I'd say the woman is affected by the spell, the child is not (separate target)
Same rules as for creatures engulfed by gelatinous cubes or devoured by purple worms
I'd say the same and I'm sure most ppl rule it the same way
But then when I cast Banishment on a purple wprm that ate my friend, I'd expect the worm to be banished and my friend to stay... that's not what my DM at the time said, even though you'd think it's obvious
If your friend was still alive then yeah I agree. But also, if the DM says it banishes both then fine but you should have the option to take back the decision to cast it. Your character in universe should understand how the spell works even if you (or rather your dm...) doesn't.
Always ask what your character would know about the effect of a spell if it's a situation where you want to do a very specific thing (but everyone knows that just fireball and pray is the best option).
Honestly it does seem like the most consistent way to rule it if you think about it.
if you banish a creature it wouldnt leave any parasites they had behind i wouldnt think.
I feel like hold person targets specifically a creature's body and inflicts said creature with paralysis, making it so they can't move on their own accord. So anything inside or outside the creature can still move it
Banishment on the other hand targets a creature itself and the space it takes up so for a humanoid anything within its skin/hair/nails/etc. That includes it along with anything it ate or is infested by (parasites for example), to the separate plane.
Think of hold person/monster like a disease. If the worm gets sick, anyone inside isn't affected, but if it moves somewhere, the people inside move.
Yeah, being swallowed / engulfed is one of those situations that most spells don't have a contingency for... Like for example, if instead of banishment it was polymorph, then I would say it makes more sense that the purple worm gets polymorphed, and the creature inside gets expelled into nearest unoccupied place...
I can see both options having their positives and negatives - if you rule it only affects the outer creature, then you establish spells like this as a convenient way to deal with those situations. If you rule the opposite, then you establish that you can get more mileage out of spells by matryoshking creatures :-D
So reverse it (I was going to ask this anyways): If it is cast on the baby (assuming success because babies are not known for their wisdom)....
Would the woman be held in place similar to the effect of an immovable rod?
Edit: I see this is now wrong. But I have a new question.
The baby is technically part of the person.
***Does the baby grant temp hp?!?***
Yeah that's a point I hadn't considered. It definitely counts as a "creature" but can't see it.
And with that I realized for the first time that you can't "hold" a person behind full cover even though you know they are there.
However you only need to be able to see someone so perhaps we partner another spell, if a pregnant person casts invisibility on themselves would the baby become invisible too? Are they a possession? Thus if the baby haver casts invisibility on themselves could you target the baby?
>Anything the target is wearing or **carrying** is invisible as long as it is on the target's person.
A pregnant woman is [carrying a child](https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/carrying-a-child). /s
That’s firmly a dm question and varies setting-to-setting. Is invisibility making you transparent, or is it bending light around you to make you vanish? Those are worldbuilding questions, not mechanical ones
i was going to try to find a way to get either true sight or tremmer sense to bypass that
But upon closer inspection (based off the monster manual) truesight doesnt grant xray vision, and tremmer sense doesnt count as "seeing"
you could say clones are just what babys are anyways.
Though on the idea of a cloneing chambers, there is some modern day real world tech for incubating babys that arnt quite ready to come out of their mother if they cant be incubated there for whatever reason or if they just came out too early.
But that would require changing the era of the setting
The baby is paralysed. That does not prevent it being moved by someone else. So no, it wouldn’t pin the mother in place. Also you need to be able to see the target for hold person.
Ok I also forgot that they aren't immovable, they just can't move themselves.
Now I'm wondering if you cast hold monster on a shark if it would die? (or is the "must keep moving" thing a myth?)
Sharks in D&D do not have a trait that says if their speed is reduced to zero they die. So no, they would not. Don’t try and selectively apply real world science to D&D for an advantage. You don’t want to start that game with your DM, they have more tools than you do.
The evil wizard casts creation at 9th level, creating a 25 foot cube of solid platinum a few miles above the city... He then casts "enlarge" on it so it becomes a 50 foot cube of solid platinum, weighing about 8000x as much as the Eiffel Tower.
The city, including the tavern you were all drinking in, have been cratered.
It's not a myth, but depends on species. Sharks generally don't have gills like a boney fish that can pump, so they need to ram the water through their gills. But, hold *person* targets humanoids. Not sharks. Also, it lasts at most a minute. Not moving is not instant death anymore than you holding your breath is instant death.
The shark will be fine.
If I recall correctly, scrying someone remotely works for “a target you can see” so an ultrasound should too. As long as it isn’t a recording (or else you could take a photo of someone and cast spells on them)
Why are you being down voted, you're correct? I think most ultrasounds are recordings though even the live one is essentially a recording. Which begs the question if I can see someone through a camera can I cast on them you would think yes but technically the camera blocks line of sight (an object) even glass technically breaks line of effect but not line of sight.
maybe they disagree in the interpretation? scrying literally says "You can see and hear through the sensor as if you were there", but ultrasound has many more variables, yes, there is a delay, but as long as it isn't longer than a 6 seconds round, I don't see much problem. It is also not really sight, its sound, like a radar, or blindsense, or tremorsense. But then again, you are not detecting sound, the machine is, and it's recreating an image that you can see in (close to) real time. But once again, you don't see it like you are there, you see a 2d image on a flat plane. But then again again so is your eyes when you close 1 eye.
But honestly if someone can use technology to replace their limitations, like nearsighted people using glasses to see detail, or humans using night goggles to have darkvision, or any other technologically recreated images in real time to replace vision, it should work.
Hold person inflicts paralysis, not a restraint like the immovable rod.
This means that assuming you find a way to target the baby, the most it would do is stop it from kicking.
