About a year ago (wow, that made me sad) I played in a Spelljammer campaign and one of the things I did which was very memorable was casting Reduce on the spelljammer that we were about to ram. This had the effect of making it splinter like a jolly boat under a galleon, and sending everyone on board carreening off as they were not reduced with it.
I am curious as to how this would work, RAW, for the rest of you. If a wagon is chasing you, can you cast Reduce on it to make the people on board fall off? What about people inside the wagon?
This is pretty much entirely left to DM fiat. Enlarge/Reduce can target objects but exactly what constitutes a single object is not rigorously defined in the game (or real life, check out the ship of Theseus).
So whether the spell only effects a single plank or the whole vehicle, and exactly what the effects are (other than reducing each dimension by half and weight by one eighth) are up to the DM.
About a year ago (wow, that made me sad) I played in a Spelljammer campaign and one of the things I did which was very memorable was casting Reduce on the spelljammer that we were about to ram. This had the effect of making it splinter like a jolly boat under a galleon, and sending everyone on board carreening off as they were not reduced with it.
I am curious as to how this would work, RAW, for the rest of you. If a wagon is chasing you, can you cast Reduce on it to make the people on board fall off? What about people inside the wagon?
For a wagon, it makes much more sense to reduce one wheel of the wagon to cause it to veer out of control. Enlarge/Reduce has contraints against being used on items worn/carried by a person which I would extend to also to objects wearing/carrying people.
As far as objects go, the uses for enlarge/reduce are near endless and are only limited by your imagination and your Dungeon Master’s leniency. As with many aspects of D&D, certain things are left up to your discretion and what your table finds fun. For example, Jeremy Crawford was asked in 2016 if a reduce spell can be used to bypass locked doors by shrinking them. He stated that you should ask the player which part of the door they want to reduce as doors are made of multiple objects (source). The basic rules state that “an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.” A door is mentioned, but it doesn’t clarify whether it means just the door, or also the handles, locks, and other things that might be attached to it. One could argue that a book is also made of multiple objects, namely the cover and the hundreds or thousands of pieces of paper inside. Instead of getting lost in these debates, just make your case to your DM and let them determine if what you are asking is going to negatively influence your game.
For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.
Vehicles are a bit of an odd, and not very well defined category in that they are mobile objects that certainly can be targeted as a whole for the purposes of damage, but they're also still a collection of objects such as wheels, axels, sails, weapons etc.
In general as a DM I would rule that since the specific exception only exists for damage, then I'd assume that the "not composed of many other objects" rule of thumb applies, but this is mainly because otherwise you're opening the door to all kinds of abuse; enlarge/reduce is already a potentially very useful spell. While player creativity with it should be encouraged, it's also worth being clear that ideas need to be reasonable, not something that potentially just stops an encounter dead.
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This is the kind of thing that rapidly turns into a headache. If you target the wheel, is it not also made up of a rim, hub and spokes? Is each individual plank in a ship's hull an object, or is it the whole hull itself that's one object? Even the examples they give, a sword's blade and hilt are typically different things. Tables and chairs are made of multiple pieces of wood. As the above poster said, a book has a cover and lots of individual pages. You can definitely enlarge a creature, but how many parts are there in a body, and all their gear, which is a host of different objects, also enlarges with them. This really starts to feel like an undergraduate philosophy class where there's no right or wrong answer, it's just how good of an argument you can make for your position (which, now that I think of it, is about 30 percent of the rules in this edition, give or take). So, yeah, this purely has to go to DM fiat, and then just try to remain consistent.
And to answer the question, If I were to allow something with creatures in it to be shrunk, I'd probably just say they were ejected into an adjacent square. Maybe give them a d6 bludgeoning damage from being forcibly kicked out and rolling on the ground. and a DC 15 Dex save to land on their feet, failure means prone.
The "not worn or carried" could be applied (RAI) to indicate that an object containing a creature can't be affected by the spell (the object is carrying the creature, rather than the other way around).
If you target the wheel, is it not also made up of a rim, hub and spokes?
That's not really what discrete means though, as the hub and spokes aren't "separate or distinct" when they're part of a wheel, but the wheel could be considered discrete from the cart since it can rotate independently. You might argue that two wheels on an axel are a single discrete unit though (since together they rotate separately from the cart, but not separately from each other).
But it absolutely all comes down to DM's discretion, and I think that's intentional; to clearly define an entire system for determining what does or does not count as a separate object would be extremely complicated, and ultimately it needs to come down to what the players are trying to do, and will that be too strong for the level of the spell, which isn't a simple thing to define either.
That said, I often feel like enlarge/reduce should really have a size target, i.e- can't enlarge anything bigger than Medium, or reduce anything bigger than Huge by default, but if you cast at higher levels you can affect a bigger creature/object?
