D&D General Familiars and Spiritual weapon, Turrets and Tentacles, some have HP some do not, why?

[Paul Farquhar]

Who in his sane mind would do that? "That flaming sphere is burning me... I should... carefully walk through it?"
I agree that it can be passed over, but unless the enemies are genre-savvy or trained at magic, it's not something they'd think of (and the players wouldn't, either, I guess).

Unless the creature is immune to fire damage, in which case it will just walk straight through it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sometimes the fluff does not match the game mechanic.

All the "spells" in the game are just game rules that affect other game rules. And the reason why some do one thing one way while others do another thing another way is for varied gameplay and (hopefully) strategic thinking.

It is then on top of these game mechanic interactions that D&D places the fluff of what these mechanics are and look like "in story", and this fluff can be wide and varied to make for interesting visualizations in story. Sometimes that fluff is easily layered on top of the mechanics and the two together work and makes total sense... but sometimes there's a break between the two. Which happens. The fluff of Barkskin and the mechanics of Barkskin do not align at all for example.

So in the case of familiars / summoned creatures and things like Spiritual Weapon / Flaming Sphere... the mechanics were built so that the mechanics of the former can be removed from the game via a variable time period (whenever the "object" gets "hit" enough times to remove it) and the latter is removed on a set time period (when the "duration" of the "spell" ends.) If the fluff that gets layered on top of both of these mechanics doesn't completely align (because it seems like all these "objects" should be able to be "hit", even though the mechanics only allow for some of them to be)... you either try to re-do the fluff to change what these things are "in story"... or you just accept that sometimes game mechanics cannot be represented "in story" via the fluff in a way that upholds the universal narrative of the "game world", and they look as they do because the in story application is fun and cool and interesting to visualize and sometimes that's more important than trying to get every mechanic and fluff to go together seamlessly.

So if you want all the varied options of game mechanics and game interactions for the D&D board game while also playing the D&D roleplaying story... sometimes you have to just shrug your shoulders and go with it.

 

[ECMO3]

It wouldn't because target information goes in the description of the attack - usually "one creature", "one object" or "one target" which means a creature or an object. A spell effect is neither an object nor a creature, therefore it cannot be targeted. Other examples are Dancing Lights and Flaming Sphere.

I would say in these cases it is an object, in the same manner that an elemental you conjure with a spell is a creature or what you create with fabricate is an object without the spells specifying that.

In the spiritual weapon spell it even refers to it as a "weapon" which would be consistent with being an object.

Now spells like sickening radiance or darkness, I would agree with you, those do not create an object. I would also be on the fence with flaming sphere, not sure if that would be an object or not, but the bonfire created with create bonfire would be IMO.

 

[Ancalagon]

We have a say in French. TGCM. Ta Gueule! C'est Magique. Or in English. SUIM. Shut Up! It's Magic!

All We can do is assume that there is an unatainable logic, for us mortals, That would explain the whole thing. Unfortunately, we simple mortals, can only guess at the reasons. The most plausible one is that the canon and tentacule actually create or summon something tangible while the others are insubstiantial spell effects that takes substance (if at all) only when the spell actually attack (spiritual weapon) or stays insubstantial by nature (flaming sphere).

As with everything in D&D, the choice is yours to interpret. Your game, your rule!

Ok...

So the saying is basically the same as "a wizard did it" - don't think about it, sure - there are all sorts of made up magical "rules" that explains why a spiritual weapon can't be attacked. And that's fine.

I think though that the real question is about the inhabitants of the world, do they know? As @Umbran mentioned, perhaps some are "common knowledge" - like spiritual weapon is probably a fairly well known spell, and monsters know not to bother attacking them (but what about monsters without a culture, like say bears?). But is this true of every effect - like a fathomless spiritual tentacle? Is that well known too?

 

[Umbran]

(but what about monsters without a culture, like say bears?).

Bears can typically tell the difference between meat and not-meat, right?

There is an element of "what is good for the goose is good for the gander," here. If you want the GM to check if the monsters all know what can, and can't, be attacked, you must assume that there will have to be checks to see if the PCs know the same things. If you don't want to spend precious rounds attacking phantoms yourself, don't ask the G to have NPCs and monsters do it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Animals really on senses other than just sight. If it doesn't have a smell, sound, body heat etc they aint going to think it's a target.

 

[Umbran]

Animals really on senses other than just sight. If it doesn't have a smell, sound, body heat etc they aint going to think it's a target.

Yep. And even your housecat (or at least, my housecats) are smart enough to know what controls the laser dot, even if there's no visible physical connection. So, an animal may not understand the spiritual weapon, but may well get "they waved hands, I got hit, attack the one with waving hands".

 

[tomBitonti]

Yep. And even your housecat (or at least, my housecats) are smart enough to know what controls the laser dot, even if there's no visible physical connection. So, an animal may not understand the spiritual weapon, but may well get "they waved hands, I got hit, attack the one with waving hands".

None of my cats ever had a clue. I’m pretty sure laser pointers strongly trigger a house cat‘s vision and motion detection — in an almost hard-wired way.
TomB

 

[Umbran]

None of my cats ever had a clue. I’m pretty sure laser pointers strongly trigger a cat‘s vision and motion detection — in an almost hard-wired way.
TomB

Oh, my cats chase the dot, but they also look directly at the hand holding the pointer for clues as to where the dot's going.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, my cats chase the dot, but they also look directly at the hand holding the pointer for clues as to where the dot's going.

I agree, my cats understand it's play, not prey.