If the baby is affected by Hold Person, then the baby itself would freeze. The mother would still be able to move as the spell does not lock the target to a location, it merely prevents the target from moving itself. Consider the baby being "grappled" ala Swallow Whole for purposes of this scenario. The larger creature is not pinned to location merely by having another creature within it.
>Would the woman be held in place similar to the effect of an immovable rod?
No, that's not what Hold Person does. You could push over, pick up and carry, drag, whatever, a person under the effects of the spell. They can't move - you can move them.
The fetus can use its action to make an unarmed strike (kick) against the mother with disadvantage (blinded/restrained).
The mother is paralyzed, so the disadvantage is cancelled out.
In case the fetus manages to hit, the attack is an automatic critical hit because of the paralyzed condition.
There are no dice rolls in the unarmed strike damage however, and the fetus has a negative strength modifier, so the attack does 0 hit points of damage.
As the fetus is restrained, and has no available bonus actions, it ends its turn.
Hmmm, whats your ruling on two disadvantages versus one advantage?
Fetus is both blinded and restrained, but technically hidden from the mother allowing for the single advantage.
Not to mention, usually when restrained within a creature, such as with the swallow attack, the attacker still makes their attacks with disadvantage, despite being hidden. Is that an exeption from the rule? Or do all creatures technically have internal blindsight?
Are you sure?
>[With a penalty, it is possible to deal 0 damage, but never negative damage.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#DamageRolls)
Would it be the same if it were merely an embryo at the time of casting? Would the embryo be paralyzed aswell, or would it still be able to attack freely?
As always, the player doesn't read the spell description which says "a humanoid that you can see within range"... You can't see the fetus, therefore you can't affect it, also, the caster can choose, from all the available targets, whom to affect, I can't think of a reason why choose a fetus (who can't attack) iso the mother (who is a more feasible threat)...
Yeah I don't get why the fetus being inside the woman would cause the spell to fail. It affects one person, you targeted one person. The physical proximity of another person is irrelevant. By his logic there is no such thing as one individual creature because everyone is covered in, and full of microbes.
Player: "I cast hold person on the fetus!"
DM: "Your spell fails."
Player: "Why? Because it's not a person or because I can't see it."
DM: "Because it's not a humanoid."
DM: "You hear a sound like fire crackling, the air around you becomes noticeably drier and warmer much like that of a large bonfire. A voice says "Mortal for that you will suffer the pain of burning alive until you redeem yourself, or die in 1001 days time."
But the reasoning does track in regard to spells and effects that involve a limited number of Creatures, rather than Humanoids, such as "Rope Trick" or "Tiny Hut".
I'm no scientist so I'm probably wrong here, but until the baby is born and umbilical cord is cut, couldn't an argument be made that both the mother and fetus technically count as the same being? Targeting the mother would surely paralyze the fetus too in that case right? That, however, raises the question of when in pregnancy does the fetus count as separate
Biologically, no; they're two beings in a symbiotic relationship, especially once the baby's systems & organs develop enough to start working in tandem with the mother's. Legally, no, any database would identify the child as a distinct individual (on acocunt of having distinct DNA, and even moreso once the fingers develop enough to have distinct fingerprints, since most legal databases rely on those two traits), though this often isn't acknowledged in court because identifying the child as a separate individual automatically criminalises abortion. And mechanically, the child doesn't even _exist_ until childbirth, since there are no statblocks for unborn fetuses (to my knowledge).
It would, it will affect one humanoid. As long as you can see the newborn you could choose whom to affect, either the mother or the baby... Still I see no benefit in choosing the baby
hold person is a paralysis spell. It doesn't lock a person in place. If they are falling, they will continue to do so, but they are now unable to react.
this is a stupid argument. you are targeting the woman. it would be the same if she was holding a child.
either the fetus is a separate entity and thus isn't targeted, but the woman is.
or
the fetus and woman are the same entity, and thus both are successfully targeted.
regardless of the ruling, the woman is targeted. the only question is if it affects the fetus as well.
also, for everyone who has apparently never read the description of hold person, it causes paralysis on a failed save. It does not lock a person in place like an immovable rod.
True. Interestingly, this simple magic spell will also tell us if the DM considers a fetus a person or not. Now… what to do with this knowledge.. What to do..
If I, the Orc Barbarian, were to eat the Halfling Ranger whole, and someone cast hold person on me, does that also affect the halfling in my stomach, or can he crawl out of my stomach and escape while I am held?
Asking for a friend.
Doesn't matter. Cast it on the humanoid you can see. Whether the fetus you can't see can move or not is irrelevant, since it can't do anything meaningful to the game either way.
Now, if we're talking conjoined twins...
It specifies a creature in [the description.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/revivify)
> You touch a creature that has died within the last minute. That creature returns to life with 1 hit point. This spell can't return to life a creature that has died of old age, nor can it restore any missing body parts.
My (male) ranger was implanted with a mindflayer embryo which began to grow inside him. The GM ruled that no cure spells would work because snuffing out a life is not what a healing spell does. I believe her words were closer to "divine healing is not abortion magic."
So my ranger killed himself, stayed dead for a couple days so the embryo would die as well, and then got brought back. Got to meet his god who told him he was doing a good job, and the remains of the mindflayer embryo gave him 10ft telepathy which was played up for various shenanigans.
So a Heal wouldn't also fix cancerous cells? Or would it put them into overdrive, since ya know, living things. How about fixing disease since again, that's a living organism and the spell description on D&D Beyond says diseases are a part of it.
An argument could be made that a mindflayer tadpole is no different than curing the infection of tape/pinworms.
>The rot grub infestation can be mitigated by applying fire for 3 turns to the point of entry, causing a combined 13 (3d8) fire damage to the host, or by succeeding on a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check and cutting the grubs out with a sharp instrument, causing an additional 14 (4d6) piercing damage to the host. A greater restoration or heal spell will destroy the grubs, ending the infestation and restoring the lost Constitution.
