So, recently lost a character to a carpet of smothering.
Situation is as follows (ignoring story to get to the point): 4 Players all lv 3; Rogue (PC1), Fighter (PC2), Fighter (my PC) and Cleric (healer)
Rogue is currently smothered (unconscious) in the carpet. Fighter tackles a NPC guard and begins to wrestle with him (to eventually knock him out in a few turns).
My PC runs up to break rogue free, not knowing the situation. My first question (attempt) was to ask our DM "I'd like to pull the carpet away from his body and cut it (attack it) carefully so as not to hurt the rogue. Can I make an attack with disadvantage to damage only the carpet?"
Vague on the answer and after some debate, that option was aborted. Instead, I chose to "grapple" the carpet and pry it off of my ally.
FIRST QUESTION: < Is it possible to attack and damage ONLY the carpet when it is wrapped around a PC?
After a successful strength check, the carpet is pulled open, but only partially. I can only access the Ally's face and nothing more. (In short, a successful strength check was not enough to pull the carpet off of his whole body).
2nd QUESTION: < Would a successful strength check be enough to completely remove the carpet from an ally. I would assume such a strength check from within would be nearly impossible to do so right?
Immediately following that turn, the next round has the carpet grapple and begin smothering ME.
And that was it. That was the end of my character. The rest of the battle involved my 3 allies beating my PC to death inside this carpet (as the carpet shares half the damage it takes with whoever is wrapped inside).
They attempt (and succeed) strength checks to "break me free of it", but ultimately cannot pry it completely off of me and only manage to uncover my face. Meanwhile, the carpet continues to "crush" me. Dealing damage.
4 turns per round (I'm currently down and wrapped in the carpet): 1st PC can't attack because I'm in it and would fail a death save, 2nd PC can't attack because I'd fail a death save, 3rd is my turn (which I take automatic hit because I'm wrapped in it and on my turn I take the hit) 1 failed death save, 4th is the Healer who heals me to about 7 hp give or take.
So... you see the issue here? 1st and 2nd player just stand around abandoning their attempts at pulling at the carpet free of me... and proceeding to deal whatever damage they could to the thing without knocking me out (which they always cause damage to me because the carpet shares half the damage it takes). While on my turn, I take one hit automatically and get knocked out. Only to have the healer heal me right back to life... only to have the cycle repeat itself again.
This was a 30 minute situation so FUBAR that I couldn't help but laugh at the hilarity of it all. And after a while I just told them to kill him. Eventually our healer ran out of spells and finally my character felt the sweet release of death forever. Like a friggin' piñata they beat my poor PC to death, brought him back to life, beat him to death again, and then brought him back to life only to repeat this over and over and over until finally he died outright.
Then the carpet jumped right back onto the first PC ( Our rogue, The one that was initially downed at the start), but thankfully the carpet was terribly damaged at that time and eventually was destroyed.
So I'm a little confused about the situation and how it transpired. The specific stats or details on the creature don't say anything about "grappling it off of a target" or "being able to damage it without damaging the person inside". But surely there has to be something there that we missed.
Sure, there's a few things in hindsight that can be done. Such as just letting my PC's unconscious form lay there until the carpet jumps to another player, but that doesn't sound right and would have probably lead to an entire party wipe.
Thank you in advance for your insight and opinions.
As far as attacking the carpet while it has someone wrapped up, you cannot attack it without dealing damage to the person inside. That is just part of the monster's ability.
When it comes to trying to pull a party member out of one, and this might be different for other DMs, I would rule that you could use an action to make a Strength check to attempt to free your friend. The DC for it would be the same as the escape DC.
I will disagree with your DM's decision to have the carpet continue to attack the rogue after your character fell though, it would have gone after something that was still kicking. A little bit of a dick move in my opinion.
So first off, is the Carpet of Smothering different from the Rug of Smothering? That's what I'm going to be basing this on, since I only have it to look at. Which, of course, is just the baseline which your DM could then alter at will because they are the DM.
FIRST QUESTION: < Is it possible to attack and damage ONLY the carpet when it is wrapped around a PC?
By RAW, no, you cannot. While the Rug is Grappling the target (ie you) it will always, no matter what, share 50% of the damage it takes to the target. There's no way around it.
