Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
You don't have to check if the creature is actively unwilling, its the other way around. Only if a creature is actively willing will it count. No one sleeping or unconscious can be willing. A charmed or deceived creature might be willing, based on the strength of the charm effect or the skill of the ruse.
I would still allow a PC to declare themselves willing for an ally's spell while they are unconscious (to be willingly teleported to safety or similar).
Willing is something that you have choose to be. Any effect that allows a save forces the target to pretend to be willing. Any player character can choose not to make their save, and that would make them willing.
Pretty much anything with an intelligence or wisdom under 6 is incapable of doing anything other an acting on instinct, and this applies to player characters as well as monsters. so they will do whatever you command them to do, so long as you spend the required amount of time training them.
It is useful to note that player characters are in effect, animals, not Monsters (If a Player acts like a Monster, I am calling the Police).
So far as I can find, there are spells that let you speak with Plants, Animals, and Undead, so there's no way to communicate directly with Monsters.
Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
The simplest definition I've found for willing, is that the creature (or rather, the player/DM controlling it) has to be able to actually exercise a choice. The Charmed condition itself doesn't actually limit a creature's decisionmaking, other than by preventing them from attacking the creature they're charmed by, but individual spells and effects that accompany charmed may or may not take away its ability to make its own decisions. Charm Person, for example, doesn't mind control a creature, it just makes them view you more favorably... the creature/DM isn't forced to just agree with everything you ask of such a charmed creature, they just should perhaps view your requests and recommendations more favorably than they otherwise would. Still willing! But contrast something like... Dominate Monster, where you can command them to take certain courses of actions that they cannot choose to ignore. That's not willing... even if the spell were to provide them a saving throw to attempt to disregard your order, that still isn't willing, at the point where they've failed the saving throw they have no choice but to comply.
But as for whether a creature must be conscious and informed to be willing? Unlike in real life, where that is absolutely an essential component to consent, remember that in 5E what we're really talking about is whether the Player/DM controlling the creature is willing, not the creature in-game itself. If you cast a willing-target spell on an unconscious teammate, that player is still able to tell you yes I accept or no I resist. That's the important part.
This isn't an analysis that 5E necessarily provides itself RAW, but I do think it's the most straightforward way to interpret the plain-english meaning of "willing" in the context of checking player agency rather than going down the rabbit hole of in-game imperfect information. An interpretation that holds that a creature can't be willing unless that creature knows exactly what spell is being cast, requiring it to be conscious and have had a conversation with the caster... it isn't really workable in a lot of combat contexts, and if enforced, would really slow down play in an undesirable way. But if enforced only with respect to players, it's very workable, and promotes good table communication. Even if a player ends up telling another or the DM, "I'm casting a spell on you, you don't know what it is (unless you use your reaction to make an Arcana check to identify).... do you accept it or resist it?", that's still giving the player/creature meaningful agency, even if that creature is asleep in-game.
Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
The simplest possible answer is that no creature is "willing" unless it is aware of the effect in question and when asked by the DM if it is willing, it answers yes. This means the following block willingness:
Being unaware of the effect.
Being aware of the effect but being totally unable to understand the question when asked.
Being aware of the effect, having some understanding of the question, but answering no.
However, spells like Dominate Monster let you coerce a target to be willing, because mind control does absolutely nothing if it can't change what a target is willing to do - if you're not willing to jump when you're told to jump, you won't jump. It's impossible to force anyone to do anything they're unwilling to do, so mind control magic does nothing unless it can change what someone is willing to do.
Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
The simplest possible answer is that no creature is "willing" unless it is aware of the effect in question and when asked by the DM if it is willing, it answers yes. This means the following block willingness:
Being unaware of the effect.
Being aware of the effect but being totally unable to understand the question when asked.
Being aware of the effect, having some understanding of the question, but answering no.
However, spells like Dominate Monster let you coerce a target to be willing, because mind control does absolutely nothing if it can't change what a target is willing to do - if you're not willing to jump when you're told to jump, you won't jump. It's impossible to force anyone to do anything they're unwilling to do, so mind control magic does nothing unless it can change what someone is willing to do.
This is certainly a possible way to interpret willing! But... it probably isn't the way that "willing" was intended by the authors, if you look at Booming Blade. BB on its face indicates that there's a real possibility that a creature might move unwillingly. That could just be a shorthand for something like pushed/pulled/falling... except that such movement is called something different in PHB Chapter 9, "someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction," without ever calling that "unwilling" movement. Now.... the very fact that Booming Blade even cares about whether movement is willing or not is itself is annoying... it should absolutely have been written in a way that keys off of the same general movement considerations that opportunity attacks are, so that you didn't end up with psychic thunder magic that cares about intentions!
If "unwilling" movement is something different than other creatures pushing/pulling/carrying you, then that must mean that mind controlled movement is not willing movement. And if you can't mind control someone into moving willingly, why would you be able to control them to willingly accept a spell?
Having Booming Blade reference the same movement verbiage as Opportunity Attacks (something like, "if the target moves 5 feet or more using its movement, action, or reaction before then, it takes...") would not suddenly make Disengage avoid Booming Blade, if that's what you're getting at.