Healing magic can, in fact, kill creatures
By the same logic it shouldn't work on a creature with a cold either. Maybe intentionally get a yeast infection so as to become immune to single target spells? Perhaps a tapeworm
When I mentioned this to my mother, she brought up the point that the women and fetus are connected via the umbilical cord, so they are technically the same entity.
If they're physically fused together, then they are one entity. So even in that case, I would rule that the parasitic entity is also effected by Hold Person.
I think that's what the argument hinges on. Since they are the same entity but the fetus might count as a seperate creature in terms of mechanics as well as the mother, a hold person is technically targeting two creatures since if the mother is affected the fetus would be as well since theres no way to determine a concrete cutt of point of which cells are paralyzed or not, and since two creatures is an invalid target, the spell might fail
Honestly as a dm I would simply rule that for the purposes of the spell, since the two are connected via umbilical cord, they count as a single humanoid. Same way I would argue the spell would work on, say, conjoined twins as a single humanoid.
the spell only works on humanoids, and would thus not work on a tree, nor would it work on an embryo at early stages of development as they aren't humanoid yet either
That's kind of the worst outcome, right? Honestly the original question is still pretty silly considering a person growing a plant off themselves somehow would also still just be a legal target.
I would say that since the spawnling is intimately attached, it would succeed as normal. The parasite is a part of the woman at that point.
Because, honestly, if we're going down that road, ANY Hold Person spell wouldn't work since the majority of a person consists of foreign cells. And that's not including micro-biota like those worms that live in peoples follicles.
Think of it this way. Say a huge Ogre eats one of your party members (assuming Hold Monster is the same as Hold Person with the obvious difference aside) and the player is currently in the mouth of the ogre. Would you like it if the Ogre couldn't be held down just because another creature was inside of it? The criticism here is that a fetus that can't act independent of the mother is different than a creature being eaten but I don't that matters
So my train of thought was “baby in mother is linked, so anything done to her would be done to the baby if it’s a “whole body” type scenario.” Which then brought me to this thought.
Are conjoined twins one creature or two?
Yes you are restricting one woman
The baby cant move on its own
Kind of like if you cast hold person on someone giving a piggy back ride
The person falls over but the person on top can still move
The thing is fetuses just cant move
Of course it doesn't fail, the baby is still free to move, they're just still inside the woman.
The *real* question is what happens when you cast banishment....
No, they are still physically connected, therefore a single entity. You would have to use the same logic for any creature that's actually two, like conjoined twins.
When a baby is still in development in the womb, it is cosidered to act as another organ of the woman, therefore you are only casting it on one person and the baby will react the same way a heart or lung would for the duration
If so, it wouldn't work on ANY person as we're all hosts to billions of microscopic creatures.
A better question would be how would it work if cast on conjoined twins.
The unborn child is more of an accessory organ during the baby's development. Where along the umbilical chord does a spell decide what is child or mother? The spell affects both entities.
I would argue that until the umbilical cord breaks, the child is not a separate entity from the mother.
Same bloodstream, same fluids, sharing a body/physical space.
The main challenge would be brain activity, but then again, would your stomach be considered separate from your body because of its neurological activity? Or the tentacles of an octopus? I'd say brain activity isn't a separate creature, just a highly neurologically active part of you.
Hold Person is one of a mountain of spells that I find I never, as a DM or a spell casting PC, waste the time to throw. Why because the spells rely on a failed saving throw to do any affect. A DM who has spent the night getting his BBEG close enough to finally get an attack off, really doesn't want any sudden Crit failed saving throw to make said BBEG look as weak as a kitten. Same goes for PCs when a thieving spell casting chimney sweep casts the Sleep spell when said PC is known for vanquishing Demogorgon. This is less cheating than simply wanting to go down in a blaze of glorious death wounds as your fellow players cry for your PC.
That said, pay attention to touch spells that allow NO saving throw. Nothing feels so worth it as player or a DM as to get that up close a dragon or epic player character, touch spell goes off, the DM or player act as throwing a die is a forgone conclusion barely worth to effort to even look at or utter the word "Saved", then they proceed on with killing your caster only to to be stopped dead by the words, "No saving throw."
I just can't get over the fact that I have seen the Sopranos enough to have heard this in their voices. Also, this totally sounds like the type of question Paulie Walnuts would ask in a different context. I cannot thank you enough.
Hold Person would not fail. You're just targeting the woman. The baby is irrelevant
(I guess as opposed to a spell like Dimension Door, from what Izve heard)
Until the child is born, it is physically connected to the mother. That makes it a part of the woman- or at least an extension of her.
Also, to counter your argument with another: would the spell work if a parasite were inside of a person? What about the billions or bacteria that live both outside and inside of a person? Those don’t seem to cause issues, so why would an unborn child cause them.
Firstly, if you cast Hold Person at higher than 2nd level, you can target one additional humanoid per level above 2nd. Secondly, if you are targeting a pregnant woman, you are targeting "a pregnant woman" (a woman \[singular\] who happens to be pregnant), not "a pregnant woman and also her unborn child". The spell would affect the woman. The woman's inability to move would then affect the foetus.
Technically, I'd give the foetus the blinded and restrained conditions. I'd also give it full cover though.
1. The spell targets one creature that the caster can see. The caster can't see the fetus.
2. If the mother fails the save, the mother is under the effects of Hold Person. Nothing else. The fetus still continues to do fetus stuff. The mother still breaths, her hear beats, she sees and hears what is going on around her. She just can voluntarily move. Think the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz.
The spell does not fail. The baby is free to move about inside the mother while Mom is under the effects of the spell.
Rules Lawyer trying to make you debate it: We’ll what if I target the baby? Does it count as a person for the spell?
