Timeline for Can you combine Wild Shape and "Bite of the Were-X" Spells?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
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| Mar 16, 2020 at 22:09 | comment | added | Hey I Can Chan | @MatthewNajmon I've cited the section on spell failure. A spell's characteristics are not well-defined. One reading—that fine other answer—defines them as the spell's header material and makes a case for that being an absolute. I think characteristics could include the spell's actual description. The only other way I can think of that this may come up is when the spell says it does something, but the Target entry isn't specific (e.g. You awaken a tree or animal to humanlike sentience should stop the awaken spell from working on an animal or plant that already has humanlike sentience.) | |
| Mar 16, 2020 at 17:59 | comment | added | Matthew Najmon | @HeyICanChan "and if the spell can't do those things, typically a spell fails" That's how it works in the Warlord CCG, and in some other games, but this is the first I've seen of anyone thinking that's how it works in D&D 3.5e. Do you have a rules citation for that? As far as I can tell, 3.5 spells fizzle for things like the targeting being directly illegal (for example, it targets "a creature", and the target you thought was a creature is actually a statue), but don't fizzle just for not being able to have an impact meaningful enough to be worth tracking. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 16:45 | comment | added | Hey I Can Chan | @KRyan (To be clear, keep in mind that this answer accommodates yours starting with A generous DM…. Just sayin'.) It may sound off to me because the spell says it does these things, and if the spell can't do those things, typically a spell fails. Ruling that the spell works anyway and waits for the subject to catch up for the spell's duration seems, to me anyway, the exact opposite of how spell targeting should work. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 15:16 | comment | added | KRyan | @HeyICanChan Why does it sound off? The combining magic effects rules explicitly say exactly that: the spell remains active, just irrelevant. If it’s still there when it becomes relevant again, well, it’s still active. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 11:18 | comment | added | Peregrin | @Hey I Can Chan „high-level characters … are often as dangerous as they are goofy-looking“ - I guess, you are probably right here. :) | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 11:17 | comment | added | Peregrin | @KRyan and Hey I Can Chan: Thanks for your detailed and elaborate answers. Although you disagree over essential points I can see the logic in both of your lines of argument and interpretation of the rules, and accordingly voted you both up. As for my example of the dire-bear-were-tiger I conclude: not allowing the druid to do it would either be a very strict reading of the spell or a house-rule. - This helps me on! | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 8:49 | comment | added | Hey I Can Chan | @MatthewNajmon I think it's closer to casting owl's wisdom on a creature that has Wisdom as a nonability: The spell wants to affect something that doesn't exist. The idea that the spell affects the subject as much as it can and the remainder of its outcomes wait for the spell's duration to see if they can affect the subject sounds off to me. I mean, I totally get the desire to have that happen, but—in addition to those not being what I think are the rules—I worry that adjudicating partial effects is a lot more complicated and liable to lead to fights than just having the spell fail. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 6:21 | comment | added | Matthew Najmon | @HeyICanChan It's the same as if I cast Owl's Wisdom while wearing an Amulet of Wisdom +6: the smaller bonus from the Owl's Wisdom fails to stack, so doesn't actually do anything, but the spell itself doesn't fail, and is still sitting there, ready to apply its bonus should I remove the amulet or get it sundered or something. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 6:19 | comment | added | Matthew Najmon | @HeyICanChan "exactly how much of any effect's description can be ignored until it does finally fail" Anything up to, and including, all of it. As covered in KRyan's answer above, if every part of the spell falls into the "must be ignored because circumstances make applying it impossible" category, then this still does not cause the spell to fail; it just means the spell sits there, active but not actually having an impact, until and unless circumstances change in such a way as to allow some part of it to manifest, at which point that part does manifest. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 14:13 | history | edited | Hey I Can Chan | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Cleaning up.
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| Mar 14, 2020 at 13:36 | comment | added | Hey I Can Chan | @KRyan If that's the case, exactly how much of any effect's description can be ignored until it does finally fail? I mean, the spell says that "[y]our hands become claws." If a thing ain't got hands, what are the other options that the game provides? No choices are being made about this when the spell tries comes into effect, for instance. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 13:27 | comment | added | KRyan | “This is deliberately the strictest reading. Seriously, the question's asking for the rules as written, and this is one of the ways that the rules can be read.” I disagree; I see this as well beyond any “reading” of the rules, and well into the territory of twisting them. Also, again, I am reasonably sure that the game does make allowances for half-measures in this regard. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 13:24 | comment | added | Hey I Can Chan | @KRyan This is deliberately the strictest reading. Seriously, the question's asking for the rules as written, and this is one of the ways that the rules can be read. To be fair, I, too, find such "secret requirements" distasteful, but it's not crazy for a DM to say that a druid in snake form does not grow hands that then become claws if that druid casts bite of the weretiger. Should the whole spell fail? Ideally not, but the game makes no allowances for half measures in this regard. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 13:15 | comment | added | KRyan | I am reasonably certain somewhere it’s stated that spells do as much as they can. I don’t think this reading is “strict” so much as “cruelly reading unnecessary requirements in between the lines,” and as such, I find it pretty unhelpful. Torn over an actual vote, but this kind of bending over backwards to achieve a pre-determined conclusion isn’t ever my idea of helpful. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 13:07 | history | answered | Hey I Can Chan | CC BY-SA 4.0 |