deleted

[wefoij123]

Don't need this answered anymore so deleted.

[Beni-Kujaku]

RAW : the creature must be a humanoid when it is slain and that's all. No matter its original body‚ as long as it has the necessary parts to create the undead. The undead created is based on the creature's statblock as a humanoid. A construct or an undead is never "slain" and can't be turned into a spawn. If the creation process involves the creature's skin coming off and it has no skin‚ the process can't proceed and the undead isn't created.

As for me :
If the undead to be created is incorporeal (created with the soul of the slain person)‚ then it requires the original type of the creature to be humanoid‚ no matter the corpse.
If it is corporeal‚ then it requires both the soul and the body to be humanoid‚ since you're trying to create something humanoid and you also trap the soul of the creature to power the undead‚ no none of your examples would work.
If the corpse doesn't have the right material for the undead‚ the process obviously fails.

[JNAProductions]

If a construct is polymorphed into a humanoid, it would go negative hp and bleed out right? Wouldn't that make it capable of being slain? I mean sure, when it reverts back it would be destroyed and not dead, but before it reverts back, it would be slain right?

What do you think?

I think you're trying to cheese something, and you're better off just asking your DM directly instead of trying to get forumites to agree with your interpretation and then browbeat your DM with iffy RAW.

[JNAProductions]

I'm the DM and my player is trying to do this in game. I'm not entirely sure how this works so I made a thread here.

Then I suggest you worry less about "What do the rulebooks made by WotC say?" and more about "Will this make the game more fun for everyone involved?"

The rules are an excellent starting place, but they have some massive issues.

[JNAProductions]

One of my players thinks he found something cool and told me he wants to try it. I don't have a problem with it but I'm not sure it works so I asked on reddit and was referred to this forum.

I like to stick to the rules. Is there a problem with that?

When the rules are problematic, yes.

The rules for 3.5 were not written especially well. So, if your table is okay with this interaction, then use it!
But if they aren't, then don't.

I wouldn't just unilaterally declare "This interaction is bad, so screw the rules, it won't work," but if you've got one player who's looking for all these tricks and weird interactions, and the others aren't as interested in the powergaming aspect, you can very easily end up with one PC overshadowing the entire rest of the party.

[JNAProductions]

I apologize for any offense I've caused.

And, to try to put my point in a politer way...

The rules are not laws. They're there to provide a shared resource your table can use to have a fun game. While it's good to stick to the rules, hewing to them when the results they bring are bad is not worth doing simply because that's what the books say.

Once again, sorry for my tone.

[AvatarVecna]

If you're a "follow the rules" DM, then there's no good answer to this question. If the rules aren't clear, somebody has to make a judgement call...and I don't feel like doing your DMing job for you, at least partially because i do t know if the way I'd rule it is a good fit for your group or not, since I'm not them or you. If the rules are clear, then you shouldn't need or want my opinion anyway.

[Gruftzwerg]

I'm sorry but I still can't follow what you're trying to say. I'm asking how polymorph and create spawn interact and you're constantly telling me to not follow the rules.



Let me back up his argument with some explanation and an example:

First, in 3.5 its the DM's duty to keep the game balanced. Because the game doesn't do it for you. You can create normal dudes and godlike dudes. And if only one of your PC is godlike, the other might become bored.
On the other hand, the stronger the PCs are, the harder it will be for the DM to balance things out and find meaningful encounters that don't kill the squishy PCs immediately. Optimizing is a double edged sword in 3.5 and the DM should know what he himself is doing before allowing super powerful stuff for a PC. And cheesy exploits should be taken with care, cause they might break the game.

As an important sidenote:
There are 2 ways to "stick to the rules".

1. RAW:
"Rules As Written" is the term if you stick sole to the purest interpretation of the rule text found in the books and ERRATA.

2. RAI
"Rules As Intended" is the term that tries to create balance rules while taking the assumed intention of the designers into account. There are examples where the authors failed in their editing to use the correct keywords or just have created garbage (see "healing while drowning" below)


To give an example of RAW vs RAI: "Healing by Drowning":
If you stick fully (RAW) to the rules, you can exploit the drowning rules like in a Hollywood action movie. This is because the drowning rules set you to "0 hp" when you "start" to drown. If a character is dying (-1 till -9 HP) you can stick his head into a bucket of water and pull his head out as soon as he starts drowning (0HP). At 0HP he is now stable and not dying anymore.
While this can give a good laugh at some times or prevent a low lvl PC from dying, constant abuse because "it is RAW" can get annoying and problematic (e.g. PC in the winter snow dying from cold environment dmg. A bucket of water shouldn't really help here.)

And this was just an ordinary abuse of RAW. The highest bar set for RAW abuse is "pun-pun". The almighty lvl 1 Kobold that has infinite stats and can give himself all abilities ever printed (and possibly more). Everything 100% legal and rule confirmed.

Re-ask yourself the following questions:
- How much you wanna stick to the rules?
- Where is the optimization lvl of the other PCs?
- Do you know how to create encounters against this specific PC (if you would allow it) while not making it to hard/impossible for the others to contribute?

