[3.5] Punishing Polymorph Creatively

[Grushvak]

Alternate title: 5 ft-wide tunnels: A 12-headed Lernaean Pyrohydra's One Weakness

I played a wizard for the first time in my last session, and I got to experience the pure cheese of Polymorph firsthand. I only used the Umber Hulk so far (a tactic I referred to as Hulking out), but I still saw some of the crazy combinations that were made available thanks to this ridiculously overpowered spell.

When players go utterly crazy with this, how do DMs deal with the issue? I for one advocate creative punishment. Much more interesting than increasing the CR or banning the spell. So, throw ideas gentlemen, and tell us some of your hilarious polymorphing tales.

Here's my first contribution:

Swallow Whole: Sure, as a Remorhaz, your gastric acid made short work of that half-orc barbarian. But it still means there's a medium-sized carcass in your stomach. You'll be in for quite a surprise when you morph back to your regular halfling form.

[Starbuck_II]

Here's my first contribution:

Swallow Whole: Sure, as a Remorhaz, your gastric acid made short work of that half-orc barbarian. But it still means there's a medium-sized carcass in your stomach. You'll be in for quite a surprise when you morph back to your regular halfling form.

What Constipation? Not hungry for a week?

I'm not following. I am getting hungry though.

[Fiery Diamond]

What Constipation? Not hungry for a week?

I'm not following. I am getting hungry though.

I don't think you understand. The half-orc ain't gonna shrink along with ya.

[tyckspoon]

I don't think you understand. The half-orc ain't gonna shrink along with ya.

That's ok, anything that does enough acid/fire/bludeoning damage to actually kill something will also break down the body pretty quickly. The victim's equipment, on the other hand, is usually much more resilient and will probably stick around.. so you still have the problem of having swallowed somebody's armor and weapons.

[Starbuck_II]

That's ok, anything that does enough acid/fire/bludeoning damage to actually kill something will also break down the body pretty quickly. The victim's equipment, on the other hand, is usually much more resilient and will probably stick around.. so you still have the problem of having swallowed somebody's armor and chainmail.

Exactly, which is why Constipation.

[Grushvak]

Even if the corpse completely dissolved, there would still be enough organic matter left in the stomach for the halfling's body to explode upon shifting back.

Also, I wonder how the rules would deal with someone wearing a full plate on the inside.

[jiriku]

My best DM tricks for polymorph:

Every encounter should include one or more of the following: an enemy that is difficult to trip (e.g. ooze, magical flight, incorporeal), an enemy that is size Large or larger, an enemy that attacks principally at range, and an enemy that can fly when it needs to.

Every encounter should include one or more of the following: an environmental feature that limits visibility (darkness, undergrowth, lots of trees), an environmental feature that slows or stops movement without an appropriate skill check (e.g. chasm, bog, high winds, scree-covered slope), an environmental feature that is dangerous (e.g. lava, acid, pits or chasms, deep water if the party includes non-swimmers) and an environmental feature that offers a significant tactical advantage, but only to Medium or smaller creatures (such as the tunnels you mentioned, or elevated platforms, or positions that offer cover).


When your encounters include this level of diversity, no one character typically has all of the necessary abilities to easily defeat all of the enemies and navigate all of the environmental hazards. A polymorph form remains a valuable asset, but it's not an "Easy!" button.

Edit: As an added bonus, this level of diversity in monsters and environments makes each fight memorable and interesting, and creates lots of opportunities for players to employ clever thinking during combat.

[woodenbandman]

By doing this you are practically banning the spell, just in a sneaky, passive-aggressive way that your players have no knowledge about because you didn't tell them, and then they die.

This is what gave 2.0 DMs a bad name. "Your spell kills him, and he falls toward the single support pillar, make a save Vs. Breath Weapons or be buried by X tons of rock."

[Optimystik]

By doing this you are practically banning the spell, just in a sneaky, passive-aggressive way that your players have no knowledge about because you didn't tell them, and then they die.

This is what gave 2.0 DMs a bad name. "Your spell kills him, and he falls toward the single support pillar, make a save Vs. Breath Weapons or be buried by X tons of rock."

This. If you don't like the spell either ban it, or give them a list of vetted forms they can choose from and ban the rest.

[Grushvak]

[Complex anti-polymorph strategy]

Those are some really nice ideas.

Another thing I considered bringing up with my DM: I'd like it to be house-ruled that dismissing Polymorph leaves you exhausted for one hour and slowed (as per the spell) for 5 rounds. Polymorph allows you to perform physical feats far beyond the scope of regular player races, but though your form changed, it is still your body doing all the work. I think it just makes sense, and it makes a polymorphed magetank particularly vulnerable to a good dispel magic.

[Oslecamo]

That's ok, anything that does enough acid/fire/bludeoning damage to actually kill something will also break down the body pretty quickly.

Not necessarly. There are plenty of examples in the world of predators too greedy who try to swallow preys too big, and altough the poor eaten smuck gets quickly crushed into death quickly, the predator goes next as the remains of his food get stuck on his digestive system and make it burst.

There's a famous fossile of a fish dead after swallowing another fish of half his size, and giant snakes have tried to eat animals with big horns with very gruesome results.


