D&D 5E How would you rule on this Dispell Magic?

[Elon Tusk]

So let's play this out:

1. Knight is in a room by himself (rest of party including wizard is unaware of his location or actions) and grabs a magic wand.
2. Pixie casts Fly on him.
3. Knight states that he wants to use his bonus action to cast a spell through his magic armor to turn himself invisible (home-brewed magic item), and the wand's magic prevents it from turning invisible (also homebrewed magic item).
4. Knight states that he wants to fly with a Dash action 120' out of the room he is in, through the room above with the rest of his party above their heads, and then out of the dungeon and 50 feet into the air out of sight of the party.
5. Let's say for arguments sake that the 3 parts of his move are equal (his room, party's room, 50' into the air) at a constant speed in those 6 seconds; he'd be in the room with the wizard for about 2 seconds.
6. The wizard - just finishing an encounter with a mummy - turns to see a wand flying quickly overhead.
7. Let's assume the DM rules that the knight does not gain Surprise despite turning himself invisible because of his plate armor.
8. Let's assume the the DM rules the wizard can immediately believe that the wand is not flying on its own (no roll required) and that the wand is carried by a magical effect caused by a spell and not an inherent magical ability.
9 As a free action, the wizard states that she wants to "stop it."
10. Let's assume the DM rules that initiative rolls must be made and wizard beats knight so she casts Dispel Magic.
11. Let's assume DM does not ask the wizard to clarify which creature, object, or magical effect she casts the spell on and allows the spell to assume she meant end the invisibility of the creature holding the wand.
12. Let's assume that Dispel Magic can target the invisibility effect on the knight during the 2 seconds that he in the room with her so she casts Dispel Magic which takes 1 action and causes his invisibility to end.
13. The knight's flight does not end so on his turn, let's assume he repeats his previous action so he can continue his plan, casting invisibility as a bonus action and dashing another 120 feet.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What's the question?

 

[plisnithus8]

What's the question?

Does that sound how you and others see it playing out?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Does that sound how you and others see it playing out?

Then, no. The stated intent of the wizard is to stop the wand flying overhead. Why would the DM decide this meant the invisibility was targeted?

Also, I don't understand why you keep talking in discrete actions when not in initiative.

 

[Aenorgreen]

So let's play this out:

1. Knight is in a room by himself (rest of party including wizard is unaware of his location or actions) and grabs a magic wand.
2. Pixie casts Fly on him.
3. Knight states that he wants to use his bonus action to cast a spell through his magic armor to turn himself invisible (home-brewed magic item), and the wand's magic prevents it from turning invisible (also homebrewed magic item).
4. Knight states that he wants to fly with a Dash action 120' out of the room he is in, through the room above with the rest of his party above their heads, and then out of the dungeon and 50 feet into the air out of sight of the party.
5. Let's say for arguments sake that the 3 parts of his move are equal (his room, party's room, 50' into the air) at a constant speed in those 6 seconds; he'd be in the room with the wizard for about 2 seconds.
6. The wizard - just finishing an encounter with a mummy - turns to see a wand flying quickly overhead.
7. Let's assume the DM rules that the knight does not gain Surprise despite turning himself invisible because of his plate armor.
8. Let's assume the the DM rules the wizard can immediately believe that the wand is not flying on its own (no roll required) and that the wand is carried by a magical effect caused by a spell and not an inherent magical ability.
9 As a free action, the wizard states that she wants to "stop it."
10. Let's assume the DM rules that initiative rolls must be made and wizard beats knight so she casts Dispel Magic.
11. Let's assume DM does not ask the wizard to clarify which creature, object, or magical effect she casts the spell on and allows the spell to assume she meant end the invisibility of the creature holding the wand.
12. Let's assume that Dispel Magic can target the invisibility effect on the knight during the 2 seconds that he in the room with her so she casts Dispel Magic which takes 1 action and causes his invisibility to end.
13. The knight's flight does not end so on his turn, let's assume he repeats his previous action so he can continue his plan, casting invisibility as a bonus action and dashing another 120 feet.

3. Not in turns, so not bonus action, he just does it.
4. Not in turns, so not dashing, he just wants to move.
5. Not in turns, so not a move action.
11. Why would you assume "stop it" means invisibility? I would more expect it to refer to the movement, so probably target the movement effect: fly.
12 Knight falls.

