Polymorph → Awakened beast

[HPisBS]

Polymorph says "The creature is limited in the actions it can perform by the nature of its new form, and it can't speak, cast spells, or take any other action that requires hands or speech."

However, it seems that Waterdeep books have stat blocks specifically for Awakened Elk, Awakened Rats, etc. If you morphed the target into one of those, would the "nature of its new form" clause supersede the "can't speak" clause, or vice-versa?

- Or would you say the lvl 4 Polymorph is incapable of transmuting into these creatures in the first place? (Even though they meet its only technical restriction of being a beast?)

[BarneyBent]

First impression - if you've seen an Awakened X before then sure. But if you haven't, then no.

However, some may rule that the "awakened" part is a separate spell, and that you cannot essentially recreate it using a different (and lower level!) spell. But then again you're not actually recreating it, you're just recreating a small part of it on a very temporary basis.

Basically, RAW is fine, RAI unclear, doubt it would break much, I'd allow it as DM but if as a player my DM didn't that would also be fine by me.

[Greywander]

If we choose to disallow this (and I'm not saying you should, but you might want to), I think the best way to justify it is to say that an awakened elk is still just an elk, but with an additional effect applied by the Awaken spell. Meaning, an awakened elk is the same beast as a regular elk, so Polymorph would just turn you into a regular elk. Now, you might be able to cast Awaken on someone polymorphed into an elk, but that's a different matter.

Here's another way to think of it: Let's say I cast Enlarge/Reduce on a chicken to make it a much bigger chicken. Can I now polymorph into the enlarged chicken? Most likely not. It's still just a chicken, only with an extra effect applied to it.

[MaxWilson]

Oh, I thought this thread was going to be about (ab)using Polymorph + Staff of the Woodlands to turn bad guys into your minions.

[HPisBS]

Here's another way to think of it: Let's say I cast Enlarge/Reduce on a chicken to make it a much bigger chicken. Can I now polymorph into the enlarged chicken? Most likely not. It's still just a chicken, only with an extra effect applied to it.

To be fair, Enlarged Chicken doesn't have its own published stat block.


Oh, I thought this thread was going to be about (ab)using Polymorph + Staff of the Woodlands to turn bad guys into your minions.

lol. So the question you expected was Would "the awakened beast [still] be charmed by you" after it's reverted to humanoid?