D&D 5E Displacer Beasts = Schrodinger's Cat?

[FormerlyHemlock]

This blog post (http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2014/08/names.html) made me just realize something: I think Displacer Beasts are an evil version of Schrodinger's Cat. They don't just project an illusion of themselves in a confusing spot, they are actually in two places at once. Getting hit collapses the wave function, forcing them into a single location for the rest of the round.

This explains why they also have protection against area effect spells (Avoidance). If it were just an illusion that wouldn't make any sense, but if they truly do have a weird relationship with spacetime, it makes more sense.

Displacer Beasts: feel like these would have a complete different understanding of space and inhabiting space and the concept of attaching a narrow band of energy to the points and vectors of an individual weirdly pointless to them. The equivalent for us would be throwing a pebble in a lake to represent someone. Displacer beast would fundamentally both know and know their not knowing of themselves and other displacer beasts. Yeah. ANyhow here is all the rest of the names on g+ so go there* and read all the other amazing contribitions people did. I would include them here but the formatting goes a bit ---- and people keep adding to them so its like a displacer beast name man. You can describe where a thing was but it already is un-naming by trying to include a previous state as part of its identity.Which is a complete necessity for us, but an absurdity for Displacer Beasts. Okay so maybe if they try and use a name for themselves they just choose a location that they were at because that what they think names are.


Displacer Beast Names


1. Behind You
2. Beside The Stairs
3. Under The Moon
4.Outside
5, Inside
6.Near
7.Close
8.The Roof
9.Along Gates
10.In Its Shadow
11.Not There

 

[Fanaelialae]

It's an interesting take on it, but I don't see it. If they were in two places at once as you suggest, then attacking the visible projection ought to collapse the waveform, in which case their displacement would actually work against them. Why does the creature exist invisibly but tangibly in one place, and visibly but intangibly in another? Also, technically, I believe that simply observing them ought to be sufficient to collapse them if we're talking quantum mechanics. The quantum explanation is cooler, but displacement makes more sense to me.

I don't think that their Avoidance is related to displacement at all. As far as I can tell, Avoidance works whether or not the beast is currently displaced. It's probably just there because they're agile (and since without it AoEs would be a significant gap in their defenses).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's an interesting take on it, but I don't see it. If they were in two places at once as you suggest, then attacking the visible projection ought to collapse the waveform, in which case their displacement would actually work against them. Why does the creature exist invisibly but tangibly in one place, and visibly but intangibly in another? Also, technically, I believe that simply observing them ought to be sufficient to collapse them if we're talking quantum mechanics. The quantum explanation is cooler, but displacement makes more sense to me.

I don't think that their Avoidance is related to displacement at all. As far as I can tell, Avoidance works whether or not the beast is currently displaced. It's probably just there because they're agile (and since without it AoEs would be a significant gap in their defenses).

Hmmm, good points.

Maybe I'm just going to have to rewrite them for my own table so that they do appear visibly in both places(5' to 15' away from each other), and yet both seem intangible unless/until you get lucky (hit at disadvantage) and force them into a single location. That seems cooler to me than the MM version; especially if I play it so that its two attacks can come from either location, and so can its opportunity attacks.

 

[Ancalagon]

If you want to explore this issue further, I strongly urge you to read "The Scar" by China Mieville. One of the character wields a "probability sword" to deadly effect, and the author obviously gave it some serious thought.