Creatures in Gasseous Form can be grappled and restrained?

[Segev]

I was just reading the spell, and noticed that despite granting advantage on constitution, strength, and dexterity saves, there are no condition immunities. It does expressly say they can pass through narrow gaps and enter and occupy other creature's spaces, but nothing about immunity to grappling or restraint.

Which means that you can grab them in a grapple and reduce their speed to zero, even though in theory they could slip out of your fist's openings between fingers. But they can't, because their speed is zero.

I think I would rule, and encourage any DM I was gaming with to rule, that the creature can escape such restraints automatically despite the lack of explicit immunity. It just doesn't make sense that you could tie up a gasseous form!

But am I missing something? Should grappling, restraint, difficult terrain, etc. slow or stop a creature under this spell?

[stoutstien]

The way I rule is that they would have immunity to any type of grappling or restraining that makes sense but not blanket immunity because there are plenty of creatures that have the ability to directly interact with wind/gas such as any of the various air elementals. RTMS takes precedence.

I also rule that any effect that causes particularly violent winds or destroys water damages anything in gaseous form. So hitting someone with gust of wind would deal damage and have 50/50 chance to end the spell flat out on its built in str save.

[Keravath]

It is an interesting question. I think how you rule it would come down to how you imagine it to work.

For example, does a creature in gaseous form have a frictionless surface? If their surface is frictionless then they can't be grabbed or grappled.

However, if their surface isn't frictionless, what happens if someone reaches out and grabs a chunk of a gaseous creature and clamps their fingers around the chunk of it closing their fist very tightly where the fingers join? A creature in gaseous form can slip through spaces as small as a crack but what happens if it is forced into a space smaller than a crack - e.g. hands clamped all the way shut so surfaces touch or almost? Can you pull pieces off the gaseous creature? If a character grabs a piece of it and forces their fingers together does that create a hole in the gaseous form and leave the character holding onto a ring shaped section of the creature in gaseous form? Or does the creature trying to grab the gaseous creature find that they have a piece of it in their grip which prevents the rest of the gaseous creature from moving away?

A plasmoid creature could be similar to gaseous form though they are limited to fitting through spaces an inch wide. In this case they get advantage on checks to initiate or avoid a grapple. Despite the maleable form, they aren't immune to grapples.

So I think it comes down to how the DM imagines gaseous form to work and whether it is possible to get a grip on such a creature. RAW, a creature in gaseous form is susceptible to both grappled and restrained but how a DM wants to run it depends on what they decide gaseous form really means.

Personally, I find gaseous form to be a relatively useless spell in most situations. Low travel speed, form is visible, unable to interact with the environment - for a third level spell it has very few good applications. Neither infiltration nor scouting appear to be great uses.

[Trask]

Personally, I find gaseous form to be a relatively useless spell in most situations. Low travel speed, form is visible, unable to interact with the environment - for a third level spell it has very few good applications. Neither infiltration nor scouting appear to be great uses.

I think the usefulness of the spell comes primarily from the long duration. I've seen it used for infiltration purposes, traveling vent-like secret passages Half-Life style in a dungeon.

[Dr.Samurai]

You can hack the gaseous form to pieces and kill it, stun it with a punch, etc. So it seems to me that there is something there solid enough to interact with. I wouldn’t consider this an obvious oversight; seems possible they intended the creature to be able to be grabbed.

[Telok]

But am I missing something? Should grappling, restraint, difficult terrain, etc. slow or stop a creature under this spell?

Legacy spell that's been screwed over by editions becoming more and more rules oriented. Try this:


the individual causes his or her body, as well as what it carries and wears, to become gaseous in form and able to flow accordingly at a base speed of 3”/round. (A gust of wind spell, or even normal strong air currents, will blow the gaseous form backwards at air speed.) The gaseous form is transparent and insubstantial. It wavers and shifts. It cannot be harmed except by magical fires or lightnings, in which case damage is normal. A whirlwind will inflict double damage upon any creature in gaseous form. When in such condition the individual is able to enter any space which is not airtight, i.e., a small crack or hole which allows air to penetrate also allows entry by a
creature in gaseous form.

[georgie_leech]

Worth noting that has exactly as much language granting immunity to grapples as the existing spell.

[Schwann145]

5e pretty explicitly expects you to use your own common sense with 90% of the ruleset, whether exact situations are literally spelled out or not.

