D&D 5E Disintegrate Vs. Druid

[seebs]

You're arguing 'what RAW is' for 'reduced to 0 hp' while at the same time not arguing 'what RAW is' for 'turned to dust = death', to prove the very same point!

I don't think these are entirely parallel. The inference that "turned to dust" and "can only be restored to life by..." means "dead" is pretty solid. The inferences about the intended sense of "reduces to 0 hp" are less unambiguous. (And if you want to be picky, it is worth noting that the disintegrate text says "reduces", not "reduced". It refers to an event, not a resulting state.)

Talking about 'obvious interpretations', disintegrate does damage, then checks for dust! That's the order it is written, and checking for dust before applying the damage is absurd, checking for dust before you've applied all of the damage (by which time the druid will have reverted) goes against the spirit of the spell just as much as saying that being doesn't doesn't kill you.

Okay, say I push someone 30 feet, and the power says that if I push them through an object, they take damage. Would you conclude that I should move them the whole 30 feet, then see if they are in an object at the end of that, but that an object encountered along the way doesn't count, because after the movement is done you're no longer in the object? I wouldn't.

You seem to be interpreting the wild shape revert as an interrupt that postpones the spell, and then the spell resumes, and that's certainly plausible, but there's nothing inherently impossible about the interpretation that, if at any point you reach 0 hit points, you make a note of the fact that the target reached 0 hit points, then once everything else is done, if you had reached 0 hit points at any time, the target gets dusted. It might be a little complicated, but it's not inconsistent with the way at least some other things have worked.

I don't think 5E has as rigorous a set of timing and resolution rules as a bunch of people are assuming it does. I think it's just assumed that the GM will rule sanely-enough, and then we don't have to have all those additional layers of complication.

 

[Arial Black]

I don't think these are entirely parallel. The inference that "turned to dust" and "can only be restored to life by..." means "dead" is pretty solid. The inferences about the intended sense of "reduces to 0 hp" are less unambiguous. (And if you want to be picky, it is worth noting that the disintegrate text says "reduces", not "reduced". It refers to an event, not a resulting state.)

'Reduces' is simply the present tense, while 'reduced' is the past tense. The spell is written in the present tense. This doesn't favour 'event' over 'result' in and of itself.

The spell does damage. If that damage leaves you with no hit points, it turns you to dust. The damage must be resolved before the dust check, and even though it doesn't specify that order (because it shouldn't need to!) this is just as clear an implication as 'dust=dead'.

Okay, say I push someone 30 feet, and the power says that if I push them through an object, they take damage. Would you conclude that I should move them the whole 30 feet, then see if they are in an object at the end of that, but that an object encountered along the way doesn't count, because after the movement is done you're no longer in the object? I wouldn't.

Nor would I. That's because I use my thinky bits when answering questions like this. What does the spell actually do in the game world? If the spell forces you to crash through obstacles and doing so causes damage, then it's 'obvious' that the damage is caused as you crash through the obstacle. If a spell damages you, and has a rider that if the damage kills you or knocks you unconscious then it turns you to dust, then if the damage did not kill you or knock you unconscious then it doesn't turn you to dust!

You seem to be interpreting the wild shape revert as an interrupt that postpones the spell, and then the spell resumes, and that's certainly plausible

No, the damage causes the reversion, and reduces the druid's hit points. The spell doesn't pause. It damages the druid so much that it not only destroys the beast form but it also damages the true form, just like any kind of damage.

but there's nothing inherently impossible about the interpretation that, if at any point you reach 0 hit points, you make a note of the fact that the target reached 0 hit points, then once everything else is done, if you had reached 0 hit points at any time, the target gets dusted. It might be a little complicated, but it's not inconsistent with the way at least some other things have worked.

There are many things in the game that remove their own trigger. This is how the game is happy to work, and Wild Shape is the kind of ability where the trigger for reversion (0 hp, which means death/unconsciousness) is removed by the reversion to druid form and the switch to the druid's own hp pool.

I don't think 5E has as rigorous a set of timing and resolution rules as a bunch of people are assuming it does. I think it's just assumed that the GM will rule sanely-enough, and then we don't have to have all those additional layers of complication.

If we all ruled sanely then, like Crawford himself, we would rule that the druid is not dust.

