Disclaimer: this is purposefully obtuse.
Other effects in the game which explicitly state they kill you:
Shadows, succubi, massive damage, death saving throws, beholder death ray (notably not even their disintegration ray kills you), power word kill, vampires, mind flayers, night hags, drow inquisitors.
Clearly, if they intended for disintegration to kill you, they’d have said so. Since specific overrides general, and there is no general rule that disintegrated creatures are dead, I rest my case. QED.
All that we are is dust in the wind.
That’s deep bro.
“We mortals are but shadows and dust, Maximus.”
I hope you’re an Illusionist Wizard.
I’d like to imagine that this is how non-necromantic sapient undead creatures are created, someone has all their flesh incinerated away but somehow their soul clings to the bones, and bam sapient skeleton.
In this case it could result in a poltergeist, which uses the dust to interact with things.
You can be literally obliterated by a sneeze. And you’re so dusty, folks would need to make a Con check for allergies.
“I cast Vacuum Cleaner.”
Well memed, but it’s no fun to try to argue with someone who will take everything in bad faith, even as a joke.
I disagree, I think it’s funny as long as this is all theory.
If a player was actually serious about wanting to do this as more than a meme, and was arguing this hard for it I’d be mad as hell. In this context, though? It’s fine. I think it’s amusing how hard people can stretch the rules. It’s similar to the peasant railgun. Hilarious concept. I’m still not okay with someone trying to actually use a peasant railgun.
In theory, sure. But not with OP saying “Nah-uh” to everything. There’s just no fun to be had.
And I really enjoy arguing about game mechanics, just look back at me talking about that insect swarm/animal shapes nonsense people who know nothing about the game came up with.
I’d say I’d agree but there is no stretching here, you’d have to rule that a creature that is missing every part of its body is alive. You’d also have to rule that a pile of dust has a maximum HP of more than 0, or else you’d also be dead instantly.
You’d never get a death save, your already dead.
I would argue that by this logic, your ability scores also fall to 0, killing you
Nothing in the spell says your ability scores change.
Nothing in the spell says they don’t. By contrast, Wild Shape
Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.
Also, a pile of dust doesn’t have a stat block because it’s an object. It’s not even sentient. But if you really really want to play as a lifeless pile of dust, knock yourself out.
Spells do what they say they do. So “it doesn’t say they don’t” isn’t a defense unless you think I could argue that Haste changes my Dex to 30.
The spell also doesn’t say you become an object. Compare to True Polymorph!
*“Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Jesus, get the quote right.
That’s not even in the scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX-m7UsCp3I
Here’s what Walter actually says:
How are you doing?
…mumbling…
How are you doing?
You did the only thing that you could, I hope you understand that.
Any thoughts on what our next move might be?
Our next move. Our next move. Given the fact that at the first opportunity, Gus will kill us.
No, no, we bought ourselves some time, yes, but… The question is how much. He will be looking for another chemist.
Are you sure you’re…
What do you mean?
What page is that?
that’s a lich that travels with his phylactery
I like it!
Get the feeling it would be difficult to have a dust based strength character though. Hard to hold weapons/make attacks with them as dust.
Maybe wizard?
Just have someone carry you around in their pockets, then throw you in the enemies eyes to temporarily blind them.
Blind possibly but would you get weaker the more dust lost?
“As you cross the street you take 1d4 of wind damage. Please make death saves.”
“it starts misting as you are traveling”
Roll to not get washed away
deleted by creator
Still needs an arcane focus and the spell components could be problematic. Monk maybe? (A dextrous pile of dust gently (yet masterfully!) being blown at enemies)
Two-handed weapons require two hands, and one-handed weapons require a free hand to load. But you could use a one-handed weapon that you don’t have to load. Or rather, you don’t even need to do that, since no weapons are listed as being one-handed.
Probably should go join the Thousand
SunsSons. They might set you up with some nice power armor.Thousand Sons*
Also, pretty sure that it comes with a permanent controlling enchantment subjugating them to the next Sorcerer
Well, that’s a small problem compared to being a pile of dust without power armor.
If the speck of dust is sentient, then it’s not really a rubricae. The suits of armor do nothing when not controlled
It doesn’t kill you, it turns you into an inanimate object.
Edit: And objects aren’t creatures.
Spells do what they say they do, and disintegrate doesn’t change you into an object. Compare to True Polymorph, a higher level spell, which can creatures into objects.
I agree that “spells do what they say” but a pile of dust is definitely an object, not a creature. That said, I’m willing to concede that it doesn’t turn you into a object because it says one of the only ways to be restored to life is through True Resurrection which targets creatures. (And I don’t feel like being so obtuse as to argue that the specific rule of Disintegrate saying True Resurrection allows the dust to return to life means it overrides the general rule of True Resurrection targeting creatures lol.)
Ok, disintegrate transforms you in a pile of tiny objects if you get down to 0 HP when hit
No? As I just said, the spell doesn’t mention anything about changing your type.
A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing and carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust.