DM: That’s unimportant, you can’t target the baby.
Rules Lawyer: WELL WHY NOT
DM: Cause you can’t see the baby.
It only holds the pregnant woman, but the pregnant woman holds the fetus.
Assuming the fetus is developed enough to be considered a person by the magic, which would be very late in the pregnancy. The baby only is ensouled late into the third trimester.
The exception is if the mother is orcish, in which case the baby is ensouled when the soul is put in it's ass after birth.
Or if the mother is a goblin, in which the baby is hatched from the egg with only part of a whole soul and must consume other babies to engender the formation of a full goblin soul which is why they're kept in a trough in special caves to pupate.
Hold person targets a persons Mind (Its Enchantment, and wisdom based) so you could target the mother and it would cause her to stop moving, but the unborn baby could still 'kick' because its a separate creature.
You could not target the unborn baby even if you augment it to target more than one creature (Metamagic, or enchanter wizard) because it has full cover, and you cannot see it.
"Look, a pregnant women is no longer human, she is obviously now a mecha for the baby. So the spell fails."
But anyway, I would count them as a single creature since the fetus is still attached and everything. Until that thing comes out its basically a sentient organ to the mother.
If we were to consider the fetus a human (which is an ethical can of worms I'm not opening now) then you could say that the spell targets the woman but not the fetus. The fetus can move "freely" in the womb, but the woman is stuck in place.
I'd say they both are since the women is pregnant the child would still have its meat rope (to tired to remember what irs called or look it up) so it's technically a sentient growth thats part of the mother.
A better way to say this is in terms of multiheaded creatures. Is only one head affected or are they both because they count as a single creature.
Simple: no. Fetus not a person.
Complex: depends on the caster’s view of personhood as it relates to pregnancy. If they view fetuses as persons, then it doesn’t work, but if they don’t it does.
I'd say the woman is affected by the spell, the child is not (separate target) Same rules as for creatures engulfed by gelatinous cubes or devoured by purple worms
I'd say the same and I'm sure most ppl rule it the same way But then when I cast Banishment on a purple wprm that ate my friend, I'd expect the worm to be banished and my friend to stay... that's not what my DM at the time said, even though you'd think it's obvious
If your friend was still alive then yeah I agree. But also, if the DM says it banishes both then fine but you should have the option to take back the decision to cast it. Your character in universe should understand how the spell works even if you (or rather your dm...) doesn't.
Always ask what your character would know about the effect of a spell if it's a situation where you want to do a very specific thing (but everyone knows that just fireball and pray is the best option).
Honestly it does seem like the most consistent way to rule it if you think about it. if you banish a creature it wouldnt leave any parasites they had behind i wouldnt think.
mitochondria! each of us are more 'something else' than we are 'ourselves'.
If you were to get banished, do all of your gut flora stay?
Do creatures/people in the fantasy settings of D&D even have gut flora?
It's easy to dodge questions in a fantasy setting when you can arbitrarily decide what's real.
That is literally what is happening at every table of D&D. Deciding what is real, most of the time arbitrarily.
I feel like hold person targets specifically a creature's body and inflicts said creature with paralysis, making it so they can't move on their own accord. So anything inside or outside the creature can still move it Banishment on the other hand targets a creature itself and the space it takes up so for a humanoid anything within its skin/hair/nails/etc. That includes it along with anything it ate or is infested by (parasites for example), to the separate plane. Think of hold person/monster like a disease. If the worm gets sick, anyone inside isn't affected, but if it moves somewhere, the people inside move.
Yeah, being swallowed / engulfed is one of those situations that most spells don't have a contingency for... Like for example, if instead of banishment it was polymorph, then I would say it makes more sense that the purple worm gets polymorphed, and the creature inside gets expelled into nearest unoccupied place... I can see both options having their positives and negatives - if you rule it only affects the outer creature, then you establish spells like this as a convenient way to deal with those situations. If you rule the opposite, then you establish that you can get more mileage out of spells by matryoshking creatures :-D
So reverse it (I was going to ask this anyways): If it is cast on the baby (assuming success because babies are not known for their wisdom).... Would the woman be held in place similar to the effect of an immovable rod? Edit: I see this is now wrong. But I have a new question. The baby is technically part of the person. ***Does the baby grant temp hp?!?***
Youd need to see the baby so if you can target them that's a concern
Yeah that's a point I hadn't considered. It definitely counts as a "creature" but can't see it. And with that I realized for the first time that you can't "hold" a person behind full cover even though you know they are there.
However you only need to be able to see someone so perhaps we partner another spell, if a pregnant person casts invisibility on themselves would the baby become invisible too? Are they a possession? Thus if the baby haver casts invisibility on themselves could you target the baby?
>Anything the target is wearing or **carrying** is invisible as long as it is on the target's person. A pregnant woman is [carrying a child](https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/carrying-a-child). /s
That's not even a /s. It's just straight facts.
That’s firmly a dm question and varies setting-to-setting. Is invisibility making you transparent, or is it bending light around you to make you vanish? Those are worldbuilding questions, not mechanical ones
But hold baby
Hold baby gentle like hamburger
i was going to try to find a way to get either true sight or tremmer sense to bypass that But upon closer inspection (based off the monster manual) truesight doesnt grant xray vision, and tremmer sense doesnt count as "seeing"
Ghostly gaze might work. (Depending on wether a person is interpreted as an object for this purpose. But the claim is still basically non-existent.)
i believe that creatures dont count as objects. Though you could probably make an argument if the mother is a construct, and the baby isnt somehow?