 

[Harzel]

Also, I don't understand why you keep talking in discrete actions when not in initiative.

Probably because quite a few posters said that they would call for initiative to be rolled.

 

[Harzel]

So let's play this out:

1. Knight is in a room by himself (rest of party including wizard is unaware of his location or actions) and grabs a magic wand.
2. Pixie casts Fly on him.
3. Knight states that he wants to use his bonus action to cast a spell through his magic armor to turn himself invisible (home-brewed magic item), and the wand's magic prevents it from turning invisible (also homebrewed magic item).
4. Knight states that he wants to fly with a Dash action 120' out of the room he is in, through the room above with the rest of his party above their heads, and then out of the dungeon and 50 feet into the air out of sight of the party.
5. Let's say for arguments sake that the 3 parts of his move are equal (his room, party's room, 50' into the air) at a constant speed in those 6 seconds; he'd be in the room with the wizard for about 2 seconds.
6. The wizard - just finishing an encounter with a mummy - turns to see a wand flying quickly overhead.
7. Let's assume the DM rules that the knight does not gain Surprise despite turning himself invisible because of his plate armor.
8. Let's assume the the DM rules the wizard can immediately believe that the wand is not flying on its own (no roll required) and that the wand is carried by a magical effect caused by a spell and not an inherent magical ability.
9 As a free action, the wizard states that she wants to "stop it."
10. Let's assume the DM rules that initiative rolls must be made and wizard beats knight so she casts Dispel Magic.
11. Let's assume DM does not ask the wizard to clarify which creature, object, or magical effect she casts the spell on and allows the spell to assume she meant end the invisibility of the creature holding the wand.
12. Let's assume that Dispel Magic can target the invisibility effect on the knight during the 2 seconds that he in the room with her so she casts Dispel Magic which takes 1 action and causes his invisibility to end.
13. The knight's flight does not end so on his turn, let's assume he repeats his previous action so he can continue his plan, casting invisibility as a bonus action and dashing another 120 feet.

Does that sound how you and others see it playing out?

I assume what you are really asking is whether we agree with those assumptions. My short answer is 'no'.

1-7. Ignoring a few nit-picks, these sound fine.
8. I don't know what this ruling is in response to. As a DM, I certainly would not spontaneously blurt this out. One thing that has not been clarified is what (if anything) the player of the wizard* asserted about what the wizard PC knew. As for the ruling itself, "the wand is not flying on its own and the wand is carried by a magical effect caused by a spell and not an inherent magical ability" is a bit vague. I can't quite tell whether that excludes a spell cast on the wand itself or not. I'll assume it does exclude that.
8a. Something not mentioned is that it is possible that the wizard will notice that there is an invisible creature involved. With a 15' ceiling, even with the wizard being a halfing, that is not that much clearance if the flyer passes overhead or nearly overhead. If the flyer comes within, let's say, 20 ft. of the wizard, she may get some kind of Perception check to see if she notices. It will depend on how the conversation about what the PC knows goes and exactly what is happening in the room. If she notices that there is an invisible creature, then a lot of things change after this.
9. What? The wizard says, "stop it"? I thought that "stop it" was part of the player's action declaration for the wizard, as in, "I cast Dispel Magic to stop it" or "I stop it by casting Dispel Magic". I really need to know what the player's action declaration was. I'll assume it's, "I stop it by casting Dispel Magic".
11. To me, this assumption (not asking for clarification) precludes a good adjudication. If I nevertheless had to, I guess there are a couple ways this could go.

• If nothing had been said about what the wizard believed (it's still a little unclear what actually happened in that regard), then I would have only the wizard player's action declaration to go on. If it was, "I stop it by casting Dispel Magic", then the only possible target explicitly mentioned is "it", referring to the wand. So the spell is cast on the wand and nothing happens.
• If I take the somewhat vague description of what the wizard believed to mean that she did not think that there was a spell in effect on the wand itself, then she would not cast Dispel on the wand. But I'm still in doubt about what effect she thinks she is choosing. To me, the most obvious description based on her action declaration would be "an effect that is causing the wand to move". Unfortunately for the wizard, there is no such effect - Fly enables flying, but does not actually cause movement.** If I'm will to stretch the implied description to "an effect that is enabling the wand to fly", then Fly is dispelled, but that's a real stretch IMO. All that said, I don't see any way that the Invisibility to get dispelled.