IMO, if a DM allowed a creature under the effect of a Gaseous Form spell to be grappled/restrained, I'd consider that DM to be trolling their players and would suggest they find a new DM.

[Captain Cap]

It does expressly say they can pass through narrow gaps and enter and occupy other creature's spaces, but nothing about immunity to grappling or restraint.

Which means that you can grab them in a grapple and reduce their speed to zero, even though in theory they could slip out of your fist's openings between fingers. But they can't, because their speed is zero.
It could be argued that to slip through something you don't need to expend movement, you could very well remain in your square while doing so. Zero speed doesn't mean zero motion, otherwise a grappled character wouldn't even be able to attack, draw items etc.

And difficult terrain wouldn't affect you anyway because of the flying speed.

[Imbalance]

Keravath asks the important questions, but...<sigh> you really have to go back to grade school for an object lesson on how this can work.:smalleek:

Y'know how you can catch a fart and throw it in somebody's face? That's grappling a gaseous form.

[DarknessEternal]

Keravath asks the important questions, but...<sigh> you really have to go back to grade school for an object lesson on how this can work.:smalleek:

Y'know how you can catch a fart and throw it in somebody's face? That's grappling a gaseous form.

Except completely wrong. You can punch a gaseous form to death. It is not actually gas.

[Captain Cap]

Except completely wrong. You can punch a gaseous form to death. It is not actually gas.
If the character was gas, you wouldn't even need to kill them, diffusion would do it for you :smallbiggrin: but I guess you could accelerate the process by flapping the air.

[Segev]

Except completely wrong. You can punch a gaseous form to death. It is not actually gas.

Eh, between "Hit points are not (just) meat" and the fact that forcibly running things into the gas cloud will disrupt its formation, I am not inclined to take this as evidence that it "is not gas."

[Telok]

Worth noting that has exactly as much language granting immunity to grapples as the existing spell.

Older style writing. Only magic fire, magic lightning, and wind get to **** with it (force etc. wasn't a thing as a "damage type").

[georgie_leech]

Older style writing. Only magic fire, magic lightning, and wind get to **** with it (force etc. wasn't a thing as a "damage type").

No, those are the only things that harm it. That's not the same thing as "effect" or "mess with" or otherwise inconvenience. That just means nothing else damages them.

If you want to interpret the rules more broadly, you can do that just as well with the regular 5e text, you don't need to pull out earlier editions.

[Marcloure]

The gas might be viscous and if you stuff your fingers into it, it can't flow or be separated. The way D&D works, you base the narrative on the mechanics, so the question becomes: "a creature in gaseous form can be grappled. How does that work in your world?"

[sithlordnergal]

Huh, it doesn't make you Immune to grappled and restrained! I wonder...Huh, reading theVampire, its Mist Form can be Grappled and Restrained as well. Interesting, both can be grappled by RAW. I'll need to remember that as both a DM and player, as I tend to run things as close to RAW as I can. XD

Nothing says it makes you immune, therefore you are not immune.

[Sigreid]

I would rule that the wording that "The target can pass through small holes, narrow openings and even cracks though it treats liquids as though they were solid services" means that they couldn't be grappled/restrained in the conventional sense of wrestle them to the ground and hog tie them as there will always be cracks in your grip. Clever and prepared people could, however, have a water proofed canvas or something else that is air or water tight and use that to grapple the mist if it was big enough to envelop the mist. So, not immune to being grappled or restrained per se, but you have to work to set up the situation where you can do it.

[JonBeowulf]

I would rule that the wording that "The target can pass through small holes, narrow openings and even cracks though it treats liquids as though they were solid services" means that they couldn't be grappled/restrained in the conventional sense of wrestle them to the ground and hog tie them as there will always be cracks in your grip. Clever and prepared people could, however, have a water proofed canvas or something else that is air or water tight and use that to grapple the mist if it was big enough to envelop the mist. So, not immune to being grappled or restrained per se, but you have to work to set up the situation where you can do it.
I agree with both of these points. You can't grab something that can pass through cracks. There's no rule that says you can't grapple a puddle of water but we all know it won't work. And I'd drop huge xp on a group that came prepared to deal with a mist/gaseous creature.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Huh, it doesn't make you Immune to grappled and restrained! I wonder...Huh, reading theVampire, its Mist Form can be Grappled and Restrained as well. Interesting, both can be grappled by RAW. I'll need to remember that as both a DM and player, as I tend to run things as close to RAW as I can. XD

Nothing says it makes you immune, therefore you are not immune.

