Climbing is odd. It is a speed type, and creatures with that speed type can climb without spending additional movement points. But (like crawling and swimming), it is also something that you can perform with a walk speed by paying 2/1 movement costs. Like many things in 5E, fuzzy language makes it more and more complicated the longer you look at it.
And as near as I can tell, a "crawl" is something you can do with any type of speed. It just means "moving while prone," and one can be prone while walking, flying, swimming... presumably while burrowing.... climbing might be the only type of speed that I can't picture how it would work with Prone, but again, its not really a distinct movement modality at all.
I hate being the last post on a page...feels like no one ever reads them, but here’s my findings from the movement rules:
the PHB says that creatures can climb, crawl, or swim using 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot traveled (unless they have a climbing or swimming speed listed), the MM introduction though says that a creature must have a listed climbing speed in order to climb, so your shark would be limited to “walking” or “crawling” using that 10 feet. I would rule that is more specific to monsters than the PHB rule which is directed at PCs
for those who were insinuating additional movement speeds like flying/burrowing, the MM intro also says they have to have those types of speed listed in order to use them, so that’s a pretty big no on the Longstrider spell giving a creature new burrow/flying movement types that they don’t already have
Climbing is odd. It is a speed type, and creatures with that speed type can climb without spending additional movement points. But (like crawling and swimming), it is also something that you can perform with a walk speed by paying 2/1 movement costs. Like many things in 5E, fuzzy language makes it more and more complicated the longer you look at it.
And as near as I can tell, a "crawl" is something you can do with any type of speed. It just means "moving while prone," and one can be prone while walking, flying, swimming... presumably while burrowing.... climbing might be the only type of speed that I can't picture how it would work with Prone, but again, its not really a distinct movement modality at all.
Let me preface this, I'm not here to disagree with the ideas presented above. This is the sort of weird result that you get when prone is a condition that can be applied in any state and not just a word that basically means "temporarily participating in the planking fad."
The shark essentially would use movement similar to that of a snake. However almost all terrain would be considered difficult terrain, so in practice, 5'
Interesting, but false premise. Terrain is not difficult for a creature that has a relevant movement type, and is not subject to the Prone condition.
The shark isn't prone, and it has an applicable movement type. You can describe the movement in any flavorful way, but the bottom line is that the creature can move a full 10' without restriction.
So in rocky terrain or even normal forest that a humanoid can negotiate easily, something like a shark, which could not step over things would not be in difficult terrain for its design? Gaining a walking speed does not change its body design...
The spell does not need to change the body design.
The only thing that the spell tells you is that you get an increase to your movement speed(s) of 10'. It does not need to tell you how that 10' works. That shark is capable of flopping around up to 10' per movement.
Is any particular patch of terrain considered difficult terrain for all creatures with a walking speed? Is there a trap or spell effect causing a particular area to be difficult terrain?
Yes? Then it's difficult terrain for the boosted shark.
No? Then it's not difficult for the shark either.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Mmm technically correct; the best kind of correct. ;P
Why would you assume the intent of the spell is anything other than a flat increase? That's the entire point of the spell, and it doesn't need to provide an explanation of how that interacts with a specific creature's physiology. It's magic.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Ahh. Well, the result is still the same. Unless there is something that makes a specific area difficult terrain to any creature with a walking speed, it's not difficult terrain to a flippy-flappy murder-tube either. :P
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Because they're subject to the Prone condition. They're trying to move in a way that would not be natural to their normal method of using that particular movement type. Flopping around would be a normal method of using a walking speed for a shark, and it makes sense that a beached shark would have a walking speed of 0 trying to move in that way. The magically-empowered shark is capable of making it actually work. There's ample room to describe the theatrics, but the mechanical interaction is solid.
[edit]
If you really want to describe a narrative that doesn't have a belly-flopping shark, you can describe the magic as empowering them to stand upright, and they waddle around on their tail-fins. Then you could say that they're back to flopping (at half-speed) if forced to go Prone.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I can imagine a system where a swimming creature without a swim speed is paying 2/1 movement because they’re considered “prone,” and so too with climbing without a climb speed, just as with crawling while prone ... it is just a little weird that there’s FOUR different unrelated reasons why one might be paying 2/1 movement, with unclear interaction when/how they stack
- prone and crawling
- climbing or swimming without a climb or swim speed
- difficult terrain
- moving while dragging a grappled creature
Im not sure that rewording all of those to find a way to call them “prone” is the right way to go, but it does seem like there was a missed opportunity to identify some sort of universal “challenged movement” flag which could be reused in multiple contexts, just as 5E so elegantly did with advantage/disadvantage
Ummm, what about gravity's effect on a creature without legs? Most fish don't have legs and have no bones that would allow them to support their own weight, so their organs would be squashed against their bodies. Shouldn't that impose exhaustion on the fish within 2 or 3 rounds? Not to mention the suffocation part.
