So what happens if you kill a creature/ a creature dies who is polymorphed/true polymorphed, but you do so without dealing it any damage? I’m talking stuff like drowning the creature or causing the polymorphed version of the creature to live out its entire polymorphed life span. Would the creature still be dead? Or would it revert to its previous form? Would it still be at zero HP?
If you can kill a polymorphed/wildshaped creature without dropping them to 0 hitpoints, they stay dead when they change back. Makes a spell like power word kill a little more dangerous against wildshaping druids and polymorphed creatures.
So a follow up to this. What benefits would you argue the creature gains once returning to their original form? Like would a creature who was drowned, and thus HP reduced to zero, transform back with lungs full of air? Would they regain the ability to breath? Like if I transform a wolf into a fish, have the fish “drown” by being out of water, would the wolf get a chance to take a breath?
So a follow up to this. What benefits would you argue the creature gains once returning to their original form? Like would a creature who was drowned, and thus HP reduced to zero, transform back with lungs full of air? Would they regain the ability to breath? Like if I transform a wolf into a fish, have the fish “drown” by being out of water, would the wolf get a chance to take a breath?
Suffocation is tricky. It makes your HP 0, but doesn't kill you outright.
This is a personal ruling, but I think this works for the most cases without having to change case by case: When polymorph/wildshape ends from suffocation, you return to your original form at original health, but no breath (CON turns till KO). This dodges problems of altered form having different CON or breathing a different substance.
But ultimately up to DM. If they want you to be 0 HP and dying, then you are. At least in the fish situation, you are no longer suffocating so can stabilize.
Suffocating reduces the creature's hit points to 0 once they run out of air; they don't die until they fail 3 death saves. A wolf polymorphed into a fish on land would turn back into a wolf before dying and then stop suffocating.
As a rule of thumb, polymorphing only affects a creature's statistics. Whatever else is going on or affecting that creature beyond its stats is still going to be in effect when it changes back to its true form.
Instant death without any damage or HP changes is extremely rare. Power Word Kill is pretty much the only thing that's likely to come into play, and the way that interacts with Polymorph and True Polymorph was unintentional. The game's designers now favor using temporary HP for polymorphing (see Mass Polymorph.)
Disintegrate also used to have an unintended interaction, but its wording was subtly changed in the November 2018 errata to give creatures a chance to untransform before being killed outright (but the Beholder disintegration ray wasn't updated, even though it's intended to act like the spell.)
That said, Flesh To Stone is almost as bad as being killed and won't revert a creature back to their true form in the process.
Since drowning/suffocation puts you at zero HP you would then revert back to you un-polymorphed form with whatever HP you had in that shape.
Yes, but the question is more "do you then instantly drown (go to zero HP) again?" or do you "pop" back to your normal form with 1+ (Con modifier) minutes of air in your lungs?
Since drowning/suffocation puts you at zero HP you would then revert back to you un-polymorphed form with whatever HP you had in that shape.
Yes, but the question is more "do you then instantly drown (go to zero HP) again?" or do you "pop" back to your normal form with 1+ (Con modifier) minutes of air in your lungs?
Yeah - that is a bit tricky. Partly that comes down to whether you think ending the polymorph spell is equivalent to regaining hitpoints. From Suffocation: "At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again." From Polymorph: "When it reverts to its normal form, the creature returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed. If it reverts as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to its normal form." So is "returning" the same as "regaining"?
Maybe it doesn't matter. I think the effect (and intent) of suffocation is that even magical healing can't keep you alive if you can't breathe. And the language of Polymorph says that "over-damage" carries over, so it seems consistent with saying that you don't get another magical breath of air before you start suffocating again. Nothing about Polymorph suggests that you avoid any other conditions that you're suffering when it ends. Since being suffocated sets your hps to 0, it seems likely that returning to original form doesn't reset them. OTOH, DxJxC's ruling earlier makes it a little less deadly, which is perfectly fine for most tables. Polymorph is already pretty powerful
So in the case of, say, you were polymorphed into a rat, and then held under water until you were drowning, which caused you to revert back to human form -- you'd still be drowning, and at 0 hps, and even rolling successful death saves doesn't help you, because you can't be stabilized, and you can't regain hit points.
In the case of being polymorphed into a fish, the same applies, except that when you revert to normal, you can breathe again, so you can make death saves to stabilize (and if you roll a 20, regain 1 hit point)
Since drowning/suffocation puts you at zero HP you would then revert back to you un-polymorphed form with whatever HP you had in that shape.