Basically, just because your digestive system suceeded in crushing the victim's neck and/or dissolving their soft vital tissues, it doesn't mean that the harder parts of their body will go down as fast.

For example, we can technically digest a fish, but if a single sharp spine goes wrong it can kill you.

Or just throw poisonous enemies at the polymorphed wizard

[Grushvak]

By doing this you are practically banning the spell, just in a sneaky, passive-aggressive way that your players have no knowledge about because you didn't tell them, and then they die.

No, not as long as the punishments are logical and easy to predict with some forethought. It teaches the players to think with their head rather than with books and written stats.

Take the aforementioned swallow whole example: any player that doesn't realize eating a medium-sized creature and then reverting back to his original small size is a bad idea definitely deserves what happens next.

5 ft-wide corridors... well, these are found everywhere, in all dungeons. It's not passive-aggressive to throw one in the way of your wizard player: it's just logical. You can't expect to roll through a dungeon with your thumbs up your ass relying on a polymorphed form's high physical stats alone.

[PhoenixRivers]

No, not as long as the punishments are logical and easy to predict with some forethought. It teaches the players to think with their head rather than with books and written stats.

Take the aforementioned swallow whole example: any player that doesn't realize eating a medium-sized creature and then reverting back to his original small size is a bad idea definitely deserves what happens next.

5 ft-wide corridors... well, these are found everywhere, in all dungeons. It's not passive-aggressive to throw one in the way of your wizard player: it's just logical. You can't expect to roll through a dungeon with your thumbs up your ass relying on a polymorphed form's high physical stats alone.

Unless it has a burrow speed.

[Grushvak]

Unless it has a burrow speed.

Can you burrow through solid stone? I never bothered to check.

[Fiery Diamond]

No, not as long as the punishments are logical and easy to predict with some forethought. It teaches the players to think with their head rather than with books and written stats.

Take the aforementioned swallow whole example: any player that doesn't realize eating a medium-sized creature and then reverting back to his original small size is a bad idea definitely deserves what happens next.

5 ft-wide corridors... well, these are found everywhere, in all dungeons. It's not passive-aggressive to throw one in the way of your wizard player: it's just logical. You can't expect to roll through a dungeon with your thumbs up your ass relying on a polymorphed form's high physical stats alone.

This, I completely agree with.

[Tehnar]

Use pillars in dungeons, they greatly limit the mobility of large+ creatures.

Cover, like underbrush or sheets of fabric limit AoOs from creatures with reach.

Traps that trigger on someone passing over them are also more lethal for larger creatures, or things like caltrops.

[sofawall]

Can you burrow through solid stone? I never bothered to check.

Sometimes.

Take the aforementioned swallow whole example: any player that doesn't realize eating a medium-sized creature and then reverting back to his original small size is a bad idea definitely deserves what happens next.

This is silly. It's magic. Who knows how it works? How can we make assumptions about what will happen? Wouldn't the wizard who developed the spell way back when have put some sort of safeguard in against this?

[ericgrau]

Alternate title: 5 ft-wide tunnels: A 12-headed Lernaean Pyrohydra's One Weakness

I played a wizard for the first time in my last session, and I got to experience the pure cheese of Polymorph firsthand. I only used the Umber Hulk so far (a tactic I referred to as Hulking out), but I still saw some of the crazy combinations that were made available thanks to this ridiculously overpowered spell.

When players go utterly crazy with this, how do DMs deal with the issue? I for one advocate creative punishment. Much more interesting than increasing the CR or banning the spell. So, throw ideas gentlemen, and tell us some of your hilarious polymorphing tales.

Here's my first contribution:

Swallow Whole: Sure, as a Remorhaz, your gastric acid made short work of that half-orc barbarian. But it still means there's a medium-sized carcass in your stomach. You'll be in for quite a surprise when you morph back to your regular halfling form.

I blame the umber hulk. Here's your answer:

This. If you don't like the spell either ban it, or give them a list of vetted forms they can choose from and ban the rest.

Ideally HD scales faster than CR, which means any form you can turn into is below your level in power. In some forms in other books it does not, and problems arise. Having a low BAB hurts even more, since that's one of the few stats you keep. Or BAB may sometimes help a little or break even, in the case of polymorphing the fighter. And I agree that secret nerfs without warning the players is just being a jerk.

The biggest problem with polymorph is interrupting the session to figure out the stats. Make sure you do so before the session starts.

[Optimystik]

No, not as long as the punishments are logical and easy to predict with some forethought. It teaches the players to think with their head rather than with books and written stats.

You're still going to be springing real-world logic on your players in the middle of a fantasy game. If they're willing to put up with it, hey, more power to them.

Unless you plan on warning them beforehand?

[Mongoose87]

Sometimes.



This is silly. It's magic. Who knows how it works? How can we make assumptions about what will happen? Wouldn't the wizard who developed the spell way back when have put some sort of safeguard in against this?

Furthermore, considering this isn't in the least bit a standard way to work the spell, doing so without any sort of warning to your players is really just being a jerk.

I think, if they had meant for it to work that way, there'd be some mention of it in the spell description.