 

[seebs]

'Reduces' is simply the present tense, while 'reduced' is the past tense. The spell is written in the present tense. This doesn't favour 'event' over 'result' in and of itself.

Actually, it does. With the past tense, it's possible to mean either "at some point, you had hit points of zero transiently" or "your hit points have ended up finalized at zero". With the present tense, it can only refer to the instantaneous state.

The spell does damage. If that damage leaves you with no hit points, it turns you to dust. The damage must be resolved before the dust check, and even though it doesn't specify that order (because it shouldn't need to!) this is just as clear an implication as 'dust=dead'.

I don't think it's "just as clear". The disintegrate language about being brought back from the dead is completely nonsensical unless we assume that you're dead, also there's the thing where "turned completely to dust" is usually not surviveable. 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.

Nor would I. That's because I use my thinky bits when answering questions like this. What does the spell actually do in the game world? If the spell forces you to crash through obstacles and doing so causes damage, then it's 'obvious' that the damage is caused as you crash through the obstacle. If a spell damages you, and has a rider that if the damage kills you or knocks you unconscious then it turns you to dust, then if the damage did not kill you or knock you unconscious then it doesn't turn you to dust!

That would be unambiguously the case if the spell description said "if the damage kills you or knocks you unconscious", but it doesn't. Instead, it says "if the damage reduces you to zero hit points". Being reduced to zero hit points does not necessarily kill you or knock you unconscious!

Hmm. There's an interesting case. Consider the half-orc "relentless endurance" trait. "When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead." So, questions:

1. If disintegrate hits a non-polymorphed half-orc, can they use this feature? Consider "but not killed outright"; is there an intermediate state where they've been reduced to 0 hit points, but not killed outright, before the dusting happens? If so, I think it works.
2. So say you're a half-orc druid, and you use wild shape. Can you use this feature while shape-changed? I would tend to think not.

Or look at, say, the Barbarian feature that lets you make con saves to avoid falling unconscious. Same questions there, I suppose.

No, the damage causes the reversion, and reduces the druid's hit points. The spell doesn't pause. It damages the druid so much that it not only destroys the beast form but it also damages the true form, just like any kind of damage.

That's certainly a plausible interpretation, but the disintegrate spell has a special rule here which isn't really parallel to most of the other rules.

There are many things in the game that remove their own trigger. This is how the game is happy to work, and Wild Shape is the kind of ability where the trigger for reversion (0 hp, which means death/unconsciousness) is removed by the reversion to druid form and the switch to the druid's own hp pool.

I'm not sure 0hp necessarily always means "death/unconsciousness". It certainly didn't in 3.x or Pathfinder, where there were lots of ways to remain conscious at or below 0hp.

If we all ruled sanely then, like Crawford himself, we would rule that the druid is not dust.

You've still presented nothing that makes me think that the ruling is somehow inherently much more sane. I think it's probably a stronger case, given the rest of the 5e structure, but the implication that anyone who doesn't agree with you is mentally unstable is sort of rude, at best.

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.

Consider a power like the great weapon master cleave ability. It seems to me that, if you insist that the beast form was indeed reduced to 0hp, but the druid wasn't, that forcing a druid to revert counts as "reduced a creature to 0 hit points". So you'd get your bonus attack. Which you could presumably take on the now-reverted druid.

 

[Maxperson]

You're arguing 'what RAW is' for 'reduced to 0 hp' while at the same time not arguing 'what RAW is' for 'turned to dust = death', to prove the very same point!

I'm not actually arguing anything at all with "turned to dust = death". I made one comment that had nothing to do with disintegrate RAW or wild shape.

You're getting yourself all worked up over something that isn't happening.

 

[Maxperson]

The spell does damage. If that damage leaves you with no hit points, it turns you to dust. The damage must be resolved before the dust check,

You keep saying that, but there is no rule that says that you are correct.

There are many things in the game that remove their own trigger. This is how the game is happy to work, and Wild Shape is the kind of ability where the trigger for reversion (0 hp, which means death/unconsciousness) is removed by the reversion to druid form and the switch to the druid's own hp pool.

Nothing in wild shape directly states or even implies that it removes it's own trigger. In fact, it explicitly says otherwise. If you are reduced to 0, you revert and pick up your own hit point pool. That's the order of things with no "instead" in there, implied or otherwise.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Okay, just out of curiosity.