Yes, but the question is more "do you then instantly drown (go to zero HP) again?" or do you "pop" back to your normal form with 1+ (Con modifier) minutes of air in your lungs?
Since drowning/suffocation puts you at zero HP you would then revert back to you un-polymorphed form with whatever HP you had in that shape.
Yes, but the question is more "do you then instantly drown (go to zero HP) again?" or do you "pop" back to your normal form with 1+ (Con modifier) minutes of air in your lungs?
Yeah - that is a bit tricky. Partly that comes down to whether you think ending the polymorph spell is equivalent to regaining hitpoints. From Suffocation: "At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again." From Polymorph: "When it reverts to its normal form, the creature returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed. If it reverts as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to its normal form." So is "returning" the same as "regaining"?
Maybe it doesn't matter. I think the effect (and intent) of suffocation is that even magical healing can't keep you alive if you can't breathe. And the language of Polymorph says that "over-damage" carries over, so it seems consistent with saying that you don't get another magical breath of air before you start suffocating again. Nothing about Polymorph suggests that you avoid any other conditions that you're suffering when it ends. Since being suffocated sets your hps to 0, it seems likely that returning to original form doesn't reset them. OTOH, DxJxC's ruling earlier makes it a little less deadly, which is perfectly fine for most tables. Polymorph is already pretty powerful
So in the case of, say, you were polymorphed into a rat, and then held under water until you were drowning, which caused you to revert back to human form -- you'd still be drowning, and at 0 hps, and even rolling successful death saves doesn't help you, because you can't be stabilized, and you can't regain hit points.
In the case of being polymorphed into a fish, the same applies, except that when you revert to normal, you can breathe again, so you can make death saves to stabilize (and if you roll a 20, regain 1 hit point)
I concur. Of course, it might be a lot harder to hold a 7 foot Goliath or a Purple worm under water than a rat, so that might solve the problem for the polymorphee. :P
The air you have available doesn't change when you revert back to your normal form when you lose polymorph. If you were plunged into water, then cast Polymorph to become a gorilla to bend some iron bars down there, you would not gain or lose air when the polymorph was cast. Therefore you don't either lose or gain air when it ends.
If you drown as the gorilla, then when you revert back to your normal form you have still run out of air and immediately drop to 0 hit points in your 'true' form as well.
The air you have available doesn't change when you revert back to your normal form when you lose polymorph. If you were plunged into water, then cast Polymorph to become a gorilla to bend some iron bars down there, you would not gain or lose air when the polymorph was cast. Therefore you don't either lose or gain air when it ends.
If you drown as the gorilla, then when you revert back to your normal form you have still run out of air and immediately drop to 0 hit points in your 'true' form as well.
See this raises the problem of polymorphing into a fish. If the fish form suffocates in air and changes back, should the true form that breathes air also be at 0 HP? I would think not, which is why I decided to reset the choking count down (still out of breath, no new air, just your originally oxygenated blood).
I concur. Of course, it might be a lot harder to hold a 7 foot Goliath or a Purple worm under water than a rat, so that might solve the problem for the polymorphee. :P
Well, by the time you've reverted, all the struggling is done, you're at 0 hps and dying and therefore unconscious. They don't really even need to "hold you under" after you change back. You're unable to make any effort to change your own circumstances.
Theoretically, you could be pulled out of the water and still possibly die just by failing death saves.
The air you have available doesn't change when you revert back to your normal form when you lose polymorph. If you were plunged into water, then cast Polymorph to become a gorilla to bend some iron bars down there, you would not gain or lose air when the polymorph was cast. Therefore you don't either lose or gain air when it ends.
If you drown as the gorilla, then when you revert back to your normal form you have still run out of air and immediately drop to 0 hit points in your 'true' form as well.
See this raises the problem of polymorphing into a fish. If the fish form suffocates in air and changes back, should the true form that breathes air also be at 0 HP? I would think not, which is why I decided to reset the choking count down (still out of breath, no new air, just your originally oxygenated blood).
Personally, while that's a perfectly valid ruling, I think the point at which you're sent to 0 hps through suffocation, is the point after you've gone through whatever oxygen you had in your bloodstream. It's the point at which you're no longer flopping around but are actually dying. You're an unconscious and dying fish, and suddenly you revert to an unconscious and dying person, still at 0 hps. The only difference is, now you can breathe, you are able to stabilize on your own with death saves, or be healed by magic.
That's how I read the RAW, anyway. I like your take on it, too. I can see that being more fun at the table, to get a reprieve that way, for the players anyway. I don't usually bother with death saves for the enemies, so it probably doesn't make much difference to my game play to use either ruling on the enemies.
