How Many Cycles Are Involved In Polymorph Spells?

The polymorph spell in both 2014 and 2024 is similar, except for the assumed form. In the 2014 rules, the target assumes a new physical form while retaining its essential identity and abilities. A fourth-level transmutation concentration spell, Polymorph, can last up to one hour or when the character drops to zero hitpoints (whichever comes first). The duration of the spell specifies how long it lasts in rounds, minutes, hours, or other units.

The spell can last for up to an hour with Concentration, but if the target is reduced to 0 HP before that time is up, the spell will end automatically. Once Polymorph ends, the target reverts to its original form. Shapechange allows for multiple transformations, but any transformations after the first won’t increase HP.

A polymorph spell transforms a creature within range into a Beast, with an unwilling creature making a Wisdom saving throw to avoid the effect. Polymorph’s target doesn’t lose concentration on spells, as it is itself a concentration spell.

Spells remain for their duration unless otherwise stated, and at the end of every 30 days, the creature can repeat its saving throw against this spell. If successful, the spell ends. Polymorphing is a magical effect where the subject creature assumes a new physical form while retaining its essential identity and abilities.

A polymorph spell or effect doesn’t change any attribute about its target unless it says so. A polymorph form has the shape and appearance of the target. This guide aims to explain how the rules work and how to best use Polymorph spells.


📹 D&D 5E Advanced guide to Polymorph

Polymorph! Awesome spell! Instant grabber! Link to Spirit Guardians video: https://youtu.be/GokMLVE6qWU Link to discord and …


Can a level 20 party beat a Tarrasque?

The creature is classified as CR 20, which indicates that a group of 20th-level adventurers has a probability of approximately 50% of successfully defeating it.

How long does a polymorph spell last?
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How long does a polymorph spell last?

The spell transforms a creature into a slug, making it the target of the spell. The spell lasts up to one hour or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. Concentrating on the spell for the full duration results in the spell being dispelled. The spell has no effect on shapechangers or creatures with 0 hit points. The “or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies” clause still applies, but it is irrelevant as the spell has no effect on creatures with 0 hit points.

If the target drops to 0 hit points, the spell ends, even if concentrated for the full duration. After concentration ends, the spell has only two end conditions: being dispelled or losing its effect if the target is at 0 hit points.

Can I polymorph a dragon?
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Can I polymorph a dragon?

The “beast” type of creature is the only option for transforming someone into a creature, as it excludes magical items and limits the transformation to mostly real animals. The CR limitation is mainly for “voluntary” polymorphs, as it prevents turning your allies into creatures above your paygrade. As a 4th-level spell, most beasts have a low CR, and by the time you cast the polymorph, your allies should be high enough to be transformed into most critters.

Once transformed, the target retains alignment and personality but all its scores and abilities become that of the animal. This means that transforming someone into a rabbit will make them as dumb as a rabbit.

Are dragons immune to polymorph?
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Are dragons immune to polymorph?

The “beast” type of creature is the only option for transforming someone into a creature, as it excludes magical items and limits the transformation to mostly real animals. The CR limitation is mainly for “voluntary” polymorphs, as it prevents turning your allies into creatures above your paygrade. As a 4th-level spell, most beasts have a low CR, and by the time you cast the polymorph, your allies should be high enough to be transformed into most critters.

Once transformed, the target retains alignment and personality but all its scores and abilities become that of the animal. This means that transforming someone into a rabbit will make them as dumb as a rabbit.

Does true polymorph last forever?
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Does true polymorph last forever?

This spell allows you to transform a creature with at least one hit point or nonmagical object within range into a different creature, an object, or both. The transformation lasts for the duration or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. If concentrated on for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent. Shapechangers are not affected, and an unwilling creature can make a Wisdom saving throw.

If you turn a creature into another kind with a challenge rating equal to or less than the target’s, the target’s game statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced, while it retains its alignment and personality.

Can you true polymorph into a Tarrasque?

