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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9263921" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Per the rules text? Yes. The plain meaning of the text traps the vampire in mist form permanently. One must resort to either tortured logic, or rejecting and rewriting the text. This is one of the rare cases where (ironically) &quot;natural language&quot; isn't at fault with a 5e rule. The text is just badly written; it plainly and explicitly results in the vampire being unable to transform out of mist form, no issue of vague and equivocal terms involved.It's a bit like PF1e's Prone Shooter, which was the consequence of bad editing practices.[SPOILER=&quot;TL;DR on Prone Shooter&quot;]For those unfamiliar, the TL;DR is that the feat's one and only benefit was that it removed the penalty to ranged attacks while prone....a penalty which doesn't exist. It was later errata'd to actually have a very, very weak benefit, rather than being literally completely useless. This happened because the original author wrote it to give a bonus, and the mechanics guru nixed that because, allegedly, they didn't want to give martial characters bonuses, and thus removed a penalty they wrongly believed was present.[/SPOILER]Of course, as noted, the DM can just decide not to use the rules text. That would be the most productive thing to do if you are sitting at the table and discover that the game's makers rolled a Nat 1 on Intelligence (Game Design). That doesn't excuse the badly-written rule. It's just the practical thing to do when faced with bad rules: put on your amateur game designer hat and rewrite them yourself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9263921, member: 6790260"] Per the rules text? Yes. The plain meaning of the text traps the vampire in mist form permanently. One must resort to either tortured logic, or rejecting and rewriting the text. This is one of the rare cases where (ironically) "natural language" [I]isn't[/I] at fault with a 5e rule. The text is just badly written; it plainly and explicitly results in the vampire being unable to transform out of mist form, no issue of vague and equivocal terms involved. It's a bit like PF1e's Prone Shooter, which was the consequence of bad editing practices. [SPOILER="TL;DR on Prone Shooter"]For those unfamiliar, the TL;DR is that the feat's one and only benefit was that it removed the penalty to ranged attacks while prone....a penalty which [I]doesn't exist.[/I] It was later errata'd to actually have a very, very weak benefit, rather than being literally completely useless. This happened because the original author wrote it to give a bonus, and the mechanics guru nixed that because, allegedly, they didn't want to give martial characters bonuses, and thus removed a penalty they wrongly believed was present.[/SPOILER] Of course, as noted, the DM can just decide not to use the rules text. That would be the most productive thing to do if you are sitting at the table and discover that the game's makers rolled a Nat 1 on Intelligence (Game Design). That doesn't excuse the badly-written rule. It's just the practical thing to do when faced with bad rules: put on your amateur game designer hat and rewrite them yourself. [/QUOTE]

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