My Barbarian/Druid recently obtained the ability to turn into a Killer Whale, and I had a few questions about being one on dry land.
- If I cast the spell Longstrider or I have a feature like the barbarian's Fast Movement do I gain 10 feet of walking speed on the ground? since Longstrider gives the bonus to all movement speeds and the Killer Whale has a walking speed of zero this makes sense to me, but I just want to make sure.
-In real life Whales don't do too well on solid ground, is this reflected in D&D? There isn't any reference to the adverse effects of being on land in their stat block. Would they always be prone due to not having legs, or would they have to be knocked over like everyone else?
I really like the idea of the unstoppable land whale, but I need to know if it's practical. (if slow-moving)
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Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
This would probably be a DMs call. I personally (whilst laughing my guts out) would say that the only way you could conceivably move effectively without additional magic would be rolling (neither of the effects you mention, whilst granting speed, do not grant the physiological ability of walking to a creature with no feet). I'd find it funny, but mostly impractical. And I'd also say that adverse effects would only kick in if you were in whale form outside of water for a substantial period, like maybe half an hour. I think it relates to their immobility preventing eating, drinking, cooling, breathing if water gets into their blowhole, or their weight no longer being supported by a large mass of water.
(neither of the effects you mention, whilst granting speed, do not grant the physiological ability of walking to a creature with no feet).
Wouldn't they? a Killer Whale has a walking speed, it's walking speed is 0. it wouldn't, for example, grant a flying speed because the whale does not have a flying speed. Since it has a walking speed, and the spell increases speed, wouldn't it increase the walking speed that it has even if that speed was originally zero? effects like Grappled specify that creatures cannot gain benefits to their speed, for example; "A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed" The Killer Whale's stat block does not specify this, seemingly exempting it. is there a written rule somewhere that does? My in world defense is that there are killer whales in real life who hunt by beaching themselves to grab seal pups and the wiggling back to sea with the help of the tides. Using magic and primal ferocity it seems like this wiggling can be turbo boosted to allow for unassisted movement on land, because, you know, magic.
the being on land for extended periods of time seems like it might fall under the exhaustion rules with CON saves every set time interval, the half-hour seems good to me.
Thanks for your input, I don't mean to be argumentative I just really want to siege a castle as a wondering war whale of woe, but I need to work out the kinks before I take it to the table.
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Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
It's a little bit of a stretch, but who knows, your DM may be generous.
About the semantics, I'm not sure why the "default" is everyone having a walking speed. It would have been no confusion if fish types had just "Speed: swimming 30" or similar. Perhaps something breaks if creatures lack a walking speed.
Regardless, the Monster Manual (page 8) mentions "Creatures that have no form of ground-based locomotion have a walking speed of 0 feet." It leads me to believe that the intention is that increases to said speed, through magic or otherwise, doesn't help them much if they do not gain the means for such locomotion. A killer whale likely can't walk on land, a flying sword can't suddenly start crawling around if it's deprived of flight, and a shrieker can't uproot itself and start following you around (screaming), just because a spell makes them faster.
Of course, that's just a matter of expectations. D&D often defies those, especially if it suits the scene (or the campaign), so while I doubt this would fly (or walk) on my table, I've seen much weirder things happen.
Perhaps some homebrew. I could easily see a druid spell that grants creatures out-of-environment locomotion capabilities. Whale beached? Walk and go back to the ocean! Forest on fire? Walk and swim that dryad's oak beyond the river. If a smart druid just uses this to whale-barrel into a group of unsuspecting goblins, all the better!
As Onyx, I think it is just one of those aspects that the game statistics always includes a walking speed, everything has one even if it is zero when in all aspects many things have effectively no ability to walk. A chair doesn't suddenly become animate just because the ranger casts Longstrider on it, but it mechanically does still have a walk speed of 0.
D&D presumes a chunk of common sense in the rule interpretation along with a chunk of abstraction.
Likewise many creatures don't have a listed swim speed, however most of those can still swim in some manner (abet typically a lot slower than walking). Many humans can actually swim faster than they can walk (as acceleration isn't taken into account in D&D) but it works mechanically for the D&D movement system.