In this particular instance, a slavish devotion to RAW is akin to driving an automobile on a road in which a bridge is out, but there not being a sign stating to turn back, so the driver decides, that by RAW, they must drive off the broken bridge.

It has long been commented on in 5e, that by RAW, a Vampire that uses their Shapechanger ability to turn into Mist Form while having a single Hit Point, technically is unable to revert back to normal form, as the Vampire write up specifies that a Vampire cannot take actions while in Mist form.

The design intention is clear that a vampire is intended to have access to Mist Form via their Shapechanger ability, and an emergency use of Mist Form via the Misty Escape ability. Yet the shoddy wording of the creature entry makes Mist Form a trap.

A 5e Vampire could, by RAW, Grapple someone in corporal form, and then with their next Action, transform into Mist Form, and still be grappling their Target, (presuming the Target did not escape), and the Vampire would be unable to revert back to their other forms, because they lack actions, and thus the Vampire in Mist Form also could not break any Grapples, since they cannot take actions.

Can one grapple the wind? Can you effectively grapple smoke from a cigarette with your bare hands?

Politely, I would suggest, the soundest course of action vis a vis Gaseous Form and it’s ilk is not to embrace the clearly ILL CONCEIVED, rules as written, and just fix the rules, instead.

If the bridge is out, do not drive off it, despite what the road signs might say.

[Imbalance]

Who needs a bridge?
https://www.streetmusclemag.com/image/2012/04/general_lee_jump_video.jpg

[DarknessEternal]

Can one grapple the wind? Can you effectively grapple smoke from a cigarette with your bare hands?


Neither of those apply. This gaseous form can be punched to death. It isn't really gas.

[Keravath]

Neither of those apply. This gaseous form can be punched to death. It isn't really gas.

I think this point is an important one to keep in mind when trying to figure out how you want to run "gaseous form".

- is the gaseous form coherent? Does it stick together? If you closed a window on a creature in gaseous form, do you cut it in half? If you are dealing with a gas cloud, closing a window stops the rest of it from getting through. That doesn't seem to be how gaseous form would work though.

- if the "gaseous" form sticks together and you can't break pieces off or divide it up then it already has properties that a gas does not.

- the only effects that "gaseous" form has on damage are "The target has resistance to nonmagical damage, and it has advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws." You can kill a creature in "gaseous" form with ANY kind of damage - it just takes a bit longer if you try to chop it up with a sword. If the creature really was a "gas" a sword would pass through leaving the gas behind and wouldn't have any effect on it. Being "gas" has no effect on a magical sword. You take just as much damage from the magical sword whether you are a gas or not. The same for any other damage type - thunder, radiant, fire, lightning, force, cold ... etc. One might expect that if the creature really was made out of "gas" that some of these might have greater and lesser effects on the creature - but they don't.

- is the surface of gaseous form frictionless? You can't grab a "gas" - it just slips through your fingers - but "gaseous" form clearly doesn't behave as a "gas" given the description of the spell.

Anyway, based on this, it would appear that the spell name is just fluff and based on some concept of coolness unrelated to what the spell actually does in this version of the game. People read "gaseous form" and come up preconceived ideas of what the spell should do based on the name and the concept of a creature being a "gas" when the specifics of the mechanics of the spell really seem to be more like some sort of floating ooze.

Either way, up to the DM how they want to run it, RAW is pretty clear that you can grapple/restrain a creature in gaseous form - the only reason folks think that doesn't make sense is because the terms "gaseous form" and "misty cloud" in the description give an impression of the effect that doesn't agree with the stated mechanics of the spell - fly 10', fits through small cracks (note the creature size doesn't change so you couldn't squish a creature in gaseous form into a jar for example), misty (so you can see it), resistant to non-magical damage and advantage on physical saves.

The explicit mechanics aren't really supportive of the concept of a creature transformed into a "gas".