Polymorph is unable to facilitate the casting of Greater Magic Weapon, as it necessitates the casting of a pair of wands with a caster level of 15 for arrows to be +5. This entails 100 castings for each of 50 soldiers, with one casting for the bow and another for the arrows.

Can I polymorph into a dragon?

Dungeons and Dragons does not offer a direct way for players to play as dragons, nor is there an official way to become one. However, there are creative ways to play as a dragon, such as creating a homebrew version of a dragon, or using a dragon pet. The official rules do not provide a pathway for players to play as a dragon, and there is no playable race for dragons or half-dragons. This guide aims to explore the realm of imagination and suggest various homebrew options to make your dreams of playing as a dragon a reality.

Is there a permanent polymorph spell?

The duration of the transformation is contingent upon the target’s Hit Points or demise. Should one focus on this aspect for the entirety of the transformation, it shall become permanent, without affecting shapechangers.

Can you polymorph into a mind flayer?
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Can you polymorph into a mind flayer?

A mind flayer is a solid monster form for polyself, with flight, multiple attacks per turn, 5 base AC, and the ability to wear all armor. These omnivorous humanoids possess flight, telepathy, see invisible, and infravision. They collect gold, gems, and other items and share a glyph with the dwarf king.

A mind flayer has a weapon attack and three tentacle attacks that can eat its victim’s brains. They can also emit mind blasts that lock on to you or other monsters on the same level. A tame or peaceful mind flayer will not deal damage to you this way unless they are under conflict.

A character that has their brain eaten by a mind flayer’s tentacle attack loses intelligence, has their wisdom abused, and can be subjected to amnesia. This irreversibly fatal instadeath by brainlessness cannot be averted with life saving or being polymorphed. If you choose not to die at the prompt, your intelligence is boosted to 5.

What are the rules for the polymorph spell?

This spell transforms a creature with at least one hit point into a new form, requiring a Wisdom saving throw to avoid the effect. The transformation lasts until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. The new form can be any beast with a challenge rating equal to or less than the target’s, and the target’s game statistics are replaced with the chosen beast’s. The target assumes the new form’s hit points and returns to its normal form when reverting. If the creature drops to 0 hit points, excess damage carries over to its normal form, but it isn’t knocked unconscious if it doesn’t reduce its normal form to 0 hit points.

Can you polymorph a werewolf?
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Can you polymorph a werewolf?

The werewolf can transform into a wolf-humanoid hybrid, a wolf, or back into its true form as a humanoid. Its statistics remain unchanged in each form, and any equipment it carries is not transformed. The werewolf reverts to its true form if it dies. The D and D 5E Free Basic Rules only cover a fraction of the available content on Roll20. Additional options for players include the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual.

The werewolf’s shapechanger trait allows it to polymorph into these forms, and its statistics remain unchanged. Additionally, the werewolf has an advantage on Wisdom checks relying on hearing or smell.


📹 Pathfinder (2e) Magic Part 9: Polymorph and Battle Forms

An overview of Morph and Polymorph spells in Pathfinder 2nd Edition. For more information on how counteracting works, see this …


How Many Cycles Are Involved In Polymorph Spells?
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  • This website is sublime and exceptionally good at making interesting and engaging articles on the topic of optimising D&D characters. But oh my good gracious I want to rip my ears off and eat them every time I hear something like “The expected dpr for spell x is nineteen point *fifty two*.” It just tears my nerd soul apart to have someone say a decimal that way. It should be nineteen point five two, not point fifty two! Down here I wanna make clear that I adore this content and this website and have been bingeing these articles for a good part of the last three days and am not spreading hate or trying to hate on this website. It’s fucking great and I will continue to watch their articles. – Sincerely a rando on the internet who likes D&D

  • 6:36 but what if you provide a thematic in game/lore reason as to why you cast this on yourself? like say a circle of the moon druid that can wildshape into a cr 6 or higher beast but at the cost of additional energy needed? or when you’re playing as Sun Wukong and use polymorph to transform into their giant ape form aka his ‘giant’ war form.

