D&D 5E (2024) Need a recommendation for polymorphing enemies

MonsterEnvy · Wednesday at 3:16 AM

humble minion said:
As a long-time wildlife rescuer who has a LONG personal list of Critters I Have Been Bitten By, I would laugh til I cried if a player in my game argued they could pick up any tiny (and in this case, hostile) creature as a free action with no attack roll required. I suspect cat owners would be of the same opinion...

I agree it wouldn’t be easy with lots of small animals, but what is your opinion on just grabbing a turtle

humble minion · Wednesday at 3:39 AM

MonsterEnvy said:
I agree it wouldn’t be easy with lots of small animals, but what is your opinion on just grabbing a turtle

It might be different in other parts of the world, but this is the most common turtle where i come from.

Note the claws. They're well over half an inch long, coated in noxious riverbottom slime, and the legs have a surprising range of motion. Yes, it CAN get you with its back claws if you grab the shell by both sides, ask me how i know. At least it's not a snapping turtle I suppose.

At the very least, I'd require a PC picking up a turtle to have both hands free. Remember, in this scenario if you hurt the turtle (by picking it up carelessly, dropping it, etc) you risk it turning back to its original form, so caution is advised. Are you really going into the lich fight with empty hands, ready for turtle-grabbing duty? Cos if not, then you're having to drop your weapons/wands/whatever on the ground in order to free your hands to pick the thing up. Though I suppose you could choose to polymorph the critter into a carefully selected species of inoffensive miniature pet turtle with no claws that only eats grapes. Do they exist?

If you want a ridiculous metagamey combo, then one arcane trickster PC who can use bonus action mage hand to move a Bag of Holding next to the turtle, then another PC with the Telekinetic feat who can use their bonus action to shove the turtle in the bag then that'd get it done without requiring anyone to use their actions ... but that's probably getting well out of the scope of the original question.

Stormonu · Wednesday at 4:22 AM

I miss the days of being able to turn opponents into snails and it sticking (to the bottom of my foot?).

I think I like the plan of bringing a bag of rats and making them into T. Rexes (or Gargantua/Kaiju, if available) is the better route.

TaranTheWanderer · Wednesday at 4:26 AM

enemies wasting attacks on their allies to change them back is a win. I wouldn't sweat the HP. If you can get them to use two attacks, then great.

I do like the idea of the bag on rats into T-rexes. I also like the idea to turn them into something small. Like, if they are fighting in a field, turn them into an earth worm where it'd be almost impossible to see them in the grass. Or a house small ladybug or whatever.

One option is to turn one or two into a whale and let the size of the creature act as a barrier between you and multiple enemies. That lets you focus on fewer enemies while the others are trapped on the other side of the whale. It might work well in a cave or someplace cramped.

Stormonu · Wednesday at 3:51 PM

humble minion said:
It might be different in other parts of the world, but this is the most common turtle where i come from.

View attachment 435144

Note the claws. They're well over half an inch long, coated in noxious riverbottom slime, and the legs have a surprising range of motion. Yes, it CAN get you with its back claws if you grab the shell by both sides, ask me how i know. At least it's not a snapping turtle I suppose.

At the very least, I'd require a PC picking up a turtle to have both hands free. Remember, in this scenario if you hurt the turtle (by picking it up carelessly, dropping it, etc) you risk it turning back to its original form, so caution is advised. Are you really going into the lich fight with empty hands, ready for turtle-grabbing duty? Cos if not, then you're having to drop your weapons/wands/whatever on the ground in order to free your hands to pick the thing up. Though I suppose you could choose to polymorph the critter into a carefully selected species of inoffensive miniature pet turtle with no claws that only eats grapes. Do they exist?

If you want a ridiculous metagamey combo, then one arcane trickster PC who can use bonus action mage hand to move a Bag of Holding next to the turtle, then another PC with the Telekinetic feat who can use their bonus action to shove the turtle in the bag then that'd get it done without requiring anyone to use their actions ... but that's probably getting well out of the scope of the original question.

Box turtles around here - have to pick them up and move them quite commonly so my wife doesn't run them over backing out of the driveway. Easily grabbed in one hand, and while normally they retreat into their shells even "feisty" ones can be grabbed in way they can't bite or claw.

ECMO3 · 2026-04-23T14:33:49+0100

Well we finished the fight last night. The battle took the entire 4 hour session. The scroll itself was quite anti-climactic.

I pulled out the scroll after I lost concentration on Conjure Minor Elementals that I started with. I cast it and needed a 20 skill check, I have a +8 Charisma. I rolled a 8+8=16, told the DM I would use tactical Mind and rolled a 1 on that and then told the DM I was using my inspiration to reroll the D20 and came up with a 24 tot. Ok so the scroll was not going to fail. I told the DM I was transforming 9 creatures. Me into a T-Rex, the downed Cleric into a T-Rex, the fighter-type bad guy who still had all his it pints, the super lich and 7 other summoned beefed up Wraiths who had a +11 attack roll into Reef Sharks.

Well as I am going through who turns into what the DM says just roll your DC 25 save against Counterspell. I had a +7 Con save, advantage on saves against spells and was under the effect of a potion of Heroism .... and failed the save. I had already burned my inspiration and my Indomitable so the scroll went away with no effect :.-(

That was relatively early in the fight. We sogged through it for the next 3+ hours. We got the big bad low for him to just fully heal himself, once with a Wish (although to be fair we did that at one point too), the other time using Time Stop followed by a flurry of spells. The Cleric ended up dead, One of the Barbarians went to 0 so many times he had to make a DC30 con save to remain standing the other Barbarian had to make 2 saves to remain standing. The Rogue/Sorcerer went down the round before we killed the big boss Lich thing. I gave him a potion of Greater healing on my turn and on his turn he stood up and landed a quickened truestrike sneak attack, beat the counterspell and killed the big bad.

Next week we start a new campaign at level 1 ... going from level 20 with 2 extra boons all the way back to level 1 is going to be an adjustment. The new campaign is an exploration-based campaign in Chult. We are using Dr. Dhrolin's Dinosaur book. I am playing a Child of Seth species (basically a Pterodactyl humanoid) and I am going to start out as a Ranger playing a Ranger/Wizard/Cleric (level 20 if we get there Winter Ranger 4/Bladesinger 12/Nature Cleric 4.