[Segev]

I will say that I can conceive of a creature made of mist or gas or whatever taking damage from various sources and still being "a gas." Disrupting the form violently could cause real harm, and if we use the "hp are not (entirely) meat" take on it, a lot of those attacks are, like most attacks that don't take away that last hp, barely grazing it, but using up luck or stamina or a number of other intangible elements that roll together to be represented by those hp. Slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing do half damage because they're less dangerous, but they still force some luck or some care, and they still slow you down just a bit due to the disruption to your form or the expenditure of luck or whatnot. If they take away that last hp, then that was the sword swipe that DID cut your gaseous shape in half and fully disrupt it into an unsurvivable form. The gas didn't flow back together behind the sword, but instead was bifurcated.

Similarly with closing a window on it. That'd normally do bludgeoning damage, and either be modeled as a grapple (if trapping the figure in the pinched windowframe) or as the target winding up on one side or the other (as the bashing hits but they slide out). I think something similar happens, here. Since the gaseous creature can't exist in spaces narrower than a certain amount, we have to ask ourselves if the window can pinch but be stopped by the gaseous form, or if it would close all the way through. By the name and description of the spell, I don't think it's intended that you should be able to treat the gaseous form like you would a balloon or gas-filled bladder, where you can squeeze it until it goes taut from the itnernal air pressure. By the mechanics, you MIGHT be able to make that argument, but I think you can also argue the other way (especially since the gas creature can't pick up and carry things...or can it?). Thus, I would argue the window slams shut completely, and either the damage is enough to reduce the creature to 0 hp (which cuts it in half, or something similarly suitably dramatic), or the creature slips "enough" of itself out one side or the other to be "still alive." And the gas left on the other side dissipates.

[Schwann145]

...the only reason folks think that doesn't make sense is because the terms "gaseous form" and "misty cloud" in the description give an impression of the effect that doesn't agree with the stated mechanics of the spell - fly 10', fits through small cracks (note the creature size doesn't change so you couldn't squish a creature in gaseous form into a jar for example), misty (so you can see it), resistant to non-magical damage and advantage on physical saves.

The explicit mechanics aren't really supportive of the concept of a creature transformed into a "gas".

Except they also are supportive of that concept. Consider:


While in the form of a misty cloud, the target can't talk or manipulate Objects, and any Objects it was carrying or holding can't be dropped, used, or otherwise interacted with. The target can't Attack or cast Spells.
If you cannot interact with objects, it follows that objects can't interact with you either. How, then, does a non-magical attack with a weapon affect them at all? Further, if you can't interact with objects or items worn or carried by the gaseous person, then why are you able to interact with their person at all? Shouldn't you be equally "unavailable" as your equipment? Also, why can't you attack? What about the spell is preventing attacks from working? If you're "kinda tangible" then you should be able to "kinda attack." But you can't attack at all.

The spell is all over the place, and is in desperate need of reworking (that it'll likely never receive).

[sithlordnergal]

In this particular instance, a slavish devotion to RAW is akin to driving an automobile on a road in which a bridge is out, but there not being a sign stating to turn back, so the driver decides, that by RAW, they must drive off the broken bridge.

It has long been commented on in 5e, that by RAW, a Vampire that uses their Shapechanger ability to turn into Mist Form while having a single Hit Point, technically is unable to revert back to normal form, as the Vampire write up specifies that a Vampire cannot take actions while in Mist form.

The design intention is clear that a vampire is intended to have access to Mist Form via their Shapechanger ability, and an emergency use of Mist Form via the Misty Escape ability. Yet the shoddy wording of the creature entry makes Mist Form a trap.

A 5e Vampire could, by RAW, Grapple someone in corporal form, and then with their next Action, transform into Mist Form, and still be grappling their Target, (presuming the Target did not escape), and the Vampire would be unable to revert back to their other forms, because they lack actions, and thus the Vampire in Mist Form also could not break any Grapples, since they cannot take actions.

Can one grapple the wind? Can you effectively grapple smoke from a cigarette with your bare hands?

Politely, I would suggest, the soundest course of action vis a vis Gaseous Form and it’s ilk is not to embrace the clearly ILL CONCEIVED, rules as written, and just fix the rules, instead.

If the bridge is out, do not drive off it, despite what the road signs might say.

Personally, I find instances like these to be a boon of the system, rather than a bane. It makes for ridiculous situations that's easily explained away with "Its RAW" when players question why it works that way. Can verisimilitude suffer because of this? Sure, but I'm more than happy to sacrifice a bit of verisimilitude for RAW backed silliness and shenanigans.

