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.

  • timgrant@ttrpg.network
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    13 hours ago

    You’re not dead when you’re petrified, either, which can lead to some pretty interesting exploits, rules-as-written.

    Petrified creatures count as creatures, not objects, so rules-as-written you can determine if a statue is a petrified creature by trying to target it with a spell that requires a creature for a target.

    With the cantrip Poison Spray, you can check for petrified creatures without using spell slots or risking damaging the creature, since it would be immune to poison while petrified.

      • timgrant@ttrpg.network
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        6 hours ago

        You can also safely check with Vicious mockery. The spell can target any creature, but only damages the target if it can hear, which “inanimate” things cannot.

        On the other hand, Dissonant Whispers causes the target to hear (rather than hearing being a precondition as it is with Vicious Mockery) and with this you can kill petrified creatures, thus ensuring no spell casters return them to flesh-and-blood, without damaging the statue.

        • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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          5 hours ago

          This is straight up horrible. LOL, party goes on a mission to obtain a cure for petrification to save a bunch of statues only to discover that they are all a bunch of corpses because the villain is just that big of an asshole.

  • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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    14 hours ago

    Probably should go join the Thousand Suns. They might set you up with some nice power armor.

    • luciferofastora@lemmy.zip
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      11 hours ago

      Thousand Sons*

      Also, pretty sure that it comes with a permanent controlling enchantment subjugating them to the next Sorcerer

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        If the speck of dust is sentient, then it’s not really a rubricae. The suits of armor do nothing when not controlled

      • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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        10 hours ago

        Well, that’s a small problem compared to being a pile of dust without power armor.

  • Egg_Egg@lemm.ee
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    17 hours ago

    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.

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      13 hours ago

      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.

    • cjoll4@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      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

      • Egg_Egg@lemm.ee
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        15 hours ago

        Yes but in D&D you only quote the rules that support whatever bullshit you’re trying to pull.

  • Archpawn@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    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.

    • Comment105@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      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?

  • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 day ago

    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?

    • Ziglin@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      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)

    • Archpawn@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      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.

    • pyrflie@lemm.ee
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      24 hours ago

      “As you cross the street you take 1d4 of wind damage. Please make death saves.”

  • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

      • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        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…

        • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          21 hours ago

          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.

          • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            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?

        • Archpawn@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          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.

          • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
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            21 hours ago

            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.

            • Archpawn@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              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.

    • Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      I’ve never played DND so I don’t know if this is something you could pull off or anything but I’d probably be like

      “I snort the fine pile of dust” and then, I don’t know, there’s some latent personality or intention there, so now we have to alternate playing my character between turns/minutes or something. It’d probably make for some great RP moments, especially if each personality couldn’t remember very well what the other was doing previously. Maybe the class and abilities change with each person, which makes arming up appropriately interesting or a pain depending on how we handle it I suppose.