Regarding drowning, while it is a reasonable assumption that the analogues of a creatures lungs stay their lungs during their transformation, not all creatures have lungs. Fish, for example, have gills that function in water, and creatures like warforged don't need to breathe and may not have a lung at all. But that is all besides the point, because there is nothing specifically in the spell that says that body parts transform into their counterpart body parts. That means, if a hobgoblin polymorphed into a rat is drowned (thus dropping HP to 0), at the moment they change back, there is nothing in the spell that says that the water filled lungs of the rat become the water filled lungs of the hobgoblin.
Further, if the contents of a creatures body are not transformed (which would have to be the case if the water remains in the lungs), then any sort of transformation to a smaller creature would result in some pretty gruesome results; That 8 oz steak you ate for lunch, and the gallon and a half of air in your lungs, is considerably bigger than the sparrow you are turned into, for instance. Further, if you are considered carrying or holding said steak (just in your stomach), the spell would meld it into your body, so why would that not happen in reverse, with the steak in your stomach (and the air you had in your lungs) when you transformed reemerging as you change (and replacing the presumably not steak and not air, if you had been drowned?
Since nothing is addressed about how the transformation works, assuming that anything happens with the contents of your body/organs is an arbitration on the part of the DM, but I would argue that there is not supposed to be a penalty for the state of your body when you go back at 0hp. Therefore, if a hobgoblin was drowned as a rat, upon becoming a hobgoblin again they would 1) return to their original HP amount, and 2) no longer be drowning, meaning no penalty. If they were still underwater, because the air in their lungs would have returned, you would restart the hold breath counter (or if you were arguing the air did not return, restart the rounds based on CON mod).
The air you have available doesn't change when you revert back to your normal form when you lose polymorph. If you were plunged into water, then cast Polymorph to become a gorilla to bend some iron bars down there, you would not gain or lose air when the polymorph was cast. Therefore you don't either lose or gain air when it ends.
If you drown as the gorilla, then when you revert back to your normal form you have still run out of air and immediately drop to 0 hit points in your 'true' form as well.
See this raises the problem of polymorphing into a fish. If the fish form suffocates in air and changes back, should the true form that breathes air also be at 0 HP? I would think not, which is why I decided to reset the choking count down (still out of breath, no new air, just your originally oxygenated blood).
I'd say that since we can breathe whilst we're unconscious, the first thing that you'd do when you changed back into a humanoid would be to suck in a lungful of air despite being unconscious. This would stabilise you, but because of the trauma of having suffocated, your hit points would still be zero. Same would go for a fish that had been polymorphed into a sheep whilst it was still in water - the sheep would drown and then you'd be left with an unconscious fish. This is purely how I'd rule it and in no way do I think anyone else should follow my thoughts on it unless they like the idea.
I concur. Of course, it might be a lot harder to hold a 7 foot Goliath or a Purple worm under water than a rat, so that might solve the problem for the polymorphee. :P
Well, by the time you've reverted, all the struggling is done, you're at 0 hps and dying and therefore unconscious. They don't really even need to "hold you under" after you change back. You're unable to make any effort to change your own circumstances.
Theoretically, you could be pulled out of the water and still possibly die just by failing death saves.
A rat will fit where a purple worm or Goliath will not, so it's a matter of what you drown the rat in. But sure, anything is possible under the right circumstances.
Since nothing is addressed about how the transformation works, assuming that anything happens with the contents of your body/organs is an arbitration on the part of the DM, but I would argue that there is not supposed to be a penalty for the state of your body when you go back at 0hp. Therefore, if a hobgoblin was drowned as a rat, upon becoming a hobgoblin again they would 1) return to their original HP amount, and 2) no longer be drowning, meaning no penalty. If they were still underwater, because the air in their lungs would have returned, you would restart the hold breath counter (or if you were arguing the air did not return, restart the rounds based on CON mod).
Well, that's not entirely true. Nothing says you get to reset any conditions that are currently affecting you (You got paralyzed, for example, ending polymorph doesn't end that condition), and it specifically says that excess damage is carried over to your original form. It's rather clearer to me that polymorph is a bag of extra hps and powers, and not also a way to avoid conditions because of a magic reset when you hit 0 hps.
Since nothing is addressed about how the transformation works, assuming that anything happens with the contents of your body/organs is an arbitration on the part of the DM, but I would argue that there is not supposed to be a penalty for the state of your body when you go back at 0hp. Therefore, if a hobgoblin was drowned as a rat, upon becoming a hobgoblin again they would 1) return to their original HP amount, and 2) no longer be drowning, meaning no penalty. If they were still underwater, because the air in their lungs would have returned, you would restart the hold breath counter (or if you were arguing the air did not return, restart the rounds based on CON mod).
