maximum of 40d6). Any creature reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by this spell is entirely disintegrated, leaving behind only a trace of fine dust. A disintegrated creature’s equipment is unaffected.

When used against an object, the ray simply disintegrates as much as one 10- foot cube of nonliving matter. Thus, the spell disintegrates only part of any very large object or structure targeted. The ray affects even objects constructed entirely of force, such as forceful hand or a wall of force, but not magical effects such as a globe of invulnerability or an antimagic field.

A creature or object that makes a successful Fortitude save is partially affected, taking only 5d6 points of damage. If this damage reduces the creature or object to 0 or fewer hit points, it is entirely disintegrated. Only the first creature or object struck can be affected; that is, the ray affects only one target per casting.

Arcane Material Component: A lodestone and a pinch of dust.

So you can notice a slight change in wording, that slowly creeps into this spell with each new edition. At first it was instant death, and with 3rd edition it actually became damage based. The Forgotten Realms wiki states it as follows:

"Older versions of Disintegrate made the target disappear no matter if it was a creature, or magical matter or 1" cubic volume of other material. The newer versions spell struck and injured a target, and if killed, the ray caused the creature to disintegrate into a pile of fine dust, although any equipment is not affected. The ray can also disintegrates as much as one 10-foot cube of nonliving matter, even objects constructed entirely of force, but cannot effect magical effects such as a globe of invulnerability. Only one creature or object can be affected per casting."

And no, disintegrate is not a pure-damage spell; it's a spell that has a specific extra rule which bypasses the normal damage rules to specify an outcome, and which has been part of the spell for ~15 years now, and which was clearly intended to result in death even when the damage was not enough to kill a target.

No, this is incorrect. It IS a pure damage spell from 3rd edition and upwards. The Forgotten Realms wiki backs this up. Starting with 3rd edition, the spell only does its effect at 0 HP or less. This is because in 3rd edition you don't actually die until you are at less than -10 hitpoints. So any damage that would put you in the "dying" or "bleeding out" state, triggers the effect. But it does require the damage to bring you down to the level where you would be dying.
It has no longer been the insta-kill spell for two editions already.