Edge Cases

[Username17]

Disintegrate can destroy any object made of matter up to a 10 foot cube.

Disintegrate can also damage any creature, regardless of composition.

So an Antimatter Cretaure can be damaged by Disintegrate, but a suit of Antimatter Armor can't be. However, a suit of Antimatter Armor doesn't protect an Antimatter Creature wearing it.

But an Antimatter Creature inside of an Antimatter Box is protected from Disintegrate.

Any other edge cases?

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

Could you 'splain a little better for the slower posters here?

[Username17]

Disintegrate:

When used against an object, the ray simply disintegrates as much as a 10-foot cube of nonliving matter. Thus, the spell disintegrates only part of any very large object or structure targeted.

So it has a special restriction when trageted against objects - it has to be non-living matter, but it has no such restriction when targetted against creatures. So if you cover your walls with trees (which are living matter objects), Disintegrate is powerless against it. If you cover your walls with antimatter (which are non-living, but not matter), they are again immune.

However, as a creature you have no such protection - Disintegrate doesn't have to target non-living matter creatures, it is perfectly able to target living creatures or antimatter creatures, no problem.

Now, your armor doesn't stop spells from touching "you" - so even if a Touch Spell wouldn't affect your armor, people can touch your armor to affect you through it if the spell would affect you. So wearing leaves (living matter) or antimatter plate (non-living antimatter), or even antimatter leaves (living antimatter) is no protection at all.

But an "intervening object" blocks line of effect, and if the spell can't affect it, that's the end of that. So if you are hiding inside a tree or antimatter box - the Disintegrate can't get to you. But if you are merely wearing the box, or tree, you get no protection.

Which is why it's an Edge Case. Write some yourself, it's fun.

Note: on a side note, Disintegration can be zapped at "the planet" or even "the universe" - like all such effects it is limited in scope and only goes 10 feet. On another side note, "air" is an object, and Disintegrate can be used to clear 10 feet of air out of a room, if for some reason that's important to you (such as trying to suffocate someone, or remove portions of a solid fog).

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

I wouldn't define anti-matter as not matter.

[Username17]

1084238167[/unixtime]]I wouldn't define anti-matter as not matter.

But Feynman would.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

Its a form of matter. Having reversed charge dosen' make it not matter.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Does antimatter even exist at all, or is it merely hypothetical at this point?

I don't keep up with that stuff, as far as I know, they might have created it by now.

[MrWaeseL]

yes it exists. Positrons and stuff.

[User3]

There's some joint in Europe that makes like a 1000 atoms of it at a time. Fun stuff. New article in New Scientist about it.
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Edge case:
Intelligent swords cannot be affected by Shatter, or any other soley object-affecting spells, as they have a Cha and a Wis. So, they can't be shrunk by Shrink Item. However, when you Magic Jar into anything, your body is now an object(since you take your Wis and Cha with you), so you could enchant your body with a permanent Animate Objects spell, or any other enchantment.

Getting someone turned into stone is the perfect way to mind control them. Petrified people count as unconcious, and unconcious people can't make saves. Return them to flesh, and the mind control effect is still on them.

[Mole_2]

Although mathematically an antiparticle is the same as the particle with the time direction reversed.
A positron is an electron going backwards in time - if I remember my Fenyman diagrams correctly.....

[Essence]

The distinguishment between "living objects", "nonliving objects", "living creatures", and "nonliving creatures" is so incredibly fubared in the first place; it's no wonder it creates so many edge cases. The writers can't figure out whether an intelligent sword is a nonliving creature, a living object, or a nonunliving nonobjectoid.

Don't even get me started on trees. If your typical tree has no Wisdom, what in the blue hell do Druids give a Dire Rat's ass about worshipping them for?

[Username17]

The distinguishment between "living objects", "nonliving objects", "living creatures", and "nonliving creatures" is so incredibly fubared in the first place; it's no wonder it creates so many edge cases.

The definitions are clear - but they are sufficiently counterintuitive that many designers don't seem to understand what they are.

The writers can't figure out whether an intelligent sword is a nonliving creature, a living object, or a nonunliving nonobjectoid.

That's true, although it is a Non-living Creature. Which you can hit people with. This means that you can target an intelligent sword with creature spells (and no, I have no idea what happens if your sword is slain by magic without actually breaking the sword).

That's not the fubar part. The fubar part is where people keep writing rules as if that wasn't the case - that's just fucked up.

-Username17

[Essence]

Ahhh...so, a Cleric with an intelligent cudgel could cast Imbue with Spell Ability on it, and have the cudgel cast a few Cure spells out on the cleric when they became necessary?


Or, (this is fun!), you could Magic Jar into random j. bystander, PAO your body into a sword, have an epic wizard enchant the hell out of it (including making it intelligent!), and then Magic Jar back into your body (now a sword), retaining all of your class features and other abilities.

Now: what happens as long as you remain a sword? Does the other intelligence still exist? Why or why not? It doesn't exactly have a soul to remove and send into the Magic Jar...

Also, what happens when you PAO your sword-body back into your normal-body? Do you retain the enchantments that the wizard put on the sword? Including or not including the intelligence? What does it mean to have a +5 keen merciful viscious ghost touch defending body? Or have a special purpose of "defeat/slay wielder"?

[Username17]

This brings up the whole other edge case of "Do Constructs have Souls?"

Unfortunately, that's important. Unlike some of the other edge cases here, there's no clear answer that I know of. Zombies have no Souls, which makes me wonder how they would go about dying if you Magic Jarred into their body and destroyed the stone.

-Username17

[User3]

Unfortunately, once you enchant your own body with an intelligence(Wis and Cha), your body is now its body, meaning that when the MJ ends, you die.

So you do create a whole new intelligence in a creature with its own magic powers…however, you don’t get to use it.

You could MJ it again, and then have its passive powers, but in that case you might as well have just enchanted yourself in the first place.
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A nice bonus edge case is that you MJ away, Flesh to Stone/Shrink Item/PAO your body, and then carry it around in your pocket. If the body you MJed into dies, you pop back into your pocket body. Then you have only the issue of getting transformed back into a man to deal with, rather than the much more difficult issue of dying.

If you Shrink Item yourself, you can be a Plushy doll that transforms back into a guy in a few days or when thrown or at a command word.

Since it is assumed that petrified people(or plushy people) don’t age, this is one of the more unusual forms of immortality built into the PHB/core rules.