2nd QUESTION: < Would a successful strength check be enough to completely remove the carpet from an ally. I would assume such a strength check from within would be nearly impossible to do so right?
It should be the same check to break any other kind of Grapple. That can be done with a successful Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check by the target. Since the Rug of Smothering does not list a DC for breaking the Grapple, it should default to 10 + STR, which in this case would equal 13. Since the target is also Restrained, though, it should definitely be the Athletics check instead of the Acrobatics check, since Acrobatics uses Dex, which gets disadvantage from being Restrained. That said, though, one of your allies should have used the Help to give your character a better chance of breaking free by supplying advantage on the roll.
Additionally, the Rug of Smothering is susceptible to the effects of Antimagic Field, as well as being the target of Dispel Magic. Unfortunately, Antimagic Field is an 8th level spell, and Dispel Magic is a 3rd level spell, so both of these are above the casting ability of your Cleric. That said, if the party had previously acquired a Wand of Dispel Magic, for example, that would have worked against the Rug, rendering it inert for 1 minute for you to hack to pieces at your leisure.
If you Grapple (then move) or Shove the rug successfully, then moving the rug away from its target should automatically break the grapple. A Grapple any harder to break than that should very much increase the Challenge rating of that enemy, and the result may be a battle you can't win.
For Emrfish: Our rogue was healed and up to 7hp when the rug went back to him. The way it worked out (as far as this battle went) is that, once the target falls unconscious, it moves on to another target.
Dragon 77: Trying to recall, I do believe that I (my character) attempted to "help" the rogue. But he was unconscious and unable to break free. Then when it turned on me the same thing happened in which (on my turn and due to the auto damage by constricting) I would fall unconscious again and be unable to utilize the "help" provided.
In hindsight, there are a few things we could/should have done to break free without the "help" action, but we weren't thinking outside the box on this one. We figured, since we can't break free, just beat the crap out of it until it dies. lol yeah... Alternatively, our healer could have just stopped healing me, waiting for the carpet to latch onto someone else, but it seemed off that that would be the only way to dislodge it.
The group is pretty new (DM included) and I've only played one other session with a DM who was a good bit more lenient with story/rules. Funny enough, my previous higher level fighter (from my first session ever) ran into one of these and got his butt kicked thoroughly but was able to break free and ultimately survive. Still, this was just brutal.
We're still learning things together though. I spend (probably) an unhealthy amount of time running through the guides and other websites; which is why I'm trying to figure this one out for good.
While down and out, I was looking at the stats for the creature, trying to figure out how to get out (as I figured there had to be something in there to cover it) but there was nothing stated in it on that "specifically". Which ultimately caused a bit of a problem... apparently lol.
As bad as it is, it really fits the whole story so far; and I can't think of a more messed up thing to happen that is still so plausible XD. I'm down 2 characters now (with my friends characters still surviving). While also having a running joke about how all of my dead PC's are now currently haunting them.
Creating a new character once more... fingers crossed lol.
And thanks again for all your input. Any bit of info is still welcomed though.
P.S. RegentC: I was thinking the same thing. It definitely seemed that that should have been the case; especially with two players attempting to pry the rug off.
Here is what you should have done to beat it to death with you inside (rather than allow your character to die). The turn order was you, cleric, and 2 other PCs right? So cleric heals you to consciousness, a PC attacks for half damage, if you are still conscious so does second PC, on your turn you are probably unconscious and fail 1 death save automatically and make another death save. As long as you don't roll a 1 on a death save, you can repeat this until the rug dies.
But really, grabbing and pulling the rug 10 feet would also work.
It was the rogue and other fighter, before my turn. With the cleric coming up last.
In that order, the two fighters couldn't do anything as, on my turn, I automatically fail a death save from the rugs grip.
So, if the rogue hit me, my hp was going to be too low to survive that and thus fall unconscious. Followed by another hit from the fighter, would be 1 Failed Death Save.
Then, on my turn, the rug would cause the 2nd death save failure automatically. And the cleric, with no other option, would be forced to heal me back to about 7hp.
And that's the cycle that continued until the fighter ultimately rolled a second attack and caused 2 death fails. On my turn (before the cleric) my PC finally hit 3 death saves from the carpet and was put out of his misery.
A successful grapple (which did occur) was the only way I was going to get out of it, but without any clear rules on the monster sheet about dislodging the rug, our DM decided that the rug would remain attached to the target. Which is why I wanted to double check this with you all.
