D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[seebs]

Hmm. So there's a wording distinction here.

The druid stuff says "... drop to 0 hit points", and later says "if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points", and then says "as long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious."

Disintegrate says "If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, it is disintegrated."

Note that "drop to 0" and "reduces to 0" are not precisely identical.

The combat rules say: "If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious."

On careful reading, I conclude that these rules are not rigidly structured enough for us to draw definite conclusions from the distinction. It seems to me that clearly spell damage that "reduces you to 0 hit points" has caused you to, at least temporarily, "drop to 0 hit points". Wild shape (and other polymorph effects) would presumably proc on that. But that doesn't mean you were never reduced to 0 hit points; it just means that a specific thing happens. Other things that happen on reduce-to-zero might also happen.

So here's a question. Imagine that you have a suit of armor which says that, if you are reduced to 0 hp, it casts a cure light wounds on you, restoring d8+3 hit points. You have 8 hit points total. You take 17 hit points of damage from an attack. What happens?

1. You die. Because the damage in excess of your hit points was more than your hit point maximum, therefore dead.
2. You are reduced to 0 hit points, the armor procs, you now have d8+3 hit points.
3. You are reduced to 0 hit points, the armor procs, you now have d8+3 hit points and take the remaining 9 of damage, which may knock you unconscious but cannot kill you outright.

Now, what happens if the armor proc is explicitly stated to work when wildshaped, and you are wildshaped when hit?

Does the armor proc *replace* the revert? Does it not happen because the wildshape revert happens first? Do they both happen?

 

[Maxperson]

The damage done by an attack is a single amount. There is no suggestion that it is applied in single hp increments.

The disintegrate wording is a specific rule, which beats any general rule there is. Even though the damage portion doesn't say that it must be done as a whole, and it doesn't, even if it did disintegrate would trump it.

You think that you are allowed to just do 23 and ignore the other 57, and require us to prove you wrong? Okay, I'll choose to take, say, 1 point and ignore the rest. Prove me wrong! Show me, in the rules, exactly where it says I'm not allowed to do that!

I'm not ignoring the other 57. It just doesn't get applied until after both the disintegrate specific rule and the wild shape specific rule are applied. If you are correct, then the druid would die from massive damage before reverting. Either the damage must be applied all at once before any other effect can happen, or it doesn't have to be applied before any other effect can happen. If the wild shape specific rules can overcome that rule and allow reversion, then the disintegrate special rules can do the same.

 

[BryonD]

So here's a question. Imagine that you have a suit of armor which says that, if you are reduced to 0 hp, it casts a cure light wounds on you, restoring d8+3 hit points. You have 8 hit points total. You take 17 hit points of damage from an attack. What happens?

1. You die. Because the damage in excess of your hit points was more than your hit point maximum, therefore dead.
2. You are reduced to 0 hit points, the armor procs, you now have d8+3 hit points.
3. You are reduced to 0 hit points, the armor procs, you now have d8+3 hit points and take the remaining 9 of damage, which may knock you unconscious but cannot kill you outright.

It is important to note that there is no remotely clear guidance for this kind of timing AND the designers have been very strong in their statements that making the game fit the personal preferences of a group is fundamental to this edition.

In my game, #1 happens and this is both totally logical and totally in line with the spirit of the game as I'd want it.
Again, as I see it, both things happen and the "healing" fails to find a valid target.

 

[BryonD]

Correct. That's RAW, even if it isn't RAI.

I believe it is highly important to understand RAI.
This allows you to know what you are doing when you ignore RAI.

I also know that RAI is *supposed* to be a reference for guidance in 5E.

 

[Hriston]

You'd have to ask them, not me. Maybe it was just too new of an issue to make it into this errata. There are probably lots of things that weren't included in the errata for whatever reasons.