One of the big differences between a humanoid and most fish is that the humanoids tend to have four limbs that are quite versatile, enabling a variety of locomotive methods. Most fish only swim. A Longstrider spell does not change the muscular and skeletal architecture and articulation in any way. As such, a Reef Shark should not be able to climb or walk just because a Druid cast Longstrider on it, even if RAW, it would technically be allowed.
Longstrider enables them to flop about on the ground with actual control of their direction. 10' isn't a whole lot of movement, and honestly I'd rule that fish out of water would be prone so it's effectively just 5' of movement.
Folks, remember we are talking about magic here... this discussion on the intersection of physiology with movement types & difficult terrain is interesting, but wholly irrelevant. It's magic!
Longstrider grants +10 feet of movement. Everything has a walking speed, even if it's normally zero. Any creature affected by this spell has (without regard to anything else that may be in effect) a walking speed of at least 10 feet, and terrain is only difficult for the creature if that terrain is difficult for any creature walking through it.
Besides... you're all missing the forest for the trees. Why wouldn't you want to take full advantage of the opportunity to make your players shit themselves when they see an Awakened Giant Sharkwalk out of the ocean addressing the party in Common?
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Well, with a “Walking speed” of only 10 feet and it not having any legs I would personally imagine it as more of a belly flopping onto shore, but that’s just me.
Well, with a “Walking speed” of only 10 feet and it not having any legs I would personally imagine it as more of a belly flopping onto shore, but that’s just me.
Yeah, its definitely not breaking the game. The only use for this that I can think of is making someone wildshaped/polymorphed into a shark or whale a slightly beefier low level tank that can move a little.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
A spell only does what it says that it does. Increasing land movement speed to a creature without any ability to move effectively on land anyway does not change the fact that it was incapable of walking in the first place. By that reasoning, a human wearing a parachute who has Longstrider cast on them can now fly at 10 feet per round.
But a fish is not actually paralyzed on land. They can actually flop around. They are just not very good at it.
And there are parachutes most certainly designed with levels of flight control. Gliding may be unpowered, but it is still flight.
What does paralysis have to do with anything? Flopping around is barely directed movement at all. Walking/running implies the ability to move under one's own power in a direction of one's own choosing (excluding compulsion/enchantment magic). Most fish can't direct themselves while they are on land. The few that can have special adaptations, like the mudskipper, which has unusually well developed portal fin muscles. We use the word "flop" for a reason.
Gliding from a parachute does not enable flight from a D&D flight perspective, though. Under flight rules in 5e, a flying creature is able to fly straight up. A creature strapped to a parachute does not have any such ability. A ruling that says Longstrider enables literal flight for a human with a parachute is Not the same thing as saying that the spell-boosted human can now glide faster.
Look, I have nothing against whatever land-walking shark NPCs people want to homebrew, I'm just saying that Longstrider by itself would not enable that. And if it DID enable it, you would still have several other problems to solve, like how the shark would breathe air and what prevents the normally all-aquatic creature from drying out on land. Suffocation and Exhaustion from being forced to deal with being surrounded by air is not solvable by one 1st level spell, nor should it be. If the power level of spells is at all relevant, then consider that Water Breathing and Water Walk are both 3rd level spells.
A spell only does what it says that it does. Increasing land movement speed to a creature without any ability to move effectively on land anyway does not change the fact that it was incapable of walking in the first place. By that reasoning, a human wearing a parachute who has Longstrider cast on them can now fly at 10 feet per round.
That’s incorrect reasoning for the reasons many people have already articulated. A human does not have a fly speed for Longstrider to increase. A shark does have a walking speed.
Maybe I was taking too literally what was ultimately a joke, but I did look up parachute rules and couldn’t find any. But if the human does have a fly speed from some source, like the spell Fly, Longstrider would increase it.
[EDIT] On second thought, and in light of Kotath’s follow-up, I actually have no idea what either of you is saying and feel like the forum just isn’t showing me some post that has the necessary context so maybe ignore me, eye dee kay.
