D&D 5E Is the stun from Psychic Scream permanent if it is impossible to make the save?

[Dausuul]

Okay, the mending spell has fascinating metaphysical implications.

Like, imagine this scenario:

You have a beautiful rug in your wizard tower, but one day a bunch of adventurers come in to raid your place, and in the course of the battle a large hole, exactly one meter in diameter, is burned into the rug. Afterwards, you think about throwing the rug out, since the hole is too big to fix with a mending spell. But your grandma gave it to you, and the hole actually improves it in some ways, since you are able to put a round end table right in the middle.

So you keep the rug. Years later, you notice that the edges of the the hole have become a bit frayed in one spot, only a few centimetres wide. Can you cast mending spell to fix that frayed spot? Remember, that edge of the rug was originally created by damage to the rug that exceeded mending's ability to fix.

The more challenging question is this: Suppose a rug smaller than 1 foot was destroyed entirely. If you cast mending on the room it was in, will the spell re-create the rug if the rug really tied the room together?

 

[James Gasik]

The more challenging question is this: Suppose a rug smaller than 1 foot was destroyed entirely. If you cast mending on the room it was in, will the spell re-create the rug if the rug really tied the room together?

You better hope so, or some scruffy looking guy might come to your house and steal your rug!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ok, so, ice counts. The water of a lake counts.

I said standard English. i.e. As used by normal people, not dictionary definitions. Because that is what 5e is written in. How many normal people call the ice on a lake an object?

 

[tomBitonti]

I said standard English. i.e. As used by normal people, not dictionary definitions. Because that is what 5e is written in. How many normal people call the ice on a lake an object?

Ice on a lake, no. But an iceberg, yes. Frozen ice on a birdbath, yes. An ice cube, yes. A snowflake, yes. A layer of snow on a yard, no. A snowball, yes.

I don’t this is a great example. Ice is approximately a continuous material, like water, air, or sand, and one has the ambiguity of ice as a general material vs a discrete quantity of ice as one connected body. Ice on a lake isn’t sharply defined (does one see the edges? Is is one or several pieces?), so one tends to think of it more as a quantity of material than a discrete thing. This is more a consequence of the word usage than the actual object ness of ice. Have the ice be in several easily identifiable chunks, then each chunk is an object. Or change the language to be more precise: The 1’ plate of ice that formed on the small retaining pond next to my neighborhood.

TomB

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ice on a lake, no. But an iceberg, yes. Frozen ice on a birdbath, yes. An ice cube, yes. A snowflake, yes. A layer of snow on a yard, no. A snowball, yes.

I agree with most of that, apart from the ice on a birdbath. A birdbath is an object, it has ice in it. The snowflake is borderline. An ice cube and a snowball are both manufactured artefacts.

The problem with something like an iceberg is what does an unbroken iceberg look like? You could mend an ice cube, because you know what an unbroken ice cube looks like, but you don't know what an unbroken iceberg looks like, even if mending could affect a large enough area. It's actually a broken-off part of something that would not be called an object by most people.

I don’t this is a great example. Ice is approximately a continuous material, like water, air, or sand, and one has the ambiguity of ice as a general material vs a discrete quantity of ice as one connected body.

None of this is relevant when discussing magic. Magic is not science. For magic, it's the idea of a thing that matters. Dragons can't fly because of science, they can fly because wings create the idea of flight.

 

[tomBitonti]

I agree with most of that, apart from the ice on a birdbath. A birdbath is an object, it has ice in it. The snowflake is borderline. An ice cube and a snowball are both manufactured artefacts.

The problem with something like an iceberg is what does an unbroken iceberg look like? You could mend an ice cube, because you know what an unbroken ice cube looks like, but you don't know what an unbroken iceberg looks like, even if mending could affect a large enough area. It's actually a broken-off part of something that would not be called an object by most people.

None of this is relevant when discussing magic. Magic is not science. For magic, it's the idea of a thing that matters. Dragons can't fly because of science, they can fly because wings create the idea of flight.

Oh! I was commenting on whether I thought these were objects, not whether they could be repaired. Repair requires an undamaged state. I agree that that is not well defined for an iceberg. (But what if I carve a staircase in a section of ice of the iceberg, and one of the steps Is chipped. Can that step be repaired?)

Heh, what if I deliberately use my birdbath to make ice disks? That would make the ice a deliberately manufactured thing — that is indistinguishable from rain water that had frozen over night.

TomB

 

[Paul Farquhar]

what if I carve a staircase in a section of ice of the iceberg, and one of the steps Is chipped. Can that step be repaired?

I would allow it in D&D - rule of cool applies. Thus averting the need to make a skill check to climb the damaged ice staircase.

Heh, what if I deliberately use my birdbath to make ice disks?

The ice, removed from the bird bath, would be an object - block of ice. You could even smash it and use mending on it, since it has an unbroken form.