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The description of sovereign glue states that it creates a bond between two objects that cannot be broken by anything other than universal solvent, oil of etherealness, or Wish. According to this question, a teleport is not sufficient to de-glue things. However, in the case of a teleport, both objects still exist and the question is about separating them, which the glue clearly prevents.

Can you entirely destroy one or both of the glued objects after the bond has been formed? More specifically:

  • Would doing so count as "breaking" the bond, or simply making the bond irrelevant? If the object is somehow restored to existence, I could see it coming back still glued.
  • Does the answer change if you destroy an object slowly, bit by bit (such as with acid) versus destroying it all at once in an instant (such as with Disintegrate)?
  • If you can destroy bonded objects, does the glue itself continue to exist in dried form afterward?
Thomas Markov
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TGAPVersy
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1 Answers1

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Sovereign Glue does not provide any special protection to the bonded objects

This should be self-explanatory. The bond can't be broken; the objects can be. If the glue made the objects invulnerable or something, then it would need to say so in the item description, and it doesn't.

Destroying an object does not generally make it disintegrate into nothing.

"Destroying" an object means the object is no longer usable for its intended purpose. It doesn't mean the object is completely disintegrated. If you sovereign-glue a door to the door frame, and then somebody smashes the door, there will still be door-bits glued to the frame, because that bond is unbreakable -- but the door can be shattered and no longer serve as a door.

In theory you could glue items together and then dunk them in a strong acid for a long time, or hit one object with a Disintegrate spell, and I suppose in that case you'd end up with some dried sovereign glue, but that's really outside the realm of the rules and will require the DM to make some decisions.

Darth Pseudonym
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  • If you're not in a hurry, you can use sandpaper and/or tools like a wood rasp and/or chisel or knife to remove all splinters down to the glue. For example if a trickster cleric's partner in crime has glued something embarrassing to your hand. (Does skin flaking off eventually remove Sovereign glue? It's kind of ship of Theseus problem, is the glue magically stuck to "your skin" or "your hand", or to the specific skin cells that could be torn away or flake away naturally over time? But that's a separate question.) – Peter Cordes Oct 28 '22 at 14:10
  • Peter's comment here is more along the lines of what I was originally thinking: destroying an object so completely that nothing is left. My intended use case is with a large collection of very small objects all bound to each other with sovereign glue to form a plate or wall, and I'm wondering if you can poke holes in it without technically "breaking bonds". – TGAPVersy Oct 28 '22 at 15:16
  • Well @TGAPVersy, that's what I would refer to as 'shenanigans' and only your DM can tell you whether it would work or not. It's just beyond the realm of what the rules text supports. For future reference, though, it would have been better if you'd asked about the plan you're actually contemplating rather than asking a question that you think might help you solve the original problem. (This is sometimes called an "X Y problem" -- you actually want to solve X but you're asking about Y instead.) – Darth Pseudonym Oct 28 '22 at 15:56