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arceusplayer11
2016-01-13, 01:31 PM
Ah, Polymorph. My favourite spell in this game. Arguably, the most fun but broken spell out there, that can also create either a background that is ridiculous, tragic, or both.

So, I thought I'd make this, for the few/many fans of this amazing spell out there, or fans of just shape changing stories in general. (Although, please do state what version of D&D you are using if applicable). Applicable stories include: Stories involving any of the multiple variants of the polymorph spell, involuntary shape changing through reincarnation, DM's changing your form involuntarily, stories involving enlarge/reduce person, and Mind Swaps between 2 entities of different races. Actually, any shape changing story in general. The types ones I just listed before are the most juiciest, however.

Here's a story I shared on reddit recently.


DM: "You find a book. What do you want to do?"

Me: "I find it risky and do not open it. I inventory it."

DM: "The book is glued to the tablet. Your character is compulsed to open it"

Me: "I open it"

DM: "Roll a D20"

Me: "I rolled 4"

DM: "You lose your right arm. You gain +5 to Knowledge (Arcana), and a permanent +3 to charisma. What now?"

Me: "I search for a cleric who knows Regenerate"

DM: "You are compulsed to open the book."

Me: "Alright, I open the book again".

DM: "Your diety switches to "Truth". You are now a disciple of Truth. You immediately reincarnate into a 2 meter long purplish-black dragon. Your classes chang from Sorcerer 5, Dragon Blood Sorcerer 1, to Ordained Sorcerer 7. The resulting explosion kills the half dragon PC you are riding. You revive the half dragon PC. He becomes your slave. The resulting explosion kills all enemies around us. The resulting explosion kills all our allies minus the rest of the party. You gain a spellhorn. Your height while sitting is 6 feet."

Me: "..."

(I think for a bit)

Me: "I change my draconic heritage feat to the craft wondrous item feat. I search for a magically amulet for which to craft a Phylactery of Change. I learn the spell "Polymorph" from the level up."

DM: "..."

DM: "...Goddamnit."

Also, another story, just recently after the previous one. Our elf PC attempts to pick me up in my new form, only for me to cast reduce person on her and pick her up. Our fairy PC attempts to ride me, so, being the chaotic neutral (formally chaotic evil before the former story) jerk I am, I cast reduce person on him too. He shrinks to the size of a pebble. I then cast enlarge person on the elf I just shrunk, and leave the fairy as it is. I then bluff the fiary into drinking an unknown pool of magic water we just discovered, telling him it will restore him to normal height. Unfortunately, it did exactly that. I was disappointed greatly.

What are your favourite/funny polymorph/shapechange stories?

Douche
2016-01-13, 03:01 PM
I don't really get what happened but if any DM told me I felt compulsed (not a word) to do anything, I'd be compelled to do exactly the opposite.

ComaVision
2016-01-13, 06:38 PM
I don't really get what happened but if any DM told me I felt compulsed (not a word) to do anything, I'd be compelled to do exactly the opposite.

My response would just be to say, "Will save?"

goto124
2016-01-13, 11:24 PM
Was wondering about the Will Save as well. Later on the GM managed to control the player's character through an entire paragraph of words, with little input from the player. What.

GrayDeath
2016-01-14, 07:06 AM
Probably one of the groups that let their DM roll their Saves for them to increase tension or somesuch (Never been much of a fan of that, in contrast to perception checks .. that IS fun at times^^).


Not a Polymorph but a Chaositek Mutation Story or "How I got a 4winged Outsider with Budda Earlobes".

We were traversing an Illithid-run Dungeon (made to test potential recruits, we were all chaotic already, pegged as potential minions, and sent their for further investigation) one PC takes an artifact leaking Pure Chaos with him and gets us all constantly mutated (well except the Halfdragon, he made ALL his saves save one ... which grew him fur ^^).