A final note:
While some claim that they play sole RAW/RAI, this is never the truth. Everybody plays a mix of it and maybe adds some homebrew to it. We all play RAW as long as its functional and balanced. But when it is not, we tend to seek RAI solutions for the tables to play. RAW is mostly used as starting ground for rule debates and for theoretical optimization build showcases.

[AvatarVecna]

What is happening here?

"and I don't feel like doing your DMing job for you"?
"If the rules are clear, then you shouldn't need or want my opinion anyway"?

If you don't feel like doing my "DMing job" for me, then don't. Why did you feel the need to share that?

Seriously. What is going on? Why are people talking down to me for asking a rule clarification?

AvatarVecna. I'm not asking you to do my "DMing" job for me. I will never ask you to do my "DMing" job for me. So please don't feel like you need to share that you don't want to do my "DMing" job for me. Because I will never ask you to do my "DMing" job for me. And you are absolutely correct. I do not need or want your opinion.

Jesus Christ.

Have you tried not taking every post as a personal attack?

[AvatarVecna]

Time for a thorough answer.


The relevant rules:
1. You need to slay a humanoid to create a spawn.
2. Polymorph reverts the creature to its original type after it is slain, not before.

1. Create Spawn that creates a new creature
ex. If you slay a humanoid, it rises as a wight/spectre/wraith shortly after
a. Humanoid polymorphed into a dragon.
b. Dragon polymorphed into a human.
c. Construct/Undead polymorphed into a human
d. Humanoid whose corpse is polymorphed (any object) into a dragon after it is slain.
e. Dragon whose corpse is polymorphed (any object) into a humanoid after it is slain.
f. Construct/Undead whose destroyed remains are polymorphed (any object) into a humanoid after it is slain.
In the following 6 cases, which of these results in a wight/spectre/wraith?

A is human polymorphed into a dragon. Wight kills dragon. Wight did not kill humanoid. No spawn occurs.
B is dragon polymorphed into a humanoid. Wight kills humanoid. Wight killed humanoid. Spawn occurs.
C is construct/undead polymorphed into a humanoid. Wight kills humanoid. Wight killed humanoid. Spawn occurs.
D is human. Wight kills humanoid. Corpse polymorphed into dragon. Wight killed humanoid. Spawn occurs.
E is dragon. Wight killed dragon. Corpse polymorphed into humanoid. Wight did not kill humanoid. No spawn occurs.
F is construct/undead. Wight killed construct/undead. Remains polymorphed into humanoid. Wight did not kill humanoid. No spawn occurs.

Even answering feels like an insult to your intelligence. The spawn mechanic cares about one thing: when the wight killed you, what was your type? Humanoid? Spawn. Non-humanoid? Not spawn. It's not complicated. You didn't really need a forum to answer these questions.


2. Create Spawn that applies a template
ex. If you slay a humanoid, it rises as a zombie/skeleton shortly after
a. Humanoid polymorphed into a dragon.
b. Dragon polymorphed into a human.
c. Construct/Undead polymorphed into a human
d. Humanoid whose corpse is polymorphed (any object) into a dragon after it is slain.
e. Dragon whose corpse is polymorphed (any object) into a humanoid after it is slain.
f. Construct/Undead whose destroyed remains are polymorphed (any object) into a humanoid after it is slain.
In the following 6 examples, which of these results in a zombie/skelton?

3. Create Spawn that does something weird
ex. If you slay a humanoid, its skin sloughs off and becomes a creature.
a. Humanoid polymorphed into a dragon.
b. Dragon polymorphed into a human.
c. Construct/Undead polymorphed into a human
d. Humanoid whose corpse is polymorphed (any object) into a dragon after it is slain.
e. Dragon whose corpse is polymorphed (any object) into a humanoid after it is slain.
f. Construct/Undead whose destroyed remains are polymorphed (any object) into a humanoid after it is slain.
g. same as all of the above except replace humanoid and dragon to skinless/skinned humanoid and dragon (corpse)

Both of these sections have the same two problems:

1) You haven't provided the text, or even a monster reference, for the abilities that are causing these spawns. The Written Rules are kinda important for the part of our answer where we tell you what the Rules As Written are.

2) The above isn't entirely your fault, because at least partially, this is just something the rules don't seem to cover. "What happens if you apply a template to somebody while they're shapeshifted, and then the shapeshift ends" isn't really something the rules have covered, to my knowledge. It's possible that, when you polymorph a human into a dragon, and animate the dragon, you have an animated dragon forever. It's possible that you have an animated dragon until the polymorph ends, at which point you have an animated human. It's possible that you have an animated dragon until the polymorph ends, at which point you have an unanimated human. AFAIK the rules don't specify at all, which makes it rather impossible to give a RAW answer to your question. I'm afraid that for this particular situation, you may in fact have to use your brain to make a decision on how you want it to work, rather than just pointing at words and saying "the book says this is how it works".