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I'd say a ship is an object, while it is made from many lesser objects, that doesn't make it any less of an object itself. That logic is hard to argue against. Ask a random person who has no investment or knowledge of DnD, if a ship is an object. They will almost all say yes. So if it passes the logic test and the common unbiased test. I'd lean towards allowing full vehicle interaction. I would however hesitate to call a building or a castle or tower etc an object.
This rewards creative play with value above slot size, (which is all casters really want, lol) but puts a limit that stops it being totally busted. Besides, if you shrink a vehicle, another caster might enlarge it in response. Or maybe both carts in a cart chase shrink or grow larger. It has the potential for a lot of chaotic fun.
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About a year ago (wow, that made me sad) I played in a Spelljammer campaign and one of the things I did which was very memorable was casting Reduce on the spelljammer that we were about to ram. This had the effect of making it splinter like a jolly boat under a galleon, and sending everyone on board carreening off as they were not reduced with it.
I am curious as to how this would work, RAW, for the rest of you. If a wagon is chasing you, can you cast Reduce on it to make the people on board fall off? What about people inside the wagon?
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This is pretty much entirely left to DM fiat. Enlarge/Reduce can target objects but exactly what constitutes a single object is not rigorously defined in the game (or real life, check out the ship of Theseus).
So whether the spell only effects a single plank or the whole vehicle, and exactly what the effects are (other than reducing each dimension by half and weight by one eighth) are up to the DM.
For a wagon, it makes much more sense to reduce one wheel of the wagon to cause it to veer out of control. Enlarge/Reduce has contraints against being used on items worn/carried by a person which I would extend to also to objects wearing/carrying people.
As other's have said, it's up to the DM but here's an analysis from DNDBEYOND's Spell Spotlight: Enlarge/Reduce - Posts
There is a note in the Dungeon Master's Guide that I think is useful:
Vehicles are a bit of an odd, and not very well defined category in that they are mobile objects that certainly can be targeted as a whole for the purposes of damage, but they're also still a collection of objects such as wheels, axels, sails, weapons etc.
In general as a DM I would rule that since the specific exception only exists for damage, then I'd assume that the "not composed of many other objects" rule of thumb applies, but this is mainly because otherwise you're opening the door to all kinds of abuse; enlarge/reduce is already a potentially very useful spell. While player creativity with it should be encouraged, it's also worth being clear that ideas need to be reasonable, not something that potentially just stops an encounter dead.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
This is the kind of thing that rapidly turns into a headache. If you target the wheel, is it not also made up of a rim, hub and spokes? Is each individual plank in a ship's hull an object, or is it the whole hull itself that's one object? Even the examples they give, a sword's blade and hilt are typically different things. Tables and chairs are made of multiple pieces of wood. As the above poster said, a book has a cover and lots of individual pages. You can definitely enlarge a creature, but how many parts are there in a body, and all their gear, which is a host of different objects, also enlarges with them. This really starts to feel like an undergraduate philosophy class where there's no right or wrong answer, it's just how good of an argument you can make for your position (which, now that I think of it, is about 30 percent of the rules in this edition, give or take). So, yeah, this purely has to go to DM fiat, and then just try to remain consistent.
And to answer the question, If I were to allow something with creatures in it to be shrunk, I'd probably just say they were ejected into an adjacent square. Maybe give them a d6 bludgeoning damage from being forcibly kicked out and rolling on the ground. and a DC 15 Dex save to land on their feet, failure means prone.
The "not worn or carried" could be applied (RAI) to indicate that an object containing a creature can't be affected by the spell (the object is carrying the creature, rather than the other way around).
The "discrete inanimate item" is clarifying what an object means, specifically for that section of the rule book (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/running-the-game#Objects), not the entire D&D game system.
That's not really what discrete means though, as the hub and spokes aren't "separate or distinct" when they're part of a wheel, but the wheel could be considered discrete from the cart since it can rotate independently. You might argue that two wheels on an axel are a single discrete unit though (since together they rotate separately from the cart, but not separately from each other).
But it absolutely all comes down to DM's discretion, and I think that's intentional; to clearly define an entire system for determining what does or does not count as a separate object would be extremely complicated, and ultimately it needs to come down to what the players are trying to do, and will that be too strong for the level of the spell, which isn't a simple thing to define either.
That said, I often feel like enlarge/reduce should really have a size target, i.e- can't enlarge anything bigger than Medium, or reduce anything bigger than Huge by default, but if you cast at higher levels you can affect a bigger creature/object?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I'd say a ship is an object, while it is made from many lesser objects, that doesn't make it any less of an object itself. That logic is hard to argue against. Ask a random person who has no investment or knowledge of DnD, if a ship is an object. They will almost all say yes. So if it passes the logic test and the common unbiased test. I'd lean towards allowing full vehicle interaction. I would however hesitate to call a building or a castle or tower etc an object.
This rewards creative play with value above slot size, (which is all casters really want, lol) but puts a limit that stops it being totally busted. Besides, if you shrink a vehicle, another caster might enlarge it in response. Or maybe both carts in a cart chase shrink or grow larger. It has the potential for a lot of chaotic fun.