Ain't nothin' in the RAW that states a sentient pile of dust can't play basketball.
All new straight-to-DVD film, "Air coughing fit"
Dustbud ®
OP you appear to be committed to (not) dying on this hill and I applaud you
I like it RAW and wriggling!
What's sneezing precious
A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing and carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust. The creature can be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell.
Why would you need to be "restored to life" if you weren't dead?
Because you could later die. So a creature that has been disintegrated, and then later dies, can only be brought back by those means.
If this was the intent of the rules, it would be expressed in explicit, unambiguous language. They don't write contingency rules for possible future events that haven't happened this way, and if you interpret rules documents this way, then everything becomes an argument.
The implication of "the creature can only be restored to life by (x)..." is present tense. It applies to the current state of the game following the events described. The language "unattended objects catch fire" in fireball doesn't mean "unattended objects in the area of a fireball will catch fire if someone sets fire to them." it means they catch fire.
Language in rules doesn't ambiguously cater to a potential future state of the game that may not occur. It is describing the current state of the game, like the rules do in all other situations.
You're not dead when you're petrified, either, which can lead to some pretty interesting exploits, rules-as-written.
Petrified creatures count as creatures, not objects, so rules-as-written you can determine if a statue is a petrified creature by trying to target it with a spell that requires a creature for a target.
With the cantrip Poison Spray, you can check for petrified creatures without using spell slots or risking damaging the creature, since it would be immune to poison while petrified.
If you want to go absolutely strict RAW with the creature/object distinction, resurrection spells don't technically work. They target "a creature that died", which, by an obnoxiously precise reading of the rules, can't exist. After they die, they're an object and not a valid target.
I don't understand why they can't just make "dead" a state a creature can be in.
My sister played a campaign as a sentient ham sandwich. She would love this.
Edit:
Lmao 🤣
I'd like to imagine that this is how non-necromantic sapient undead creatures are created, someone has all their flesh incinerated away but somehow their soul clings to the bones, and bam sapient skeleton.
In this case it could result in a poltergeist, which uses the dust to interact with things.
I see no flaw in this argument. Instead of dying, the character exists like the guy from “One” by Metallica, desperately waiting for a stiff breeze to end his existence.
Dust pan, imprisoning me, all I can be, a pile of fine dust
I cannot live, I cannot die, turned into dust, scattered across the floor
The spell specifies you turn into gray dust. Unfortunately gray dust has no listed stat block.
Luckily it is mentioned in "Tales from the Yawning Portal", "The floor of this room is covered with a layer of fine gray dust and ash, three inches deep."
Based on the rest of the description you are restricted to the room in which you turned to dust and the only action you may take is casting " Minor Illusion", with the added restriction of all illusions must be humanoid.
Nothing about the Disintegration spell says that your stats change. Compare to spells that do, such as Polymorph, or True Polymorph which even covers changing a creature into an object.
I'm not changing your stats, you still have a 14 wisdom.
You are however definitely turned into gray dust and I'm applying the rules as written about gray dust. The gray dust is restricted to the current room and can only form the shapes of various humanoids.
Get the feeling it would be difficult to have a dust based strength character though. Hard to hold weapons/make attacks with them as dust.
Maybe wizard?
"As you cross the street you take 1d4 of wind damage. Please make death saves."
Fine dust does not have the consistency of chunky salsa, so it checks out.
Probably should go join the Thousand ~~Suns~~ Sons. They might set you up with some nice power armor.
AI GM be like: "Yep. Seems legit."
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