Additionally, it fully depends on how you picture a creature in Mist Form or Gaseous Form. You can harm a Vampire in Mist Form with magical damage, be it from enchanted weapons or spells. And creatures in Gaseous Form can be harmed by a normal sword. Can you harm smoke or air with a regular sword? There's likely something there to hit or grab onto. Meaning verisimilitude is not, necessarily, sacrificed.

Personally, I'm glad this was brought up. I'll be keeping to RAW when I DM, you can grapple and restrain either one. Not because it makes sense, but because its really dang funny to picture some Barbarian grappling some mist and being able to successfully do so. XD

After all, who needs a bridge when my intent is to drive off the cliff in the first place?

[Tawmis]

I was just reading the spell, and noticed that despite granting advantage on constitution, strength, and dexterity saves, there are no condition immunities. It does expressly say they can pass through narrow gaps and enter and occupy other creature's spaces, but nothing about immunity to grappling or restraint.


Grappled/Restrained in a bottle?? :D

Ask any Genie... they will tell you, with much disdain. :D

[animorte]

Can one grapple the wind? Can you effectively grapple smoke from a cigarette with your bare hands?
Have you seen the kind of impressive shenanigans people can do with their e-cig smoke manipulation?

[Dr.Samurai]

I get everyone that's saying "this is so obvious, RAW is dumb, use common sense".

But that's assuming the intent is that the spell makes you into literal gas and you behave in all ways like gas. Suppose you are under the effects of Gaseous Form spell and someone casts Gust of Wind and catches you in the area. Are you pushed back 15ft on a failed save, or are you simply instantly dispersed, and snuffed out, as if you were gas/vapor?

You can't harm gas with a sword, but you can harm a gaseous form with a sword; you can actually kill a gaseous form with a sword. And not because you're dispersing it. The gaseous form has Advantage on Strength saving throws... interesting.

If we can imagine a castle on a bank of cloudstuff, surely we can imagine that a creature in magical gas form might still be able to be grabbed, especially if it can be hit by weapons and Shoved.

Either way you will have to explain things. I can say very simply that yes, this creature under the effects of a magical spell that turns it into a misty cloud can will itself to slip through cracks and stuff, but it can still be grabbed by a monster or warrior.

I mean... no warrior on Earth is going to trip or grapple an ogre, but D&D fighters can do it all day every day. So... why not a magical cloud being?

[kazaryu]

Keravath asks the important questions, but...<sigh> you really have to go back to grade school for an object lesson on how this can work.:smalleek:

Y'know how you can catch a fart and throw it in somebody's face? That's grappling a gaseous form.

no, thats making a shove attempt on gaseous form. in order to grapple that fart you'd need to be able to grab and drag it anywhere you want to while it actively tries to slip through your fingers.


Have you seen the kind of impressive shenanigans people can do with their e-cig smoke manipulation?

e cig smoke can't fight back

[sithlordnergal]

e cig smoke can't fight back

Given Vampires can't take actions in Mist Form, neither can Vampires >w>

[Keravath]

I will say that I can conceive of a creature made of mist or gas or whatever taking damage from various sources and still being "a gas." Disrupting the form violently could cause real harm, and if we use the "hp are not (entirely) meat" take on it, a lot of those attacks are, like most attacks that don't take away that last hp, barely grazing it, but using up luck or stamina or a number of other intangible elements that roll together to be represented by those hp. Slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing do half damage because they're less dangerous, but they still force some luck or some care, and they still slow you down just a bit due to the disruption to your form or the expenditure of luck or whatnot. If they take away that last hp, then that was the sword swipe that DID cut your gaseous shape in half and fully disrupt it into an unsurvivable form. The gas didn't flow back together behind the sword, but instead was bifurcated.

Similarly with closing a window on it. That'd normally do bludgeoning damage, and either be modeled as a grapple (if trapping the figure in the pinched windowframe) or as the target winding up on one side or the other (as the bashing hits but they slide out). I think something similar happens, here. Since the gaseous creature can't exist in spaces narrower than a certain amount, we have to ask ourselves if the window can pinch but be stopped by the gaseous form, or if it would close all the way through. By the name and description of the spell, I don't think it's intended that you should be able to treat the gaseous form like you would a balloon or gas-filled bladder, where you can squeeze it until it goes taut from the itnernal air pressure. By the mechanics, you MIGHT be able to make that argument, but I think you can also argue the other way (especially since the gas creature can't pick up and carry things...or can it?). Thus, I would argue the window slams shut completely, and either the damage is enough to reduce the creature to 0 hp (which cuts it in half, or something similarly suitably dramatic), or the creature slips "enough" of itself out one side or the other to be "still alive." And the gas left on the other side dissipates.