Well, that's not entirely true. Nothing says you get to reset any conditions that are currently affecting you (You got paralyzed, for example, ending polymorph doesn't end that condition), and it specifically says that excess damage is carried over to your original form. It's rather clearer to me that polymorph is a bag of extra hps and powers, and not also a way to avoid conditions because of a magic reset when you hit 0 hps.
What condition is being applied? The only one in consideration would be The Unconscious condition, but that would apply in normal reductions to zero too (and it doesn’t with polymorph)
suffocation is not a condition
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So what happens if you kill a creature/ a creature dies who is polymorphed/true polymorphed, but you do so without dealing it any damage? I’m talking stuff like drowning the creature or causing the polymorphed version of the creature to live out its entire polymorphed life span. Would the creature still be dead? Or would it revert to its previous form? Would it still be at zero HP?
True Polymorph ends if the creature dies, as stated in the first paragraph. The spell ending doesn't undo the fact that the creature is dead.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
If you can kill a polymorphed/wildshaped creature without dropping them to 0 hitpoints, they stay dead when they change back. Makes a spell like power word kill a little more dangerous against wildshaping druids and polymorphed creatures.
Yeah, the spell only protects against HP changes.
So a follow up to this. What benefits would you argue the creature gains once returning to their original form? Like would a creature who was drowned, and thus HP reduced to zero, transform back with lungs full of air? Would they regain the ability to breath? Like if I transform a wolf into a fish, have the fish “drown” by being out of water, would the wolf get a chance to take a breath?
Suffocation is tricky. It makes your HP 0, but doesn't kill you outright.
This is a personal ruling, but I think this works for the most cases without having to change case by case: When polymorph/wildshape ends from suffocation, you return to your original form at original health, but no breath (CON turns till KO). This dodges problems of altered form having different CON or breathing a different substance.
But ultimately up to DM. If they want you to be 0 HP and dying, then you are. At least in the fish situation, you are no longer suffocating so can stabilize.
Suffocating reduces the creature's hit points to 0 once they run out of air; they don't die until they fail 3 death saves. A wolf polymorphed into a fish on land would turn back into a wolf before dying and then stop suffocating.
As a rule of thumb, polymorphing only affects a creature's statistics. Whatever else is going on or affecting that creature beyond its stats is still going to be in effect when it changes back to its true form.
Instant death without any damage or HP changes is extremely rare. Power Word Kill is pretty much the only thing that's likely to come into play, and the way that interacts with Polymorph and True Polymorph was unintentional. The game's designers now favor using temporary HP for polymorphing (see Mass Polymorph.)
Disintegrate also used to have an unintended interaction, but its wording was subtly changed in the November 2018 errata to give creatures a chance to untransform before being killed outright (but the Beholder disintegration ray wasn't updated, even though it's intended to act like the spell.)
That said, Flesh To Stone is almost as bad as being killed and won't revert a creature back to their true form in the process.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Since drowning/suffocation puts you at zero HP you would then revert back to you un-polymorphed form with whatever HP you had in that shape.
Yes, but the question is more "do you then instantly drown (go to zero HP) again?" or do you "pop" back to your normal form with 1+ (Con modifier) minutes of air in your lungs?
Yeah - that is a bit tricky.
Partly that comes down to whether you think ending the polymorph spell is equivalent to regaining hitpoints.
From Suffocation:
"At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again."
From Polymorph:
"When it reverts to its normal form, the creature returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed. If it reverts as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to its normal form."
So is "returning" the same as "regaining"?
Maybe it doesn't matter. I think the effect (and intent) of suffocation is that even magical healing can't keep you alive if you can't breathe. And the language of Polymorph says that "over-damage" carries over, so it seems consistent with saying that you don't get another magical breath of air before you start suffocating again. Nothing about Polymorph suggests that you avoid any other conditions that you're suffering when it ends. Since being suffocated sets your hps to 0, it seems likely that returning to original form doesn't reset them. OTOH, DxJxC's ruling earlier makes it a little less deadly, which is perfectly fine for most tables. Polymorph is already pretty powerful
So in the case of, say, you were polymorphed into a rat, and then held under water until you were drowning, which caused you to revert back to human form -- you'd still be drowning, and at 0 hps, and even rolling successful death saves doesn't help you, because you can't be stabilized, and you can't regain hit points.
In the case of being polymorphed into a fish, the same applies, except that when you revert to normal, you can breathe again, so you can make death saves to stabilize (and if you roll a 20, regain 1 hit point)
Depens on if you can breathe after the "pop".
