Locate Object used on a Wildshaped Druid

Question

If the spell "Locate Object" is used on an distinctive item of clothing a druid is wearing, but the druid is currently wildshaped, what is the effect of the spell?

Relevant quotes for context.

Locate Object:

Describe or name an object that is familiar to you. You sense the direction to the object's location, as long as that object is within 1,000 feet of you. If the object is in motion, you know the direction of its movement. The spell can locate a specific object known to you, as long as you have seen it up close--within 30 feet--at least once. Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon. This spell can't locate an object if any thickness of lead, even a thin sheet, blocks a direct path between you and the object.

Wildshape:

You choose whether your equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it. Worn equipment functions as normal, but the DM decides whether it is practical for the new form to wear a piece of equipment, based on the creature’s shape and size. Your equipment doesn’t change size or shape to match the new form, and any equipment that the new form can’t wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it. Equipment that merges with the form has no effect until you leave the form.

Answer 1

The spell describes the circumstances under which the object cannot be detected: Wildshape is not one of them.

Locate Object provides how an object can avoid being located:

This spell can't locate an object if any thickness of lead, even a thin sheet, blocks a direct path between you and the object.

If the object is melded into the new form it is still present on the druid: unless one changes shape into a creature that has a thin sheet of lead that can cover the melded object¹, the spell works fine.

If you desire to protect an object from Locate Object or other divination spell, there are several options, such as Nondetection.

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¹ To the best of my knowledge, there is no Beast or Elemental such that.

Answer 2

It's ambiguous, and therefore up to the DM

The answer isn't covered in the rules

Other answers here argue for a rules-as-written answer one way or another. I don't think there is one. The rules just aren't clear. For instance, we don't really know what "merged" means, in this context. Does a merged object "exist"? Does a merged object somehow in some sense just not exist while merged? Not only do the rules not say in this specific case, but these concepts in general just aren't covered in the rules, and dictionary definitions, while at times useful, at other times fail to really fully explain the meanings of such words in a magical world.

You can argue either way

You can argue that a merged object still exists, and can therefore be located, you can as easily argue that a merged object in some sense no longer exists, and so can't be located.

You could also argue that a merged object "has no effect", and so can't be located, or you could argue that being located is not an effect of the object at all, but merely because it exists.

The rules don't say, so the DM needs to decide

The rules of magic just aren't well-defined enough to clearly give us an answer. That's okay, because the designers expect that, and expect the DM to resolve the issue.¹

In the end, the DM will need to decide which way to go. There are more or less three choices:

• locate object can detect a merged object
• locate object cannot detect a merged object
• something else

So how to decide?

Does one choice or the other break the game?

I don't think so, but if you as DM think so, then, yeah, that's a pretty valid reason to decide one way or another.

I'm not really seeing deep shenanigans either way; although maybe there's less minor shenanigans by allowing locate object to detect a merged object. I'm looking at you, party of three with a dog, sauntering out of the Royal Museum with the priceless Crown of the Queen-mage merged into your druid, as the guards locate object in all directions.

Does one choice or another favor the PCs?

I tend to want to make things work better for the PCs, when there's a choice, even if it means upping the difficulty of the adventure in some other way. Maybe one interpretation or another favors your PCs. I'm looking at you, party of three with a dog, sauntering out of the Royal Museum with the priceless Crown of the Queen-mage merged into your druid, as the guards locate object in all directions.

Do you have a personal preference?

Does one interpretation or the other just make more sense to you? All other things being equal, that's a pretty good way to go.

My recommendation

I lean toward locate object can detect merged objects. This subjectively feels more reasonable to me, and maybe a little less gimicky. Also, it makes locate object slightly more useful, and although I've heard of it being particularly useful in other games, I've never been in a game where someone actually had it memorized, and then used it effectively, except in very niche circumstances.

Oh, that "something else"

Completely unsupported in the rules, but you could consider something slightly less binary than it works or it doesn't. Maybe:

• locate object works, but the distance is halved
• locate object can't detect merged mundane items, but can detect merged magic items
• the issue is resolved by some sort of ability contest, for instance, the wisdom of the druid versus the spellcasting ability of the caster of locate object

Whatever you choose, if you find out it doesn't work in your game, you can certainly reverse your previous ruling and rule a different way.

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^{1 We all know this but, it's worth explicitly remembering that the designers expect that there are gaps the rules don't cover. It's sometimes useful to build logic constructs based on the rules, but if those constructs don't feel like they're serving us, it's also explicitly okay for the DM to make a ruling and move on. This quote from Xanathar's is probably familiar:}

^{The DM is key. Many unexpected events can occur in a D&D campaign, and no set of rules could reasonably account for every contingency. If the rules tried to do so, the game would become a slog. An alternative would be for the rules to severely limit what characters can do, which would be contrary to the open-endedness of D&D. Here’s the path the game takes: it lays a foundation of rules that a DM can build on, and it embraces the DM’s role as the bridge between the things the rules address and the things they don’t.}

Answer 3

It depends

When you wild shape, it depends on what option you choose

• Your equipment falls down: it can be located normally

• You wear the equipment, which otherwise functions normally: it can be located normally

• You merge the equipment, and it has no effect until you leave the form: you can not locate it, because being located is an effect (but ask your DM)

Effect is not a defined game term, so we use the common English definition, here from Oxford Languages

1. a change which is a result or consequence of an action or other cause

The detection is a change (you now know where the object is) which is the result of an action (you casting locate object) or other cause (the existence of the merged object), so it is an effect.

The Cambridge dictionary defines effect as

the result of a particular influence; something that happens because of something else

Here, the location is something that happens because of 1. the spell and 2. the object. Both together are causing the effect. You cannot have that effect with only one of them.

I think this reading also makes sense narratively

Describe or name an object that is familiar to you […] Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind

The object when merged does not match any description, nor does it function as it normally would. You're looking for a chair, but there is no chair there. There is a bear-merged-with-a-chair.

That said, the object technically does still exist somehow in its merged state. And your DM might think of an effect more narrowly as something the object does cause more actively, by being used itself. So, for the merged object, best check with your DM.

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P.S. The wording of wild shape for how equipment is treated differs from how it is treated by polymorph (see Does Locate Object work on polymorphed equipment?). I think that you also cannot locate a polymorphed equipment, which would make for a consistent treatment, but as these are supernatural effects, each of them does what it says it does and it could be possible for them to work differently.