One of the things that makes escaping tricky is that the person being smothered is incapacitated and blinded, so probably at disadvantage for their athletics check to escape the grapple.
Any other character/creature there can use the help action though to cancel out that disadvantage.
It was the rogue and other fighter, before my turn. With the cleric coming up last.
In that order, the two fighters couldn't do anything as, on my turn, I automatically fail a death save from the rugs grip.
So, if the rogue hit me, my hp was going to be too low to survive that and thus fall unconscious. Followed by another hit from the fighter, would be 1 Failed Death Save.
Then, on my turn, the rug would cause the 2nd death save failure automatically. And the cleric, with no other option, would be forced to heal me back to about 7hp.
And that's the cycle that continued until the fighter ultimately rolled a second attack and caused 2 death fails. On my turn (before the cleric) my PC finally hit 3 death saves from the carpet and was put out of his misery.
A successful grapple (which did occur) was the only way I was going to get out of it, but without any clear rules on the monster sheet about dislodging the rug, our DM decided that the rug would remain attached to the target. Which is why I wanted to double check this with you all.
If they just don't attack you while you are unconscious, it should work. Plus you (and the rug) only take half damage from attacks, so damage less than 14 doesn't even down you in 1 hit. When it comes to your turn you should be unconscious but 0 failed death saves, you will auto take 1 fail, then roll. As long as you don't crit fail, the cleric heals you next turn.
Then it repeats with them beating you unconscious, but not after your unconscious. 7+ damage is done to the rug each round this way and it only takes 4 healing spells max before it dies.
Obviously, pulling it off or escaping is preferable. And now you know it is possible.
One of the things that makes escaping tricky is that the person being smothered is incapacitated and blinded, so probably at disadvantage for their athletics check to escape the grapple.
One of the things that makes escaping tricky is that the person being smothered is incapacitated and blinded, so probably at disadvantage for their athletics check to escape the grapple.
The restrained condition has no impact on ability checks... only Dex saves (the restrained creature makes Dex saves at disadvantage) and attack rolls (disadvantage on attacks by the restrained creature; advantage on attacks against the restrained creature). But you're right that it does impose the restrained condition.
(The incapacitated condition would cause the creature to automatically fail attempts to resist a grapple/shove, as of 2018 errata... It has no direct impact on ability checks, but prevents taking actions - and it would take an action to break free from being grappled.)
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So, recently lost a character to a carpet of smothering.
Situation is as follows (ignoring story to get to the point): 4 Players all lv 3; Rogue (PC1), Fighter (PC2), Fighter (my PC) and Cleric (healer)
Rogue is currently smothered (unconscious) in the carpet. Fighter tackles a NPC guard and begins to wrestle with him (to eventually knock him out in a few turns).
My PC runs up to break rogue free, not knowing the situation. My first question (attempt) was to ask our DM "I'd like to pull the carpet away from his body and cut it (attack it) carefully so as not to hurt the rogue. Can I make an attack with disadvantage to damage only the carpet?"
Vague on the answer and after some debate, that option was aborted. Instead, I chose to "grapple" the carpet and pry it off of my ally.
FIRST QUESTION: < Is it possible to attack and damage ONLY the carpet when it is wrapped around a PC?
After a successful strength check, the carpet is pulled open, but only partially. I can only access the Ally's face and nothing more. (In short, a successful strength check was not enough to pull the carpet off of his whole body).
2nd QUESTION: < Would a successful strength check be enough to completely remove the carpet from an ally. I would assume such a strength check from within would be nearly impossible to do so right?
Immediately following that turn, the next round has the carpet grapple and begin smothering ME.
And that was it. That was the end of my character. The rest of the battle involved my 3 allies beating my PC to death inside this carpet (as the carpet shares half the damage it takes with whoever is wrapped inside).
They attempt (and succeed) strength checks to "break me free of it", but ultimately cannot pry it completely off of me and only manage to uncover my face. Meanwhile, the carpet continues to "crush" me. Dealing damage.
4 turns per round (I'm currently down and wrapped in the carpet): 1st PC can't attack because I'm in it and would fail a death save, 2nd PC can't attack because I'd fail a death save, 3rd is my turn (which I take automatic hit because I'm wrapped in it and on my turn I take the hit) 1 failed death save, 4th is the Healer who heals me to about 7 hp give or take.
