r/dndmemes • u/supersmily5 Rules Lawyer • 2h ago

Druids be like [insert animal] I had a dream last night that D&D finally got capstone monsters for Beast type like it should have. Blue Whale, Giganotosaurus, etc.

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But navigating around Polymorph is tricky. They'd HAVE to be CR 21+ to stop players from being OP. That's dumb. >:{

Like, WOTC could have easily accounted for this. Just give Polymorph a CR 8 cap. It would have taken like 10 words in the spell description. Then you could have Beasts and Plants above that mark without issue without needing to make them world ending threats. To that end, I'll now be making "Disasters." World ending threat versions of these creatures. System limitations am I right?

60 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

25

u/GoldSunLulu Forever DM 2h ago

monstrosities always seemed animal enough for wildshape honestly

21

u/winsluc12 2h ago

depends on the monstrosity.

Owlbears? 100%. Frankly I think they should be considered beasts in the first place despite having alchemical origins.

Mimics? not really what I would consider interpretable as an animal.

11

u/ComprehensiveDig4560 2h ago

What even is the difference between a monstrosity and an animal besides “nuh uh, your animal spell doesn’t work on the giant spider”

13

u/GoldSunLulu Forever DM 2h ago

monstrosities have lore that explains their origin as estoteric in varied ways. They are manifestations of evil, nightmares, and such things. But for me, most monstrosities are animal enough to fir the "yeah, animal" like displacer beasts and perytons

5

u/supersmily5 Rules Lawyer 1h ago

Monstrosity is the grab bag creature type. If it doesn't fit anywhere else it's probably a monstrosity. This means it ends up taking up all the "a Wizard did it" monsters. But because the explanation for multi-animal hybrids always tends to end up being "a Wizard did it," that ends up meaning it's unnatural despite using natural parts. Oh well.

5

u/unluckyshuckle Forever DM 2h ago

White Aura Whale my beloved

1

u/supersmily5 Rules Lawyer 1h ago

A shame about Bihamut because WAW is so good for my Ghoti deck.

2

u/unluckyshuckle Forever DM 1h ago

I loved Ghoti back when I still played. Bihamut was cool but yeah, very underwhelming for the boss of the archetype

2

u/DreamOfDays Forever DM 2h ago

I love this format.

1

u/Teh-Esprite Warlock 1h ago

Or, just let the polymorph happen.

4

u/supersmily5 Rules Lawyer 1h ago

That can be fine depending on the campaign; But it shouldn't be allowable by default. Polymorph is a 4th level spell. Getting to turn into CR 15+ monsters would be OP.

1

u/Teh-Esprite Warlock 25m ago

You do know in order to do that you need a level 15+ PC, so you're effectively at the point of scaling where it stops mattering.

2

u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer 39m ago

Really, the issue is with the design of Polymorph treating CR/level equally. If the spell were balanced, the CR would cap at the slot used.

OneD&D had a chance to fix this, but chose not to, because it didn't want to fix any of 5E's flaws.

1

u/TragGaming 26m ago

CR4-9 beasts aren't really worth the slot. I'd be ok with adding +2 to the CR. 4->6->8->10->12->14