Agreed :). All of my posts say it is up to the DM on how they want to run it. I think everyone knows what the spell says RAW so the questions are mostly what would a specific DM do to house rule it based on how they think it should work.

There are also lots of gray areas the spell doesn't address.

For example, the creature can fit through a hole a small as a crack. How small is that? Cracks can be a fraction of a millimeter or less, but the creature can fit through those spaces. Lets say there is a crack that is 0.1 mm wide in a rock face that extends for a few kilometers eventually opening into a cavern underground. A creature in gaseous form could enter this exceptionally small crack? Would its form could end up being 0.1 mm x a kilometer long as it works its way through the crack or would it be much shorter but also a much denser cloud of gas while squeezing through a small hole?

Can a gaseous form creature control the shape of its form? Can it become exceptionally long and thin even if not surrounded by a crack? Can it make itself smaller or larger (if it is a gas that should be possible by varying its density)? Is the default shape a sphere or does the misty cloud look like the creature it is made of? :)

I also agree with your comments about the interpretation of hit points ... I really have no idea what it means when a creature in gaseous form takes damage. Does it use up their luck or stamina? Does it do some fraction of physical damage? Since hit points are so abstracted, its up to the DM to decide what hit point damage means, especially in a gaseous form.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Personally, I'm glad this was brought up. I'll be keeping to RAW when I DM, you can grapple and restrain either one. Not because it makes sense, but because its really dang funny to picture some Barbarian grappling some mist and being able to successfully do so. XD

The salient issue is that both a Vampire’s Mist Form and the Gaseous Form spell should reference 5e Keywords, and neither ability does.

My own supposition, is that Gaseous Form and the Vampire statblock were created early on in the creation process for 5e and never updated prior to publication of 5e.

The 5e Air Elemental is a good example of a similar, airy creature, that does reference 5E’s Keywords, and thus eliminates the confusion that both Gaseous Form and a Vampire’s Misty Form engender.

Just like the Gaseous Form spell, an Air Elemental can enter a Hostile Creature’s square and stop there. Unlike, the Gaseous Form spell or a Vampire’s Misty Form, an Air Elemental is explicitly immune to the Prone, Restrained, or Grappled Conditions.

Some of these things, seem fairly darn similar to the other ones, and probably should reference the same keywords. This part from the Gaseous Form spell description certainly seems to be using natural language to describe immunity to the Prone/Restrained/Grappled Conditions:

“The target can pass through small holes, narrow openings, and even mere cracks, though it treats liquids as though they were solid surfaces. The target can't fall and remains hovering in the air even when stunned or otherwise incapacitated.”

Gaseous Form is an incredibly lousy spell without immunity to Prone/Restrained/Grappled. The recipient of Gaseous Form losses access to spells, can not use items, cannot talk, has their speed reduced down to 10’, all in exchange for Advantage on physical Saving Throws and Damage Resistance.

If one can grapple the recipient of a Gaseous Form spell, then the spell does not facilitate retreats, the spell generally impedes a retreat, due to the substantial movement penalty.

This brings Gaseous Form and a Vampire’s Mist Form on the same subpar level as True Strike.

[Telok]

No, those are the only things that harm it. That's not the same thing as "effect" or "mess with" or otherwise inconvenience. That just means nothing else damages them.

If you want to interpret the rules more broadly, you can do that just as well with the regular 5e text, you don't need to pull out earlier editions.

Last bit then I'm out. You're arguing a 5e rules, conditions, and keyword based perspective about text from an AD&D spell. That's an error. AD&D didn't do keywords, conditions, or all that stuff. There wasn't this "you can only do what the exact text lets you do and nothing else" paradigm. You want plain language and rulings? AD&D is the origin and way way more based on that than 5e. You're saying "because it says A then it can't be B", that's a 5e parse-the-rules-text-to-prove-a-point style of reading. Nobody during AD&D would have read that because it could only be damaged by magic fire, magic lightning, and winds, then you can grab and strangle a gas. There's just nothing in that entire edition saying "grappling a gas" is a thing or that because the gaseous form spell doesn't say "you can't grab a gas" means you can suddenly grab it. You can't try reading old versions plain text trying to apply 5e exclusionary keyword based rules parsing.