"it should absolutely have been written in a way that keys off of the same general movement considerations that opportunity attacks are" If this is true, then the rules about opportunity attacks say that you can avoid the effect if you use the Disengage action. I'm sure it's not meant to be that way, but I was only following your logic.
"Willingly" is really rather simple. It requires Free Will. Anything with an Intelligence over 5 qualifies as being able to learn and speak a language, so that's the best criteria I know for things that have a will of their own.
Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
Yes, it will likely differ somewhat between DMs. But generally, "willing" isn't the same as "not unwilling." An unconscious person can't speak up to say no, but that doesn't mean they're okay with anything being done to them.
Think of it from the target's POV. If your DM targeted your PC with an effect and said, "are you willing to go along with this," you'd have a pretty clear answer 9 times out of 10. The only exception is charms and mind control, and that's where different DMs are going to disagree.
In my opinion, the fact that all charms and mind control effects are temporary implies that the target's will is pushing back against them to some degree. I would rule a charmed or controlled target as unwilling unless the charm or control effect was truly permanent somehow. I don't know of any such effect though.
It's possible, I think, to convince someone to be willing. But that's on a case-by-case basis. There's no surefire mechanical way to do it.
"Willingly" is really rather simple. It requires Free Will. Anything with an Intelligence over 5 qualifies as being able to learn and speak a language, so that's the best criteria I know for things that have a will of their own.
So animals are immune to Booming Blade?
The rabbit hole of requiring in-game characters to make informed rational decisions is not a workable definition of “willing.”
You have truesight and you use metamagic to cst dimension door and move yourself and your ally from there.
This should not work, according to people that say “unconscious” creatures can’t be willing, because, your friend doesn’t know what you’re doing, and you can say “he clearly wants to get out”, and I can say “and if he was unconscious, he would 100% want out of there as well”.
The easiest thing would be to apply the willingness of the player to the willingness of the character that player is controlling.
But the rules don't exactly make that connection, so it's not a strong discussion point in this forum. RAW, I don't know what the rules say about willingness--I can't find anything. I agree, it's hard to make a case for a character being willing about something they are not aware of (dimension door with an unconscious ally). We can fall back on standard English definitions of words, but again we run into a situation where the willingness of a character inside a game is being represented by the interests of the person at the table controlling that character. If that player isn't the one to say what the character is willing to do, then who is?
but again we run into a situation where the willingness of a character inside a game is being represented by the interests of the person at the table controlling that character. If that player isn't the one to say what the character is willing to do, then who is?
It make me think about how a software update query is addressed to the user ☺
An update for Windows15 available do you want to make update? YES NO
Perhaps this is a question that answers differently depending on the DM... But what does and does not classify as a "willing creature"? Like clearly the thing you are punching that is very much still alive and fighting you is not willing, but what about a charmed enemy? sleeping enemy? an enemy that is making death saves? How unwilling, and able to show that, does a creature have to be to resist something like dimension door?
You don't have to check if the creature is actively unwilling, its the other way around. Only if a creature is actively willing will it count. No one sleeping or unconscious can be willing. A charmed or deceived creature might be willing, based on the strength of the charm effect or the skill of the ruse.
I would still allow a PC to declare themselves willing for an ally's spell while they are unconscious (to be willingly teleported to safety or similar).
I'd say magic can just tell if a creature is willing. And for that, the player/DM controlling it knows.
The game does not define willing, so it’s up to our own judgment on what willingness means for a given situation.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Willing is something that you have choose to be. Any effect that allows a save forces the target to pretend to be willing. Any player character can choose not to make their save, and that would make them willing.
Pretty much anything with an intelligence or wisdom under 6 is incapable of doing anything other an acting on instinct, and this applies to player characters as well as monsters. so they will do whatever you command them to do, so long as you spend the required amount of time training them.
It is useful to note that player characters are in effect, animals, not Monsters (If a Player acts like a Monster, I am calling the Police).
So far as I can find, there are spells that let you speak with Plants, Animals, and Undead, so there's no way to communicate directly with Monsters.
<Insert clever signature here>
The simplest definition I've found for willing, is that the creature (or rather, the player/DM controlling it) has to be able to actually exercise a choice. The Charmed condition itself doesn't actually limit a creature's decisionmaking, other than by preventing them from attacking the creature they're charmed by, but individual spells and effects that accompany charmed may or may not take away its ability to make its own decisions. Charm Person, for example, doesn't mind control a creature, it just makes them view you more favorably... the creature/DM isn't forced to just agree with everything you ask of such a charmed creature, they just should perhaps view your requests and recommendations more favorably than they otherwise would. Still willing! But contrast something like... Dominate Monster, where you can command them to take certain courses of actions that they cannot choose to ignore. That's not willing... even if the spell were to provide them a saving throw to attempt to disregard your order, that still isn't willing, at the point where they've failed the saving throw they have no choice but to comply.