I concur. Of course, it might be a lot harder to hold a 7 foot Goliath or a Purple worm under water than a rat, so that might solve the problem for the polymorphee. :P
The air you have available doesn't change when you revert back to your normal form when you lose polymorph. If you were plunged into water, then cast Polymorph to become a gorilla to bend some iron bars down there, you would not gain or lose air when the polymorph was cast. Therefore you don't either lose or gain air when it ends.
If you drown as the gorilla, then when you revert back to your normal form you have still run out of air and immediately drop to 0 hit points in your 'true' form as well.
See this raises the problem of polymorphing into a fish. If the fish form suffocates in air and changes back, should the true form that breathes air also be at 0 HP? I would think not, which is why I decided to reset the choking count down (still out of breath, no new air, just your originally oxygenated blood).
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Well, by the time you've reverted, all the struggling is done, you're at 0 hps and dying and therefore unconscious. They don't really even need to "hold you under" after you change back. You're unable to make any effort to change your own circumstances.
Theoretically, you could be pulled out of the water and still possibly die just by failing death saves.
Personally, while that's a perfectly valid ruling, I think the point at which you're sent to 0 hps through suffocation, is the point after you've gone through whatever oxygen you had in your bloodstream.
It's the point at which you're no longer flopping around but are actually dying. You're an unconscious and dying fish, and suddenly you revert to an unconscious and dying person, still at 0 hps. The only difference is, now you can breathe, you are able to stabilize on your own with death saves, or be healed by magic.
That's how I read the RAW, anyway. I like your take on it, too. I can see that being more fun at the table, to get a reprieve that way, for the players anyway. I don't usually bother with death saves for the enemies, so it probably doesn't make much difference to my game play to use either ruling on the enemies.
Regarding drowning, while it is a reasonable assumption that the analogues of a creatures lungs stay their lungs during their transformation, not all creatures have lungs. Fish, for example, have gills that function in water, and creatures like warforged don't need to breathe and may not have a lung at all. But that is all besides the point, because there is nothing specifically in the spell that says that body parts transform into their counterpart body parts. That means, if a hobgoblin polymorphed into a rat is drowned (thus dropping HP to 0), at the moment they change back, there is nothing in the spell that says that the water filled lungs of the rat become the water filled lungs of the hobgoblin.
Further, if the contents of a creatures body are not transformed (which would have to be the case if the water remains in the lungs), then any sort of transformation to a smaller creature would result in some pretty gruesome results; That 8 oz steak you ate for lunch, and the gallon and a half of air in your lungs, is considerably bigger than the sparrow you are turned into, for instance. Further, if you are considered carrying or holding said steak (just in your stomach), the spell would meld it into your body, so why would that not happen in reverse, with the steak in your stomach (and the air you had in your lungs) when you transformed reemerging as you change (and replacing the presumably not steak and not air, if you had been drowned?
Since nothing is addressed about how the transformation works, assuming that anything happens with the contents of your body/organs is an arbitration on the part of the DM, but I would argue that there is not supposed to be a penalty for the state of your body when you go back at 0hp. Therefore, if a hobgoblin was drowned as a rat, upon becoming a hobgoblin again they would 1) return to their original HP amount, and 2) no longer be drowning, meaning no penalty. If they were still underwater, because the air in their lungs would have returned, you would restart the hold breath counter (or if you were arguing the air did not return, restart the rounds based on CON mod).
I'd say that since we can breathe whilst we're unconscious, the first thing that you'd do when you changed back into a humanoid would be to suck in a lungful of air despite being unconscious. This would stabilise you, but because of the trauma of having suffocated, your hit points would still be zero. Same would go for a fish that had been polymorphed into a sheep whilst it was still in water - the sheep would drown and then you'd be left with an unconscious fish. This is purely how I'd rule it and in no way do I think anyone else should follow my thoughts on it unless they like the idea.
A rat will fit where a purple worm or Goliath will not, so it's a matter of what you drown the rat in. But sure, anything is possible under the right circumstances.
Well, that's not entirely true. Nothing says you get to reset any conditions that are currently affecting you (You got paralyzed, for example, ending polymorph doesn't end that condition), and it specifically says that excess damage is carried over to your original form. It's rather clearer to me that polymorph is a bag of extra hps and powers, and not also a way to avoid conditions because of a magic reset when you hit 0 hps.
What condition is being applied? The only one in consideration would be The Unconscious condition, but that would apply in normal reductions to zero too (and it doesn’t with polymorph)
suffocation is not a condition