  • Good work on the article! The reason why some DMs would restrict polymorph to the creatures you’ve seen is to reduce the CR. Making it around CR 5-6. It’s still powerful despite the homebrew nerf! I think it’ll make it easier for DMs to balance encounters so it doesn’t turn into a cakewalk. If the caster who cast polymorph is safe and isn’t dealt with, the party is highly likely to win the encounter. A CR 8 creature with over 150+ HP will likely take 2-3+ rounds to deal with it (if focus fired) before you need to cast polymorph again. With the added restriction, about 1-2+ rounds. You still gain a lot of mileage and it’s still a great spell.

  • The DMG has rules for creating homebrew spells. The very first guideline is: “If a spell is so good that a caster would want to use it all the time, it might be too powerful for its level.” I think Polymorph ticks this box. On the one hand, I think there should be a spell between Polymorph and True Polymorph that’s a 6th level or something that has the more abusable forms with Polymorph excluding them, or that Polymorph should have to be upcasted to reach particularly powerful forms. But on the other hand I know people mostly only care about Giant Apes and T-Rexes. Maybe Polymorph should just be a higher level spell. Nothing else in the game breaks the difficulty curve as much as Polymorph does. As soon as your party gets access to it, it’s like you have to double your CRs. D&D is a complex game so I’m sure there are worse offenders, but Polymorph as-is is going to be an unavoidable hammer that your party will use to break encounters. OP magic items can just never drop. Polymorph is their RAW-given right and available to a lot of classes.

  • Oh, just to note, the “drop the dinosaur” tactic works regardless of who you use it on, friend or foe. So what you could do is dimensional door an enemy, polymorph them into something REALLY big, and squash a bunch of other enemies with them, then immediately drop concentration before they can use their new form to their advantage. Or better… WE CAN USE WHALES! Instead of a brontosaurus, you turn the enemy into a male sperm whale (since they weigh three times as much as the females) and then maintain concentration, so not only do you crush your enemies, but you also put a huge organic wall between your party and the enemies that don’t get pancaked under 90,000lbs of marine mammal.

  • “Can’t speak, cast spells, or take any other action that requires hands or speech” But what if I turn them into a parrot or a raven, both of which very much can speak, or into a raccoon or a monkey, both of which have dexterous enough paws to use them as hands? Heck, in the case of a parrot, their claws are very dexterous in their own right. Someone polymorphed into a parrot should be able to cast spells.

  • One of my favorite moments of all time was when the party was fighting a huge sized monster that the DM had homebrewed. The Fighter (Rune Knight) and the monster were wrestling each-other while the Wizard held it down with Evard’s Black Tentacles, the Sorcerer bombarded it with Storm Sphere, and I (Genie Warlock) flew hundreds of feet in the air and kept sniping it with Eldritch Blast. When the Fighter finally started to fall below 20 HP I flew down and casted Polymorph on them, turning them into a T-Rex. They then proceeded to bite the head off the monster that was now at their size. It was a really awesome moment.

  • Hmm… I may have to consider picking up polymorph next time I level up my bard. He’s a changeling and can’t be affected by it (except for Mass Polymorph but that might be because of odd wording). But he does have a batshit crazy kobold barbarian PC he’s buddies with that would go bonkers for a strategy like this.

  • There are two ways to approach this “have seen/know about the Beast”. I agree on both and neither. Both have a nice Thought as foundation but are flawed. I go that you have to have a source of inspiration, some Idea to turn into. The Stats are the ones you are bound to, but the actual Form can differ. I do not care if you are looking as a 4ft Tall Thor-lookalike or like a giant Amoeba-Snail – as long as the Stats are the one that you could use and they make sense (Giant Ape for example). In Fact, it is up to the Player to come up with some creative Ideas here as the Druid has to with its Beastforms. And no, you do not gain suddenly new Abilities because you “should have” – like the Amoeba-Snail not only whacking with Potrusions it forms rather than suddenly should have immunity to bludgeoning and the Ability to “eat” enemys so they Suffocate because you are a Amoeba. I let regular Players do this, yes. Why? Because, they will know or then learn that this Creature is no Canon and will be used by me against them. And I am pretty sure that a Giant Ape that can swallow a Player while immune to bludgeoning Damage can finish him off fast. Especially because it is only logical that this Creature now can grapple with its potrusions as well like a Kraken does. What, unfair? Well, I upped the CR because you leveled up last Time, havent you? Never Bullshit the GM. We are insane enough to play over 20 Chars the same Time plus having them interact with each other and their Backgrounds as well.