* By the way, is she a wizard or a bard? One time you seemed to say she was a bard. Not that it makes any difference.
** No, I'm not usually that lawyer-like. But in addition to being in a situation full of hypotheticals, there is PvP going on and so I would feel a need to be assiduously fair to both sides.

 

[Harzel]

Fine. Replace know with assume. That's not even relevant. What is relevant is that he's targeting an effect in that square.

And the subsequent discussion. I'm not treating it as AOE.

Why would I let a targeted spell go farther afield than what is targeted? It's not an AOE spell.

To be fair, I note that I am pestering you about a situation that you said a ways back that you would not even get into. (You said, I believe, that you would ask for clarification.) That said, it looks like we just have different interpretations of "Choose one creature, object, or magical effect...", in particular perhaps, connotations of 'choose'. For me, 'choosing' involves something like uniquely identifying combined with knowing that the identified thing exists, although I can think of situations where that still doesn't get it quite right.

Anyway, I don't think that I have further questions that wouldn't be repetitious.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Probably because quite a few posters said that they would call for initiative to be rolled.

Prior to 10? Initiative isn't called for until 10, so why are you using discrete action declarations prior to that?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I assume what you are really asking is whether we agree with those assumptions. My short answer is 'no'.

1-7. Ignoring a few nit-picks, these sound fine.
8. I don't know what this ruling is in response to. As a DM, I certainly would not spontaneously blurt this out. One thing that has not been clarified is what (if anything) the player of the wizard* asserted about what the wizard PC knew. As for the ruling itself, "the wand is not flying on its own and the wand is carried by a magical effect caused by a spell and not an inherent magical ability" is a bit vague. I can't quite tell whether that excludes a spell cast on the wand itself or not. I'll assume it does exclude that.
8a. Something not mentioned is that it is possible that the wizard will notice that there is an invisible creature involved. With a 15' ceiling, even with the wizard being a halfing, that is not that much clearance if the flyer passes overhead or nearly overhead. If the flyer comes within, let's say, 20 ft. of the wizard, she may get some kind of Perception check to see if she notices. It will depend on how the conversation about what the PC knows goes and exactly what is happening in the room. If she notices that there is an invisible creature, then a lot of things change after this.
9. What? The wizard says, "stop it"? I thought that "stop it" was part of the player's action declaration for the wizard, as in, "I cast Dispel Magic to stop it" or "I stop it by casting Dispel Magic". I really need to know what the player's action declaration was. I'll assume it's, "I stop it by casting Dispel Magic".
11. To me, this assumption (not asking for clarification) precludes a good adjudication. If I nevertheless had to, I guess there are a couple ways this could go.

• If nothing had been said about what the wizard believed (it's still a little unclear what actually happened in that regard), then I would have only the wizard player's action declaration to go on. If it was, "I stop it by casting Dispel Magic", then the only possible target explicitly mentioned is "it", referring to the wand. So the spell is cast on the wand and nothing happens.
• If I take the somewhat vague description of what the wizard believed to mean that she did not think that there was a spell in effect on the wand itself, then she would not cast Dispel on the wand. But I'm still in doubt about what effect she thinks she is choosing. To me, the most obvious description based on her action declaration would be "an effect that is causing the wand to move". Unfortunately for the wizard, there is no such effect - Fly enables flying, but does not actually cause movement.** If I'm will to stretch the implied description to "an effect that is enabling the wand to fly", then Fly is dispelled, but that's a real stretch IMO. All that said, I don't see any way that the Invisibility to get dispelled.

* By the way, is she a wizard or a bard? One time you seemed to say she was a bard. Not that it makes any difference.
** No, I'm not usually that lawyer-like. But in addition to being in a situation full of hypotheticals, there is PvP going on and so I would feel a need to be assiduously fair to both sides.

On your 8a, an invisible creature not attempting to be stealth flying within 20', especially at double normal walking speed, in heavy armor, should be noticed. The way not to be noticed is to use the hide action. I might ask for a perception check to identify the space the flying, invisible creature is in (absent the visible flying wand, natch), but to be aware of a creature moving through the room? Nope, you get that because the invisible flying creature is not attempting to be stealthy, just invisible.