D&D 5E Polymorph vs. Petrified

[ECMO3]

Which leads to the rather bizarre situation where a petrified character, if pushed into the bay, would drown.

That, and to me "petrified" implies absolute rigidity: you can't blink, your heart stops beating, and your chest can't rise and fall so as to allow breathing.

If magic didn't exist I would agree, but in D&D land stone creatures move all the time in a fashion that defies physics.

There's also the corollary question of whether a petrified character can still see-hear-feel what is going on around it while in that state.

This is covered in the condition:

• The creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.

 

[J.Quondam]

RAW is that a petrified creature is "transformed... into a solid inanimate substance". To me, "inanimate" is sufficient to conclude that a petrified creature isn't breathing, sweating, starving, cogitating, or anything else.
Personally, I think RAW is pretty close to commonsense on this one. No need to overthink it.

 

[Reynard]

RAW is that a petrified creature is "transformed... into a solid inanimate substance". To me, "inanimate" is sufficient to conclude that a petrified creature isn't breathing, sweating, starving, cogitating, or anything else.
Personally, I think RAW is pretty close to commonsense on this one. No need to overthink it.

Except it goes on to list all the specific mechanical effects of petrification. They should have just said "on a failed save the target, including all of its gear, becomes a stone statue." Then let common sense flow from there. Listing a bunch of mechanical effects, not all of which make sense for a statue and missing some that would makes sense, just muddies the waters.

5E has a bunch of that sort of thing, though, where the designers wanted to have their cake and eat it too regarding mechanics and natural language. I'll take the specifics of a system like PF2E over that anytime.

 

[MarkB]

In my game I had a foe use a weapon of petrification, except that on a failed save after a hit it turned the victim to ice rather than stone. This presented not only the challenge to get the victim turned back to flesh but also to prevent him from melting in the meantime.

Yes I'm evil.

I was keeping the discussion relatively generic, but in fact this was a case of the victim being turned to ice - the minor deity in question was Auril, and the description in the module is that the target is petrified, but turned to ice instead of stone. No further detail is given, so I came up with the following variant on the Petrified condition:

Petrified (Ice variant)

• A petrified creature is transformed, along with any nonmagical object it is wearing or carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (in this case ice). Its weight increases by a factor of five, and it ceases aging.
• The creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• The creature has resistance to all damage except Fire and Cold damage. It has immunity to Cold damage, and vulnerability to Fire damage.
• The creature is immune to poison and disease, although a poison or disease already in its system is suspended, not neutralized.
• The creature is composed of a dense, tough ice, resistant to shattering, and will remain solid indefinitely in sub-zero temperatures, but above freezing point it will slowly melt. At room temperature the creature will take 1 point of damage each minute.

 

[NotAYakk]

The situation: One of the party members was petrified at the end of the last session, with no means on hand of reversing the effect. The rest of the party need to get them back to town, where there is a friendly cleric who has the ability to cast greater restoration.

The problem: Petrification multiplies a creature's weight tenfold, and this one wasn't a lightweight to begin with. Their statue form currently weighs over 3,000 lb, which is not easy for three people, one of whom is a kobold, to carry.

Possible solution: One character has access to polymorph, and could cast it at least a few times, which would get them a significant portion of the way there if it can lighten the weight.

Polymorph targets a single creature, and can transform it into a beast. I'm thinking this could go one of three ways:

• A petrified creature is still a creature, as well as an object, and being polymorphed could transform them into a lightweight pocket-sized beast statue for easy transportation.
• A petrified creature is still a creature, as well as an object, and being polymorphed could transform them into a non-petrified beast for the duration, after which they go back to being a statue.
• A petrified creature is just an object, and cannot be targeted with polymorph.

Which way would you go, or is there a fourth option I haven't considered?

I wouldn't treat the spell text as a complete description of how the spell works. I'd treat the spell text as a description of how the spell works under normal, standard conditions.

