Polymorph and Sphere of Aniquilation

[Hagen]

Hello everyone, I have a question about Sphere of Aniquilation. According to its info, it obliterates anything small enough to be "inside" it. If I polymorph someone into a frog and throw him inside the orb, would he take 4d10dmg (and revert back) or will he be insta-killed (since he was completely covered by the orb)?

[dave2008]

Hello everyone, I have a question about Sphere of Aniquilation. According to its info, it obliterates anything small enough to be "inside" it. If I polymorph someone into a frog and throw him inside the orb, would he take 4d10dmg (and revert back) or will he be insta-killed (since he was completely covered by the orb)?

This is the kind of creative thinking that makes RPGs so fun! I would say the polymorphed frog is destroyed. I sphere destroys everything except artifacts, so to me that overrides the rules for the polymorph spell (returning to normal form at 0 HP). However, other DMs might see it differently.

[Coffee_Dragon]

On the one hand instakill seems logical, on the other hand they reversed the wild shape/disintegrate ruling...

[Ganymede]

I assume the frog would be brought to 0 HP from the damage before it was fully in the sphere. As such, it stands to reason that the target would have an opportunity to revert back to its previous shape before being completely consumed.

[Yunru]

Now if you put them in a Bag of Devouring...

[furby076]

I assume the frog would be brought to 0 HP from the damage before it was fully in the sphere. As such, it stands to reason that the target would have an opportunity to revert back to its previous shape before being completely consumed.

Destroyed is not the same as being brought down to 0 hp.

[Malifice]

Hello everyone, I have a question about Sphere of Aniquilation. According to its info, it obliterates anything small enough to be "inside" it. If I polymorph someone into a frog and throw him inside the orb, would he take 4d10dmg (and revert back) or will he be insta-killed (since he was completely covered by the orb)?

Its 'annihilation.'

Dont want to be a spelling Nazi but you did it twice so you may be reading it wrong.

[qube]

" Anything else that touches the Sphere but isn't wholly engulfed and obliterated by it takes 4d10 force damage."

unless it teleports in, the frog first touches it, takes damage, and polymorphs back before it's engulfed

[Coffee_Dragon]

" Anything else that touches the Sphere but isn't wholly engulfed and obliterated by it takes 4d10 force damage."

unless it teleports in, the frog first touches it, takes damage, and polymorphs back before it's engulfed

I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, though - otherwise it would read something like "The sphere can only actually annihilate things which are moved entirely inside it instantaneously", which would make it a silly item, and since the inside is also outside time and space it's arguably not a valid place to teleport to anyway.

2E and 3E versions didn't even bother to specify a damage roll for "partial" annihilations. Gone is gone and the DM has to work out what that means.

[Willie the Duck]

Its 'annihilation.'

Dont want to be a spelling Nazi but you did it twice so you may be reading it wrong.

Pretty sure we're dealing with an English as a second language issue. 'Annihilation' in Spanish is 'Aniquilación'.


I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, though - otherwise it would read something like "The sphere can only actually annihilate things which are moved entirely inside it instantaneously", which would make it a silly item, and since the inside is also outside time and space it's arguably not a valid place to teleport to anyway.

Agreed. you don't magically check for 'engulfment' right when the creature starts touching the thing, but does the whole thing move into the space of the sphere (y/n?), and if so, it is engulfed. It seems like the frog would be 'engulfed' and destroyed, so it never take the 4d10 damage to cause it to revert back into something too big to fit into the volume of engulfment.


2E and 3E versions didn't even bother to specify a damage roll for "partial" annihilations. Gone is gone and the DM has to work out what that means.

Yeah, it also was bigger, IIRC, so the difference between frog and humanoid would not normally be significant. I do recall rules (or at least comments) on being partially annihilated. I think an article or Sage Advice in a TSR-era Dragon article did try to parse out what proportion of a creature's body weight would be contained by a single limb, because someone's Halfling lost an arm to a SoA.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't think it's worth parsing the exact rules here. You threw someone into a friggin black hole; they're dead and gone. The force damage is just if you, like, brush it and take a chunk of flesh off your hand.

[Willie the Duck]

I don't think it's worth parsing the exact rules here. You threw someone into a friggin black hole; they're dead and gone. The force damage is just if you, like, brush it and take a chunk of flesh off your hand.

Well, that's the other part of it. This is an artifact. It's been toned down immensely since it was introduced, but it's still one of those things that tends to just screw over one's campaign. I have almost never seen a SoA (or hand of Vecna, Sword of Kas,... heck, even a Deck of Many Things) enter the game without it completely monkey-wrenching the game. Maybe if it is something like in a dungeon that you had to teleport into, such that once you beat the dungeon, you have no idea how you are going to take it with you, so it is a one-adventure event.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Yeah, it also was bigger, IIRC, so the difference between frog and humanoid would not normally be significant.

I thought it would have been too, but it's 2 feet in 2E and 3E as well, and if the 1d4chan wiki is to be believed it was even smaller originally. Also, the only time it was an artifact was 3E.

Bonus fax: The 5E umbral blot (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/171697/Umbral-Blot) makes victims roll a Dex save or suffer disintegrate instead of poof bye, so under the druid ruling a frog would survive that. It also for some reason boosts the area of the blot's vortex attack from a 30' cube to a 60' sphere.

[Willie the Duck]

I thought it would have been too, but it's 2 feet in 2E and 3E as well, and if the 1d4chan wiki is to be believed it was even smaller originally. Also, the only time it was an artifact was 3E.

