Polymorphed and Wild Shaped creatures don’t die when their polymorphed form is dealt instant death damage. The rules for Instant Death state:
When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.
A polymorphed creature changes back to normal form upon being reduced to 0 hit points, so unless the remaining damage is 200% of the base creature’s health, it doesn’t die (there seems to be an argument to be made that if you reduce a polymorphed creature to 0 hit points with excess damage equal to the base creature’s hit point max, it dies instantly, but that’s definitely not RAI).
When the sheep-tarrasque is reduced to 0 hit points by poison, the excess damage is applied to the real tarrasque, meaning it’s subject to all resistances and immunities the beast has.
Conditions carry over, so if the poison has an additional effect, it would be applied to the tarrasque. If the tarrasque is immune to that condition, it would have no effect, but if it were polymorphed back into a sheep, the sheep would suffer the condition.
The only way to kill a creature through polymorph without chunking through the hit points of its original form is with Power Word Kill, Divine Word, or a similar spell which causes instant death rather than a reduction to 0 hit points.
Edit: It seems that when an effect’s prerequisite is that the target is reduced to 0 hit points, the reversion from being reduced to 0 hit points takes priority, so effects like Disintegrate won’t instantly kill a polymorphed sheep-tarrasque.
Edit: It seems that when an effect’s prerequisite is that the target is reduced to 0 hit points, the reversion from being reduced to 0 hit points takes priority, so effects like Disintegrate won’t instantly kill a polymorphed sheep-tarrasque.
Would you have a source for that, please ? I've always played it the other way, where disintegrating a polymorphed target would kill them if they're reduced to 0 HP by the attack. Not that it happens often, but i'm still curious.
This would really only work if you managed to True Polymorph it first, wait out the hour to make the effects permanent, then just kill the sheep. Or, y'know... leave it as a sheep, since at that point it's just a really mean, confused sheep.
This would really only work if you managed to True Polymorph it first, wait out the hour to make the effects permanent, then just kill the sheep. Or, y'know... leave it as a sheep, since at that point it's just a really mean, confused sheep.
True polymorph just makes the duration "until dispelled." It does not make the polymorphed form its new natural form.
This would really only work if you managed to True Polymorph it first, wait out the hour to make the effects permanent, then just kill the sheep. Or, y'know... leave it as a sheep, since at that point it's just a really mean, confused sheep.
True polymorph just makes the duration "until dispelled." It does not make the polymorphed form its new natural form.
Ohhhh in that case then you definitely want to just leave it as a sheep. And uh... probably plane shift it somewhere else at some point, since it's bound to die eventually and just turn back into a Terrasque.
What if you use power word kill on a polymorphed creature?
I believe it would work. The link above doesn't work (for my anyway), but basically Disintegrate was errata'd, the relevant bit are:
Old wording: " If lhis damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, it is disintegrated."
New wording: "The target is disintegrated if this damage leaves it with 0 hit points." (as we can see on this website)
Per the new wording, damage would apply normally to a polymorphed creature, making it revert to its true form, dealing any excess damage to their true form, and only THEN checking to see if they have 0HP left.
Power Word Kill doesn't have such limitations, and hasn't been errata'd (as far as i know), and has for sole condition that the target currently has 100HP or less. Since a polymorphed creature's current HP are the HP of their current form, it would indeed work.
What if you use power word kill on a polymorphed creature?
This works since power word kill doesn't lower HP so true polymorph doesn't end. It does take 2 level 9 spells to do, but totally worth it for tarrasque, and does require it to have used its legendary resistance and fail the save.
What if you use power word kill on a polymorphed creature?
This works since power word kill doesn't lower HP so true polymorph doesn't end. It does take 2 level 9 spells to do, but totally worth it for tarrasque, and does require it to have used its legendary resistance and fail the save.
No need to use True Polymorph, normal polymorph is good enough. Once you have PWK, Polymorph is save or die.