When you leave the realm of normal, standard condition, that is when (a) the DM needs to make a call, and (b) arcana checks can be made to predict what may happen.

This is clearly a non-normal standard situation. A petrified creature is (as you have noted) arguably both a creature and an object. What more, petrification is a kind of ongoing magical effect.

On the other hand, polymorph has known properties when used to be cast on a creature who has no ongoing form-changing effects on it, and known properties when used to cast on a shapechanging creature, and known properties when used to be cast on an object (doesn't work). And if you have 2 shapechanging magics on a creature, there are relatively well known rules for how they interact.

This will involve the degree to which a petrified creature remains a creature, how much petrification is similar to shapechanging magic or the like.

Possible results could include:
a) Doesn't work
b) You get a petrified stone creature
c) You get a non-petrified creature who remembers being the non-petrified creature
d) The magic interferes in bizarre ways

of note is that without successful Arcana checks the PC shouldn't know what will happen. And even a successful Arcana check might just result in a plausible theory, or knowledge about where to find the answer. Like, maybe nobody has tried this and written it down.

 

[Lanefan]

I was keeping the discussion relatively generic, but in fact this was a case of the victim being turned to ice - the minor deity in question was Auril, and the description in the module is that the target is petrified, but turned to ice instead of stone. No further detail is given, so I came up with the following variant on the Petrified condition:

Petrified (Ice variant)

• A petrified creature is transformed, along with any nonmagical object it is wearing or carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (in this case ice). Its weight increases by a factor of five, and it ceases aging.
• The creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• The creature has resistance to all damage except Fire and Cold damage. It has immunity to Cold damage, and vulnerability to Fire damage.
• The creature is immune to poison and disease, although a poison or disease already in its system is suspended, not neutralized.
• The creature is composed of a dense, tough ice, resistant to shattering, and will remain solid indefinitely in sub-zero temperatures, but above freezing point it will slowly melt. At room temperature the creature will take 1 point of damage each minute.

Probably based on 5e rules, you are far more generous than I would be.

First off, any magical possessions being carried at the time would become ice as well.

Second off, resistance to all damage (other than fire and cold) doesn't make sense; it should take normal damage from weapons, for example, and maybe extra if the weapon is bludgeoning.

Third off, melting damage should not be curable by any means while the victim remains frozen; and after a certain point should also provoke carried items to make saves or be destroyed (i.e. enough of the item melts that when it's turned back to its original material, it falls apart). Further, a victim that melts to 0 h.p. and then melts any further should just die, skipping the death-saves step.

Also, missing from the write-up (and maybe from the 5e original as well, I don't know) is the new AC of the ice-person; which one would think would be a constant (whatever the AC of a block of ice is) regardless of what armour or defenses the victim did or didn't have before getting frozen.

 

[MarkB]

Probably based on 5e rules, you are far more generous than I would be.

First off, any magical possessions being carried at the time would become ice as well.

Second off, resistance to all damage (other than fire and cold) doesn't make sense; it should take normal damage from weapons, for example, and maybe extra if the weapon is bludgeoning.

Third off, melting damage should not be curable by any means while the victim remains frozen; and after a certain point should also provoke carried items to make saves or be destroyed (i.e. enough of the item melts that when it's turned back to its original material, it falls apart). Further, a victim that melts to 0 h.p. and then melts any further should just die, skipping the death-saves step.

Also, missing from the write-up (and maybe from the 5e original as well, I don't know) is the new AC of the ice-person; which one would think would be a constant (whatever the AC of a block of ice is) regardless of what armour or defenses the victim did or didn't have before getting frozen.

Yeah, mine is basically just the standard version except for the cold immunity and fire vulnerability (standard is resistance to all damage types) and the weight only increasing by a factor of five instead of ten (since ice isn't as heavy as stone), plus I added the clause about melting.

 

[MNblockhead]

Pro tip:

(1) Don't let your friend go home with a woman with her hair covered up and wearing a veil.
(2) Don't take your petrified friend to a prudish clerical order for a cure.