So... you see the issue here? 1st and 2nd player just stand around abandoning their attempts at pulling at the carpet free of me... and proceeding to deal whatever damage they could to the thing without knocking me out (which they always cause damage to me because the carpet shares half the damage it takes). While on my turn, I take one hit automatically and get knocked out. Only to have the healer heal me right back to life... only to have the cycle repeat itself again.
This was a 30 minute situation so FUBAR that I couldn't help but laugh at the hilarity of it all. And after a while I just told them to kill him. Eventually our healer ran out of spells and finally my character felt the sweet release of death forever. Like a friggin' piñata they beat my poor PC to death, brought him back to life, beat him to death again, and then brought him back to life only to repeat this over and over and over until finally he died outright.
Then the carpet jumped right back onto the first PC ( Our rogue, The one that was initially downed at the start), but thankfully the carpet was terribly damaged at that time and eventually was destroyed.
So I'm a little confused about the situation and how it transpired. The specific stats or details on the creature don't say anything about "grappling it off of a target" or "being able to damage it without damaging the person inside". But surely there has to be something there that we missed.
Sure, there's a few things in hindsight that can be done. Such as just letting my PC's unconscious form lay there until the carpet jumps to another player, but that doesn't sound right and would have probably lead to an entire party wipe.
Thank you in advance for your insight and opinions.
As far as attacking the carpet while it has someone wrapped up, you cannot attack it without dealing damage to the person inside. That is just part of the monster's ability.
When it comes to trying to pull a party member out of one, and this might be different for other DMs, I would rule that you could use an action to make a Strength check to attempt to free your friend. The DC for it would be the same as the escape DC.
I will disagree with your DM's decision to have the carpet continue to attack the rogue after your character fell though, it would have gone after something that was still kicking. A little bit of a dick move in my opinion.
So first off, is the Carpet of Smothering different from the Rug of Smothering? That's what I'm going to be basing this on, since I only have it to look at. Which, of course, is just the baseline which your DM could then alter at will because they are the DM.
By RAW, no, you cannot. While the Rug is Grappling the target (ie you) it will always, no matter what, share 50% of the damage it takes to the target. There's no way around it.
It should be the same check to break any other kind of Grapple. That can be done with a successful Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check by the target. Since the Rug of Smothering does not list a DC for breaking the Grapple, it should default to 10 + STR, which in this case would equal 13. Since the target is also Restrained, though, it should definitely be the Athletics check instead of the Acrobatics check, since Acrobatics uses Dex, which gets disadvantage from being Restrained. That said, though, one of your allies should have used the Help to give your character a better chance of breaking free by supplying advantage on the roll.
Additionally, the Rug of Smothering is susceptible to the effects of Antimagic Field, as well as being the target of Dispel Magic. Unfortunately, Antimagic Field is an 8th level spell, and Dispel Magic is a 3rd level spell, so both of these are above the casting ability of your Cleric. That said, if the party had previously acquired a Wand of Dispel Magic, for example, that would have worked against the Rug, rendering it inert for 1 minute for you to hack to pieces at your leisure.
If you Grapple (then move) or Shove the rug successfully, then moving the rug away from its target should automatically break the grapple. A Grapple any harder to break than that should very much increase the Challenge rating of that enemy, and the result may be a battle you can't win.
Thank you for your input.
To clarify: It is indeed the "Rug" of smothering.
For Emrfish: Our rogue was healed and up to 7hp when the rug went back to him. The way it worked out (as far as this battle went) is that, once the target falls unconscious, it moves on to another target.
Dragon 77: Trying to recall, I do believe that I (my character) attempted to "help" the rogue. But he was unconscious and unable to break free. Then when it turned on me the same thing happened in which (on my turn and due to the auto damage by constricting) I would fall unconscious again and be unable to utilize the "help" provided.
In hindsight, there are a few things we could/should have done to break free without the "help" action, but we weren't thinking outside the box on this one. We figured, since we can't break free, just beat the crap out of it until it dies. lol yeah... Alternatively, our healer could have just stopped healing me, waiting for the carpet to latch onto someone else, but it seemed off that that would be the only way to dislodge it.