End Result: a huge Tree Cleric with gargantuan hands and a Fur made of Pine needles (he was actually an Oak), a skitting and Gerckoclimbing PysWarrir (human+), a goldenskinned Outsider with four feathered wings (all of slightly different coloring) and 40cm long earlobes that could pierce peoples heads and read their minds(and a stupidly longe tongue that gave -2 to social checks .. when I started as the party Face).
All got some attribute boosts as well though.

Aberrations: check.
Fun as hell:; Check.
Weirdoscore: 7.9

Sadly the GM had to move before we were officially "recruited".

BWR
2016-01-14, 09:10 AM
In one game two PCs got poisoned and were failing, saves taking Con damage. No Neutralize or Delay Poison available and in imminent danger of dying, the sorcerer turned both of them into oozes and kept them in jars until the cleric got new spells.

LadyFoxfire
2016-01-14, 09:50 PM
My sister's elf sorceress was polymorphed into a squirrel by the witch we were chasing through town. None of us had break enchantment prepared, so we told the kobold cleric (whose player was absent that day, so I was rolling for him) to take the squirrel to the wizard npc we had met earlier, and have him break the curse, while we dealt with the witch. The kobold runs off, with the elf-squirrel perched on his head. He finds the wizard, and says "hey mr wizard, can you cast break enchantment on the squirrel on my head? WAIT NO! *takes squirrel off his head and sets it on the ground* Ok now you can do it."

JAL_1138
2016-01-15, 10:12 AM
A very small, heavily-reinforced cage made of thick iron bars, less than a cubic foot of space inside. A Polymorph spell that can turn someone into, say, a turtle, and which wears off in an hour, resulting in the target instantaneously returning to their original form.

...*SPLORCH*

DarkestKnight
2016-01-18, 08:37 PM
Does Baleful Polymorph count? Because that singular spell turned a random encounter into possibly the silliest campaign I have ever played in.

the random encounter consisted of 2 young adult red dragons against the party. I, the dwarven Reaping Mauler, and a plethora of buff spells, was grappling one of them to death when the resident sorcerer/wizard decided to cast Baleful Polymorph. Just for the fun of it. Whizzed right threw the spell resistance into the natural 1 of the will save. Where there used to be a dragon now sat a very confused Squirrel that the ranger immediately adopted has her animal companion.

Other than making the squirrel a tiny platemail suit out of its ex-brother (it kept it's mental scores, meaning it was the probably the smartest squirrel on the continent) so that it could hang around safely, this result didn't matter for a while.

Until the jailbreak. The jailbreak from the mega-city complex specifically designed to hold casters and people with spell-like abilities. Now only two of our party members managed to escape detainment. The bard and the ranger. They managed to find the prison and were standing outside the walls trying to get intel of the inside, but the large scale Anti-magic zone was foiling them.

It was at this point our ranger asked the gm a question. "So in this field, are magic spells removed or what?"
The answer that doomed the rest of the session: "Basically any spell that has a duration less than 'permanent' ends on contact. If the duration is 'permanent' then the spell is suppressed as long as the person/object remains in the field."

Ranger:"Oh, good. I toss Ser Fluffers (AKA the dragon/squirrel) over the wall."
GM:"...does baleful polymorph have a duration of 'permanent'?"
Ranger:"yup."
GM:":smalleek::smallfrown::smallfurious:"
Everyone but GM:":smallbiggrin:"

GnomishPride
2016-01-18, 10:06 PM
Oh that reminds me of another Baleful Polymorph tale.
A couple friends of mine were doing a munchkiny demon campaign, and at the time we were exploring the lair of a psion/wizard guy we had just brutally slaughtered. Unfortunately, a trap triggered that caught a couple of my companions with a bunch of random curses. (It was an AOE, so it allowed a Reflex save to avoid and I was a rogue so I was fine :D) I don't remember most of the curses, but as you can expect, one was a Baleful Polymorph. The character who got hit failed her saves and so was transformed into a cow permanently. We were faced with a tough dilemma. Should we try to expend valuable resources turning her back or not? Because we were callous murderers (read demons adventurers), we decided to take the easier and less expensive route out, i.e. selling her. She actually fetched a fair price, too. All in all, a very profitable deal. Thing is, even as a polymorphed demon, she technically can still have half-demon offspring, so somewhere out there are some half-fiend cows wandering the plains for some other adventurers to fight.