What if you use power word kill on a polymorphed creature?
This works since power word kill doesn't lower HP so true polymorph doesn't end. It does take 2 level 9 spells to do, but totally worth it for tarrasque, and does require it to have used its legendary resistance and fail the save.
No need to use True Polymorph, normal polymorph is good enough. Once you have PWK, Polymorph is save or die.
Oh yeah, I was stuck on true polymorph, but regular polymorph works too.
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I know many people have asked this in a thousand different ways but I pose one more.
What happens if u polymorph the Terrasque into a sheep, poison it and deal damage exceeding the sheep’s Hp.
I've heard that some people say that excess damage past being reduced to 0 carries over to the reverted form.
If that’s true does the immunities and resistances the Terrasque have still apply or not?
on top of that does the poison that it has resistance to carry over or not?
Does the poison immune body remove the effect or what?
Polymorphed and Wild Shaped creatures don’t die when their polymorphed form is dealt instant death damage. The rules for Instant Death state:
A polymorphed creature changes back to normal form upon being reduced to 0 hit points, so unless the remaining damage is 200% of the base creature’s health, it doesn’t die (there seems to be an argument to be made that if you reduce a polymorphed creature to 0 hit points with excess damage equal to the base creature’s hit point max, it dies instantly, but that’s definitely not RAI).
When the sheep-tarrasque is reduced to 0 hit points by poison, the excess damage is applied to the real tarrasque, meaning it’s subject to all resistances and immunities the beast has.
Conditions carry over, so if the poison has an additional effect, it would be applied to the tarrasque. If the tarrasque is immune to that condition, it would have no effect, but if it were polymorphed back into a sheep, the sheep would suffer the condition.
The only way to kill a creature through polymorph without chunking through the hit points of its original form is with Power Word Kill, Divine Word, or a similar spell which causes instant death rather than a reduction to 0 hit points.
Edit: It seems that when an effect’s prerequisite is that the target is reduced to 0 hit points, the reversion from being reduced to 0 hit points takes priority, so effects like Disintegrate won’t instantly kill a polymorphed sheep-tarrasque.
Would you have a source for that, please ? I've always played it the other way, where disintegrating a polymorphed target would kill them if they're reduced to 0 HP by the attack. Not that it happens often, but i'm still curious.
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This would really only work if you managed to True Polymorph it first, wait out the hour to make the effects permanent, then just kill the sheep. Or, y'know... leave it as a sheep, since at that point it's just a really mean, confused sheep.
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Here’s the disintegrate link
True polymorph just makes the duration "until dispelled." It does not make the polymorphed form its new natural form.
Ohhhh in that case then you definitely want to just leave it as a sheep. And uh... probably plane shift it somewhere else at some point, since it's bound to die eventually and just turn back into a Terrasque.
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What if you use power word kill on a polymorphed creature?
I believe it would work. The link above doesn't work (for my anyway), but basically Disintegrate was errata'd, the relevant bit are:
Old wording: " If lhis damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, it is disintegrated."
New wording: "The target is disintegrated if this damage leaves it with 0 hit points." (as we can see on this website)
Per the new wording, damage would apply normally to a polymorphed creature, making it revert to its true form, dealing any excess damage to their true form, and only THEN checking to see if they have 0HP left.
This interpretation is supported by the Sage Advice on WotC website, and the errata can be seen in this article from 2018.
Power Word Kill doesn't have such limitations, and hasn't been errata'd (as far as i know), and has for sole condition that the target currently has 100HP or less. Since a polymorphed creature's current HP are the HP of their current form, it would indeed work.
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This works since power word kill doesn't lower HP so true polymorph doesn't end. It does take 2 level 9 spells to do, but totally worth it for tarrasque, and does require it to have used its legendary resistance and fail the save.
No need to use True Polymorph, normal polymorph is good enough. Once you have PWK, Polymorph is save or die.
Oh yeah, I was stuck on true polymorph, but regular polymorph works too.