  • Operation: Grape Ape – Step 1: Have a monk in the party (this was me) Step 2: Polymorph him into a Giant Ape Step 3: have another caster Haste him Step 4: have a half-caster Enlarge him Poly’d monks can still use Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, or any other class feature. We had an enemy sniper holed up with prep time, peeking out of cover for her shots and then pulling back in, on the balcony of a castle, with long lines of sight and many traps if some of us did get inside. We went Grape Ape instead and fought the castle itself. Even though I was the only one acting in combat initiative, the entire party still remembers it as a highlight of our gaming careers lol. Whenever we wanna spook the DM, we just mention “going Grape Ape”.

  • Came to the conclusion that true polymorph on self is one of the best spells in the game for high level wizards. You can transform into a CR20 dragon. Perks: Obscene ability scores across the board Large Health pool Flight Good offensive options Natural armor above most plated chars Why it’s significantly better? Because it can become permanent 1 thus not requiring concentration anymore. Also no beast restriction.

  • One thing I’d like to add to the list, is the best use of polymorph against a single target. Polymorph the BBG into a frog. They have no attacks and an intelligence of -5. Put the frog into a pouch and tie a knot in it. Fly up or drop off the frog from 200 feet above ground. The frog/BBG takes 20d6 bludgeoning damage. The remaining damage past the frog’s 1hp carries over into it’s original form. If you don’t think that’ll do the job, have everyone prepare an action to attack the BBG if it survives after reverting back into true form.

  • Return to monke, time for crabs. I will dare say that Polymorph is the best healing spell in the game, better than Goodberry, better than Healing Word, better than Heal. This is because you don’t need to heal your allies if you give them an extra Hit Point pool to toy around, and those come with bonuses like huge damage and even some control options! As for the choices, it all depends of the situation you are in. The Giant Ape is the safe option, with high mobility and HP to tank around, while having good damage. The Huge Giant Crab is the best for either water things or if your ally has a concentration effect on him, like Spirit Guardians or Spirit Shroud. The T-Rex should also be considered, with even higher damage and a higher chance to hit with a 17DC grapple to devour someone. Sure, you won’t have a good HP, but who needs HP if the damage is just… wasted and doesn’t go to your ally. And then there is the Traxigor case… Traxigor is technically a Beast, and since it is a 18TH LEVEL SPELLCASTER, you can turn your 12th level Barbarian friend who isn’t raging into a small little otter… that can cast Time Stop. I’m sure most sane DMs wouldn’t allow it because Traxigor is a person who turned into an otter, but on a high-level one-shot, turning a martial into a 18th level Wizard with its own HP pool can be insanely powerful and hilarious.

  • The T-Rex is also pretty stronk due to the bite+grapple combo and also counts as a mount so characters can just ride on its back and shoot at people. Also little known fact about turning yourself into a Giant Ape, Ape’s have stupidly high grapple bonuses, enemy casters cannot cast most spells when grappled and most people dont bother using counterspell on it when the caster does it to themselves as on paper it looks like a waste. You, the giant ape, also can yeet them as you are a huge sized creature with 23 STR and most casters are medium or smaller. Also polymorphing yourself as a caster (if you have alot of spells for utility vs DPS) is very spell slot efficient during fights as there are quite a few good ranged attack options (giant ape throwing rocks? at 50/100ft? for 7d6+6 DMG? yes yes and yes), it can last up to an hour and can radically alter your toolkit to synergize better with other melee classes (rogue needs advantage? Fighter needs to be using his resources? Need more ranged attackers? A Triceratops that acts a mount who can charge, knock prone and stomp in one action?). I view it very much as a very very strong tool to compliment and fill gaps in what a party needs at a particular time, but sometimes turning yourself into the big beastie changes the fight math in just the right way and lets you conserve precious spell slots if you are light on casters in a group.