DigoDragon
2016-01-20, 08:07 AM
The party was climbing up a flying wizard tower were the locals were in-fighting over a power vacuum. They stumbled upon a mage who was ransacking valuable scrolls in one of labs. The party gets ready to attack him and the mage simply responds, "I'll save you the effort!"

The NPC runs to the nearest window and crashes through it. He doesn't seem to slow down, so no Feather Fall is involved. The party just lets him keep falling, figuring the five-thousand foot drop should kill the mage when he makes the sudden stop at the end of it.

Nope!

The mage polymorphs into an eagle and flies away. The players were so dumbstruck that they sat there silently at the table for a few seconds.

PC Rogue: "There goes the smartest evil wizard ever."
PC Ranger: "Eeyup."

arceusplayer11
2016-01-27, 02:11 PM
Oh yes, I love BP stories :D

So anyways, we're currently in a campaign where we got sucked inside the mind of a demon. Our half-dragon PC killed a boss, and rolled unlucky 13 on the loot roll. Polymorphed into a centaur, permanently.

Also, one of the PC began attacking me because he wanted my stuff, so I cast reduce person on him and put him in a bottle while I murdered our bard for experience.

Quertus
2016-01-27, 03:53 PM
PaO. Target: wizard's tower. Result: small pebble. Watch contents fall.

One player told tales of his 2e wizard, who would polymorph random creatures into snails. He would carry a bag of snails. When he saw something scary on the other side of a door, he would chuck in a handful of snails, cast dispel magic, and shut the door.

Had a 2e drow priestess I was garroting try to escape by Polymorph into something stronger... and bigger... with an even bigger neck. You can guess how well that worked out for her.

In 2e, one of my characters was given the greatest super power ever - his mind was swapped into the body of a shape changer. Think "shape change + polymorph any object at will, with full superman abilities". (darn auto correct - that was supposed to be "supernatural", but "superman" really fits). He steamrolled the adventure - a bit too effectively.

In warhammer fantasy, I played a mutant, and rolled up "996-1000 - invent your own". I invented a mutation that attuned my character to the winds of magic, allowing him to see mutations (although when he activated the sight, he turned translucent and rainbow hued). One of his allies got flame skull and warp stone for brain. This made for a great NPC initiation of "reach your hand in and see what you get". Many, many NPCs were mutated in this fashion.

More as I think of them.

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-01-27, 07:01 PM
Once polymorphed a Sahaguin leader into a rabbit during The Final Enemy (the last of the AD&D Saltmarsh modules). It should probably be mentioned that we were on the sea floor at the time. While undeniably effective, our DM's heartrending descriptions of the little bunny's futile struggles put us off future use of that tactic, and in retrospect, may have traumatised certain small children present.

goto124
2016-01-27, 08:49 PM
our DM's heartrending descriptions of the little bunny's futile struggles put us off future use of that tactic,

Should've stabbed it to put it out of its misery :smalltongue:


and in retrospect, may have traumatised certain small children present.

Was this at a gaming store, or at someone's house where the children are sons/daughters/nephews/nieces?

Quertus
2016-01-28, 01:02 AM
One of my 2e characters was a psionicist, who had heavily modified the psionic polymorph. She modified it from self to touch, and from "permanent on botch" to "permanent on botch or crit success" (and had an extended range of crit success). In a fight against wolves, one of the party members went down. So she subdued a wolf, and polymorphed the wolf into a makeshift, battered travoy. She polymorphed an ally heavily encumbered with loot into a naked ally, so he could load up on more loot. In the final battle, she polymorphed into a marilith... and had her heart ripped out (literally) by one of her party members.

