Bones of the Earth?

[NecessaryWeevil]

Suppose I cast Bones of the Earth in a horizontally confined space, such that I raise a pillar under a hostile creature and every 5' square adjacent to them is either blocked by a wall or also filled with a pillar. If they succeed on a Dex save to avoid being lifted, where do they go? If they succeed on a Strength or Dex check to slip out from between the pillar and the roof, where do they go? Or is this a no-save-you're-restrained situation? Or something else?

[micahaphone]

I guess either the DM would contrive of them somehow slipping past it, or if I were your DM I'd call it an auto-fail on the save. Kudos to the player for using the perfect spell for the situation.

[iTreeby]

They dodge exactly the same way someone with evasion dodges a fireball: by staying in exactly the same place and being somehow fine.

In this particular case though, I wonder how they are targeted as the spell requires sight.

[clash]

Pillar is described as 5ft diameter, which to me means it is round. That opens up space between the pillars where one could conceivably not be lifted.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Thanks! I guess the answer might be, "This is where the gamist conceit that reality consists of a pattern of 5' squares breaks down" and allow the target to fall between them, as people have suggested.



In this particular case though, I wonder how they are targeted as the spell requires sight.

The point was to eliminate boring DM fudges like "they fall off and land five feet away in unoccupied square." Obviously for this to happen in an actual game, "a confined space" doesn't need to mean an enclosed box. If the target is in the corner of a larger space or even simply adjacent to a wall, that's sufficiently confined to position the spell such that the target has no adjacent empty spaces, and still allay your line of sight concerns.

e.g.
------------------------
XTX
XXX

Where the dashes are the wall, the T is the target and the Xes are the pillars.

[Valmark]

I'd say the would be Squeezing at that point, since they need to fit in a smaller space.

[iTreeby]

I did not realize that the pillars emerged simultaneously. I guess in that case they would be squeezing.