Warning: This post contains Princes of the Apocalypse Spoilers.
So the Sorcerer (favored soul) in my group just got twin Polymorph as the group was exploring the fane of the eye. She decided to cast it and turn the party Ranger and Wizard into huge giant apes. Fair enough then.
They proceeded to rip through everything in the Fane with ease, despite the fact the two apes really restricted mobility and due to squeezing pretty much had permanent disadvantage (conversely advantage to attack them). I was worried that they'd just steamroll through the Fane without much of a challenge at this point, but I decided to let them keep going as they seemed to be having fun.
They came to the stairs leading up to the Earth Cult Temple, and bolstered by their victories decided to charge forward and kill all the cultists they could while the spell still remained.
The first problem is they set off the alarm coming up the stairs into the Earth Temple, if the Wizard wasn't polymorphed he would have picked it up with detect magic. This gave the cult time to martial their forces. And despite knowing they clearly set off an alarm, the group charged into the temple to attack, confidence from the previous battles giving them over confidence.
They next problem was fighting the high AC earth cultists in confined spaces. The apes struggled to hit AC18 cultists even with +9 to hit but with disadvantage. Also they were too big to go through doors - so they could easily be picked off at range.
To further complicate things the apes couldn't enter rooms, so they split up to each guard a corridor. However without the torches from the party they couldn't see! Meanwhile the cult forces could be heard gathering reinforcements and readying for a counter attack.
While the group still battled cultists in the first room of the Temple, more cultist reinforcements descended upon them, blocking one ape in a passageway and picking him off with crossbows. A stonemelder kited the other around using her terrain altering spells to keep the apes movement slow.
Meanwhile the apes couldn't hit the heavily armoured earth cultists, and the two non polymorphed characters were in deep trouble - too far away for the apes to help. To the Sorcerers player credit - he didn't drop Polymorph concentration because he felt that was metagaming since he couldn't see how badly the apes were faring. I gave them all inspiration for playing in character for that.
All four of them came close to death, the 8th level Paladin almost died in one hit from a bite from a Bulette (critical hit - who said D&D 5e was too weak?), and the Sorcerer decided that haste was called for to save them from death. So polymorph dropped as a result. Free from the cumbersome large forms, the group seized back the initiative and won the day - they were far more effective NOT as giant apes. They were badly bruised but not beaten, and had used almost all of their resources.
The lesson here is no matter how OP something feels at the time, assuming its part of the core rules, the game itself for the most part is exceptionally well balanced. Twin Polymorph seemed very strong to me in the beginning, but it ended up with its flaws, and hubris almost cost the characters their lives.
Edit: Fixed up mistakes from posting on mobile.
So the Sorcerer (favored soul) in my group just got twin Polymorph as the group was exploring the fane of the eye. She decided to cast it and turn the party Ranger and Wizard into huge giant apes. Fair enough then.
They proceeded to rip through everything in the Fane with ease, despite the fact the two apes really restricted mobility and due to squeezing pretty much had permanent disadvantage (conversely advantage to attack them). I was worried that they'd just steamroll through the Fane without much of a challenge at this point, but I decided to let them keep going as they seemed to be having fun.
They came to the stairs leading up to the Earth Cult Temple, and bolstered by their victories decided to charge forward and kill all the cultists they could while the spell still remained.
The first problem is they set off the alarm coming up the stairs into the Earth Temple, if the Wizard wasn't polymorphed he would have picked it up with detect magic. This gave the cult time to martial their forces. And despite knowing they clearly set off an alarm, the group charged into the temple to attack, confidence from the previous battles giving them over confidence.
They next problem was fighting the high AC earth cultists in confined spaces. The apes struggled to hit AC18 cultists even with +9 to hit but with disadvantage. Also they were too big to go through doors - so they could easily be picked off at range.
To further complicate things the apes couldn't enter rooms, so they split up to each guard a corridor. However without the torches from the party they couldn't see! Meanwhile the cult forces could be heard gathering reinforcements and readying for a counter attack.
While the group still battled cultists in the first room of the Temple, more cultist reinforcements descended upon them, blocking one ape in a passageway and picking him off with crossbows. A stonemelder kited the other around using her terrain altering spells to keep the apes movement slow.
Meanwhile the apes couldn't hit the heavily armoured earth cultists, and the two non polymorphed characters were in deep trouble - too far away for the apes to help. To the Sorcerers player credit - he didn't drop Polymorph concentration because he felt that was metagaming since he couldn't see how badly the apes were faring. I gave them all inspiration for playing in character for that.
All four of them came close to death, the 8th level Paladin almost died in one hit from a bite from a Bulette (critical hit - who said D&D 5e was too weak?), and the Sorcerer decided that haste was called for to save them from death. So polymorph dropped as a result. Free from the cumbersome large forms, the group seized back the initiative and won the day - they were far more effective NOT as giant apes. They were badly bruised but not beaten, and had used almost all of their resources.
The lesson here is no matter how OP something feels at the time, assuming its part of the core rules, the game itself for the most part is exceptionally well balanced. Twin Polymorph seemed very strong to me in the beginning, but it ended up with its flaws, and hubris almost cost the characters their lives.
Edit: Fixed up mistakes from posting on mobile.
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