D&D General How would you make this ruling? Vortex Warp

pukunui said:

And I'm not aware of any feat or ability that allows you to exclude targets from a Conjuration spell (which vortex warp is), only Evocation spells.

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We are talking about a game with more 3rd party content and homebrewing than you can shake a stick at, so I wasn't going to assume.

Umbran said:

I think if you are going to introduce a system that applies consequences for using spells in new ways, in the middle of a combat is a poor choice of moments to do it.

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I agree, and was speaking more in general. Either for players that agree with the Rule of Cool idea or the players that just trust me to do whatever 100% with no whines or complains ever.

Sure, a lot of players....when asked "how would you like some fun Super Harsh and Deadly Consequences rules added to the game for Rule of Cool fun?" a huge number of players will snap and say "NO, I wish to play the game only by the Official Rules in the Rule book!" But then this type of player would not be doing anything like changing a spell effect during the game.

bloodtide said:

As a Rule of Cool Fun type DM who is happy to flick the rulebook off the table: I would allow this.

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No need for Rule of Cool: the spell has one target. The druid cannot be targeted by the spell, and therefore isn't going anywhere. If the druid ceases to be a "creature," then yeah, she/he would teleport with the fish as . . . dinner.

RAW? it works, no question. as @GMMichael said, the spell only targets a single creature, and the artificer is physically incapable of targeting the druid anyway. balance wise i don't even think it's that bad - it requires a daily resource (albeit one that gets fairly cheap at higher levels) and a saving throw that, as a swallowing creature, the target is probably at least decent at anyway.

logically? well, logically, we're kind of screwed no matter how we approach this, and it's entirely the spell's fault. if we just take the spell how it works as a single target spell, then we can assume the spell works by magically selecting the target creature (think the lasso tool from photoshop) and moving them...except the flavour text specifies it warps the space around them, which seems fairly indiscriminate. but if we focus on the flavour text, suddenly it being a single target spell makes no sense, and it SHOULD be an area spell with a radius of at least 10 feet, since it can target any size of creature. but if you select the area such that a creature is only partially caught in the area...what happens? mechanically it'd probably just be like any other area of effect, but we're only operating on internal logic here, and internal logic suggests that if we only warp part of a creature such that the warped part teleports...welp, now we have half a creature in one place and half in another, and suddenly the spell is even MORE broken then we were worried about it being!

so i'd let it work, personally, because i don't really think it's that broken, and trying to delve into why it logically "shouldn't" work just creates more problems. if the dm decides it shouldn't work anyway, though, maybe they should consider giving the artificer the chance to figure that out BEFORE they use the spell? i mean, it's not like it's targeting a creature's immunity, it's just a basic use case of the spell.

That's an interesting case!

GMMichael said:

No need for Rule of Cool: the spell has one target. The druid cannot be targeted by the spell, and therefore isn't going anywhere. If the druid ceases to be a "creature," then yeah, she/he would teleport with the fish as . . . dinner.

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I like this ruling.

Of course a teleported creature doesn't leave its eaten food behind as it doesn't leave equipment behind, or an object held.

But on the other hand, a swallowed creature is not equipment. Neither it is an object, at least not until dead. I would probably consider the swallowed creature more similar to a grappled creature, and see how this particular spell deals with that, as I don't know the specifics of Artificers. Benign teleportation spells usually require willing targets, but this sounds like a forced teleportation so it may work differently. In summary, if you would allow the target to grapple someone and take it with him, then I would rule the swallowed character to be teleported as well.

Li Shenron said:

Benign teleportation spells usually require willing targets, but this sounds like a forced teleportation so it may work differently. In summary, if you would allow the target to grapple someone and take it with him, then I would rule the swallowed character to be teleported as well.

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With a normal grapple, you could Vortex Warp the enemy away to break your teammate out of the grapple. The targets gets a saving throw against the forced teleportation, and everything discussed is moot if the fish makes the saving throw, but the discussion is around what would happen if it fails

This seems the correct ruling to me, if the fish fails its saving throw, the Druid is left behind safely

If teleportation did not work on creatures inside the body of the target, a wizard would leave their gut bacteria behind every time they misty stepped, which would be both disgusting and unhealthy.

In fact most creatures will have a whole bunch of organisms living in and on them - worms, fleas, ticks, fungi etc, then there are collective organisms like Portuguese man-o-war. I would rule that these things are all part of one creature for purpose of teleport. The druid is teleported with the fish, they are not left behind.

Whenever this sort of unusual situation arises in my games (which happens surprisingly frequently!), we typically revert to an Arcana check for the caster, to see if they can tweak the spell to work exactly the way that they are hoping it will on the fly. If the caster makes a, say DC15, Arcana check then they manage to vortex warp the fish and not the druid, otherwise the druid warps too.

Paul Farquhar said:

If teleportation did not work on creatures inside the body of the target, a wizard would leave their gut bacteria behind every time they misty stepped, witch would be both disgusting and unhealthy.

In fact most creatures will have a whole bunch of organisms living in or on them - worms, fleas, ticks, fungi etc, then there are collective organisms like Portuguese man-o-war.

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this is, in the most technical sense possible, correct. it's also irrelevant, because "creature" in this context is a mechanical term to which these things do not apply.

edit: it is also just not really useful. you wouldn't say the druid would be paralyzed or dominated if the fish were targeted by hold or dominate monster.

RAW is clear I think, the spell targets and teleports one creature, the fact that there is another creature inside it doesn't change anything, so the druid won't be teleported along with the fish.

This also means that if a wizard is holding her rat familliar inside her mouth, if she teleports the rat won't come with her.

Now maybe there should be a rule that a creature fully engulfed by another creature counts as part of that creature for the purpose of teleportation, but that's another discussion.