D&D 5E True Polymorph - Too powerful?

[MarkB]

No then the person who is now permanently a Hydra is making Death Saving Throws or dead.

Good point. I hadn't read the spell description closely enough. It does appear that the "reverts on 0 hit points" part does go away once the spell becomes permanent.

 

[AtomicPope]

The bolded part isn't true with the spell. The spell specifically keeps alignment and personality, so the new hydra wouldn't need dominate monster unless the one being changed was mean or an evil cuss. A good PC would be like a dog. It would be loyal, perhaps kind, good, etc. What it wouldn't be is smart enough to understand the plan, so if they start cutting off its heads it would turn right quick and fight back like any animal would if you were killing it over and over.

That's only true if they were True Polymorphed into a dog.

A hydra has a lower intelligence than a dog.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Some options:

1. Just let him win D&D. He now gets to spend the rest of his life as a Hydra, until someone casts dispel magic with a 9th level slot or makes a DC 19 ability check with it. Depending on the group this might be a trivial issue, or a huge obstacle.

2. Limit the number of heads a hydra can have. Only so many can fit in a limited space anyway. Also I don't really understand how they did this beheading. A hydra has a net loss of 5 HP each round it regrows heads, and that is a minimum if you manage to do exactly 25 damage (not an easy feat in D&D). By my math you could only get up to 33 heads without magical healing if you were delivering near perfect doses of 25 damage per 6 seconds. That's still more than I would allow, but it makes this more in the realm of standard necromancer player cheese rather than instant win-button and we-can't-actually-roll-all-these gamebreaking. And honestly between bringing a 33 headed hydra to a fight that wasn't against a bunch of mooks and bringing a 17+ level Wizard, I'd choose the Wizard.

3. Have the BBEG be one of the numerous creatures immune to non-magical piercing damage. You can still let the player steamroll a bunch of minions and feel awesome without letting them necessarily lay a point of damage on the main villain. Remember that any humanoid can contract lycanthropy, and gain this protection.

4. Have the BBEG be capable of flying out of the 10 foot reach of this land-bound creature. Once again, let the player steamroll other enemies and feel awesome, maybe even let them finish off the villain once the group knocks them out of the sky.

5. Have enemies target the hydra. It only has 172 hit points if you remember to use fire, is a big target, and probably has the lowest AC in the group. It can kill anything not immune to its attacks that it gets in range with, but it can only get in range with so many enemies in the course of a combat. Focused fire could end it real fast.

6. Target the hydra with practically any spells. It has crap saves on anything it doesn't get advantage against. Slow would be the funniest to hit it with successfully (it can now make 1 attack), but targeting Charisma or Intelligence saves is more likely to land. And, while it's not a save, it is incapable of making the DC 20 Int ability check to escape Maze. The fight can become about breaking the BBEG's or a spellcaster minion's concentration so that the hydra can get back in the action and go to town.

7. Let it do some damage, then target the hydra with a level 9 Dispel Magic.

I wouldn't ban True Polymorph, as, aside from requiring retconning, that is a rather extreme solution to a powergaming tactic that really isn't as ironclad as it at first seems, and you have reached the levels where 5e D&D isn't really balanced and where the campaign is presumably reaching its end anyway. Players have slogged through a lot of levels to throw 9th level magic around, and they should get to reap rewards, the rewards just can't be allowed to trivialize the climactic battles of the campaign. I would instead reward creative play and extensive levelling by making the thousand-headed hydra useful, but maybe not as useful as it at first seems, and avoid letting it hog all the glory in the final encounter.

 

[D1Tremere]

My usual response to these types of questions is why care? If the players are having fun you are doing your job. Full stop. Everything sounds like a group of people having fun.

 

[abirdcall]

1. Make a ruling. The Hydra in the MM has 5 heads. Why do all hydras only have 5 heads when they can grow new ones? The extra heads must die off at some point. Also, making a hydra grow too many heads actually sounds like a great way to defeat one in an actual battle. At some point it's going to have too many and get tangled up and fall over. My ruling here is that the Hydra-Wizard could have many heads (not 1000) but would be completely immobilized by them.

