(dnd 5e) Prove me wrong, RAW

OP you appear to be committed to (not) dying on this hill and I applaud you

Ain't nothin' in the RAW that states a sentient pile of dust can't play basketball.

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?

My sister played a campaign as a sentient ham sandwich. She would love this.

Edit:

Lmao 🤣

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.

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.

that's a lich that travels with his phylactery

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.

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?

I mean, from your characters perspective, death is preferable to being transmuted to dust, especially in a setting with a well established afterlife.

You can be literally obliterated by a sneeze. And you're so dusty, folks would need to make a Con check for allergies.

All that we are is dust in the wind.

*"Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?"

Jesus, get the quote right.

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."

This is the real meaning of the exception that proves the rule.

Why would it matter if it says you die? It's not like there's a rule that dead characters can't take actions. Or that they transform into objects. Or get sent to another plane of existence depending on who they worship and their alignment while leaving an object behind.

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 would argue that by this logic, your ability scores also fall to 0, killing you

Well memed, but it's no fun to try to argue with someone who will take everything in bad faith, even as a joke.

I’m just going to swing for the fences with the always objectionable, “fiction trumps rules.”

It doesn't kill you, it turns you into an inanimate object.

Edit: And objects aren't creatures.

RAW, a pile of dust is not a playable character option. Sorry.

RAW, you also cannot play as a dragon fairy princess. That would be homebrew.

You REALLY want to play a pile of dust...? Well, okay, we can homebrew that for you.

This reminds me of Torchwood

SCP-2718: What Happens After.

Fine dust does not have the consistency of chunky salsa, so it checks out.

The rules also don't state that being incapacitated impairs movement in any way, dropping to 0hp is stated to incapacitate you. So you can just move away at 0hp.

Obviously we have DMs who aren't robots and will play to the spirit of the game, not the word of the rules.

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