Just checked Supplement I -- it started out as 2', so I was wrong and so is 1d4chan. As to artifact, also correct, it predates the term (which first appears in Eldritch Wizardry, IIRC). Another case of adapting to the language of the WotC era, I guess. Regardless, in either case it is one of those disruptive items that just makes things go squarewise that really made me look at Gary's critique of things like Arduin Grimoire or people wanting to play ridiculously high powered campaigns and think, 'exactly how is this different from the stuff you put right there in the rules?'

But yes, apparently I was remembering the old school sphere wrongly. I just remember that--if you were fooled into reaching into the thing, you lost your arm, but if it was moved onto you, we always ruled it a insta-kill (of course, losing a 2' spherical chunk of your body is pretty lethal in most situations).

[Sigreid]

Well, that's the other part of it. This is an artifact. It's been toned down immensely since it was introduced, but it's still one of those things that tends to just screw over one's campaign. I have almost never seen a SoA (or hand of Vecna, Sword of Kas,... heck, even a Deck of Many Things) enter the game without it completely monkey-wrenching the game. Maybe if it is something like in a dungeon that you had to teleport into, such that once you beat the dungeon, you have no idea how you are going to take it with you, so it is a one-adventure event.

I've never seen a sphere ruin a campaign. Mostly because moving it about is such a slow and dangerous operation it basically becomes a siege weapon and not an adventuring tool.

[Willie the Duck]

I've never seen a sphere ruin a campaign. Mostly because moving it about is such a slow and dangerous operation it basically becomes a siege weapon and not an adventuring tool.

I guess good for you. I might be overselling the issue, but in general, I have found that once the thing enters the game, everything revolves around it until it leaves the campaign (black holes and gravity-well analogies welcome :smallbiggrin:). Trying to control it, people trying to gain control of it from the PCs, the PCs looking for a way to use it or destroy it. It's a plot sink more than actually overly powerful, mechanistically.

[Sigreid]

I guess good for you. I might be overselling the issue, but in general, I have found that once the thing enters the game, everything revolves around it until it leaves the campaign (black holes and gravity-well analogies welcome :smallbiggrin:). Trying to control it, people trying to gain control of it from the PCs, the PCs looking for a way to use it or destroy it. It's a plot sink more than actually overly powerful, mechanistically.

I suppose I could see that happening. I've mostly seen it secures and left at home. I've mostly seen players treat it like a first generation ok n arquebuss, powerful but sooner or later it's going to go badly.

[Rukelnikov]

I suppose I could see that happening. I've mostly seen it secures and left at home. I've mostly seen players treat it like a first generation ok n arquebuss, powerful but sooner or later it's going to go badly.

Not all players are that wise.

[qube]

I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, though - otherwise it would read something like "The sphere can only actually annihilate things which are moved entirely inside it instantaneously", which would make it a silly item, and since the inside is also outside time and space it's arguably not a valid place to teleport to anyway.OK, I see what you mean - but you that' not the fault of the item - that's the fault of you trying to disconnect the abilituy to move into it - per se - , with the ability to move into it without taking damage. in 99.9% of the cases it doesn't make a difference if you take 4d10 force damage first before getting engulfed.

Not only that - but you're trying to have the cake and eat it too. you can't both argue
RAW is holy, and thus there's a difference between annaliation & getting reduced to zero hp
RAW ... well, can be interpreted different ways and it's not because it litterly says what happens why you touch it, you have to interprete it that way

If you argure you're free to stretch the rules on when you touch something, why not on how annaliation works?

[Coffee_Dragon]

If you argure you're free to stretch the rules on when you touch something, why not on how annaliation works?

There are rules on touching something?

I don't know what you mean by the cake thing, I'm just saying what I think the item description is communicating. There is no reason to state an effect for being completely inside and another for being partially inside if we are meant to think that only one of them would ever apply.

[Hagen]

Its 'annihilation.'

Dont want to be a spelling Nazi but you did it twice so you may be reading it wrong.

Oh thanks, yeah I was reading it wrong. English isn't main language and Annihilation is "Aniquilação" in Portuguese, so somehow I thought it used Q in english too :smalleek:.

[qube]

There are rules on touching something?if you wanna play that game, there's also no rules about what obliterates is, so ... guess nothing happens at all, right?

Silly arguments don't get us anywhere. Common sense & english language still apply.

And as such, you've yet to provide a reasonable explenation on how you'd get engulfed by a sphere without touching it.


I don't know what you mean by the cake thing, I'm just saying what I think the item description is communicating.the cake thing is an expression - in that you can't have it both ways.

The rules also "communicate" that if a polymorphed creature dies, it turns back to it's original shape. The rules just don't litterly "say " that.

You can't both argue that you have to follow what the rules say opposite what they communicate at one half of the ruling, and have to follow what they communicate, opposite to what they say, in the other half of the ruling.

[Coffee_Dragon]

if you wanna play that game, there's also no rules about what obliterates is, so ... guess nothing happens at all, right?

Silly arguments don't get us anywhere. Common sense & english language still apply.

And as such, you've yet to provide a reasonable explenation on how you'd get engulfed by a sphere without touching it.

We're going to have to disagree on what constitutes a "silly argument" and a "reasonable explanation" in this context.

[Malifice]

Pretty sure we're dealing with an English as a second language issue. 'Annihilation' in Spanish is 'Aniquilación'.

Go figure. Im actually studying Spanish as we speak for a 12 month trip to South America.