2. You've got a level 17+ Wizard who cannot cast spells and is big, bulky, and slow. They're nerfing themselves. In the PHB it says Tier 4 is when you take on adventures that affect the entire multiverse. A Hydra, even with a lot of heads, is not going to be as effective as a very high level Wizard in this situation.

3. I hope this isn't going to be a single encounter. Any BBEG worth a challenge in Tier 4 is going to have all sorts of defenses and obstacles they can put in the party's way. They should be facing 5+ encounters/challenges before getting to the BBEG which require different tactics and solutions. A big bulky slow Hydra will probably slow them down more than help.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Also being a Hydra sounds miserable.

Everlasting Hunger. A rapacious and gluttonous monster, a hydra snatches and tears apart its prey in a frenzy of feeding. When a hydra has cleared a territory of food and driven off any creatures smart enough to avoid it, it moves on to seek its meals elsewhere. A hydra’s hunger is so great that if it can’t feed, it might turn against itself, its heads attacking each other as the creature eats itself alive.

 

[Dausuul]

My usual response to these types of questions is why care? If the players are having fun you are doing your job. Full stop.

If the players are having fun, but the DM is not having fun, there is a problem.

Everything sounds like a group of people having fun.

If the DM were having fun, presumably this thread would not exist.

 

[Nefermandias]

There's a couple of things happening here that are important:
1) If the polymorph lasts for the entire duration, it's permanent.
2) Concentration can be broken. A hydra fights back. If it breaks concentration then you lose your 9th level spell.
3) Mental changes occur. Hydras are not friendly, even when you chop their head off for a good reason. You'd need to Dominate Monster.
4) Truesight (and Witchsight) reveals shapechangers. This opens the door to removing True Polymorph and ruining the surprise.
5) Disintegrate destroys True Polymorphed creatures. They do not revert back. That often comes as a surprise to shapechangers.

I bring these up because in an Epic campaign my 20th Level Warlock disintegrated a Shapechanger, much to the surprise of the DM. The only stipulation for reverting back is from hit point damage. True Polymorph does not prevent death effects. Finger of Death would do the same. It kills the target when they reach zero hit points. No save. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 electrum. Big monsters like Hydras have notoriously low Dex saves.

Finger of Death doesn't automatically kills the target at 0 HP.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I've been watching for a while (and dming!) here and taking everybody's insight but I finally created an account to ask a pressing question.

What would you do here. I don't want to ruin any friendships. I'm thinking of banning true polymorph from future games.

Thanks for the help!

Hi Mark! Welcome!

As mentioned, the caster would have to endure the pain of severance and regrowth many times, and succeed all of the concentration checks. It would be much easier to assume the form of a maximally strong hydra, one with 12 heads. (Why twelve heads? Because twelve is a mythic number, suitably large, and 12d20 is a fistful of dice. It sounds good to me.)

Also mentioned, you develop the mentation of the beast. While a WIS 10 would, in my estimation, allow you to remember who your friends and foes are, an INT 2 would make that difficult to remember with repeated beheadings.

9th level spells are powerful and meant to be so. Let them glory in their might. But, make a distinction between powerful and absurd.

 

[Maxperson]

Hi Mark! Welcome!

As mentioned, the caster would have to endure the pain of severance and regrowth many times, and succeed all of the concentration checks. It would be much easier to assume the form of a maximally strong hydra, one with 12 heads. (Why twelve heads? Because twelve is a mythic number, suitably large, and 12d20 is a fistful of dice. It sounds good to me.)

Also mentioned, you develop the mentation of the beast. While a WIS 10 would, in my estimation, allow you to remember who your friends and foes are, an INT 2 would make that difficult to remember with repeated beheadings.

9th level spells are powerful and meant to be so. Let them glory in their might. But, make a distinction between powerful and absurd.

I think one of the morals of this story is that if you are going to try and pull this stunt, cast True Polymorph on a different party member.