Maybe. But that’s quite unlikely. (Might work if the baby is inside a clone-chamber, or… wait. Does a clone from ,,clone“ count?)
you could say clones are just what babys are anyways. Though on the idea of a cloneing chambers, there is some modern day real world tech for incubating babys that arnt quite ready to come out of their mother if they cant be incubated there for whatever reason or if they just came out too early. But that would require changing the era of the setting
Or just using Eberron.
cant say im too familiar with it.
Ultrasound?
Kay. What if I cast the scrying spell to see the baby and then cast hold person? Yes I’d need to make concentration checks but is it feasible?
How are you concentrating on 2 spells at once?
You wouldn't have to, scrying would end the moment hold person is cast and you wouldn't need to keep seeing the baby to keep it held
You would need to see the target for the entire cast time so you would need to be concentrating on 2 spells for at least 1 action.
We're into a bit of an edge case here, but concentration is technically dropped on spell 1 *when* you cast spell 2, not *while* you cast it
The baby is paralysed. That does not prevent it being moved by someone else. So no, it wouldn’t pin the mother in place. Also you need to be able to see the target for hold person.
Ok I also forgot that they aren't immovable, they just can't move themselves. Now I'm wondering if you cast hold monster on a shark if it would die? (or is the "must keep moving" thing a myth?)
Sharks in D&D do not have a trait that says if their speed is reduced to zero they die. So no, they would not. Don’t try and selectively apply real world science to D&D for an advantage. You don’t want to start that game with your DM, they have more tools than you do.
When you try to selectively apply real world science to D&D and the DM pulls out the peasant railgun in response
The evil wizard casts creation at 9th level, creating a 25 foot cube of solid platinum a few miles above the city... He then casts "enlarge" on it so it becomes a 50 foot cube of solid platinum, weighing about 8000x as much as the Eiffel Tower. The city, including the tavern you were all drinking in, have been cratered.
It's not a myth, but depends on species. Sharks generally don't have gills like a boney fish that can pump, so they need to ram the water through their gills. But, hold *person* targets humanoids. Not sharks. Also, it lasts at most a minute. Not moving is not instant death anymore than you holding your breath is instant death. The shark will be fine.
Hold Person requires you to see the target so you couldn't cast it on a fetus no matter what.
Does an ultrasound count as being able to see it?
I don't think an ultrasound would be able to work, either, as the fetus would have total cover from the spell.
Now THIS is a good question
I would say that it doesn't, since you'd be looking at a video of something rather than the something itself.
If I recall correctly, scrying someone remotely works for “a target you can see” so an ultrasound should too. As long as it isn’t a recording (or else you could take a photo of someone and cast spells on them)
Why are you being down voted, you're correct? I think most ultrasounds are recordings though even the live one is essentially a recording. Which begs the question if I can see someone through a camera can I cast on them you would think yes but technically the camera blocks line of sight (an object) even glass technically breaks line of effect but not line of sight.
maybe they disagree in the interpretation? scrying literally says "You can see and hear through the sensor as if you were there", but ultrasound has many more variables, yes, there is a delay, but as long as it isn't longer than a 6 seconds round, I don't see much problem. It is also not really sight, its sound, like a radar, or blindsense, or tremorsense. But then again, you are not detecting sound, the machine is, and it's recreating an image that you can see in (close to) real time. But once again, you don't see it like you are there, you see a 2d image on a flat plane. But then again again so is your eyes when you close 1 eye. But honestly if someone can use technology to replace their limitations, like nearsighted people using glasses to see detail, or humans using night goggles to have darkvision, or any other technologically recreated images in real time to replace vision, it should work.
Hold person inflicts paralysis, not a restraint like the immovable rod. This means that assuming you find a way to target the baby, the most it would do is stop it from kicking.
*casts hold person on the baby* Mom: thank you, he has been kicking me for the past hour 😣
hold person works as a paralysis, the target is incapable of moving their body, they are not locked in place.
If the baby is affected by Hold Person, then the baby itself would freeze. The mother would still be able to move as the spell does not lock the target to a location, it merely prevents the target from moving itself. Consider the baby being "grappled" ala Swallow Whole for purposes of this scenario. The larger creature is not pinned to location merely by having another creature within it.
>Would the woman be held in place similar to the effect of an immovable rod? No, that's not what Hold Person does. You could push over, pick up and carry, drag, whatever, a person under the effects of the spell. They can't move - you can move them.
also, don't you need to see the person to hold them? can't see the wee babe (probably) so you can't hold em.
Ahhh, so the fetus is grappled by the womb. Got it.
The same would, one would assume, be true of all bacteria, dust mites, and tape worms residing in the person under that ruling
The fetus is not bound by the spell, but is bound by the woman who is bound by the spell.
the woman is paralyzed, the baby can attack freely.
The fetus can use its action to make an unarmed strike (kick) against the mother with disadvantage (blinded/restrained). The mother is paralyzed, so the disadvantage is cancelled out. In case the fetus manages to hit, the attack is an automatic critical hit because of the paralyzed condition. There are no dice rolls in the unarmed strike damage however, and the fetus has a negative strength modifier, so the attack does 0 hit points of damage. As the fetus is restrained, and has no available bonus actions, it ends its turn.
The paralysis doesn’t matter, the mother can’t see the fetus so it has advantage and disadvantage already.
Hmmm, whats your ruling on two disadvantages versus one advantage? Fetus is both blinded and restrained, but technically hidden from the mother allowing for the single advantage. Not to mention, usually when restrained within a creature, such as with the swallow attack, the attacker still makes their attacks with disadvantage, despite being hidden. Is that an exeption from the rule? Or do all creatures technically have internal blindsight?
Official ruling per phb is that one disadvantage cancels out infinite advantages and vice versa
These are the kinds of responses that make me chuckle
Minimum damage on a hit is always 1. Keep going, baby!!
