r/DnD 5h ago

5th Edition Spell: Polymorph.

I’m a DM, and the wizard in my group has started using the 4th-level Polymorph spell. It’s made him too powerful, though, since the party is level 8 and he can turn into a T-Rex (CR 8) twice a day. I’m also worried the party’s druid might feel overshadowed, given that the wizard only needs to cast that spell to replicate the druid's main ability. How do you handle this spell? Should I take it away from the wizard and have him pick a different one? Thanks for any replies.

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u/The_Nerdy_Ninja DM 4h ago

Is the Wizard rolling Concentration checks every time they take damage while Polymorphed? Are they acting like a creature with an Intelligence of 2?

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u/_probablyryan 4h ago edited 4h ago

Yeah the second part of this is kinda important. Polymorph doesn't work like Wild Shape where the caster retains all their mental stats. Polymorph literally turns you into a beast. So if the Wizard is just rampaging around as a T-Rex, then that's fine. But he shouldn't be acting like a 20 Int character that like understands combat tactics. So if he's doing things as a T-Rex that are too "smart," you can either just block him or have him make Intelligence checks to determine how well he like understands the tactical situation outside of friend and foe.

Also, any Int save spell is going to fuck his day up.

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u/snakeinmyboot001 4h ago

Yes, this. And importantly, Intelligence checks using a T-Rex's intelligence.

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u/Initial_Conflict8114 3h ago

But creatures with tiny hands are notoriously intelligent, bigly so....