While this would be very funny, and I would not be completely opposed to allowing it in my campaigns, sharks do not have a listed "0 ft" walking speed, meaning it does indeed have none, sadly. However, this is just the rules, and I encourage you to use what you think would be best in a campaign you run.
While this would be very funny, and I would not be completely opposed to allowing it in my campaigns, sharks do not have a listed "0 ft" walking speed, meaning it does indeed have none, sadly. However, this is just the rules, and I encourage you to use what you think would be best in a campaign you run.
I'd encourage you to actually look at a shark's stat block, because yes, they definitely do :p
While this would be very funny, and I would not be completely opposed to allowing it in my campaigns, sharks do not have a listed "0 ft" walking speed, meaning it does indeed have none, sadly. However, this is just the rules, and I encourage you to use what you think would be best in a campaign you run.
Uhh... yes, they do. You're mistaken in expecting the stat block of a creature to actually say "(x) ft walking speed"; stat blocks do not ever say "walking speed" because it is the default movement type that is applicable to all creatures.
Keen Hearing and Smell. The wolf has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.
Pack Tactics. The wolf has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of the wolf's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.
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Bite.Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d4 + 2) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 11 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Does the wolf not have a walking speed? How does it move 40 ft? Do they just teleport? No, they walk.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
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Climbing is odd. It is a speed type, and creatures with that speed type can climb without spending additional movement points. But (like crawling and swimming), it is also something that you can perform with a walk speed by paying 2/1 movement costs. Like many things in 5E, fuzzy language makes it more and more complicated the longer you look at it.
And as near as I can tell, a "crawl" is something you can do with any type of speed. It just means "moving while prone," and one can be prone while walking, flying, swimming... presumably while burrowing.... climbing might be the only type of speed that I can't picture how it would work with Prone, but again, its not really a distinct movement modality at all.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I hate being the last post on a page...feels like no one ever reads them, but here’s my findings from the movement rules:
the PHB says that creatures can climb, crawl, or swim using 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot traveled (unless they have a climbing or swimming speed listed), the MM introduction though says that a creature must have a listed climbing speed in order to climb, so your shark would be limited to “walking” or “crawling” using that 10 feet. I would rule that is more specific to monsters than the PHB rule which is directed at PCs
for those who were insinuating additional movement speeds like flying/burrowing, the MM intro also says they have to have those types of speed listed in order to use them, so that’s a pretty big no on the Longstrider spell giving a creature new burrow/flying movement types that they don’t already have
Let me preface this, I'm not here to disagree with the ideas presented above. This is the sort of weird result that you get when prone is a condition that can be applied in any state and not just a word that basically means "temporarily participating in the planking fad."
The spell does not need to change the body design.
The only thing that the spell tells you is that you get an increase to your movement speed(s) of 10'. It does not need to tell you how that 10' works. That shark is capable of flopping around up to 10' per movement.
Is any particular patch of terrain considered difficult terrain for all creatures with a walking speed? Is there a trap or spell effect causing a particular area to be difficult terrain?
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Mmm technically correct; the best kind of correct. ;P
Why would you assume the intent of the spell is anything other than a flat increase? That's the entire point of the spell, and it doesn't need to provide an explanation of how that interacts with a specific creature's physiology. It's magic.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Ahh. Well, the result is still the same. Unless there is something that makes a specific area difficult terrain to any creature with a walking speed, it's not difficult terrain to a flippy-flappy murder-tube either. :P
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Because they're subject to the Prone condition. They're trying to move in a way that would not be natural to their normal method of using that particular movement type. Flopping around would be a normal method of using a walking speed for a shark, and it makes sense that a beached shark would have a walking speed of 0 trying to move in that way. The magically-empowered shark is capable of making it actually work. There's ample room to describe the theatrics, but the mechanical interaction is solid.
[edit]
If you really want to describe a narrative that doesn't have a belly-flopping shark, you can describe the magic as empowering them to stand upright, and they waddle around on their tail-fins. Then you could say that they're back to flopping (at half-speed) if forced to go Prone.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I can imagine a system where a swimming creature without a swim speed is paying 2/1 movement because they’re considered “prone,” and so too with climbing without a climb speed, just as with crawling while prone ... it is just a little weird that there’s FOUR different unrelated reasons why one might be paying 2/1 movement, with unclear interaction when/how they stack
- prone and crawling
- climbing or swimming without a climb or swim speed
- difficult terrain
- moving while dragging a grappled creature
Im not sure that rewording all of those to find a way to call them “prone” is the right way to go, but it does seem like there was a missed opportunity to identify some sort of universal “challenged movement” flag which could be reused in multiple contexts, just as 5E so elegantly did with advantage/disadvantage
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Ummm, what about gravity's effect on a creature without legs? Most fish don't have legs and have no bones that would allow them to support their own weight, so their organs would be squashed against their bodies. Shouldn't that impose exhaustion on the fish within 2 or 3 rounds? Not to mention the suffocation part.