NRSASD
2016-01-28, 03:25 AM
Was DM-ing a 2E campaign, when our heroes stormed the villain's mansion and discovered that the villain dabbled in wizardry. The PCs found this beautiful alchemy lab, stocked chock full of potions, mysterious bubbling concoctions, and very valuable glassware. Since the mansion guards were on their way, our fighter took one look around the room and said "I scoop up everything I can grab and toss it into a sack over my shoulder". He willfully combined 13 potions and 8 incomplete mixtures into a mass of broken glass and arcane liquid, then soaked his back with it. A couple of failed saving throws later and a quick trip to the wild magic table, and our fighter decided to get in touch with his avian side. While the rest of the party eventually returned the eagle to his original human form. However, since it was wild magic and hideously unpredictable, anytime the fighter was forced to make three magical saves in one round he had to make a fourth to avoid reverting back to his eagle self. Like all good PCs, they figured out how to weaponize it and for the low price of one remove curse spell they had a shapeshifting fighter for the rest of the campaign.

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-01-28, 10:12 AM
Should've stabbed it to put it out of its misery :smalltongue:

The rogue tried. It didn't make things much better.


Was this at a gaming store, or at someone's house where the children are sons/daughters/nephews/nieces?

At home, the children being both myself (the wizard) and my older sister (the rogue).

Inevitability
2016-01-28, 01:24 PM
A wild magic sorcerer was fighting an imp by himself, and casts a spell. He rolls on the wild magic table, and spontaneously turns into... a potted plant.

When he returned to his own form a few seconds later, he saw a very amused imp laughing at him. The sorcerer proceeded to blast the imp, motivated by a desire to hide this embarrassment from the world.

arceusplayer11
2016-03-02, 11:30 AM
Our druid sees a baby dragon, and suddenly want to be as cute as him. So he attempts to wildshape into the baby dragon, only for it to fail, because dragons "aren't natural". Seeing his attempt, I Polymorph Any Object him into a baby dragon. He then proceeds to try and take down a hydra, only to fail.

Later, when we made new characters, he made a cat/baby dragon hybrid for his character. Seeing how this is the person who was constantly begging me to reduce person on him, I think he likes being tiny and cute :P

Lord Torath
2016-03-02, 02:42 PM
I've limited Polymorph Self to creatures the caster has actually encountered (and is roughly the same mass). The party encountered a young gold dragon, and upon gaining 7th level, that became the mage's favorite shape! (Good armor class, three physical attacks, and can fly! Chance to hit still sucks, though).

Concrete
2016-03-04, 04:51 AM
In my current pathfinder campaign, my lvl 16 players were up against a blue dragon whom I, in an effort to challenge a party of lvl 16 casters, had given some sorcerer disciples, some other general buffs, and a few nasty spells of his own, other than the ones he already had.

And my players being who they are, they are curbstomping the disciples, who are barely making any headway in their noble task of razing the PC's home town and slaughtering everyone the PC's hold dear, while harrassing the dragon with all kinds of quite frankly, unfair status effects. Because some people simply have no class.

So, it is with a delight unbecoming of a game master, I inform a certain little elven wizard that he just failed his fortitude save and got baleful polymorphed into a tiny yellow garter snake. He of course makes his will save, because life is, above all, unfair, but it's something at least.
It becomes his turn, and he, with all the grace of a stage magician, unveils his spell list. There, in his top spell slot, shining with all the unfairness of a thousand cruel suns, there are four words, taunting me:


STILL
SILENT
BALEFUL
POLYMORPH

The dragons almost unfairly increased Spell Resistance?: FAILS
Its Considerable fort save?: FAILS
It's Magnificent will save?: FAILS

And from the skies tumbles a pink little garter snake.
The city of Sandpoint is saved, there is much rejoicing, a statue is errected, wine is drunk, and inside a tripple-reinforced terrarium in the Rusty Dragon languishes Ghlorofaex, previously the most powerful dragon of the Kodar Mountains, now, the slightly neglected pet of one Ameiko Kaijitsu.
Because life is, above all, unfair.

