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When using the spell astral projection, you gain a vulnerability: If your silver cord is severed, you die:

If the cord is cut--something that can happen only when an effect specifically states that it does--your soul and body are separated, killing you instantly.

However, this can only happen if an effect specifically states it can do so. An example of this is the silver longsword of the githyanki knight, which states that it can sever a silver cord on a crit.

On a critical hit against a target in an astral body (as with the astral projection spell), the githyanki can cut the silvery cord that tethers the target to its material body, instead of dealing damage.

However, the rare magic item adamantine armor states that

any critical hit against you becomes a normal hit.

Does this make it so that this type of effect cannot sever your silver cord?

Jack
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User 23415
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1 Answers1

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Yes, adamantine armor protects from the critical hits of a githyanki sword.

You quoted the relevant rules: wearing an adamantine armor transforms any critical hit in a mundane hit, hence a githyanki cannot severe your silver cord.

You can compare the wording with similar game effects: a vorpal sword requires just a 20 on the attack roll, not a critical hit, for severing the target's head.

Eddymage
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    This might be RAW but its a really poor suggestion. The cord is absolutely not inside the armour – SeriousBri Feb 08 '24 at 18:58
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    @SeriousBri So, answering correctly within the rules is worthing a downvote? Ok, noted that. I think that ending each answer with "but your DM could overrule that" is a bit much, when it is not needed. – Eddymage Feb 08 '24 at 19:02
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    It's often fun looking at the banter between you three with high reps on this site, haha (Eddymage, SeriousBri, Nobody the Hobgoblin). You all seem to have quite different take on a lot of things here. I sometimes agree with one of you sometimes the other. – justhalf Feb 09 '24 at 06:51
  • @justhalf You have quite the take on "high rep", too. ^_^ There's high, and then there's high. – T.J.L. Feb 09 '24 at 13:13
  • @T.J.L. well, I often see these three discussing and debating, haha. Less of others debating. – justhalf Feb 09 '24 at 13:38
  • @justhalf No, that doesn't depend on reputation (which has no significance in knowledge, it just gives some privileges on the site), it depends mainly on time and will to discuss. – Eddymage Feb 09 '24 at 13:40
  • @Eddymage almost always worth a downvote from me. We should do better than "RAW says" because that's just reading rules. As supposed experts we should put commentary around it, explain why it may or may not actually make sense etc. We all know the rules aren't well written or thought out in some places and answers like this completely ignore that. – SeriousBri Feb 09 '24 at 14:12
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    @SeriousBri That's subjective. In this case, there is nothing wrong within the rules for me, and plenty of room for in-game justification for the rules itself (for example, adamantine is a special material and in the Astral Plane provides protection for your body and for your silvery cord; the silvery cord is linked to your heart and the gith's sword cannot reach it with a critical hit, ...). What does not make sense for you may have a lot of sense for others. – Eddymage Feb 09 '24 at 14:24
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    Someone in Sigil: "Why are the Gith carrying giant can openers now?" – Mindwin Remember Monica Feb 09 '24 at 16:15
  • @Eddymage yea, my intent was just to point to the three of you, and you all happen to have 25k+ rep, which, in other stacks are really high. – justhalf Feb 09 '24 at 16:50
  • @justhalf I try to keep up with them. I was in top 3 this January... I was third to Nobody. – User 23415 Feb 09 '24 at 18:37
  • I would note that the Gith cannot sever your silver cord as a result of getting a crit on you. They can naturally just attack the silver cord. – Derrek Bertrand Feb 09 '24 at 19:38
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    @DerrekBertrand Have you got a reference for this? – Eddymage Feb 09 '24 at 19:46
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    @SeriousBri I argue that is not that is a good reason for a downvote. If other people were to do the same, we would have a lot of Answers with negative scores. But a negative score is understood to mean the Answer is incorrect. Thus the site would have a ton of accurate Answer marked as wrong, making the site look inaccurate. – trlkly Feb 10 '24 at 07:33
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    @SeriousBri And, more specifically, It also seems like what you want in a "good answer" would actually make this Answer worse by adding speculation and subjectivity where none is necessary. (And my understanding from Meta is that this is undesirable--good subjectivity is subordient to factually correct.) And there is value in being able to ask a human and have a publicly available Answer rather than having to buy every book and read every rule to make sure you didn't miss anything. That's the entire point of the Q&A format vs. the "Set of rules" format. SE answers are easily googleable. – trlkly Feb 10 '24 at 07:35
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    @DerrekBertrand The quoted statement suggests otherwise, as it says only that which is explicitly stated to cut the cord can do so. And the weapon in question says you must attack an Astral Body to get the ability to cut the cord. It does not give a way to attack the cord and successfully cut it. – trlkly Feb 10 '24 at 07:38
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    @SeriousBri: Also, you're treating the game as a simulation, which is not the only valid style of play, and one that is usually frowned upon on this site. Most say things like "spells only do what they say they do." If you have a different Answer that uses the simulation model, why don't you give your own Answer? – trlkly Feb 10 '24 at 07:47