The good thing about D&D is you can have a killer whale get up and dance around if you so like, it would make for an interesting encounter for players looking to find out why that is the case.
"You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so." I would say that it is up to your dm whether the whale is capable of this or not. Personally I would say this wouldn't work, as the whale would not be physically capable of moving at all on land, much less more quickly.
On the flip side, I would totally let you gain that benefit to your swim speed as a creature with a swim speed.
There was recently a quite long thread on giving a shark longstrider. Overall, it probably isn't a big deal to give a killer whale 10' of movement, but there were some important points in that other thread.
"Speed" and "movement" seem to be used in place of each other in the rules in various sentences.
"Speed" without any other modifiers is used to reference "walking speed" in at least one section of the rules.
"Speed" is also used to reference any one of your multiple speeds from the different types of movement available to you.
"Speed" or "movement" sometimes also (apparently) means the maximum distance a creature can travel in a round (which would be the highest speed that you have). In at least the case of standing from prone, using half of your movement is intended to be half of the highest speed you currently have.
"Creatures that have no form of ground-based locomotion have a walking speed of 0 feet." A direct quote from the monster rules. It does not say that all creatures with 0 ft. movement have no form of ground locomotion, but we know at least some creatures with a 0ft walking speed have no way of moving on ground.
Then the problem is that longstrider doesn't tell you that it gives you any new forms of locomotion and that you cannot tell whether a creature has a 0 ft. movement speed because it doesn't have ground-based locomotion or just coincidentally.
I mean it's just up to the individual dm according to rules as written, like I said in my original post.
Except that by the rules as written, the whale will gain 10’ of walking speed. It’s not up the individual DM except in the sense that everything is. A DM is free to overrule RAW to bring the game more in line with what they think makes sense or what they imagine the intent of the rule to be. But there’s not actually any ambiguity in the rules here.
I mean it's just up to the individual dm according to rules as written, like I said in my original post.
Except that by the rules as written, the whale will gain 10’ of walking speed. It’s not up the individual DM except in the sense that everything is. A DM is free to overrule RAW to bring the game more in line with what they think makes sense or what they imagine the intent of the rule to be. But there’s not actually any ambiguity in the rules here.
Except as I pointed out, "speed" only sometimes means "walking speed."
I mean it's just up to the individual dm according to rules as written, like I said in my original post.
Except that by the rules as written, the whale will gain 10’ of walking speed. It’s not up the individual DM except in the sense that everything is. A DM is free to overrule RAW to bring the game more in line with what they think makes sense or what they imagine the intent of the rule to be. But there’s not actually any ambiguity in the rules here.
Except as I pointed out, "speed" only sometimes means "walking speed."
I don't see how that's relevant. The whale has a speed of 0 ft. Landstrider increases speed by 10 ft. That's literally all there is to it. If we want to read in some non-existent ambiguity, we may suppose that both refer to "walking speed," but that doesn't change anything. That's not the crux of the issue.
The salient point is that some people think that a whale should not be able to benefit from increases to its land speed because of its physiology. The issue is that there is no rule saying such, and [Tooltip Not Found] doesn't require that the target have any particular physiology. Again, if a DM wants to say "that doesn't make sense, what is this, some kind of magic?" and rule that it won't work, I'm not going to say they shouldn't do that. But the rules as written are very straightforward.
I think it takes several assumptions to get to either ruling. With that being said, I would probably follow intent if intent was clear or we were offered clarification on it.
No, Saga. The problem is that longstrider doesn't give you new forms of movement, and you cannot tell whether a creature has a 0 ft. movement speed because it doesn't have ground-based locomotion or just coincidentally.
You also can't tell if "speed" means "walking speed" or more generally "speed" or "all of your speeds" because it is used as any of those in the rules, and each would give a different result if you add 10' to it.
No, Saga. The problem is that longstrider doesn't give you new forms of movement, and you cannot tell whether a creature has a 0 ft. movement speed because it doesn't have ground-based locomotion or just coincidentally.
"Not having ground-based locomotion" does not mean "unable to benefit from increases to ground speed." There is no mechanical difference between "it doesn't have ground-based locomotion" and "just coincidentally." This is the key point: there is no rule that says these are different.