[georgie_leech]

Last bit then I'm out. You're arguing a 5e rules, conditions, and keyword based perspective about text from an AD&D spell. That's an error. AD&D didn't do keywords, conditions, or all that stuff. There wasn't this "you can only do what the exact text lets you do and nothing else" paradigm. You want plain language and rulings? AD&D is the origin and way way more based on that than 5e. You're saying "because it says A then it can't be B", that's a 5e parse-the-rules-text-to-prove-a-point style of reading. Nobody during AD&D would have read that because it could only be damaged by magic fire, magic lightning, and winds, then you can grab and strangle a gas. There's just nothing in that entire edition saying "grappling a gas" is a thing or that because the gaseous form spell doesn't say "you can't grab a gas" means you can suddenly grab it. You can't try reading old versions plain text trying to apply 5e exclusionary keyword based rules parsing.

My point is that bringing rules text back from earlier editions doesn't change the fact that if you're arguing the rules changed around it, those rules are still different with the older text. That is, saying "use the text of this older version of the spell" isn't going to address the fundamental problem of a different approach to rules interpretation in general.

[sithlordnergal]

The salient issue is that both a Vampire’s Mist Form and the Gaseous Form spell should reference 5e Keywords, and neither ability does.

My own supposition, is that Gaseous Form and the Vampire statblock were created early on in the creation process for 5e and never updated prior to publication of 5e.

The 5e Air Elemental is a good example of a similar, airy creature, that does reference 5E’s Keywords, and thus eliminates the confusion that both Gaseous Form and a Vampire’s Misty Form engender.

Just like the Gaseous Form spell, an Air Elemental can enter a Hostile Creature’s square and stop there. Unlike, the Gaseous Form spell or a Vampire’s Misty Form, an Air Elemental is explicitly immune to the Prone, Restrained, or Grappled Conditions.

Some of these things, seem fairly darn similar to the other ones, and probably should reference the same keywords. This part from the Gaseous Form spell description certainly seems to be using natural language to describe immunity to the Prone/Restrained/Grappled Conditions:

“The target can pass through small holes, narrow openings, and even mere cracks, though it treats liquids as though they were solid surfaces. The target can't fall and remains hovering in the air even when stunned or otherwise incapacitated.”

Gaseous Form is an incredibly lousy spell without immunity to Prone/Restrained/Grappled. The recipient of Gaseous Form losses access to spells, can not use items, cannot talk, has their speed reduced down to 10’, all in exchange for Advantage on physical Saving Throws and Damage Resistance.

If one can grapple the recipient of a Gaseous Form spell, then the spell does not facilitate retreats, the spell generally impedes a retreat, due to the substantial movement penalty.

This brings Gaseous Form and a Vampire’s Mist Form on the same subpar level as True Strike.

Oh, they absolutely should reference 5e Keywords, and its pretty clear that they're meant to be immune to Grapple and Restrained when you look at RAI. No arguments there. As you said, they're using natural language to describe being immune to the Prone/Restrained/Grappled Conditions, but since they don't reference specific 5e keywords they aren't immune by pure RAW. Funnily enough, even the Air elemental's ability doesn't grant it immunity to any Conditions, it only has those immunities because of its stat block. This is something that should have been noticed a while ago, and fixed in an errata at the very least. But I don't think it has.

So is it dumb? Oh yeah, its right up there with the stupidest RAW things I've found. Still, I certainly won't change it. I find it to be an endearing sort of dumb. Like how you can technically run in Skyrim when you're over-encumbered by starting and canceling a power attack with a Dagger. Or how regular darkness is treated the same as a thick fog under Heavy Obscurement rules. Personally, I'm happy to throw my players a bone since being able to grapple a Vampire is going to help my players more often than it'll help me.

As for Gaseous Form...I mean, were people using it to escape that often in the first place? I kind of saw it more as a scouting spell than an escape spell. You only have 10ft of movement, so you aren't outrunning anything when you cast it, and you'll still take damage, which means you can have your Concentration broken. I can't imagine this RAW discovery changing too much about it.