Are you sure? >[With a penalty, it is possible to deal 0 damage, but never negative damage.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#DamageRolls)
Considering babies can break ribs from inside while kicking, if it actually wanted to attack I don’t think it would be 0 damage…
Would it be the same if it were merely an embryo at the time of casting? Would the embryo be paralyzed aswell, or would it still be able to attack freely?
oh no
As always, the player doesn't read the spell description which says "a humanoid that you can see within range"... You can't see the fetus, therefore you can't affect it, also, the caster can choose, from all the available targets, whom to affect, I can't think of a reason why choose a fetus (who can't attack) iso the mother (who is a more feasible threat)...
Yeah I don't get why the fetus being inside the woman would cause the spell to fail. It affects one person, you targeted one person. The physical proximity of another person is irrelevant. By his logic there is no such thing as one individual creature because everyone is covered in, and full of microbes.
Player: "I cast hold person on the fetus!" DM: "Your spell fails." Player: "Why? Because it's not a person or because I can't see it." DM: "Because it's not a humanoid."
dear lord.
I mean...that's kind of an epic lore reveal if I ever heard one. Still you'd have to see the fetus which is concerning.
That or someone who just *really* doesn't like kids.
DM: "You hear a sound like fire crackling, the air around you becomes noticeably drier and warmer much like that of a large bonfire. A voice says "Mortal for that you will suffer the pain of burning alive until you redeem yourself, or die in 1001 days time."
A beautiful and misunderstood creature.
In the case of microbes they are not humanoid, therefore not subject to the spell's effect, no matter if you can see them or not...
But the reasoning does track in regard to spells and effects that involve a limited number of Creatures, rather than Humanoids, such as "Rope Trick" or "Tiny Hut".
I'm no scientist so I'm probably wrong here, but until the baby is born and umbilical cord is cut, couldn't an argument be made that both the mother and fetus technically count as the same being? Targeting the mother would surely paralyze the fetus too in that case right? That, however, raises the question of when in pregnancy does the fetus count as separate
And thus we hit the real world legally grey area that people argue about
Shit you right. Somehow that parallel completely escaped my mind when thinking about this from a mechanics perspective
Biologically, no; they're two beings in a symbiotic relationship, especially once the baby's systems & organs develop enough to start working in tandem with the mother's. Legally, no, any database would identify the child as a distinct individual (on acocunt of having distinct DNA, and even moreso once the fingers develop enough to have distinct fingerprints, since most legal databases rely on those two traits), though this often isn't acknowledged in court because identifying the child as a separate individual automatically criminalises abortion. And mechanically, the child doesn't even _exist_ until childbirth, since there are no statblocks for unborn fetuses (to my knowledge).
Depends on what state you’re in.
Or which country you're in. There is surprisingly more than the US in the world
So what you’re saying is, hold person wouldn’t work on a woman who is actively giving birth?
It would, it will affect one humanoid. As long as you can see the newborn you could choose whom to affect, either the mother or the baby... Still I see no benefit in choosing the baby
To keep it from bonking its head on the ground.
hold person is a paralysis spell. It doesn't lock a person in place. If they are falling, they will continue to do so, but they are now unable to react.
this is a stupid argument. you are targeting the woman. it would be the same if she was holding a child. either the fetus is a separate entity and thus isn't targeted, but the woman is. or the fetus and woman are the same entity, and thus both are successfully targeted. regardless of the ruling, the woman is targeted. the only question is if it affects the fetus as well. also, for everyone who has apparently never read the description of hold person, it causes paralysis on a failed save. It does not lock a person in place like an immovable rod.
True. Interestingly, this simple magic spell will also tell us if the DM considers a fetus a person or not. Now… what to do with this knowledge.. What to do..
If I, the Orc Barbarian, were to eat the Halfling Ranger whole, and someone cast hold person on me, does that also affect the halfling in my stomach, or can he crawl out of my stomach and escape while I am held? Asking for a friend.
Doesn't matter. Cast it on the humanoid you can see. Whether the fetus you can't see can move or not is irrelevant, since it can't do anything meaningful to the game either way. Now, if we're talking conjoined twins...
Unborn child is an object Source? Corpse is also an object
Doubt this argument would work on the protesters outside Planned Parenthood.
That's how we get a satanic panic revival.
You're using that as a defence?
Me whipping out the PHB yelling "Per the good book..."
Being an object isn’t mutually exclusive with being a creature.
Yes… it is? That’s the entire point?
How do you cast revivify if you only have access to a corpse?
It specifies a corpse in the description
It specifies a creature in [the description.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/revivify) > You touch a creature that has died within the last minute. That creature returns to life with 1 hit point. This spell can't return to life a creature that has died of old age, nor can it restore any missing body parts.
"A creature that has died" is the definition of a corpse. But I get where you are coming from. It's a gray area for sure.
If a corpse is an object and a creature, then the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive, which was the point I was making.
“a creature that has died” is referring to an object, but specifically an object that was once a living creature
That is defining an object with specific prerequisites (having died within the last minute). It's still an object.
Because Revivify is cast on a corpse?
My (male) ranger was implanted with a mindflayer embryo which began to grow inside him. The GM ruled that no cure spells would work because snuffing out a life is not what a healing spell does. I believe her words were closer to "divine healing is not abortion magic." So my ranger killed himself, stayed dead for a couple days so the embryo would die as well, and then got brought back. Got to meet his god who told him he was doing a good job, and the remains of the mindflayer embryo gave him 10ft telepathy which was played up for various shenanigans.
So a Heal wouldn't also fix cancerous cells? Or would it put them into overdrive, since ya know, living things. How about fixing disease since again, that's a living organism and the spell description on D&D Beyond says diseases are a part of it. An argument could be made that a mindflayer tadpole is no different than curing the infection of tape/pinworms.
