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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 6389393" data-attributes="member: 30022">I note that you added 3x ambush drakes to the encounter to buff up the CR. Here's what I would have done as the DM...1. Druid wins initiative and polymorphs the giant into a trout. PCs celebrate with high-fives!2. Ambush drakes look puzzled, notice a trout flopping around on the floor, and take a bite out of that tasty fishy treat.3. Trout takes at least 1 hp of damage, and is immediately returned to angry cloud giant form, with a drake's tooth sticking out of his rear end. He then proceeds to go Barry Bonds on the druid with his club...Is polymorph a problem? No, I don't think so. It's a high level spell. At 10th level, the party is already 2 levels past the extreme end of what the module is expecting, and adding a few ambush drakes isn't really changing that. So, you're basically saying: "Fireball is way too powerful for the classic 1st-3rd level module B2 - Keep on the Borderlands. I added some more goblins to the fight, but they still all got toasted." It's not just a case of increased damage. Higher level PCs have access to abilities that lower-level creatures and modules just cannot anticipate.Blagothkus really isn't that tough an opponent for your party. He's a CR  9 creature, facing a 10th level party. He has no Legendary abilities, no lair abilities, few spells, no allies in the fight beyond a handful of low-level drakes. Would you be disappointed if a  2nd level party took out a CR 1 bugbear with a single spell (e.g. sleep)? Same thing. Finally, as a member of that party, I'd actually feel pretty pumped. The druid dropped a huge opponent with a single spell. That's awesome! We didn't have to play out 14 rounds of slowly whittling it down (and yes, I'm speaking as a 4e fan). That's incredibly memorable - even more so if you polymorphed it into something humorous. Turn it into a canary, and carry it around in a little cage! Sure, that could go very wrong at a later date, but it's cool. D&D is a fun game. Sometimes, the fun can be found in the unexpected defeat of a powerful opponent through trivial means.But, to quote Han Solo: "Don't get cocky, kid". The next time you run into a boss monster, it might have a couple of Legendary Saves, or Magic Resistance, or a prepared counterspell. At that point, the druid's polymorph isn't really going to help...</blockquote>

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