D&D 5E What are the limits of True Polymorph?


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Saeviomagy

Adventurer
Turn a bacteria into a diamond?
If bacteria exist in your world, if your wizard knows of their existence, and if your wizard can see one to target it, sure.

Turn an ant into a mountain?
Sure - arguments about "a mountain is a collection of objects" defeat polymorphing things into swords or chests or chairs or liquids. I think all those should be possible, so a mountain is fine

Turn an ant into a mountain of gold?
Sure

Turn an ant into a mountain of diamond?
Yup

Turn an ant into a gladiator?
Yup

Turn an ant into a castle?
Yup

Turn an ant into a vorpal greatsword?
Nope - I'd say the enchantment is something seperate from the object.

Turn an ant into a +9001 greatsword?
See vorpal greatsword

Turn an ant into a spaceship?
Sure, assuming your wizard can design or has seen a spaceship and that space exists. It's not going to do him much good unless he's in space, or technology to put things into space exists and he understands it.

Turn an ant into a star?
Sure, but your wizards understanding of what a star is will be limited, and the actual reality of what a star is may not coincide with that of the real world. Ie - the spell may fail because a 'star' is actually a giant glowbug that crawls around the inside of your world's crystal sphere. Or it might succeed and give you a twinkling point of light that generates no heat and measures 20cm across. Or it may fail because the various deities decide they don't really want your entire world to be destroyed in an instant.

Turn an ant into a black hole?
See star. It's unlikely that your wizard even comprehends a black hole unless your world diverges from typical D&D by a significant amount. The alternative is a sphere of annihilation, which is a magic item, so see vorpal sword.
 
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Mishihari Lord

First Post
No to almost everything. The bacteria, as noted, you can't see. For the rest, I would benchmark the spell's ability from wish. Wish is "the mightiest spell a mortal creature can cast." Thus True Polymorph will not do anything a wish can't do. For object creation, wish can make something up to 25k gold in value and less than 300 ft in any dimension. As noted you can try for more if you're willing to risk a malicious reading of the wish by your DM, but for comparison I'd stick with the baseline. So ant to gladiator is okay. Ant to castle might be okay, I'd have to check the value of the castle. The rest are not. I would say that a wizard in a typical D&D world would not know what a spaceship or black hole are either, so I'd disallow those on those grounds as well.
 

Saeviomagy

Adventurer
No to almost everything. The bacteria, as noted, you can't see. For the rest, I would benchmark the spell's ability from wish. Wish is "the mightiest spell a mortal creature can cast." Thus True Polymorph will not do anything a wish can't do. For object creation, wish can make something up to 25k gold in value and less than 300 ft in any dimension. As noted you can try for more if you're willing to risk a malicious reading of the wish by your DM, but for comparison I'd stick with the baseline. So ant to gladiator is okay. Ant to castle might be okay, I'd have to check the value of the castle. The rest are not. I would say that a wizard in a typical D&D world would not know what a spaceship or black hole are either, so I'd disallow those on those grounds as well.

So if wish is the mightiest spell and no other spell can do better than it can, why are there other 9th level spells?

I think your logic is flawed there. Wish is mighty because it has the potential to do absolutely anything. All true polymorph can do is turn creatures into objects, creatures into creatures and objects into creatures.

And seriously - once you've hit 9th level spells
1) A conventional castle is pretty easily attainable
2) A conventional castle is pretty pointless
 

TheSleepyKing

First Post
Technically (RAW), I would say yes to all of them except for the magic item ones. That's why the spell got so much heat when it first came out - it's terribly broken and essentially forces the DM to be a no-sayer.

The biggest problem is really the permanency. Doing all those things is flavorful and fun -- until it becomes permanent, at which point it's a problem. I've added three rules to the spell to make it work:
- Only the creature to creature version can be made permanent.
- No legendary creatures.
- On becoming permanent, a transformed creature loses all memory of it's former life and becomes a "generic" version of whatever it was tranformed into.
 

slachance6

First Post
You can't make a 9001 Sword because they don't exist in the game. Not that you can make a Magic Sword by raw anyway. You can turn something into an Object not a magic item.

Also for people who talk about turing into a Dragon using True Polymorph you have to have seen what you are turning something into.

A lot of game effects state "nonmagical objects". TP doesn't, so by RAW you could make a magic item.
 

Riley37

First Post
If you want to True Polymorph yourself into Pun-Pun, go ahead. Have fun!

It's not my cup of tea, but hey, you can play D&D your way and I can play it mine.
 



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