Going from
creaturetopile of fine gray dustsounds like changing to meIt changes your shape, yes! Same as Polymorph does, for example. That doesn’t mean you’re no longer a creature. See True Polymorph for example, which can turn creatures into objects. And it’s a higher level spell! Clearly the devs intended that ability to be higher magic.
The rules also don’t state that being incapacitated impairs movement in any way, dropping to 0hp is stated to incapacitate you. So you can just move away at 0hp.
Obviously we have DMs who aren’t robots and will play to the spirit of the game, not the word of the rules.
The rules state that you either die or fall unconscious when you have 0 hit points. The definition of “unconscious” in Appendix A specifies that you are incapacitated AND can’t move or speak AND are unaware of your surroundings.
EDIT: Maybe I shouldn’t assume you’re talking about 5e. I have no idea about 5.5e or any other edition
Yes but in D&D you only quote the rules that support whatever bullshit you’re trying to pull.
No, dropping to 0 hit points makes you unconscious, not incapacitated. That’s an important distinction. It’s the unconscious part that impairs your movement.
Do they need to define dictionary words? You are incapacitated, you don’t have capacity to do that.
The lack of qualification indicates you are completely incapacitated and have no capacity to do or say anything.
This is the real meaning of the exception that proves the rule.
RAW, a pile of dust is not a playable character option. Sorry.
RAW, you also cannot play as a dragon fairy princess. That would be homebrew.
You REALLY want to play a pile of dust…? Well, okay, we can homebrew that for you.
Pfft, you could play a dragon fairy princess in 3e. Probably at something like a +10 level adjustment.
The good old days.
Well I didn’t start as a pile of dust. I became one via a RAW spell.
So? That doesn’t make it a playable option. Point to where it says, RAW, that you can continue to play as something you’re turned into?
RAW, it is not a playable character option. Sounds to me like you prefer to abide by RAI…
I don’t need to point to where RAW says that I cannot play it because nothing leads one to believe that you can’t. If your character is polymorphed, its state changes but you can still play it.
Where does it say that, RAW? I’m using your own logic against you. You’ll have to come up with a better response than that.
Edit: to clarify, where does it say RAW that you get to continue playing when polymorphed into a non-playable character?
Imagine a GM that takes control away from a druid player any time they wildshape, smh.
I mean, this is a game where we are being intentionally obtuse. I don’t care about the game in any capacity. I care about what is written in the rulebook.
Feels like you may have lost the plot of your own joke post.
There was a plot?
The target’s game statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the new form. It retains its alignment and personality.
OP could’ve just repeated “spells do what they say they do.” It doesn’t say you lose control of your character in the new form, all it says about the new form and how that affects the character is…well, that line(plus a few other things about the gear they were wearing and whatnot).
If it makes a character into a non playable character option, what rule is suddenly making that character playable? Nothing explicitly states that you can play as a character that is not a playable character option. You have a set list of RAW character options.
But nothing explicitly states that you stop playing as the character you were playing as if they were transformed, whether into a playable character option or not. There is no rule saying that that character is playable, but there is no rule saying you can’t play as them. Again, spells do what they say they do.
You could say that about anything. You want to move left? Point to where it says, RAW, that you can move left.
You can do anything unless the rules forbid it. And there’s nothing forbidding continuing to play after your character is transformed any more than there is anything forbidding you to play while they’re wearing a red shirt.
You being able to move left is covered clearly by the rules under movement speed.
You cannot “do anything unless the rules forbid it”. That’s not how RAW works.
Honestly, RAW just doesn’t work. If you can’t do anything unless specifically allowed, then you can’t do anything because whatever you do will always be more specific than what the rules say. If you can’t do anything unless forbidden, then it doesn’t work because there’s so much the rules didn’t bother with, just leaving it to common sense. And then there’s the fact that sometimes rules contradict. Sure there’s a rule that the more specific rule overrides the general rule, but that’s just yet another contradicting rule on the pile.
There’s nothing specifically saying whether or not you can move left. There’s nothing specifically saying whether or not you can move through walls. We all know you can do one of those but not the other, but it’s not because of anything the book says.
Granted, the book sometimes gives creatures special abilities that let them move through walls, which would be an odd thing to do if it’s something you can do anyway, but the game constantly goes into different levels of detail about things.
I think maybe you’ve missed the whole point of this thread, dawg. I read the first sentence and then dismissed the entirety of your comment because you clearly either don’t understand or aren’t engaging with the premise.
I mean, from your characters perspective, death is preferable to being transmuted to dust, especially in a setting with a well established afterlife.
Hey, you don’t know my character. He’s making the best of his fine dusty life.
He’s certainly got grit.
I tip my cap.
Unless the character expects to end up in some kind of hell …
Why would it matter if it says you die? It’s not like there’s a rule that dead characters can’t take actions. Or that they transform into objects. Or get sent to another plane of existence depending on who they worship and their alignment while leaving an object behind.
Because if it doesn’t say I’m dead, I’m not dead. QED.