But as for whether a creature must be conscious and informed to be willing? Unlike in real life, where that is absolutely an essential component to consent, remember that in 5E what we're really talking about is whether the Player/DM controlling the creature is willing, not the creature in-game itself. If you cast a willing-target spell on an unconscious teammate, that player is still able to tell you yes I accept or no I resist. That's the important part.
This isn't an analysis that 5E necessarily provides itself RAW, but I do think it's the most straightforward way to interpret the plain-english meaning of "willing" in the context of checking player agency rather than going down the rabbit hole of in-game imperfect information. An interpretation that holds that a creature can't be willing unless that creature knows exactly what spell is being cast, requiring it to be conscious and have had a conversation with the caster... it isn't really workable in a lot of combat contexts, and if enforced, would really slow down play in an undesirable way. But if enforced only with respect to players, it's very workable, and promotes good table communication. Even if a player ends up telling another or the DM, "I'm casting a spell on you, you don't know what it is (unless you use your reaction to make an Arcana check to identify).... do you accept it or resist it?", that's still giving the player/creature meaningful agency, even if that creature is asleep in-game.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The simplest possible answer is that no creature is "willing" unless it is aware of the effect in question and when asked by the DM if it is willing, it answers yes. This means the following block willingness:
However, spells like Dominate Monster let you coerce a target to be willing, because mind control does absolutely nothing if it can't change what a target is willing to do - if you're not willing to jump when you're told to jump, you won't jump. It's impossible to force anyone to do anything they're unwilling to do, so mind control magic does nothing unless it can change what someone is willing to do.
This is certainly a possible way to interpret willing! But... it probably isn't the way that "willing" was intended by the authors, if you look at Booming Blade. BB on its face indicates that there's a real possibility that a creature might move unwillingly. That could just be a shorthand for something like pushed/pulled/falling... except that such movement is called something different in PHB Chapter 9, "someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction," without ever calling that "unwilling" movement. Now.... the very fact that Booming Blade even cares about whether movement is willing or not is itself is annoying... it should absolutely have been written in a way that keys off of the same general movement considerations that opportunity attacks are, so that you didn't end up with psychic thunder magic that cares about intentions!
If "unwilling" movement is something different than other creatures pushing/pulling/carrying you, then that must mean that mind controlled movement is not willing movement. And if you can't mind control someone into moving willingly, why would you be able to control them to willingly accept a spell?
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I'd be quite happy if the Disengage action applied to all magical effects. That would pretty much solve all problems.
<Insert clever signature here>
Having Booming Blade reference the same movement verbiage as Opportunity Attacks (something like, "if the target moves 5 feet or more using its movement, action, or reaction before then, it takes...") would not suddenly make Disengage avoid Booming Blade, if that's what you're getting at.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
"it should absolutely have been written in a way that keys off of the same general movement considerations that opportunity attacks are" If this is true, then the rules about opportunity attacks say that you can avoid the effect if you use the Disengage action. I'm sure it's not meant to be that way, but I was only following your logic.
"Willingly" is really rather simple. It requires Free Will. Anything with an Intelligence over 5 qualifies as being able to learn and speak a language, so that's the best criteria I know for things that have a will of their own.
<Insert clever signature here>
Yes, it will likely differ somewhat between DMs. But generally, "willing" isn't the same as "not unwilling." An unconscious person can't speak up to say no, but that doesn't mean they're okay with anything being done to them.
Think of it from the target's POV. If your DM targeted your PC with an effect and said, "are you willing to go along with this," you'd have a pretty clear answer 9 times out of 10. The only exception is charms and mind control, and that's where different DMs are going to disagree.
In my opinion, the fact that all charms and mind control effects are temporary implies that the target's will is pushing back against them to some degree. I would rule a charmed or controlled target as unwilling unless the charm or control effect was truly permanent somehow. I don't know of any such effect though.
It's possible, I think, to convince someone to be willing. But that's on a case-by-case basis. There's no surefire mechanical way to do it.
So animals are immune to Booming Blade?
The rabbit hole of requiring in-game characters to make informed rational decisions is not a workable definition of “willing.”
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
You’re in a silence + darkness with an ally
Your ally can’t see or hear you.
You have truesight and you use metamagic to cst dimension door and move yourself and your ally from there.
This should not work, according to people that say “unconscious” creatures can’t be willing, because, your friend doesn’t know what you’re doing, and you can say “he clearly wants to get out”, and I can say “and if he was unconscious, he would 100% want out of there as well”.
To me you can't be willing if unaware hence the concept of informed consent.
The easiest thing would be to apply the willingness of the player to the willingness of the character that player is controlling.
But the rules don't exactly make that connection, so it's not a strong discussion point in this forum. RAW, I don't know what the rules say about willingness--I can't find anything. I agree, it's hard to make a case for a character being willing about something they are not aware of (dimension door with an unconscious ally). We can fall back on standard English definitions of words, but again we run into a situation where the willingness of a character inside a game is being represented by the interests of the person at the table controlling that character. If that player isn't the one to say what the character is willing to do, then who is?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It make me think about how a software update query is addressed to the user ☺