Role-playing Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
A human druid Wild Shapes into a spider and now has 1 maximum hit point. As a spider she gets bitten by a hungry lizard that deals 2 damage.
Does the druid die from Instant Death (PHB p. 197), or does she revert to her human form first (PHB pp. 66–7)?
The relevant rules are Wild Shape on pages 66 - 67:
You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.
...
If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious.
The other relevant bits are on 197:
When damage reduces you to 0 hit points, and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.
...
If she takes 18 damage from an attack, she is reduced to 0 hit points, but 12 damage remains. Because the remaining damage equals her hit point maximum, the cleric dies.
There are two ways to interpret the instant death rules:
Instant death is fundamentally, a single, atomic, operation. You apply the damage, and then under certain circumstances the target dies. Any sequencing in the description is purely to help understand the process.
Instant death is a series of steps. "Remains" implies a two phase process: apply the damage, and then check what's left. Nothing "remains" unless it is "remaining after" something else. The example is also done in very distinct steps: The cleric takes damage, is reduced to 0 hit points, then the remaining damage is checked, then the cleric dies.
If you subscribe to the first interpretation, then a spider-druid dies when they take 2 points of damage. They take the damage, it is instantly fatal, and they revert form. There is an explicit special case to prevent unconsciousness, but there isn't one to prevent death. The druid is dead.
If you subscribe to the second, then the spider-druid can take a normal amount of damage before dying. He reaches zero, reverts to druid, instant death is checked against his druid hit points, and the special-case against unconsciousness kicks in to keep him on his feet.
There is ultimately no way to resolve the atomicity of the instant death process, short of "Word of God" from a developer.
For my table, I like Druids to use their abilities as something other than a combat cooldown. But if turning into a sparrow to serenade the innkeeper's daughter means you instantly die when you fail the perception check to spot her cat Boots... Well, you aren't going to have many druids turning into things other than tigers or bears.
Therefore, I must rule for interpretation two. Because it's the only one that supports my playstyle. Your table may vary.
One final bit of food for thought:
The 4th-level spell Polymorph uses the same mechanics as the Druid's wildshape ability. So if you rule that instant-death is very fatal for shapeshifters, hope your players never realize that they can just start turning the bad guys into box turtles and stepping on them.
AceCalhoon and anaximander have both provided some well thought out and thoroughly explained answers here already. Ace makes a case for both possibilities equally, and anax makes a case for instant death checking before reverting to normal form. I will make a case that instant death is checked after a reversion to normal form.
SO, for the third time here, let us look at the relevant Wild Shape text:
Wild Shape
- You Automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.
- When you transform, you assume the beast's hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious.
I would like to point out here and now what really sells me to my case:
For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage.
From what I can tell, this reads like the following:
Regarding AceCalhoon's own answer, this would be applying the second interpretation of the Instant Death rules. The reason that you would revert in step 3 is because you are taking enough damage to drop you to 0 hit points, at which point the hit point reduction is interrupted by the Druid reverting to their normal form, and then the hit point reduction can continue here.
So to spell it out clearly, and to answer the actual question, let us look at the actual scenario under these circumstances:
I will make note here that the entire case falls apart under the assumption that Instant Death is checked as soon as damage is calculated. By that I mean: 1. The Druid is in animal form with 1 hit point maximum. 2. The Druid takes 2 damage. 3. Instant Death is checked. The Druid would be reduced to 0, and the remaining damage is equal to their current Max Hit Points, so they die.
That is about how it'd play out under that assumption.
All of the other answers do a great job of answering the question, but I think the most important consideration for reversion from Wild Shape at zero HP isn't about checking for unconsciousness, it's about checking to see if the dropping to zero hit points rules apply (p197):
Dropping to 0 Hit Points
When you drop to 0 hit points, you either die outright or fall unconscious, as explained in the following sections.
I'll use the term "Dying" to refer to "you either die outright or fall unconscious." RAW have lumped them together when dropping to zero hit points and I don't think it's fair to separate them.
To make it easier to see why unconsciousness was mentioned in the Wild Shape rules, I've reproduced them without the bit about checking for unconsciousness at the end of the second paragraph.
Wild Shape
You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.
When you transform, you assume the beast's hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage.
Without the second paragraph, we would be unable to answer if a Wild Shaped druid would fall unconscious first, i.e. "Dying" applies when at zero hit points, or would revert first when at zero hit points. Since the second paragraph clarifies that reversion happens at zero hit points and the druid does not fall unconscious, the druid cannot be considered "Dying."
So, the question is, does an instant death effect apply when the character isn't dying?
For a similar conundrum, consider knocking someone unconscious through melee attacks (p198):
Knocking a Creature Out
Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
Does this mean an attacker can knock a Wild Shaped druid unconscious when they would otherwise revert? RAW for Wild Shape states that the druid reverts before checking for the effects of "Dropping to 0 Hit Points" listed above, and I don't think only explicitly mentioning unconsciousness also excludes instant death.
There are several gates that must first be passed through in order for instant death to result in the death of a druid that was originally in wild shape.
However, those gates can definitely by prevent instant death when the following occurs.
The first gate are the events that will revert a druid back to original form.
You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.
As a spider taking 2 points of damage, causes you to drop to 0 hp and die.
Either of those criteria are sufficient to cause reversion based on the rules regarding wild shape.