The group is pretty new (DM included) and I've only played one other session with a DM who was a good bit more lenient with story/rules. Funny enough, my previous higher level fighter (from my first session ever) ran into one of these and got his butt kicked thoroughly but was able to break free and ultimately survive. Still, this was just brutal.
We're still learning things together though. I spend (probably) an unhealthy amount of time running through the guides and other websites; which is why I'm trying to figure this one out for good.
While down and out, I was looking at the stats for the creature, trying to figure out how to get out (as I figured there had to be something in there to cover it) but there was nothing stated in it on that "specifically". Which ultimately caused a bit of a problem... apparently lol.
As bad as it is, it really fits the whole story so far; and I can't think of a more messed up thing to happen that is still so plausible XD. I'm down 2 characters now (with my friends characters still surviving). While also having a running joke about how all of my dead PC's are now currently haunting them.
Creating a new character once more... fingers crossed lol.
And thanks again for all your input. Any bit of info is still welcomed though.
P.S. RegentC: I was thinking the same thing. It definitely seemed that that should have been the case; especially with two players attempting to pry the rug off.
Here is what you should have done to beat it to death with you inside (rather than allow your character to die). The turn order was you, cleric, and 2 other PCs right? So cleric heals you to consciousness, a PC attacks for half damage, if you are still conscious so does second PC, on your turn you are probably unconscious and fail 1 death save automatically and make another death save. As long as you don't roll a 1 on a death save, you can repeat this until the rug dies.
But really, grabbing and pulling the rug 10 feet would also work.
it was partially due to the order of things.
It was the rogue and other fighter, before my turn. With the cleric coming up last.
In that order, the two fighters couldn't do anything as, on my turn, I automatically fail a death save from the rugs grip.
So, if the rogue hit me, my hp was going to be too low to survive that and thus fall unconscious. Followed by another hit from the fighter, would be 1 Failed Death Save.
Then, on my turn, the rug would cause the 2nd death save failure automatically. And the cleric, with no other option, would be forced to heal me back to about 7hp.
And that's the cycle that continued until the fighter ultimately rolled a second attack and caused 2 death fails. On my turn (before the cleric) my PC finally hit 3 death saves from the carpet and was put out of his misery.
A successful grapple (which did occur) was the only way I was going to get out of it, but without any clear rules on the monster sheet about dislodging the rug, our DM decided that the rug would remain attached to the target. Which is why I wanted to double check this with you all.
Yeah, by rules, there's several ways to get out:
1) Deal enough damage to the rug to kill it. (But half of the damage goes to whoever the rug is holding.)
2) For the person being held by the rug to make the DC13 save to escape the grapple.
3) For someone else to grapple the rug and pull it away or shove the rug and push it away (following normal rules for grapples or shoves)
4) Anti-magic field or dispell magic.
The DM may of course make other ways, but I would guess they'll be mostly equivalent (in terms of checks needed) to grappling or shoving the rug.
One of the things that makes escaping tricky is that the person being smothered is incapacitated and blinded, so probably at disadvantage for their athletics check to escape the grapple.
Any other character/creature there can use the help action though to cancel out that disadvantage.
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If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
If they just don't attack you while you are unconscious, it should work. Plus you (and the rug) only take half damage from attacks, so damage less than 14 doesn't even down you in 1 hit. When it comes to your turn you should be unconscious but 0 failed death saves, you will auto take 1 fail, then roll. As long as you don't crit fail, the cleric heals you next turn.
Then it repeats with them beating you unconscious, but not after your unconscious. 7+ damage is done to the rug each round this way and it only takes 4 healing spells max before it dies.
Obviously, pulling it off or escaping is preferable. And now you know it is possible.
Er... The Rug of Smothering applies Restrained, not Incapacitated. Which gives disadvantage on Acrobatics (Dex), not Athletics (Str).
Thanks for the correction! I should have checked. 🙂
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
The restrained condition has no impact on ability checks... only Dex saves (the restrained creature makes Dex saves at disadvantage) and attack rolls (disadvantage on attacks by the restrained creature; advantage on attacks against the restrained creature). But you're right that it does impose the restrained condition.
(The incapacitated condition would cause the creature to automatically fail attempts to resist a grapple/shove, as of 2018 errata... It has no direct impact on ability checks, but prevents taking actions - and it would take an action to break free from being grappled.)