  • “Why aren’t you casting this on all of your friends?” Because I like having my wizard be able to Counterspell, my cleric being able to keep us alive and my Moon druid can wildshape as a bonus action twice per rest, so polymorphing her when she can do it herself (although pretty limited at 7th level). Then again, she can use her spell slots while in crocodile form to keep herself in the fight. Also, Dispel Magic exists, and our DM has the big bad adapt their strategy if we do the same thing every combat because villains aren’t stupid.

  • My group was fighting a pair of Rocs over some cliffs. Cast Polymoprh on one of the Rocs to turn it into a sheep. it falls 400 ft off the side of the cliff for 140+ damage. When the Roc came up to try and get us again, guess what? another Polymorph, another 400 ft fall, another 140+ damage and a dead roc.

  • Hilarious that this should pop up in my feed right before I run my game with three druid players. Polymorph is gross as a healing spell, they tend to wait until the two moon druids are out of wild shapes, or someone else is very low, and SUDDENLY GIANT APE! Which they loved until we did a high level tourney and it happened to them. Enemies had deathward up, party managed to force it to proc on two of them in a round, and the enemy sorceress twinned polymorph. Fight ended shortly after with an L for the party.

  • Quick note, even though the Huge Giant Crab sounds like a type of monster it is actually a specific Giant Crab called The Guardian Of The Treasure that was magically enhanced to Huge size and given a magic copper band that grants it’s condition immunities. There isn’t even an official statblock of Huge Giant Crab as it only exists on online compendiums that assembled it from the changes to the Giant Crab statblock listed in the adventure text. You should always be careful of using or allowing monster stat blocks that come from adventures rather than sourcebooks as sometimes the statblock isn’t what it appears. You’d very likely not be able to use Polymorph to turn into The Guardian Of The Treasure in the same way that you cannot summon 8 Barnacle Bess’ with Conjure Animals.

  • My favorite use for Polymorph is as a Sorcerer or Lore/Eloquence Bard who uses it to instantly kill an opponent. Maybe even dip into fighter for action surge. Legendary targets will lose legendary resistances either to prevent polymorph or because they were polymorphed. Polymorph will not turn a target who immolation turned to ash, neither will it stop Psychic Scream or power word kill from killing them. This is why I use it to kill a strong target, when used by an Eloquence Bard or Heightened Spell Sorcerer the DM will either burn all Legendary Resistances on Polymorph, or will lose the BBEG when they get polymorphed (which forsakes all of their abilities including whatever resistances they tried to save) once immolation is cast. Beast Shape for the Druid also has this same counter. Beast Shaped or Polymorphed into a Bear and Immolation reduced you to 0 HP? You get reduced to a pile of Ash and Instantly Die; which is again why I like using it to set up a boss kill against any boss who does not spend every legendary resistance on resisting it

  • So pack tactics is a mental ability, let me explain. You don’t get effected physically like with sunlight sensitivity, and you don’t get stronger you just get advantage. So where am I going with this you can be transformed as a Druid and every transformation has pack tactics because it is a mental thing. This also means the kobolds are naturally this strong they just think that they aren’t. Oh if they only knew.

  • Regarding Homebrew. Baseline for my campaigns is that you must have a knowledge of a creature in order to polymorph someone into it. So if your character had access to an encyclopedia on monsters you could easily Polymorph into whatever is said encyclopedia. But there are creatures that exist that your character may not know exist and therefore would preclude them from utilizing. The Almiraj for instance is a rare animal native to Chult. If you weren’t from Chult probably wouldn’t know about it.

  • You’re way underselling polymorphing enemies. Yes, they can save against it, but if it goes through, the ONLY thing that can save your monster from defeat, regardless of their health, is a legendary resistance. All you need to dispose of an ancient red dragon polymorphism into a snail is a portable hole, some lava, or even just a well (which will instantly crush the dragon to death upon reverting to its original size).