We've covered almost every single argument on this subject. The only major argument seems to be "what does the book say", not how it was meant to work, not how people will actually run it.

So, since no one is going to budge, and no one seems to really want to play it as "druid dust" no matter what RAW is.... can we just stop already? I mean, this argument is just going in circles and accomplishing nothing.

 

[seebs]

Honestly, before this debate, I would have had both effects proc, and I would likely have concluded that the net result was a pile of dust. Crawford's statement of intent is enough to make me think it's probably better to go the other way, but I've seen nothing to suggest that the rules actually say that, just that it's probably an unintended consequence.

 

[dmnqwk]

If Great Weapon Master reduced a shapeshifted druid to 0 hp I would grant them the bonus attack, since the spirit of the rule would be covered (the poor druid is smacked, falls, and reverts to their druid self) I see no reason not to apply it as such, since the spirit of the attack would let you do it on a critical hit would allow you to swing at the same foe again.

As for Seebs letting both proc and choosing dust that would be very mean and spiteful against the druid.

The problem, as Chaosmancer pointed out, is nobody is looking for their minds to be changed. People either cannot cope with the suggestions here or seem to be unwilling to change their minds "if things are not black and white." Nothing is black and white in 5th edition, if anything was in previous editions, so this is not an edition for people who cannot adapt.

As I've said before were I still 16 and playing DnD I would definitely not enjoy 5th edition because the rules require you to adapt and I was very much a person at that time you demanded you stick to the rules, not the essence of them.

 

[seebs]

If Great Weapon Master reduced a shapeshifted druid to 0 hp I would grant them the bonus attack, since the spirit of the rule would be covered (the poor druid is smacked, falls, and reverts to their druid self) I see no reason not to apply it as such, since the spirit of the attack would let you do it on a critical hit would allow you to swing at the same foe again.

So what this tells us is that you're not analyzing "what the rules say" but "what seems fair". Which is fine.

As for Seebs letting both proc and choosing dust that would be very mean and spiteful against the druid.

This is a very good argument about gameplay and fun. It's not an argument about rules at all. And if you'd just say "the game will be more fun with this ruling", instead of being insulting and condescending about how obvious it is that the rules can only possibly mean one thing, which happens to be the one you have strong feelings about, that'd be fine.

The problem, as Chaosmancer pointed out, is nobody is looking for their minds to be changed. People either cannot cope with the suggestions here or seem to be unwilling to change their minds "if things are not black and white." Nothing is black and white in 5th edition, if anything was in previous editions, so this is not an edition for people who cannot adapt.

This is a very accurate description of your posts on the matter. It's a horrendously inaccurate description of mine, since I've been arguing since the beginning that there is clearly an ambiguity here requiring a GM ruling.

As I've said before were I still 16 and playing DnD I would definitely not enjoy 5th edition because the rules require you to adapt and I was very much a person at that time you demanded you stick to the rules, not the essence of them.

I think you are very confused, because the people you've been arguing against have mostly been arguing that this is exactly a situation in which you're required to adapt, and you're the one who's been saying that the rules as written allow only one conceivable interpretation and that any other interpretation is insane.

 

[dmnqwk]

I think you're confusing bits here Seebs:

I mean, to start with my original interpretation was to go with the spirit of the ruling, but nobody seemed to think that was okay they needed a definition that was clearly shown in the rules. Then I put the rules together using a coherent argument, but people didn't buy that either. Finally I quite categorically stated that the rules say the druid hits 0, turns to dust, reforms because they are never dead merely a pile of dust, and noone likes that either so we're really not in a position wherein people are willing to accept anything given to them.

So as I explained above, the druid hits 0 and goes dust, but reforms so from my perspective it's irrelevent and easier to simply come up with my own rules wherein I might say the Druid cannot wild shape until the next day for being disintegrated, or I might simply ignore the dust part entirely. But I do believe the druid hits 0, I do believe the druid reforms afterwards and I strongly believe that great weapon master triggers to be fair, either through the spirit of the ruling (the druid is weakened and provides reduced/diminished resistance allowing great weapon master the opportunity to follow through thanks to the option stating crits provide this free attack) or the rules themselves wherein the druid hits 0.

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.