You also can't tell if "speed" means "walking speed" or more generally "speed" or "all of your speeds" because it is used as any of those in the rules, and each would give a different result if you add 10' to it.
It makes no difference to this issue. Either the whale's ground speed and swim speed are increased by 10 feet or just its ground speed is. That's a sincere ambiguity when the whale is in the water, but that's not what we're talking about.
What kind of A-Hole DM has someone who chooses to wildshape into a whale on dry land, and the player takes the time to multiclass into barb and cast longstrider on themselves, and then doesn't give them those extra movement feet? That's part of the fun of D&D! Players should be rewarded for doing out-of-the-box thinking, especially if they're investing spell slots and multiclass features into them.
My Barbarian/Druid recently obtained the ability to turn into a Killer Whale, and I had a few questions about being one on dry land.
- If I cast the spell Longstrider or I have a feature like the barbarian's Fast Movement do I gain 10 feet of walking speed on the ground? since Longstrider gives the bonus to all movement speeds and the Killer Whale has a walking speed of zero this makes sense to me, but I just want to make sure.
-In real life Whales don't do too well on solid ground, is this reflected in D&D? There isn't any reference to the adverse effects of being on land in their stat block. Would they always be prone due to not having legs, or would they have to be knocked over like everyone else?
I really like the idea of the unstoppable land whale, but I need to know if it's practical. (if slow-moving)
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
This would probably be a DMs call. I personally (whilst laughing my guts out) would say that the only way you could conceivably move effectively without additional magic would be rolling (neither of the effects you mention, whilst granting speed, do not grant the physiological ability of walking to a creature with no feet). I'd find it funny, but mostly impractical. And I'd also say that adverse effects would only kick in if you were in whale form outside of water for a substantial period, like maybe half an hour. I think it relates to their immobility preventing eating, drinking, cooling, breathing if water gets into their blowhole, or their weight no longer being supported by a large mass of water.
Wouldn't they? a Killer Whale has a walking speed, it's walking speed is 0. it wouldn't, for example, grant a flying speed because the whale does not have a flying speed. Since it has a walking speed, and the spell increases speed, wouldn't it increase the walking speed that it has even if that speed was originally zero? effects like Grappled specify that creatures cannot gain benefits to their speed, for example; "A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed" The Killer Whale's stat block does not specify this, seemingly exempting it. is there a written rule somewhere that does? My in world defense is that there are killer whales in real life who hunt by beaching themselves to grab seal pups and the wiggling back to sea with the help of the tides. Using magic and primal ferocity it seems like this wiggling can be turbo boosted to allow for unassisted movement on land, because, you know, magic.
the being on land for extended periods of time seems like it might fall under the exhaustion rules with CON saves every set time interval, the half-hour seems good to me.
Thanks for your input, I don't mean to be argumentative I just really want to siege a castle as a wondering war whale of woe, but I need to work out the kinks before I take it to the table.
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
It's a little bit of a stretch, but who knows, your DM may be generous.
About the semantics, I'm not sure why the "default" is everyone having a walking speed. It would have been no confusion if fish types had just "Speed: swimming 30" or similar. Perhaps something breaks if creatures lack a walking speed.
Regardless, the Monster Manual (page 8) mentions "Creatures that have no form of ground-based locomotion have a walking speed of 0 feet." It leads me to believe that the intention is that increases to said speed, through magic or otherwise, doesn't help them much if they do not gain the means for such locomotion. A killer whale likely can't walk on land, a flying sword can't suddenly start crawling around if it's deprived of flight, and a shrieker can't uproot itself and start following you around (screaming), just because a spell makes them faster.
Of course, that's just a matter of expectations. D&D often defies those, especially if it suits the scene (or the campaign), so while I doubt this would fly (or walk) on my table, I've seen much weirder things happen.
Perhaps some homebrew. I could easily see a druid spell that grants creatures out-of-environment locomotion capabilities. Whale beached? Walk and go back to the ocean! Forest on fire? Walk and swim that dryad's oak beyond the river. If a smart druid just uses this to whale-barrel into a group of unsuspecting goblins, all the better!