  • I don’t homebrew “you have to have seen it before” but I do play and dm with only being able to polymorph into things the caster knows exist. In example, a sorcerer with low intelligence probably knows that apes exist, so giant ape is okay. But dinosaurs aren’t necessarily a common knowledge thing in the setting.

  • I think casting it on a foe became a much cooler option (and many save or suck spells actually) with the release of a silvery barbs spell. You can get it with Fey touched feat which is super useful on any character by itself and even more useful on casters. And with it, you can use your first and fourth spell slot for polymorphing somebody into a goat with a pretty neat chance of success. Also, other characters can use their silvery barbs if the enemy passes the two checks, but this silvery barbs sequence is pretty goofy to think about. Banishment is still better with the basically same effect, but without the chance that some big brain foe will know how polymorph works and just hit that goat to make his friend free. But it can be pretty useful for somebody like a sorcerer who doesn`t have many spells known. Also, you can (arguably) use a twinned spell and polymorph your friend into something big and a foe into something small, but it`s a question to ask your dm about is it possible in the first place.

  • first proper boss we fought was a cr 15 fire/earth elemental beast, think flaming scorpion king, in a game that we started at lvl 8. we polymorphed it into a rabbit, then dropped it from a few hundred feet up via my artificers flying guardian, it splatted and reverted hurt a lot. then one member banished it to their water dimension pocket where it failed to escape over several rounds (like 2 or 3 nat 1s) when it popped back it was on last legs and our held action nova finished it off. GM intended for us to flee and gain help from the kingdoms guards, buuut we kinda nixed that n,n

  • These are some of the reasons I’m not using 5th, it seems like people treat the balance of it like a moba… sure stack up all those stat bonuses and combo spells, let’s see how much dps you do when you enter fantasy vietnam and fight tucker’s kobolds through a hell pit of split moves and evade actions and let’s see how far your min/maxing takes you…

  • I (as a dm) homebrew poly to “a beast you know” that way the party can use basic poly beasts that “everybody knows” like tigers, wolfs, etc. and all they have to do is go to a library and flip a couple pages in a book to aquire knowledge about others they may know have acces to yet. This also means that if i trow a beast at them that there characters didn´t know exist beforhand they aquire a know option for poly that way.

  • I’d argue it is fair to say the character might not have seen a specific creature and thus can’t turn people into it. However, I usually allow people in my games to roll if they have seen the creature or know about it and the DC is affected by where they have lived or travelled. I also allow them to do research and use depictions of creatures they have seen in books, etc.

  • Watching this reminds me…we never had the chance to drop a blue whale onto a lich because we wished him away. But we made a crater from dropping a hydra from orbit thanks to a druid with wildshape and polymorph….sure we had to run but hey biggest crater in the map until the BBEG blew up his own castle and kingdom to attack the world in his new form

  • I’d say you have to have seen the creature but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have seen them in the flesh. A book or scroll with a detailed illustration would be enough. So you wouldn’t have to go all the way to the jungle or happen across one at a circus to see a giant ape. That way you still get that idea of unlocking polymorphs across without having to shoehorn the actual creatures in.

  • One time we were in a fight with a giant 6 legged toad that was absolutely destroying us. As a last ditch effort, I poly morphed it into a tadpole. We debated taking it to the ocean, hoping the salt water would kill it when it transformed back, but we were unsure if this would work or not, so instead I tied it to an arrow and had the archer shoot it up as far as he could in the air. When it hit the ground it took the fall damage. The damage carried over, and we all had readied actions. It was a great comeback.