Reverting is:
When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed.
Substituting the definition for revert in after the conditions gives us a tidy list:
Dropping to 0 hp has an additional effect attached of damage carrying over. Since dropping to 0 hp was one of the causes of the reversion, this is applicable and damage carries over.
If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form.
Dropping to 0 hp was a reason for reverting. Not the only reason, but the rules don't say anything about it having to be the only reason. This is copacetic with the disintegrate errata change.
E.g. power word kill would cause the spider to die, but would not reduce it to 0 hp.
A central aspect of the druid class is wildshape. This perspective on death in wildshape doesn't greatly affect the tankiness of the circle of moon druid, but does avoid the colossal penalty for other druids who are limited to more fragile shapes.
The specter of a very easy instant death greatly impacts the choices of beasts a player of a druid would otherwise enjoy playing or use to solve a tricky non-combat situation.
[X=Druid HP, Y=Beast HP]
Instant death has a prerequisite. You can see in the rules that instant death is subordinate to the encompassing section “dropping to zero hit points”.
DROPPING TO 0 HIT POINTS When you drop to 0 hit points, you either die outright or fall unconscious, as explained in the following sections.
INSTANT DEATH Massive damage can kill you instantly. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage... PHB 197
Therefore a creature must drop to zero hit points before instant death can be applied in any case.
For the spider, if they took 3 damage, the beast would be reduced to zero HP and the druid would revert to their true form.
For the druid to be killed instantly, they would have to take massive damage. Calculated as double the druids HP plus the wild-shape beasts remaining HP.
The “dropping to zero” rule implies that damage is a sequential phenomena.
That damage drops like an elevator, going from the top floor to the bottom by passing every floor on the way down. The elevator does not teleport to the lobby.
When the spider drops to zero, they must first revert to druid-form as per the wildshape rules, any further damage is imparted to the druid.
You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die. [...] If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious. PHB 66
The Wild Shape rule says:
You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die. [...] If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious.
The rule on instant death says:
When damage reduces you to 0 hit points, and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.
Taken on its own, this seems pretty clear: after being bitten, your druid reaches 0 HP and has 1 damage remaining, which equals her current HP max, so she's dead. The fact that this dropping to 0 HP is about to cause her to revert is an extra.
Following on from this, the Wild Shape rule specifically mentions dying as causing you to revert. This implies that it is possible to die while Wild Shaped, or else there's no real reason to mention it. If you always revert as soon as you hit 0 HP, and given that you can't Wild Shape while unconscious, there would be no way for you to be knocked down and still Wild Shaped. Thus, it's logical to assume that there's some way to get past 0 HP and all the way to "dead" while remaining Wild Shaped, or else the rule wouldn't have to mention it. This means that the sequence of actions cannot be like this:
Wild Shape -> take damage -> reach 0 HP -> revert -> compare to (normal form) max HP
because this would make the "or die" part of the rule unnecessary, as it describes something that could never come up. Instead, I think it's safe to assume, from the wording of the instant death rule, that you compare remaining damage to max HP immediately on reaching 0 HP, before anything else triggers. That means the sequence of actions looks like this:
Wild Shape -> take damage -> reach 0 HP -> compare to (Wild Shaped) max HP
Of course, in either case, what happens if the remaining damage is less than your max HP is the same: you revert, and tale the remaining damage in your normal form.
The rules are pretty clear actually, from a rules lawyer point of view.
Wild Shape (PHB p.66):
You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.
If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form.
The first rule says that the Druid can die in creature form, it is specifically listed as a possible event.
The second rule says that damage is carried over only if the Druid were put onto 0 hit points. There is no mention anything special happening if the Druid dies for any reason.
Therefore RAW the Druid will die if the instant death rules (PHB p.197) or any other reason (Power Word Kill) apply and kill them outright.
To go through a scenario:
The official ruling on Disintegrating a Wild Shaped druid supports this:
What happens if a druid using Wild Shape is reduced to 0 hit points by disintegrate? Does the druid simply leave beast form? The druid turns to dust, since the spell disintegrates you the instant you drop to 0 hit points.
i.e. the druid dies by being dropped to 0 hit points and is killed outright by being disintegrated. While working out the effects of the disintegration is multi step, it is actually a single event and cannot be interrupted unless a rule specifically says so, which is not the case here.
In the instant death from "massive" damage scenario the druid is dropped to 0 hps and is killed outright as their head is deemed to have been crushed in the jaws of the lizard (or whatever scenario is actually the case). It is a single event and follows the same pattern as the disintegrate scenario.
There are other ways the Wild Shaped PC could be killed outright (Wish, Power Word Kill and Vorpal Swords spring to mind) and in those cases they will dead too.
If you have 1 hp and take 2 damage, you are dropped to zero because you cannot go below 0. The wild shape rule says excess damage is applied to the druid hp. So if you check damage in animal form, there is no excess damage past being put to 0, as it is applied to the druid hp instead, not instantly killing the druid. Death can occur in other ways than damage such as levels of exhaustion or power word kill. Same applies to a polymorph spell. I fail to see the confusion because the rule for the wild shape prevents says how damage is directed. Also you cannot knock a druid unconscious by reducing his wild shape to 0 clearly because he instantly reverts and only takes any excess damage.