Lord Torath
2016-03-04, 09:37 AM
I assume that failing that last Will save means that Ghlorofaex has forgotten he's a dragon, and now firmly believes he's just a small pink garter snake? Still want to keep the Dispel Magic castings far from the terrarium, though.

Concrete
2016-03-04, 12:19 PM
Yup. He's just a little snake now. But I don't think my players even considered the possibility of anyone doing it. For all their int-scores, they rarely think too far ahead.

Segev
2016-03-04, 01:48 PM
Yup. He's just a little snake now. But I don't think my players even considered the possibility of anyone doing it. For all their int-scores, they rarely think too far ahead.

All it would take is one well-disguised sorcerer-cultist seeking to revive his master...

Âmesang
2016-03-04, 04:24 PM
I dream of the day I get to baleful polymorph/polymorph any object a vampire into a rag doll. :smalltongue: Ragamuffin, the Eternal Vampire Scourge!

goto124
2016-03-04, 09:37 PM
What happens if you stab a baleful-polymorphed creature?

Concrete
2016-03-04, 10:07 PM
What happens if you stab a baleful-polymorphed creature?

In pathfinder at least, a baleful polymorphed creature retains HD/class level, and It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren't extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.

So it can't really do much to anyone, but it can be strangely difficult to kill, and might thus not react very much to getting stabbed.

Xaphedo
2016-03-04, 11:15 PM
Animated dildo.

Âmesang
2016-03-05, 02:31 AM
…which reminds me: are traces of fine dust immune to disintegrate, or does the spell turn traces of fine dust into different traces of fine dust? :smallconfused:

TeChameleon
2016-03-05, 03:34 AM
…which reminds me: are traces of fine dust immune to disintegrate, or does the spell turn traces of fine dust into different traces of fine dust? :smallconfused:

Couldn't tell you if there's been an official ruling on that, but if it came up in one of my games, I'd say that it turned the traces of fine dust into rather less traces of fine dust.

oxybe
2016-03-05, 04:06 AM
3rd ed game.

tired of being led around by the nose by a "Warrior" (read: level 20 in every martial class) after stupidly dangerous area we were tasked to clear out by said "Warrior" who just kinda sat there (Naturally the Warrior was there to help us in case we got into trouble) while we, armed with little more then the clothes on our back and a few clubs managed to crawl out of there minus 2 PCs and level up to 8.

IE: this is what happens when you remove all the gear off of 8th level PCs and toss them at stuff that would be difficult for geared-up characters.

And yes, he only deemed it necessary to help after 2 deaths.

being the tired, annoyed and angry wizard that I was, I learn polymorph and hand the barbarian a rope.

"Levitate" i cast on the barb, to the confusion of the Warrior and barbarian. "Hang on tightly".

I proceed to polymoph into a gold dragon wyrmling and zip off into the sunset with my baloonbarian.

Somewhere, out in the open skies, is a barbarian still righteously hanging ten, cloudsurfing while being led by a gold wyrmling at breakneck speeds and a warrior sitting around in a thicket confused at what transpired.

Likely because that was the last of that very short lived campaign.

AtlasSniperman
2016-03-05, 05:00 AM
Not technically Polymorph occurance, polymorph was the punchline.
3.5e campaign

My kenku rogue/wizard is at the divination tower from the other wizard PC's backstory. Kenku are super rare in the setting. Poke my head into a room, making full use of anthro-birdness to interrupt a lesson with "Remember kids, don't do polymorph"

Not super funny in retelling, but it was good at the time.

Lord Torath
2016-03-06, 11:21 AM
I dream of the day I get to baleful polymorph/polymorph any object a vampire into a rag doll. :smalltongue: Ragamuffin, the Eternal Vampire Scourge!You mean like this?
http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbk52gsmTO1qecbnjo1_r1_500.png

Âmesang
2016-03-06, 11:27 AM
Needs more Lenore. :smallamused:
https://www.schadenfreudestudios.com/backup/pictures/avatars/lenore.jpg

I haven't seen that episode, but I have the comic book adaptation.