  • This gets even better if you can get your hands on the uncommon magic item ‘Headband of Intellect’. Because, normally, when you polymorph someone they get the mental abilities of the animal, so it can be hard to use many tactics, either in or out of combat. Combat can typically be less of a problem because you can give someone the order of ‘stay’ or ‘fight’ pretty easily, and the spell says whoever is polymorphed still understands who is a friend and who is a foe, but with the headband, your INT score will remain 18 no matter what. Now, again, in combat this may not be a big deal (depending on the table). But, for utility uses like scouting, now you can have that same rat or owl flying through a dungeon or what have you, and be able to actually remember what it is you say rather than coming back to tell your team that there was a big room with lights and a number of bad guys and you can’t remember the exact number because animals aren’t very smart, but you now it was more than 1.

  • As someone that has been given an amulet that can cast Polymorph on the wearer 1/day, I can attest that holding your own concentration is horrible and will never work in combat even if you’re trying to help the party. It’s basically a gamble on how long you can roll above a 7. Worse, you use all the animal’s stats, including ability scores and proficiencies (or lack thereof), so all of those caster proficiencies to mental saving throws, or War Caster? Gone, you get a +2 modifier at best because literally no beast ever has been printed in 5e with saving throw proficiencies.

  • Casting Polymorph on yourelf isn’t actually that bad an idea if you’re built right for it. Mainly, as a means of tanking and allowing your allies to better position themselves. That being said, sometimes a spell caster just likes to have a little fun. It’s not some big tell that you’re some secret asshole if you go “I’m gonna cast polymorph on myself so I can have some fun.” It it optimal? Not really. But not every action needs to be viable.

  • A polymorphed target cannot use a spell with a Spell DC or Spell Attack because that’s a creature’s game statistic or class ability (Spellcasting), or racial ability or feat. A character only has a Spell Attack or Spell DC if they have the Spellcasting class feature or Magic Initiate feat, for example. A beast would need a Spell Attack or Spell DC ability to use Spirit Guardians or Spiritual Weapon. The spiritual apparitions would just float around until the spell ends. “The target’s game Statistics, including mental Ability Scores, are replaced by the Statistics of the chosen beast. 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.”

  • I was listening to Critical Role and they ran into an encounter with two Fire Giants. Two characters, a wizard and a trickery domain cleric, had Polymorph and two level 4 spell slots each (level 8). They tried to sneakily bypass the giants instead of just turning them both into something weak and harmless and just walking past. I rolled my eyes.

  • The first group I was in had a player like that, picked a support class but only cast on themselves. When I entered with a druid the first thing they did was Polymorph themselves into an ape and spend the entire dungeon as that ape. That really informed their entire person and how they played for the year I knew them.

  • Fun option: if you or anyone in your party has a familliar or pet mouse from the urchin background, you can polymorph that creature instead, and effectively have one more ally in the fight, which is great for action economy, not to mention turning your cute pet into a combat asset is allways fun to describe for the DM and fun to take part in for everyone else, so it’s great for rp.

  • Hello, good morning. I happen to be searching for articles with tips and other things about polymorph findout yours and a few others. I started perusal one made by a website of my country, Brasil, and then jumped tô yours. My surprise when I realized they have stolen your content, and I mean everything of the vídeo, even its title. Every word, every mention, in the same order it is in the vídeo. They only translated it to portuguese and pretended It was theirs. youtu.be/_CFUMzxQfVc Here is the link to “their” vídeo and if I were tou I wound check for other vídeos they have published because the chance they have done ir with more of tour vídeos os high. O hope you can translated “their” vídeo to inglish so that you can compare with more precision Hope I have helped you

  • My only gripe with this spell is that your mental scores change that of the beast you transform into of you cast it on yourself. Meaning, depending on your main stat, your spellcasting class, and the beast you transform into, you wouldn’t be able to keep concentration of it, let alone, be able to cast it in the first place. Meaning, the spell wears off immediately after you cast it before your turn even ends.

  • Let me ask you Mr. Power Gamer Optimizer, are we requiring spell components? Can’t imagine you’re finding/buying caterpillar cocoons on the regular. Not to mention they’re perishable. Also, unless you are War Caster good luck making those saves vs my monsters. Polymorph is amazing, you make a great point… but if you think you’re going to be able to polymorph in so many situations, you wouldn’t make it far in my campaigns.

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