what would happen if? u cast animate objects on a rock and someone else polymorph

[Joe dirt]

thought experiment....

lets say u cast animate object on a rock, and then someone else cast polymorph on the animated rock to turn it into say a chicken.

then you stop concentrating on the animated object spell.

what would happen?

does it stay a chicken? does it revert back into a inanimate rock? does it explode into a feathery goo?

[nickl_2000]

Animate object turns it into a creature, thus making it eligible for polymorph.

Polymorph turns it from whatever it was until a beast. So, as soon as you turn it into a chicken it is no a chicken and not an animated object (of type creature). Once it's a chicken what it came from doesn't matter. This is shown by the fact that you can cast Dominate Beast on Polymorphed T-Rex, but not Dominate Person. Dropping the concentration on animate object makes no real difference. Some odd things though, what is the personality of a Rock since that is retained after polymorph? Is it lazy?


Also, RAF always says it exploded into a pile of goo. ALWAYS!

[MarkVIIIMarc]

OMG. It seems like when you cross the streams in Ghost Busters, everything just explodes lol.

It can be seen both ways though....

Polymorph works on creatures. D&D is pretty limiting with Beasts and other living being definitions. I'd honestly guess the animated rocks are not creatures and Polymorph does not work on them unless I hear otherwise.

Edit: oops, it does say creature in Animate Objects.

[Xheotris]

This question haunted me all night. I think, RAW, there are two ways it could go, depending on how you interpret deadness.

Option 1, anything with hit points is 'alive': I would say that the object would stay 'alive' for the duration of the polymorph spell, but you would lose control of it as soon as you dropped the animate object spell. Now, as soon as polymorph ends, the object would revert to its 'normal' form, so, a rock or a chair. Luckily, things that are polymorphed (unlike wild shape) use the new creature's mental stats, so the original object suddenly having an INT of 0 wouldn't immediately affect it.

Option 2, losing the 'creature' tag is effectively an instant death, ala power word kill. Instant death effects typically bypass polymorph and wild shape, ending both effects, leaving you with the original inanimate object as soon as animate object ends.

Either way, Rule of Funny, I might make it keep its shape once both spells end, but use the materials (and mass) of the original object, as a weird consequence of spell interaction. Suddenly you have a superdense chicken made of teak.

[KorvinStarmast]

Option 1, anything with hit points is 'alive': I would say that the object would stay 'alive' for the duration of the polymorph spell, Doors and other structures also have hit points, and are not alive. :smallcool:

[Tanarii]

The DM throws his "knock it off idiot" hackysack at you?

[Xheotris]

Doors and other structures also have hit points, and are not alive. :smallcool:

Ah, but it could be read that Polymorph only cares about the initial creature tag, because after casting, the spell really only concerns itself with hp, which chairs certainly have.

[KorvinStarmast]

what would happen?
You wasted a 4th and 5th level spell.
I've seen animate objects at work in a battle.
Our wizard uses it: bloody carnage when using tiny items, animated.

[Deathtongue]

RAW, you get a divide-by-zero error because animate objects can only transform creatures into beasts equal to or less than their original CR or level. And Animate Objects from the spell of the same name don't have either.

I suppose you could claim that polymorphing an animated object into a CR 0 creature like a squirrel or a goldfish is permissible, but NaN =/= 0.

And as far as RAI goes, I don't even know what that would look like. You can't even use game balance as a RAI precedent because the effect on game balance is unclear. If I animate a huge-sized bookshelf, can another spellcaster polymorph that into a wolf? What about a rhinoceros? Or a rat? What would make you say 'yes' or 'no' to any of those questions?