I defer to Miracle Max on this one,
One minute after death it's quite a corpse yet, just a creature with no hit points or death saving throws.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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What a weird technicality to get caught up on. Disintegrate destroys wall of force. RAI over RAW any day. It makes absolutely no sense that you can't shoot a disintegrate wherever you want. If you're so worried about the wall being invisible, then target something behind the wall. It's a ray, and it hits the wall, and both spells explicitly say the wall is destroyed. Disintegrate also explicitly can target walls of force, even though it has the "target you can see" caveat. If a player tries to use the explicit counter to wall of force against it and you catch them on a technicality, you're harming the collaborative story.
Don't exploit poor wording when the intent of both spells is clear. No one wants a DM rules lawyer.
I never said I wanted to ecologist it. I just pointed it out because it was very funny to me.
There are two fun things you can do with D&D. You can be pointlessly pedantic with the rules, and you can play. As long as you don't do both at once you're good.
In my campaigns, Mystra does not take kindly to pedants or loophole researchers. A spell does what Mystra allows it to do, and you cast what Mystra allows you to cast
Mfs gotta remember that magic is a person, and that person can get annoyed
That’s a weird way of saying that she does not like Wizards. Because if you study something enough, you are bound to find loopholes.
Finding loopholes is one thing, focusing on finding them so that you can "erm actually" a god is another. A wizard is bound to wonder if lungs count as an open container. A wizard who asserts that they are and doesn't take no for an answer is gonna get his spell slots sapped for a bit
That one does not work RAW either way, because lungs are not an open container.
But I never said I wanted to actually exploit this in a game. You can’t really exploit this one even if you want to, because it’s bound to be extremely specific. I just wanted to point out the weirdness.
And then you'll figure out how to cast a 12th level spell to steal the power of a god. Mystra learned her lesson the hard way.
But if you want to play RAW, go ahead. Oh, you died and you want to be brought back to life? Sorry, the spell targets a "creature that died in the last minute", and now that you're dead, you're an object.
No I don’t want to play RAW. I just don’t want in game solutions to out of game problems. Just (and I know that this will seem extremely absurd, but hear me out!) talk to your players about it like a normal person and make it clear before you start to play.
I mean it's tongue-in-cheek, and it's never really been a problem at my table. Just a fun way to remind casters not to argue about specific wording interpretations in spells, and take them as their most obvious meaning
Now, if a caster comes up with something clever, they can make an Intelligence (Persuasion) check to see if Mystra will allow something. Just don't tell Mystra how her own body works
Okay. But do you actually allow any use of the spell that's not as originally intended? Because some things are technical applications of the rules which rely on rules working as intended but still in very specific way without breaking the game at all.
Sure. The line is somewhere between "I cast minor illusion to make an image of a cabinet, and hide inside of it" and "I cast Shape Water to freeze that guy's blood." In the former case, the spell never says I can't hide inside the illusory object. Clever, useful, not game-breaking. In the latter case, the spell says a creature can't be inside the water, but it never says the water can't be inside the creature! Bad, shame, you lose all your spell slots until the next long rest
I mean that outlook, while it's cool for your campaign, it would make raising the dead (to fight for you) pretty difficult as I thought most animate dead type spells required a dead creature to animate and wouldnt work with an object, otherwise people would just make small effigies to animate instead of summoning the dead in battle.
Animate Dead targets a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid. Create Undead targets corpses of Medium or Small Humanoids. Danse Macabre targets Small or Medium corpses. And you could technically use Animate Object, which targets objects, or True Polymorph, which can target either. Finger of Death and Negative Energy Flood both target a creature, but they just bring back the target as undead if the attack kills them.
But if you really get into it, the game has way too many assumptions to be played RAW. There's no rule that you can't walk through walls. There's no rule that when you're reduced to zero hitpoints you become an object or get transported to an afterlife dimension or otherwise can't take actions (assuming you die instantly and don't become Unconscious). Some weapons require two hands, and nobody can use them because none of the races are described as having hands. Thri-kreen have four arms, but no mention of hands at the end of them. You also need one hand to wield one-handed weapons, but this doesn't come up because no weapons are described as one-handed. And sometimes the rules contradict. There's a rule that in the case of a contradiction, the more specific rule applies, but that just adds yet another contradicting rule.
Magic may be a fickle bitch, but she likes pedants more than wild mages. 🤷🏼♂️
D&D's invisibility rules are goofy. At least in 5e (2014 edition, groan) you always get advantage if you're invisible and attacking someone. Even if they can see you. The invisibility condition is worded like "you get advantage on attacks" instead of "Since you're hidden, remember you get advantage on attacks".
Exactly. Same line of stupidity imo.
Not going to lie. People who argue for rules like Jesse in the meme, makes me not want to play D&D.
You are not bound to engage with the topic. For most here I assume it’s just goofing around.
Personally I used to love it, if the DM did that it inspired players to play; usually whoever had theage would say something like I can't destroy what I can't see and the the fun starts... Someone throws flour from their pack at it (or dirt, oil, something to make the invisible object visable in another way).
I haven't played in over 20 years so I'm sure it's changed a lot but that kind of stuff was fun to me.
I understand where you are coming from, but it think there are plenty of opportunities for improvisation and creative solutions without the need to start splitting hairs about specific wording.
I feel that people not following the wording kills a lot if the experience, obviously the DM is god and makes final calls but, some stuff kills it. I remember playing with one guy that wanted every fight to be epic but he didn't really understand the wording in the monster manual so he would constantly throw huge battles at us and underpower them or just play them weird (like dragons that aren't smart despite their int score). Before ever seeing level 15 our characters could have taken out God's with the gear and crap he had given us.
Fun memories though so I guess it really doesn't matter, it's all about how you like to play.
Are you saying the example in this meme is good way to follow the word of the rules?
I suppose you could cast see invisibility or true seeing first? But... yeah if I'm GMing you can just target the invisible wall, fuck that. Same goes for how RAW it's nearly impossible to destroy the red layer of a prismatic wall because every spell that deals cold damage explicitly only targets creatures
Tired of pesky adventurers always seeing your tricks? Try applying Invisible metamagic to conjured Fog today!
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