As Onyx, I think it is just one of those aspects that the game statistics always includes a walking speed, everything has one even if it is zero when in all aspects many things have effectively no ability to walk. A chair doesn't suddenly become animate just because the ranger casts Longstrider on it, but it mechanically does still have a walk speed of 0.
D&D presumes a chunk of common sense in the rule interpretation along with a chunk of abstraction.
Likewise many creatures don't have a listed swim speed, however most of those can still swim in some manner (abet typically a lot slower than walking). Many humans can actually swim faster than they can walk (as acceleration isn't taken into account in D&D) but it works mechanically for the D&D movement system.
The good thing about D&D is you can have a killer whale get up and dance around if you so like, it would make for an interesting encounter for players looking to find out why that is the case.
- Loswaith
RAW I think you could move, even if RAI you can't. Personally I'd allow it to move by rolling, mostly due to rule of cool.
"You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so." I would say that it is up to your dm whether the whale is capable of this or not. Personally I would say this wouldn't work, as the whale would not be physically capable of moving at all on land, much less more quickly.
On the flip side, I would totally let you gain that benefit to your swim speed as a creature with a swim speed.
You can litteraly Roll around...
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/81/90/2d819061504e7a7957a989fb0bade6c1.gif
And have the Bard blasting "They see me rollin', they Hating..." while you do...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
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Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
If WHALES could roll around, I have a feeling that them becoming beached would be a significantly smaller issue.
It's only speed 10. Not a big deal.
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I mean it's just up to the individual dm according to rules as written, like I said in my original post.
There was recently a quite long thread on giving a shark longstrider. Overall, it probably isn't a big deal to give a killer whale 10' of movement, but there were some important points in that other thread.
Then the problem is that longstrider doesn't tell you that it gives you any new forms of locomotion and that you cannot tell whether a creature has a 0 ft. movement speed because it doesn't have ground-based locomotion or just coincidentally.
Except that by the rules as written, the whale will gain 10’ of walking speed. It’s not up the individual DM except in the sense that everything is. A DM is free to overrule RAW to bring the game more in line with what they think makes sense or what they imagine the intent of the rule to be. But there’s not actually any ambiguity in the rules here.
Except as I pointed out, "speed" only sometimes means "walking speed."
I don't see how that's relevant. The whale has a speed of 0 ft. Landstrider increases speed by 10 ft. That's literally all there is to it. If we want to read in some non-existent ambiguity, we may suppose that both refer to "walking speed," but that doesn't change anything. That's not the crux of the issue.
The salient point is that some people think that a whale should not be able to benefit from increases to its land speed because of its physiology. The issue is that there is no rule saying such, and [Tooltip Not Found] doesn't require that the target have any particular physiology. Again, if a DM wants to say "that doesn't make sense, what is this, some kind of magic?" and rule that it won't work, I'm not going to say they shouldn't do that. But the rules as written are very straightforward.
I think it takes several assumptions to get to either ruling. With that being said, I would probably follow intent if intent was clear or we were offered clarification on it.
No, Saga. The problem is that longstrider doesn't give you new forms of movement, and you cannot tell whether a creature has a 0 ft. movement speed because it doesn't have ground-based locomotion or just coincidentally.
You also can't tell if "speed" means "walking speed" or more generally "speed" or "all of your speeds" because it is used as any of those in the rules, and each would give a different result if you add 10' to it.
"Not having ground-based locomotion" does not mean "unable to benefit from increases to ground speed." There is no mechanical difference between "it doesn't have ground-based locomotion" and "just coincidentally." This is the key point: there is no rule that says these are different.
It makes no difference to this issue. Either the whale's ground speed and swim speed are increased by 10 feet or just its ground speed is. That's a sincere ambiguity when the whale is in the water, but that's not what we're talking about.
What kind of A-Hole DM has someone who chooses to wildshape into a whale on dry land, and the player takes the time to multiclass into barb and cast longstrider on themselves, and then doesn't give them those extra movement feet? That's part of the fun of D&D! Players should be rewarded for doing out-of-the-box thinking, especially if they're investing spell slots and multiclass features into them.
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