You seem to be saying the rules were written in such a way that the only possible interpretation conflicts directly with what was intended, and it wasn't noticed for almost a year after the book was published, possibly as late as when you tweeted your question in September. I have an alternative explanation I'd like to suggest: that the design team doesn't consider the possibility of an unintended interpretation sufficient grounds to identify something as an erratum when the intended interpretation can reasonably be gleaned from the existing text. You have repeatedly denied that such an interpretation is possible when all it requires is the understanding that the Druid's wild shape form is not synonymous with the Druid himself but is only assumed, as are its hit points. Thus when the assumed hit points are dropped to zero, the Druid's actual hit points are not reduced to zero because the Druid's actual hit points are still intact, so the Druid himself/herself is not disintegrated.

 

[BryonD]

That is a wildly convoluted interpretation to be calling "reasonable".
They make no effort at any time to suggest anything like this and there would be vastly easier ways to express the idea.
Giving the druid "wild shape hit points" which work not terribly differently than "temporary hit points" would achieve this effect with clarity.

I'm not saying your working it this way is unreasonable or that it is not aligned with stated RAI.

But calling it a reasonable interpretation of the text is pretty much laughable.

If you write it is code and remove all the flavor from it, zero out of 10,000 programmers would see the distinction.

 

[BryonD]

As to why they haven't issued errata (IMO): They don't want to. They actively want to not.

They want to promote DM judgement.
This is not an "error" nearly so much as a simple ambiguity which may be well resolved with a ruling EITHER WAY when it happens in the 1 in 10,000 campaigns.
With the hyper-slow and deliberate pace of anything they do, this would not ever be a potential action item.

 

[Maxperson]

You seem to be saying the rules were written in such a way that the only possible interpretation conflicts directly with what was intended, and it wasn't noticed for almost a year after the book was published, possibly as late as when you tweeted your question in September.

Sure. Given the tremendous numbers of interactions, it's no surprise that language got borked. When designing disintegrate, I doubt anyone realized that the wording would conflict with the intent of wild shape the way it does. It's a very remote interaction that likely never came up in play testing because wizards don't run around casting disintegrate on sparrows and frogs.

You have repeatedly denied that such an interpretation is possible when all it requires is the understanding that the Druid's wild shape form is not synonymous with the Druid himself but is only assumed, as are its hit points. Thus when the assumed hit points are dropped to zero, the Druid's actual hit points are not reduced to zero because the Druid's actual hit points are still intact, so the Druid himself/herself is not disintegrated.

All such interpretations revolve around the creation of rules and/or language that doesn't exist in wild shape. Treating them like temporary hit points, not really dropping to 0 even though the rules say they do, going to the new pool of hit points "instead" dropping to 0, disintegrate not triggering at 0 hit points even though it says it does, the wild shape not being the druid despite the language worded such that he is, and so on. None of that is RAW and involves some creative "interpreting."

 

[Maxperson]

As to why they haven't issued errata (IMO): They don't want to. They actively want to not.

They want to promote DM judgement.
This is not an "error" nearly so much as a simple ambiguity which may be well resolved with a ruling EITHER WAY when it happens in the 1 in 10,000 campaigns.
With the hyper-slow and deliberate pace of anything they do, this would not ever be a potential action item.

Well, the designers have stated to me via Twitter that the intent of wild shape was to not allow disintegrate to work. Jeremy Crawford was very careful to only speak of design intent, though, instead of giving me the ruling. Most likely because he looked at it and RAW doesn't match the intent. I agree with you, though, this circumstance is very unlikely to occur in a real campaign.

 

[Hriston]

All such interpretations revolve around the creation of rules and/or language that doesn't exist in wild shape. Treating them like temporary hit points, not really dropping to 0 even though the rules say they do, going to the new pool of hit points "instead" dropping to 0, disintegrate not triggering at 0 hit points even though it says it does, the wild shape not being the druid despite the language worded such that he is, and so on. None of that is RAW and involves some creative "interpreting."

Are you suggesting that the RAW for Wild Shape do not say the Druid assumes the shape, hit points, and hit dice of the beast form? Or are you saying that the words "affect", "adopt", "impersonate", "put on", "simulate", "feign", or even "fake" are not valid glosses for the word "assume" in this context, and that the hit points thus acquired are not assumed but are rather genuine?