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Telekinesis allows you to affect worn objects.

Normally, to wear armor takes at least 1 minute and up to 10 while you buckle and fasten things, and removing it is up to 5 minutes and as little as one while you unbuckle the same things.

Is a suit of worn armor, for the purposes of the Telekinesis spell, a single discrete object, upon which

You can exert fine control on objects with your telekinetic grip

And is then subject to me using Telekinesis to unbuckle everything instantly, leading to...

If the object is worn or carried by a creature, you must make an ability check with your spellcasting ability contested by that creature’s Strength check. If you succeed, you pull the object away from that creature and can move it up to 30 feet in any direction but not beyond the range of this spell.

A pile of armor on the ground that it takes them at least a full minute to get back into for each failed STR check?

Thomas Markov
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TheFallen0ne
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1 Answers1

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This is unlikely to work unless your DM is generous

The spell allows you to remove a worn object if you win the contest, and that section has no condition riders. However, I think it is clear from the context, that the object is not especially difficult to remove or secured, the sentence is there so you cannot just pick stuff of another creature. This is because of the full quote for fine control you can exert as your action in Telekinesis is:

You can exert fine control on objects with your telekinetic grip, such as manipulating a simple tool, opening a door or a container, stowing or retrieving an item from an open container, or pouring the contents from a vial.

The list of examples clarifies the extent of the fine control. These activites are no more complex than things that take one action. You for example also can withdraw a potion from your backpack or open a door as a single free object action (p. 190, PHB), so the kind of fine manipulation you can do fits with something that takes a single object interaction, not with something that would take you a minute to open multiple buckles, hooks etc. that doffing an armor takes. You would not be able to "to unbuckle everything instantly" as a single action.

I do not think this would work, as the level of effort to doff armor is much larger than the level of fine control that you could do as your action with Telekinesis in the turn. Your DM might rule that you just forcefully rip off the armor (after all, you can excert enough force to move 1,000 lbs of stuff), but that would be entirely up to them.

Nobody the Hobgoblin
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    suggesting that you can just forcefully rip the armor will mean that there's some damage inflicted to armor or the wearer - which if I were the DM I won't want to deal with. – Vylix Nov 02 '23 at 08:56
  • @Vylix Neither would I, but maybe not all DMs roll like we do.. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Nov 02 '23 at 10:07
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    +1, FWIW, I am considered a very generous DM (by my players, not just myself) and I still would not allow this to work like that. IF I even allowed the player to do it, I would probably rule the person inside the armour getting pulled together with it on a failed STR check. – AnnaAG Nov 02 '23 at 10:47
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    Maybe he's wearing the armor from Kamen Rider Kabuto and you just have to pull a lever to make it all explode off him. – Darth Pseudonym Nov 02 '23 at 16:12
  • Rule zero is always valid, but I'm uncertain I agree with your conclusion on this. "You can exert fine control on objects with your telekinetic grip, *such as*," does not include a line of "limited to,"- such lists are typically exemplary in plain English, not exhaustive. A 5th level spell slot isn't a small resource; arguably large enough to justify 10 buckles and pins coming undone at once, or the tumblers in a lock lining up, which both seem to require a similar measure of fine control if you're talking about telekinesis, which is only limited by weight when discussing objects. – TheFallen0ne Nov 02 '23 at 20:41
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    @TheFallen0ne Maybe think of if this way: just because you cast the spell you don’t get the mental capability to open ten clasps at once, each of which needs separate detail handling and your attention. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Nov 02 '23 at 21:25
  • @TheFallen0ne "10 buckles and pins" very clearly isn't a single discrete object so doesn't this make your argument fall apart by itself? And yeah 5th lvl slot is not a small resource but this is also a spell that last up to 10 minutes so that's a lot of use you can get out of it. – AnnaAG Nov 06 '23 at 11:33
  • @AnnaAG Those buckles and pins (which we are assuming exist b/c we're assuming a reason for time to don/doff) are all part of a single mechanically discrete object, a suit of armor. Plain English is the rule of D&D, except when game terms already exist to manage the situation; the buckles and pins of a suit of plate armor are in fact part of that plate armor, yes?

    If you follow the logic of the pins and buckles each being a discrete object, wouldn't it be a consistent (and absurd) conclusion that you can't use TK to play a piano because you can only affect one key every 6 seconds?

     – TheFallen0ne Nov 06 '23 at 20:23
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    @TheFallen0ne I don't know if you've ever seen a set of full plate armour irl but it could in no reasonable way be considered a single object if you wanna go with the "plain English" thing. But regardless of that, you seem dead set on your own interpretation, which is kinda fine but why ask in the first place if you will refuse to accept any answer that doesn't support your reasoning? – AnnaAG Nov 07 '23 at 09:32
  • @AnnaAG I want a RAW reading, not an interpretation. As mentioned, "Plain English" only applies when mechanical game terms don't already exist. I'm happy to take a different reading, but I want it based in actual game terms; you're attacking my reading but haven't really used any RAW game terms to refute it or addressed the logic of my question; is each key on a piano a separate object, or if you have a piano, is it a single object when you target it with a spell? – TheFallen0ne Nov 07 '23 at 20:38
  • @TheFallen0ne The piano is a single object in game terms, but it has no special rules of requiring the equivalent of 10 actions to remove, like an armor does. I think you could push all the keys together, but that dies not need the attention and fine manipulation that undoing a starp takes for many straps. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Nov 07 '23 at 20:41
  • @NobodytheHobgoblin I agree with you that there exist general rules that require X amount of time to remove armor (however, these rules do not specify any actual details about why it takes this long). Strictly speaking RAW, if a spell says that it does X in one action, wouldn't that specific spell do what it says, and override general? By not overriding despite the spell, are we not creating a rule that does not exist and saying "this cannot be bypassed with a spell, regardless of the spell's text?" – TheFallen0ne Nov 07 '23 at 20:58
  • @TheFallen0ne Maybe. I think the very fact that there is this long discussion is a good pointer that even though you could read it that way if you ignored all the context other rules provide and just focused on Spell do what they say, we're in the realm where it is not unequivocal and hence ultimately the DM must decide. And even "Spells do what they say" is not an actual rule to be found in the rules text, but just sn interpretation principle to help us. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Nov 07 '23 at 21:51
  • @TheFallen0ne the RAW reading is that if it doesn't state clearly and unambiguously in the spell's description what happens in a given situation, the DM decides. That's it, anything further than that will be an interpretation by necessity. Different DMs will likely take a multitude of different approaches and each one will feel theirs is the best one. – AnnaAG Nov 08 '23 at 09:33
  • @AnnaAG Mechanically, armor is considered a single, discrete object. An example that proves this would be the Forge Domain Cleric's Blessing of the Forge feature, which states: "...you can touch one nonmagical object that is a suit of armor or a simple or martial weapon." Armor is an object, and it is also worn or carried by a creature, which means that by RAW, it is perfectly valid for Telekinesis to be able to rip armor off a creature, assuming the caster succeeds on their ability check. – AnotherAnonymous Dec 13 '23 at 08:59