The title is basically the question, but for a little background, one of the groups I play DnD with was doing a dungeon crawl through Tales from the Yawning Portal, and we made it all the way to Tomb of Horrors obviously switching out a few characters as they died). We were facing Acererak and our druid trapped him in a forcecage. The DM considered using Acererak's ability to cast an antimagic field on himself to float out of the forcecage, but we argued that, as an undead creature powered by magic, the demilich would be an immobilized skull if he was placed in an antimagic field. He eventually agreed with us and didn't do it, but what do you all think? Would an antimagic field immobilize a demilich?
RAW, no. An anti-magic field would disable only those three of the demilich's legendary actions which specifically state they operate magically. The skull's hover/flight and its normal attack-type actions are not magical in that sense; they are just standard normal operation for a skull inhabited by the remnant life force of an ancient mega wizard.
Do you need a way to visualise it that can make sense in your universe? Well, an anti-magic field does not actually eliminate all kinds of magic - that would be ridiculous. I mean, obviously life energy and the human soul are kinds of magic and they don't blink out of existence in that field. No, a normal anti-magic field just prevents anyone or anything in that field from actively accessing or twisting the magical aether of the universe to create magical effects - thus spells don't work, magically enchanted swords appear mundane and so on. But deeper existential magic continues. A dragon still breathes fire, and a ancient haunted soul skull still hovers and drains life energy from its victims. Clearly anyone with a half decent Arcana skill check would know that...
RAW, antimagic fieldsuppresses "spells and other magical effects". The flight of a demilich is neither of those things, it is an innate ability of the creature. Jeremy Crawford has said that creatures can have abilities that appear magical, like dragon breath, but they only count as magical effects for dispel magic if they specifically say in the description that they are magical or reference a spell.
Alright, we'll keep that in mind for future games. The reason I asked was that I saw another thread on this forum asking the same question about beholders, and wondered if the demilich was inherently magical or sustained by the concentrated magic of the mage it was. Also, at the time, we really needed it to not work. Anyway, thanks for the responses!
RAW, antimagic fieldsuppresses "spells and other magical effects". The flight of a demilich is neither of those things, it is an innate ability of the creature. Jeremy Crawford has said that creatures can have abilities that appear magical, like dragon breath, but they only count as magical effects for dispel magic if they specifically say in the description that they are magical or reference a spell.
Is the breath weapon of a dragon magical? If you cast antimagic field, don armor of invulnerability, or use another feature of the game that protects against magical or nonmagical effects, you might ask yourself, “Will this protect me against a dragon’s breath?” The breath weapon of a typical dragon isn’t considered magical, so antimagic field won’t help you but armor of invulnerability will.
You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:
the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures
the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect
In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. When a rule refers to something being magical, it’s referring to that second type. Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature:
Is it a magic item?
Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell that’s mentioned in its description?
Is it a spell attack?
Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
Does its description say it’s magical?
If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.
Let’s look at a white dragon’s Cold Breath and ask ourselves those questions. First, Cold Breath isn’t a magic item. Second, its description mentions no spell. Third, it’s not a spell attack. Fourth, the word “magical” appears nowhere in its description. Our conclusion: Cold Breath is not considered a magical game effect, even though we know that dragons are amazing, supernatural beings.
Creatures and Objects. A creature or object summoned or created by magic temporarily winks out of existence in the sphere. Such a creature instantly reappears once the space the creature occupied is no longer within the sphere.
(If a Demilich can be CREATED by anything OTHER than magic, like dragons lay eggs, etc. then it should remain as-is. However, I doubt there has been a ruling on that.)
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The title is basically the question, but for a little background, one of the groups I play DnD with was doing a dungeon crawl through Tales from the Yawning Portal, and we made it all the way to Tomb of Horrors obviously switching out a few characters as they died). We were facing Acererak and our druid trapped him in a forcecage. The DM considered using Acererak's ability to cast an antimagic field on himself to float out of the forcecage, but we argued that, as an undead creature powered by magic, the demilich would be an immobilized skull if he was placed in an antimagic field. He eventually agreed with us and didn't do it, but what do you all think? Would an antimagic field immobilize a demilich?
RAW, no. An anti-magic field would disable only those three of the demilich's legendary actions which specifically state they operate magically. The skull's hover/flight and its normal attack-type actions are not magical in that sense; they are just standard normal operation for a skull inhabited by the remnant life force of an ancient mega wizard.
Do you need a way to visualise it that can make sense in your universe? Well, an anti-magic field does not actually eliminate all kinds of magic - that would be ridiculous. I mean, obviously life energy and the human soul are kinds of magic and they don't blink out of existence in that field. No, a normal anti-magic field just prevents anyone or anything in that field from actively accessing or twisting the magical aether of the universe to create magical effects - thus spells don't work, magically enchanted swords appear mundane and so on. But deeper existential magic continues. A dragon still breathes fire, and a ancient haunted soul skull still hovers and drains life energy from its victims. Clearly anyone with a half decent Arcana skill check would know that...
RAW, antimagic fieldsuppresses "spells and other magical effects". The flight of a demilich is neither of those things, it is an innate ability of the creature. Jeremy Crawford has said that creatures can have abilities that appear magical, like dragon breath, but they only count as magical effects for dispel magic if they specifically say in the description that they are magical or reference a spell.
Alright, we'll keep that in mind for future games. The reason I asked was that I saw another thread on this forum asking the same question about beholders, and wondered if the demilich was inherently magical or sustained by the concentrated magic of the mage it was. Also, at the time, we really needed it to not work. Anyway, thanks for the responses!
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ModeratorFor an elaboration on this, see the Sage Advice Compendium:
Perfect example of this is Ruby of the War Mage If you go into an anti magic field it doesn't fall off whatever it is stuck to.
The answer should be that the Demilich winks out.
The spell STATES:
Creatures and Objects. A creature or object summoned or created by magic temporarily winks out of existence in the sphere. Such a creature instantly reappears once the space the creature occupied is no longer within the sphere.
(If a Demilich can be CREATED by anything OTHER than magic, like dragons lay eggs, etc. then it should remain as-is. However, I doubt there has been a ruling on that.)