Disclaimer: this is purposefully obtuse.

Other effects in the game which explicitly state they kill you:

Shadows, succubi, massive damage, death saving throws, beholder death ray (notably not even their disintegration ray kills you), power word kill, vampires, mind flayers, night hags, drow inquisitors.

Clearly, if they intended for disintegration to kill you, they’d have said so. Since specific overrides general, and there is no general rule that disintegrated creatures are dead, I rest my case. QED.

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      3 hours ago

      I’m not misreading anything. “The creature can only…” applies a new state to the creature. After that state has been applied, or somehow reversed (unaware of any way to do this by RAW), then the creature can only be brought back to life by the means mentioned in the spell.

      • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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        3 hours ago

        Yes you are. You’re intentionally abusing a weakness in English language (present and future tense are often written the same way so must be inferred by context) to assume something clearly not intended by the 2 sentences considered holistically.

        It’s a funny joke. +1, but, ain’t no DM takin dis Hail Mary from a player seriously. 😂

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 hours ago

          ain’t no DM takin dis Hail Mary from a player seriously

          I absolutely would, my players would need to be creative to allow this dust pile to communicate and do anything, but I’m quite sure they could manage

            • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 hour ago

              I was legit imaging a pile of dust that learns telepathy to communicate with their party members and screams in an angry scotch accent to be thrown at their enemies so that their particles might sting the bastards eyes and blind them

              They’d be deathly afraid of any and all cleaning staff, but also the party would have a broom and catch pan of some sort for when their buddy get a lil spilt

        • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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          2 hours ago

          Wanna bet?

          I’d make it an absolute realistic pile of dust, unable to move, unable to cast magic, fight, or anything but be carried along by whatever picked it up, and when enough of the dust gets separated, death is automatic.

          But I’d still allow it as an interesting edge case once.

    • Alinor@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I’m sorry, I don’t know enough about the English language to recognise the difference. What would the phrase be in future tense?