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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 6744279" data-attributes="member: 6799649">If the disintegrate must have its full effect, then that full effect comes in two parts:-1.) do lots of damage2.) after doing its damage, if the target has no hit points left, it is turned into dust (which is likely to be fatal)How do we know that we check for hp after doing the damage? Does anyone think that we check before we apply the damage?Damage, whether from this spell or a sword stroke, is done instantaneously as far as the game rules go. You don't do 12 points of damage from a sword and say, 'One hp; are you dead yet? No? Okay, another hp; that makes two. Are you dead yet?' This could take a while!That's not how we play and it's not how the game reality works. If an attack-sword or spell-does, say, 80 points of damage then that damage is delivered all at once, not in one hp increments.So if a sword hits a wild shaped druid for 80 points, you check for unconsciousness/death after resolving that 80 points. In the meantime, the mechanics of wild shape mean that the 80 points lower the hp of the beast form until there are none left, at which point those remaining points reduce the druid's hp instead.It should be noted that when those 80 points from the sword stroke reduced the beast form to zero, the beast/druid never fell unconscious, never died. He reverted instead. That's how wild shape interacts with damage.Hitting the same druid for the same 80 hp from disintegrate works the same way. Disintegrate is not a save-or-die spell, it is a damage-dealing spell, which may or may not have a rider effect depending on the result of that damage. All the damage, not bits of it. The result of that damage is a reverted druid with reduced hp but more than zero, therefore not dusted.Just like the sword stroke, the disintegrate does its 80 points, and when the beast form hits zero there is no unconsciousness, no death, no dust, none of the usual consequences of being reduced to 0 hp apply, because reverting to druid form is the consequence which replaces the usual consequences of falling to zero hp, whether or not the usual consequence would be unconsciousness, death, or dust.</blockquote>

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