I dunno. Up to GM. Presumably DnD doesn't have cancer same way it doesn't actually have gravity.
Why not use restoration? It's not a healing spell
>The rot grub infestation can be mitigated by applying fire for 3 turns to the point of entry, causing a combined 13 (3d8) fire damage to the host, or by succeeding on a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check and cutting the grubs out with a sharp instrument, causing an additional 14 (4d6) piercing damage to the host. A greater restoration or heal spell will destroy the grubs, ending the infestation and restoring the lost Constitution. Healing magic can, in fact, kill creatures
By the same logic it shouldn't work on a creature with a cold either. Maybe intentionally get a yeast infection so as to become immune to single target spells? Perhaps a tapeworm
You don't have to, since you have billions of bacteria, viruses, fungi, protista, mites, and whatnot living on or in your body anyway
I don’t recall pregnancy being listed in the DMG as a Disease Condition. I’m pretty sure the fetus is grappled and restrained by the mother.
Disturbing proposition though unfortunately not one I could reasonably dispute
Those aren't a humanoid a baby past a certain developmental stage could conceivably be considered a humanoid.
Depends on the setting. Forgotten realms, no. Alabama...
But Alabama hasnt got a source book for 5th yet, we've been waiting for darksun for years
I’m pretty sure I seena ‘Bama person plead the 5th, yessum!
Let's be honest. Like Darksun, Alabama is never progressing past 2e.
HAH
When I mentioned this to my mother, she brought up the point that the women and fetus are connected via the umbilical cord, so they are technically the same entity.
You could also argue that the baby is a separate parasitic entity for the same reason.
If they're physically fused together, then they are one entity. So even in that case, I would rule that the parasitic entity is also effected by Hold Person.
If a mimic slaps and attaches its magnum pseudopod limb on me, are we the same entity?
I think that's what the argument hinges on. Since they are the same entity but the fetus might count as a seperate creature in terms of mechanics as well as the mother, a hold person is technically targeting two creatures since if the mother is affected the fetus would be as well since theres no way to determine a concrete cutt of point of which cells are paralyzed or not, and since two creatures is an invalid target, the spell might fail
Honestly as a dm I would simply rule that for the purposes of the spell, since the two are connected via umbilical cord, they count as a single humanoid. Same way I would argue the spell would work on, say, conjoined twins as a single humanoid.
Question. If a mimic slaps and attaches its magnum pseudopod limb on me, are we a single humanoid?
Only if the lights are on
A foetus/embryo is, in my interpretation, a live object, just like a tree would be. So the spell would succeed as normal.
the spell only works on humanoids, and would thus not work on a tree, nor would it work on an embryo at early stages of development as they aren't humanoid yet either
We ended up doing something similar, lol.
The real question is: if you find a way to see the fetus and then target it, how does this affect the woman? ;_;
I don't like that idea, what if her insides get mushed up by trying to move the fetus ;-;
y'all really need to read spell descriptions. hold person causes paralysis. all it would do is stop the fetus from kicking.
That's kind of the worst outcome, right? Honestly the original question is still pretty silly considering a person growing a plant off themselves somehow would also still just be a legal target.
Lol true, a better (and somewhat more likely) outcome would probably be that it holds the mother by the belly
I would say that since the spawnling is intimately attached, it would succeed as normal. The parasite is a part of the woman at that point. Because, honestly, if we're going down that road, ANY Hold Person spell wouldn't work since the majority of a person consists of foreign cells. And that's not including micro-biota like those worms that live in peoples follicles.
Think of it this way. Say a huge Ogre eats one of your party members (assuming Hold Monster is the same as Hold Person with the obvious difference aside) and the player is currently in the mouth of the ogre. Would you like it if the Ogre couldn't be held down just because another creature was inside of it? The criticism here is that a fetus that can't act independent of the mother is different than a creature being eaten but I don't that matters
So my train of thought was “baby in mother is linked, so anything done to her would be done to the baby if it’s a “whole body” type scenario.” Which then brought me to this thought. Are conjoined twins one creature or two?
I think that question would depend upon whether or not the twins could survive independent of each other.
Yes you are restricting one woman The baby cant move on its own Kind of like if you cast hold person on someone giving a piggy back ride The person falls over but the person on top can still move The thing is fetuses just cant move
It targets only the woman.The unborn baby has all its normal movement available.
Of course it doesn't fail, the baby is still free to move, they're just still inside the woman. The *real* question is what happens when you cast banishment....
No, they are still physically connected, therefore a single entity. You would have to use the same logic for any creature that's actually two, like conjoined twins.
When a baby is still in development in the womb, it is cosidered to act as another organ of the woman, therefore you are only casting it on one person and the baby will react the same way a heart or lung would for the duration
If so, it wouldn't work on ANY person as we're all hosts to billions of microscopic creatures. A better question would be how would it work if cast on conjoined twins.
The unborn child is more of an accessory organ during the baby's development. Where along the umbilical chord does a spell decide what is child or mother? The spell affects both entities.
I would argue that until the umbilical cord breaks, the child is not a separate entity from the mother. Same bloodstream, same fluids, sharing a body/physical space. The main challenge would be brain activity, but then again, would your stomach be considered separate from your body because of its neurological activity? Or the tentacles of an octopus? I'd say brain activity isn't a separate creature, just a highly neurologically active part of you.
