Spells that work on humanoids...

[RigaMortus]

When a spell says that it only works on "Humanoids", well what does this mean? Do they mean it only works on the Humanoid "type" or does it work on anything that can be considered a Humanoid.

For example, in the DMG (pg 5) the description of Giant says, "A giant is a humanoid creature of great strength, usually of at least Large size."

So would a spell that works on Humanoids also work on giants, given their descrption here (from the DMG)?

 

[Rybaer]

I'm fairly certain these spells are meant to only work on creatures of type "Humanoid." I can see the confusion due to the descriptive use of the same term. A devil could have a humanoid shape, but would be far from Humanoid. With something like giants, though, I could easily see a DM houseruling the application of some of these spells.

 

[DM_Matt]

It refers to the type. This is a balance issue. Nothing in the "Humanoid" catagory is that powerful unless they have lots of class levels, in which case they have good saves or pass an hd limit. Often, such as wiith Charm Person/Monster, the version that affects humanoids is much lower level than the general-purpose version.

 

[RigaMortus]

What really confuses me is that some spells say that it only effects "humanoids of small or medium size". Now why would they add this to the description of the spell? If they are Large size, the would be considered Giant.

 

[twjensen]

'cause it might matter

What if there were a large humanoid that wasn't a giant? It could happen. WoTC has some experience with building in limits in advance considering what they *might* do in the future.

 

[RogueJK]

What really confuses me is that some spells say that it only effects "humanoids of small or medium size". Now why would they add this to the description of the spell? If they are Large size, the would be considered Giant.

Could the term "humanoid" include both creatures of Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid types? If so, this would include many humanoids of Large size.