Does Disintegrate destroy Force Cage (as it does for Wall of Force)?

[KorvinStarmast]

I can see this going both ways.

Feb 7, 2017Marc Sharma
@LeMarcSharma
@JeremyECrawford Does Disintegrate destroy Forcecage?
Jeremy Crawford
@JeremyECrawford
Disintegrate can destroy something made of magical force. Forcecage is described in its first sentence as "composed of magical force." #DnD This tweet exchange is over five years old.
On the one hand, you have to see/know that the Forcecage is there, on the other hand, it is made of magical force just as Wall of Force is, and disintegrate works on that.

How do you all rule it?

[stoutstien]

*psh* not only that I just gave it an AC/DT/ and HP.

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm not sure what the question is exactly.

It seems to me that Disintegrate would work on Force Cage just like it does on Wall of Force, meaning you have to be under the effect of See Invisibility or something similar in order to target either effect in the first place. But if you do, it is destroyed immediately.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Disintegrate automatically destroys a Large or smaller creation of magical force, Forcecage is a creation of magical force. It is invisible though, so as Dr.Samurai says above you would need to be able to see it through some method.

It will sometimes function a little differently than Wall of Force though when in its cage shape - Wall of Force, through its own effects, is destroyed entirely regardless of its size or shape. With Forcecage though the cage is possible larger than Huge (up to 20x20 ft) in terms of size which means it could fall under the secondary destruction effect of disintegrate where it only destroys a 10ft cube portion.

So short answer - in the majority of cases, yes. In a very particular case, yes but not completely.

[kazaryu]

i was today years old when i found out that force cage was invisible. and the ridiculousness of that (specifically in the context of how disintegrate works) has blown my mind for the night

[Witty Username]

By RAW no, by of course it does that is how it should obviously work, of course it does because that is how it should obviously work.

[Rafaelfras]

I understand it does. you could argue that the barred version need to be seen to be properly aimed (the ray can pass through the bars after all) but the closed version will get hit regardless, even if you aim at something outside.
Now for my opinion on it. I think force cage is already powerful enough. Any method that could work to bypass it should just work.

[ProsecutorGodot]

By RAW no, by of course it does that is how it should obviously work, of course it does because that is how it should obviously work.

Disintegrate always destroys at least a portion of Forcecage, the only time it doesn't automatically destroy the whole thing is when you choose to make it a cage that is larger 10x10ft in size.

The reason Wall of Force mentions that the wall is destroyed in its entirety is not a suggestion that other objects of magical force are not destroyed in their entirety, but a specific override of Disintegrates limitations due to the targeted objects size. Wall of Force as a panel can be up to 100ft wide, which means that unless we are given specifics otherwise (which we are) it would only normally destroy one 10ft panel.

[JonBeowulf]

It hasn't come up at my table, but I'd rule that the caster doesn't need to target WoF or Forcecage (solid form) as long as they're trying to hit a valid target on the other side of them. I'd keep that the barred version has to be targeted.