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The wizard Naal has unfortunately been surprised by a nasty swarm of Stirges. While he managed to cast a quick Dragon's Breath on himself and fry most of the pests, several of the little monsters then attached themselves to him and sucked out nearly all of his blood.

Now it's again his turn to act. Naal casts Misty Step to teleport away from the attached Stirges, and plans to then incinerate them with another application of his fiery breath. Does his plan to escape from them work?

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The definition for the Stirge just says it "attaches to the target". There are no general rules for what this really means outside of the Stirge description itself. So just have to use common sense ruling of 'it's stuck to you' which, to be honest, is not much different to Grappled except presumably the Stirge can't move you, but will go with you when you move. There are no special rules here for what happens if the creature it's attached to teleports (which is not considered 'movement').

And then there is the Misty Step spell, which just says you teleport up to 30 feet. In other words, you can't bring along other creatures even if you wanted to.

Overall, by RAW, I would say that teleporting would leave behind any attached stirges (although the lack of explicit definition of what "attached to target" really means in the rules leaves DMs wriggle room for deciding differently).

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    \$\begingroup\$ @JoakimM.H. the belief of the caster. The wizard thinks of their clothes and such as part of "them" and expects their accoutrements to continue to accompany them through misty step and other teleportation spells. The wizard does not think of the stirges as being a part of them, so the spell wouldn't include said stirges in what it brings along. \$\endgroup\$ Commented yesterday
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JoakimM.H. I agree with this answer. There is a SAC entry that explains your equipment is always coming with, even if the spell doesn't say so. (I have a question voted down to -9 about it, come to think of it). The stirge is not equipment so it stays back. I ruled the same way in session, which made Naal’s player happy. But it feels a bit weird narratively, hence the question. \$\endgroup\$ Commented yesterday
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NobodytheHobgoblin I never said I didn't agree. I would rule it the same way, but the rules aren't detailed enough to determine what happens. And they shouldn't be, imo. It would make reading the rules very hard. What happens if the wizard is pierced by an arrow that's stuck in them? What if the arrow broke and only the head is left, inside the body? What if they swallowed a stone? What if they drank a potion? Adequately determining a "cut-off point" is a difficult task and way above the level of detail the rest of the 5e rules have. \$\endgroup\$ Commented yesterday
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JoakimM.H. The key difference between all the examples you give, and the specific case of a stirge attached to you is that the stirge is a creature, and everything else you listed (presumably) isn’t. Teleportation has been pretty consistently explicit about when you can bring additional creatures with you since at least 3.5e (possibly earlier, but I don’t have references for earlier), and it is still consistent in that respect in 5e. \$\endgroup\$ Commented 23 hours ago
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    \$\begingroup\$ @candied_orange Generally, if a creature doesn't have a stat block, the rules don't treat it as a creature.. Otherwise, the creature limit for entering a rope trick, being protected by a tiny hut, or coming with you on a teleport would be exceeded because of fleas, lice, meal worms, etc. \$\endgroup\$ Commented 10 hours ago

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