One of the big differences between a humanoid and most fish is that the humanoids tend to have four limbs that are quite versatile, enabling a variety of locomotive methods. Most fish only swim. A Longstrider spell does not change the muscular and skeletal architecture and articulation in any way. As such, a Reef Shark should not be able to climb or walk just because a Druid cast Longstrider on it, even if RAW, it would technically be allowed.
Longstrider enables them to flop about on the ground with actual control of their direction. 10' isn't a whole lot of movement, and honestly I'd rule that fish out of water would be prone so it's effectively just 5' of movement.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
Folks, remember we are talking about magic here... this discussion on the intersection of physiology with movement types & difficult terrain is interesting, but wholly irrelevant. It's magic!
Longstrider grants +10 feet of movement. Everything has a walking speed, even if it's normally zero. Any creature affected by this spell has (without regard to anything else that may be in effect) a walking speed of at least 10 feet, and terrain is only difficult for the creature if that terrain is difficult for any creature walking through it.
Besides... you're all missing the forest for the trees. Why wouldn't you want to take full advantage of the opportunity to make your players shit themselves when they see an Awakened Giant Shark walk out of the ocean addressing the party in Common?
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Well, with a “Walking speed” of only 10 feet and it not having any legs I would personally imagine it as more of a belly flopping onto shore, but that’s just me.
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Yeah, its definitely not breaking the game. The only use for this that I can think of is making someone wildshaped/polymorphed into a shark or whale a slightly beefier low level tank that can move a little.
I'm absolutely making an Awakened Giant Shark into an NPC for the next campaign I run.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
A spell only does what it says that it does. Increasing land movement speed to a creature without any ability to move effectively on land anyway does not change the fact that it was incapable of walking in the first place. By that reasoning, a human wearing a parachute who has Longstrider cast on them can now fly at 10 feet per round.
What does paralysis have to do with anything? Flopping around is barely directed movement at all. Walking/running implies the ability to move under one's own power in a direction of one's own choosing (excluding compulsion/enchantment magic). Most fish can't direct themselves while they are on land. The few that can have special adaptations, like the mudskipper, which has unusually well developed portal fin muscles. We use the word "flop" for a reason.
Gliding from a parachute does not enable flight from a D&D flight perspective, though. Under flight rules in 5e, a flying creature is able to fly straight up. A creature strapped to a parachute does not have any such ability. A ruling that says Longstrider enables literal flight for a human with a parachute is Not the same thing as saying that the spell-boosted human can now glide faster.
Look, I have nothing against whatever land-walking shark NPCs people want to homebrew, I'm just saying that Longstrider by itself would not enable that. And if it DID enable it, you would still have several other problems to solve, like how the shark would breathe air and what prevents the normally all-aquatic creature from drying out on land. Suffocation and Exhaustion from being forced to deal with being surrounded by air is not solvable by one 1st level spell, nor should it be. If the power level of spells is at all relevant, then consider that Water Breathing and Water Walk are both 3rd level spells.
That’s incorrect reasoning for the reasons many people have already articulated. A human does not have a fly speed for Longstrider to increase. A shark does have a walking speed.
Maybe I was taking too literally what was ultimately a joke, but I did look up parachute rules and couldn’t find any. But if the human does have a fly speed from some source, like the spell Fly, Longstrider would increase it.
[EDIT] On second thought, and in light of Kotath’s follow-up, I actually have no idea what either of you is saying and feel like the forum just isn’t showing me some post that has the necessary context so maybe ignore me, eye dee kay.
While this would be very funny, and I would not be completely opposed to allowing it in my campaigns, sharks do not have a listed "0 ft" walking speed, meaning it does indeed have none, sadly. However, this is just the rules, and I encourage you to use what you think would be best in a campaign you run.
I'd encourage you to actually look at a shark's stat block, because yes, they definitely do :p
Uhh... yes, they do. You're mistaken in expecting the stat block of a creature to actually say "(x) ft walking speed"; stat blocks do not ever say "walking speed" because it is the default movement type that is applicable to all creatures.
It has a default walking speed of zero.
Does the wolf not have a walking speed? How does it move 40 ft? Do they just teleport? No, they walk.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.