True Polymorph Shenanigans and Instant Death

[Nerdynick]

Last night I was playing and ran into a trio of fire elementals. Utilizing my character's excellent arcana skill and my knowledge of previous editions, I reasoned that they'd take damage from water. Having just hit 7th level, I was eager to drop one of my shiny new 4th level spells. So I hit them with Watery Sphere. Turns out they take 1 cold damage per gallon of water. So another player did some quick math and calculated a 10 ft radius sphere of water having in excess of 9000 gallons. Each elemental took a few thousand damage and promptly died.

Afterwards I thought of the True Polymorph spell and how it was worded to have excess damage carry over to the natural form. Now even if the water estimates were more conservative (you could argue something about surface area and how much water they can actually come into contact with in the one turn before they revert to heir original form), that would still be a significant amount of damage, right?

[TheUser]

Last night I was playing and ran into a trio of fire elementals. Utilizing my character's excellent arcana skill and my knowledge of previous editions, I reasoned that they'd take damage from water. Having just hit 7th level, I was eager to drop one of my shiny new 4th level spells. So I hit them with Watery Sphere. Turns out they take 1 cold damage per gallon of water. So another player did some quick math and calculated a 10 ft radius sphere of water having in excess of 9000 gallons. Each elemental took a few thousand damage and promptly died.

Afterwards I thought of the True Polymorph spell and how it was worded to have excess damage carry over to the natural form. Now even if the water estimates were more conservative (you could argue something about surface area and how much water they can actually come into contact with in the one turn before they revert to heir original form), that would still be a significant amount of damage, right?

1) I think once the character stops being a fire elemental they stop taking damage from water

2) it's better to use polymorph and disintegrate (lower spells used). Turn them into a sloth, pin them down and disintegrate them.

[Gastronomie]

Um... why would a 10-ft radius sphere have 9000 gallons of water? If I'm not mistaken it's something around 40-ish gallons.

EDIT: NVM, I was drunk when I wrote this (and also, living in Japan, I almost never use the term "gallon" so I didn't even know what it meant). I am wrong.

[Mellack]

Let see...
Volume of a sphere is V=4/3 x 3.14 x r^3
so 4/3 x 3.14 x 1000 = 4189 cubic feet
7.48 gallons water per cu ft = over 31,000 gallons of water in a 10' radius sphere.

Now I do not think they are actually contacting all that water, and I think that for polymorph you would instantly stop taking damage when no longer a fire elemental.

[Nerdynick]

To clarify, I think there's a common sense answer to this (stop taking damage after reverting), but I suspect a cheesy, strictly RAW answer to this that will get house ruled out by sensible GMs (which is absurd amounts of damage). Is that suspicion substantiated by anything?

[Gastronomie]

To clarify, I think there's a common sense answer to this (stop taking damage after reverting), but I suspect a cheesy, strictly RAW answer to this that will get house ruled out by sensible GMs (which is absurd amounts of damage). Is that suspicion substantiated by anything?Well, I think everything is as you say. Most DMs do not always follow RAW, including myself. This can be done to empower a weak option or make an overpowered option weaker, and this belongs in the latter. It's surely a creative idea and I will probably allow it the first time it's used, but if I allow it for everything, it can actually ruin the fun of the game.

[Mith]

Why not make the water Sphere have the same effect as a Fire Sphere that dissipates after so many rounds due to boiling off? If Fire elementals are relatively self perpetuating fires, it shouldn't be expected that they will act the same way as a normal fire.

[EKruze]

Last night I was playing and ran into a trio of fire elementals. Utilizing my character's excellent arcana skill and my knowledge of previous editions, I reasoned that they'd take damage from water. Having just hit 7th level, I was eager to drop one of my shiny new 4th level spells. So I hit them with Watery Sphere. Turns out they take 1 cold damage per gallon of water. So another player did some quick math and calculated a 10 ft radius sphere of water having in excess of 9000 gallons. Each elemental took a few thousand damage and promptly died.

Afterwards I thought of the True Polymorph spell and how it was worded to have excess damage carry over to the natural form. Now even if the water estimates were more conservative (you could argue something about surface area and how much water they can actually come into contact with in the one turn before they revert to heir original form), that would still be a significant amount of damage, right?

If you can get a True Polymorph off on a foe then you've effectively beaten him already. This is probably more of a concern to a Moon Druid who takes on an Elemental Wild Shape.

As for instant death shenanigans why not skip the damage altogether and use a regular Polymorph to turn your foe into something suitably helpless to drown in a bucket?

[Nerdynick]

As for instant death shenanigans why not skip the damage altogether and use a regular Polymorph to turn your foe into something suitably helpless to drown in a bucket?

Im AFB right now, but I would assume that drowning deals damage over time. The way the water vulnerability of the fire elemental is written implies that all the damage happens at once. Therefore, the victim would revert mid-suffocation with polymorph, while the fire elemental victim would be completely doused as they took all the damage at once and it carried over.

[EKruze]

Im AFB right now, but I would assume that drowning deals damage over time. The way the water vulnerability of the fire elemental is written implies that all the damage happens at once. Therefore, the victim would revert mid-suffocation with polymorph, while the fire elemental victim would be completely doused as they took all the damage at once and it carried over.

You may be correct. Suffocation does set HP to 0 which would end the polymorph.