D&D 5E Polymorph is a bad de-buff spell

[iserith]

I'm going to call you on this. Show me anything that suggests a random fighter somehow knows that he can suicide his way out of a polymorph spell. Is it in the spell text? Nope. Is it in the fighter write up in the PHB? Nope. Combat description in the PHB? Nope. Go ahead, find something. I dare you. I would say is that crickets I heard, but I think the toad is eating them.

The fighter doesn't have to know that he or she can "suicide" his or her way out of a polymorph spell. That knowledge is not required for the player to describe the character in toad form leaping at the extended blade of a nearby ally. And if the DM for some reason demands an explanation as to why the toad did that, I've already given you one upthread. One of many that could easily be imagined.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The party's wizard, bard, and druid all have access to polymorph and should know how it works. So no challenge there.

By this logic, the party's wizard should be able to hit four different people with a sword in a round, because the fighter knows how to do that.

 

[Blue]

I guess I'm an unreasonable DM then. While the spell does say that the creature is limited in its actions due to its new form, this appears to chiefly refer to physical actions like speaking, casting spells, or doing useful things with its hands. There's nothing in the spell that to my knowledge suggests the player is not in control of his or her own character even when that character is temporarily in the form of an Int-1 toad. And, physically, there's nothing stopping a toad from jumping onto the business end of an ally's blade and, if the DM wants for some reason to complain about it, the player can just say - no doubt after a sigh so big that it can be heard clear across the world - that the toad's got an Int-1 and made a bad decision.

I believe the earlier poster was talking about the case for if the character-toad realizes that they can end the polymorph by taking sufficient damage.

There's a line to walk where the DM should never tell the player how to play their character, and the DM preserve that characters shouldn't use metagame knowledge. If a player played a module in the past and just so happens that their character guides the party past every trap, knows every foe weakness, and finds every hidden bonus, there's a problem. Same can be said here if the fighter has never seen or experienced polymorph. Could their character have heard this, swapping tales around the table? Sure, and calling for an ability check could eb the way at some tables it's resolved.

(But really, that's all just for explanation what I think the earlier poster was saying. It's nto an endorsement either way by me, and I don't want to derail this thread if that's good or bad play.)

 

[Yunru]

By this logic, the party's wizard should be able to hit four different people with a sword in a round, because the fighter knows how to do that.

That's false equivalence.
By that logic the Wizard should be able to know how to, but like the Fighter's knowledge of the spell, it's academic only. Each lacks the training the other has gone through to be able to use that knowledge.

 

[iserith]

I believe the earlier poster was talking about the case for if the character-toad realizes that they can end the polymorph by taking sufficient damage.

There's a line to walk where the DM should never tell the player how to play their character, and the DM preserve that characters shouldn't use metagame knowledge. If a player played a module in the past and just so happens that their character guides the party past every trap, knows every foe weakness, and finds every hidden bonus, there's a problem. Same can be said here if the fighter has never seen or experienced polymorph. Could their character have heard this, swapping tales around the table? Sure, and calling for an ability check could eb the way at some tables it's resolved.

(But really, that's all just for explanation what I think the earlier poster was saying. It's nto an endorsement either way by me, and I don't want to derail this thread if that's good or bad play.)

As I show here, the toad jumping into the ally's blade is not contingent upon the fighter knowing anything about the polymorph spell. And if the DM is one of those folks who is hung up on Intelligence scores determining what a player may declare a character as attempting, then he or she can just say the toad has Int-1 and makes bad decisions.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The fighter doesn't have to know that he or she can "suicide" his or her way out of a polymorph spell. That knowledge is not required for the player to describe the character in toad form leaping at the extended blade of a nearby ally. And if the DM for some reason demands an explanation as to why the toad did that, I've already given you one upthread. One of many that could easily be imagined.

My imagination isn't that great. Give me five more explanations.

I am thoroughly unimpressed by this flimsy smokescreen attempt to divert the fact that the spell's only problem is player metaknowledge. I mean if the wizard cast the spell on a goblin, and the goblin-toad "miraculously" jumped on the spear of another goblin, everyone here would be whining and moaning about how the DM had hosed the wizard's player.

 

[iserith]

My imagination isn't that great. Give me five more explanations.

I am thoroughly unimpressed by this flimsy smokescreen attempt to divert the fact that the spell's only problem is player metaknowledge. I mean if the wizard cast the spell on a goblin, and the goblin-toad "miraculously" jumped on the spear of another goblin, everyone here would be whining and moaning about how the DM had hosed the wizard's player.

I would say it's just the D&D Thought Police who would be whining here and I'd be happy to explain to any of them, players and DMs alike, why that's totally counterproductive. Almost as counterproductive as wasting a 4th-level polymorph spell to turn a 7-hp goblin into a 1-hp toad. That's an Int-1 move right there. Toad-level tactics.

 

[Yunru]

My imagination isn't that great. Give me five more explanations.

I am thoroughly unimpressed by this flimsy smokescreen attempt to divert the fact that the spell's only problem is player metaknowledge. I mean if the wizard cast the spell on a goblin, and the goblin-toad "miraculously" jumped on the spear of another goblin, everyone here would be whining and moaning about how the DM had hosed the wizard's player.

Hahaha! What.
"Metaknowledge"
It's not metaknowledge when the in game fiction has an in fiction spell with in fiction limitations. That's just "knowledge".

 

[Retreater]

By this logic, the party's wizard should be able to hit four different people with a sword in a round, because the fighter knows how to do that.

Uh. I'm saying that there are three other characters in the party who can easily deduce how to end the spell effect on the fighter (e.g. "magic missile that toad - problem solved." )

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I stand corrected. Surely you can regale me with stories about how the bard was blinded, and threw himself on the barbarian's ax. Or a rogue was grappled, and couldn't live with the shame, so he cut his own throat. Bestow curse is pretty nasty too, so maybe the sorcerer who gets cursed fireballs himself. These all must be reasonable things that players do to their PC's all the time; I mean, there must be hundreds of anecdotes about that.....