[subject42]

As a DM, I've handled polymorph abuse by making sure that polymorphed characters had to account for "instinctive urges". The first time that a character polymorphed into any given form, I made the player roll a will save. If he failed the save, he would act in accordance with some of the physical tendencies of the form. He would have to keep making the will save (with decreasing difficulty) until he knew how to work with the new body. Combined with disallowing any forms that the caster had not personally seen before limited its abuse.

At one point the wizard decided to polymorph into a newly-encountered rust monster in the middle of the fight. He failed his save, got hungry for some metal, and ended up eating half the fighter's gear. After that the fighter made certain that the wizard "practiced" with a form in a controlled environment before he used it in a fight.

[jiriku]

Those are some really nice ideas.

Another thing I considered bringing up with my DM: I'd like it to be house-ruled that dismissing Polymorph leaves you exhausted for one hour and slowed (as per the spell) for 5 rounds. Polymorph allows you to perform physical feats far beyond the scope of regular player races, but though your form changed, it is still your body doing all the work. I think it just makes sense, and it makes a polymorphed magetank particularly vulnerable to a good dispel magic.

Bwahahaha! If it isn't ridiculously convoluted and involved, it isn't worth doing! Rube Goldberg was an amateur, I tell you! An amateur!

Ahem, ahem. Well, moving on...

Kick-in-the-head penalties at the end of a spell duration aren't generally effective at limiting abuse of a powerful ability. For what you're suggesting, it's likely that the polymorphed character will continue to romp the encounter, and the party will just use its resources to eliminate the slowed and exhausted conditions.

If you feel the spell is too powerful as written, you're the player, so your job is easy: don't abuse the spell.

From the DM's perspective, if you need to apply hardcore breaks to the spell, simply restrict polymorph to a handful of forms or houserule the spell as 5th level instead of 4th. Another easy houserule if you're a careful DM is to require that the caster must have encountered and studied a creature before he can use it as a polymorph form, and remind my players that just because something appears in Monster Manual 5,734 doesn't mean that the monster exists in my campaign world.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Wouldn't the person using the spell be entitled to know how it interacts with such events?

[Johel]

What about :

Dangers of Polymorphing
Messing with anatomy is dangerous.
When a spellcaster wants to polymorph something/someone, he must roll a Knowledge check to see if he knows

• the biology of the new form (+5 if the new form is of the same species as the caster or is an inanimate object)
• the biology of the target (+5 if the target is of the same species as the caster or is an inanimate object)

The DC is equal to CR+10
Consequences

• If the caster fails his roll, he can't reroll before he gets the opportunity to study the creature's anatomy.
• The caster can still cast polymorph but with X * 5% chances of polymorphing the target into a Gibbering Mouther, X being the margin of error on the caster's Knowledge check.
• If the caster succeeds, he can polymorph safely..
• At the end of the spell, the target reverts to his original form but takes Xd4 damage, X being the margin of error on the caster's Knowledge check.
• If the caster succeeds, he can polymorph safely.
• If the caster get a natural 20, he get a +2 bonus on his next Knowledge check to polymorph into a form of the same type.

Alter Self transforms you into something roughly similar, so deep biology knowledge is less of an issue.

Polymorph, on the other hand, change your type. Aberation have really alien biology and so do magical beasts.

[lord_khaine]

just give the Wizard player what he wish for?
I cant really see how it can be healthy for someone with a d4 hp and a standart build to get anywhere near melee combat.

So it should not take more than a couple of levels before the wizard assult something polymorphed at his own risk.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Wait, couldn't you then just deliberately fail knowledge checks?

[Johel]

Wait, couldn't you then just deliberately fail knowledge checks?

You can.
But then why don't you just polymorph the target into a Gibbering Mouther immediately ? I mean, if somebody willingly let you mess with his flesh, there's some trust involved, right ?

[tyckspoon]

Wait, couldn't you then just deliberately fail knowledge checks?

I don't think you can, actually. At least not when the margin of failure is important, since that's tantamount to letting you choose the result of your roll, and the only rule that normally allows that is Take 10/20. You can claim that you know nothing at all about the particular creature, but if you have a relevant Knowledge then you officially *do* know something (or rather, have a chance to) and are obliged to roll it to find out if that's actually true. Which could generate the situation that you can 'fail' the polymorph and turn yourself/your victim into an undesirable form, but still succeed the Knowledge check enough to not do any extra damage when the polymorph ends.

[Grushvak]

You're still going to be springing real-world logic on your players in the middle of a fantasy game. If they're willing to put up with it, hey, more power to them.

Unless you plan on warning them beforehand?

All play sessions I participate in operate under a "use some goddamn common sense" rule. It doesn't have to be written verbatim in the rules to happen.

[Foryn Gilnith]

All play sessions I participate in operate under a "use some goddamn common sense" rule. It doesn't have to be written verbatim in the rules to happen.

Common sense and magic are notorious for not intersecting. I never would have imagined that polymorph ran a risk of annihilating your digestive tract. And, on the other hand, my character with at least a +5 in Knowledge (arcana) definitely would have known this, and would not have tried such a thing. Not telling me stuff my character would reasonably know is...