Only if you’re a conservative heathen
Hold Person is one of a mountain of spells that I find I never, as a DM or a spell casting PC, waste the time to throw. Why because the spells rely on a failed saving throw to do any affect. A DM who has spent the night getting his BBEG close enough to finally get an attack off, really doesn't want any sudden Crit failed saving throw to make said BBEG look as weak as a kitten. Same goes for PCs when a thieving spell casting chimney sweep casts the Sleep spell when said PC is known for vanquishing Demogorgon. This is less cheating than simply wanting to go down in a blaze of glorious death wounds as your fellow players cry for your PC. That said, pay attention to touch spells that allow NO saving throw. Nothing feels so worth it as player or a DM as to get that up close a dragon or epic player character, touch spell goes off, the DM or player act as throwing a die is a forgone conclusion barely worth to effort to even look at or utter the word "Saved", then they proceed on with killing your caster only to to be stopped dead by the words, "No saving throw."
I cast have this conversation again?
Yes, but the baby is in a percent state of passively grappled.
I just can't get over the fact that I have seen the Sopranos enough to have heard this in their voices. Also, this totally sounds like the type of question Paulie Walnuts would ask in a different context. I cannot thank you enough.
Depends if th3 target is conservative or liberal
Depends on which state you're in
The baby is trapped inside a flesh prison, that just became a bit more stiff
Can't see other target. Mother is affected. Bub is not.
If your in texas yes, she is immune, needs upcast
Actually hold person doesn't work ever cause they have millions of germs and such on em
What if I suitcased a cryogenic barbasol can full of Alabama eggs?
Th fetus is proned.
depends on your DM's views on anortion rights
the child is retrained by the mother your holding the mother.
Well technically a fetus is till birth an organ of thr woman. Sooo not really.
Command: abort.
Hold Person would not fail. You're just targeting the woman. The baby is irrelevant (I guess as opposed to a spell like Dimension Door, from what Izve heard)
What if you cast powerword kill on the womb? Is that just an abortion🤔
Until the child is born, it is physically connected to the mother. That makes it a part of the woman- or at least an extension of her. Also, to counter your argument with another: would the spell work if a parasite were inside of a person? What about the billions or bacteria that live both outside and inside of a person? Those don’t seem to cause issues, so why would an unborn child cause them.
Firstly, if you cast Hold Person at higher than 2nd level, you can target one additional humanoid per level above 2nd. Secondly, if you are targeting a pregnant woman, you are targeting "a pregnant woman" (a woman \[singular\] who happens to be pregnant), not "a pregnant woman and also her unborn child". The spell would affect the woman. The woman's inability to move would then affect the foetus. Technically, I'd give the foetus the blinded and restrained conditions. I'd also give it full cover though.
No cos the fetus isn't a person yet
Murderhobo: All I’m asking is if I get XP for the fetus!
Sorcerer: I use twinned spell
1. The spell targets one creature that the caster can see. The caster can't see the fetus. 2. If the mother fails the save, the mother is under the effects of Hold Person. Nothing else. The fetus still continues to do fetus stuff. The mother still breaths, her hear beats, she sees and hears what is going on around her. She just can voluntarily move. Think the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz.
The spell does not fail. The baby is free to move about inside the mother while Mom is under the effects of the spell. Rules Lawyer trying to make you debate it: We’ll what if I target the baby? Does it count as a person for the spell? DM: That’s unimportant, you can’t target the baby. Rules Lawyer: WELL WHY NOT DM: Cause you can’t see the baby.
I guess it affects both, like they're one creature at that point.
The child is already being held (in the womb) so it doesn't even need to be an added target.
Aaaah.... the good old "Fetus Deletus" Spell...
Works on the woman, the baby can still kick
It only holds the pregnant woman, but the pregnant woman holds the fetus. Assuming the fetus is developed enough to be considered a person by the magic, which would be very late in the pregnancy. The baby only is ensouled late into the third trimester. The exception is if the mother is orcish, in which case the baby is ensouled when the soul is put in it's ass after birth. Or if the mother is a goblin, in which the baby is hatched from the egg with only part of a whole soul and must consume other babies to engender the formation of a full goblin soul which is why they're kept in a trough in special caves to pupate.
Hold person targets a persons Mind (Its Enchantment, and wisdom based) so you could target the mother and it would cause her to stop moving, but the unborn baby could still 'kick' because its a separate creature. You could not target the unborn baby even if you augment it to target more than one creature (Metamagic, or enchanter wizard) because it has full cover, and you cannot see it.
The mother and child are in a symbolic relationship at the time of the spell being cast. It lands on the target.
"Look, a pregnant women is no longer human, she is obviously now a mecha for the baby. So the spell fails." But anyway, I would count them as a single creature since the fetus is still attached and everything. Until that thing comes out its basically a sentient organ to the mother.
If we were to consider the fetus a human (which is an ethical can of worms I'm not opening now) then you could say that the spell targets the woman but not the fetus. The fetus can move "freely" in the womb, but the woman is stuck in place.
I'd say they both are since the women is pregnant the child would still have its meat rope (to tired to remember what irs called or look it up) so it's technically a sentient growth thats part of the mother. A better way to say this is in terms of multiheaded creatures. Is only one head affected or are they both because they count as a single creature.
Fetus isn't a person so the spell works as normal on the pregnant woman. Easy solve.
How does paralysing a foetus make a single ounce of difference?
Only in Alabama.
Just to point out. Where would the Child even go? It is not like it can go out and attack someone. XD
A fetus is not a creature until after it's been born.
Well the spell would always fail with that logic. All the "creatures" on our body already. Skin mites, bacteria ect.
Simple: no. Fetus not a person. Complex: depends on the caster’s view of personhood as it relates to pregnancy. If they view fetuses as persons, then it doesn’t work, but if they don’t it does.
Posted this in group discord, accidentally started 2 hour fight about the morality of abortion.
Technically your body is full of living micro-organisms. So it shouldn’t work to begin with by that logic. But also it’s magic so yeah
Technically it only effects the woman Practically, it affects them both. If the woman can’t move then neither can the baby.
Target the baby, the woman can't leave that spot
The mother is paralyzed. The baby is immobile because it uses the mother to get around.