| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So I have a Druid conundrum. Once again, it involves the Powerful Shape feat, the Ant Haul spell, and the herculean amounts of weight that a druid can carry. It stems largely from an incident that happened recently in one of my games.
The setting: The Druid and the party were entering a castle keep to warn an important NPC. They knew a prominent bad guy had dispatched assassins to specifically kill this NPC, and may even be making an appearance himself to make sure the job gets done. The party gets there at the same time as the assassination team. The assassination team will stop at nothing to kill this NPC, and while they do want to kill the party too, they are going out of their way to kill this weak NPC first. The druid is in T-Rex form, because he also has Wild Speech and likes to be a talking dinosaur.
Since there are a lot of assassins, and a full attack from any one of these assassins could mean death for this weak NPC, the Druid stuffs the entire NPC in his giant T-Rex mouth, effectively making it impossible for the assassins to get at the NPC without first getting through a few layers of T-Rex. After a round of assassins trying to get through a few layers of T-Rex, the Druid sees an arrow slit, turns into a humming bird, and flies out through the arrow slit.
What happens to the NPC? Wild Shape works like a polymorph spell in that equipment and anything that you carry meld into the Druid when they Wild Shape and become inaccessible, effectively putting all of the Druid's possession into a "Druid Dimension". Because of the way Powerful Shape, Ant Haul, and the strength of the Druid affect carrying capacity, this is a humming bird capable of carrying with minimal difficulty 345 lbs, putting the frail NPC well within the Druid's carrying capacity. This NPC is a living person completely willing to let this Druid go to extreme measures to protect him from murder.
Does the NPC get folded into the "Druid Dimension"? Can the NPC get out of the "Druid Dimension" by choice if he changes his mind? Is there air in the "Druid Dimension"? Does the NPC have a bird's eye view of whatever part of the hummingbird he has been warped into? Does the NPC become inert? Does the NPC come bursting out of the Druid's animal body screaming 'The miracle of life!'as the size transformation takes place? Do they form an amorphous half hummingbird half man monstrosity begging for the sweet release of death?
All these and more are the mysteries of the "Druid Dimension". What are your thoughts?
I can't seem to find the line where creatures are melded into the Druid during a wild shape. Items and equipment, yes. Living creatures, no. Unconscious creatures could, at a push, be seen as an item (maybe) but I still wouldn't allow it.
I would think the NPC, in this case, is harmlessly deposited on the ground where the Tyrant Lizard was.
There are no rules for this. I would say the NPC was pushed out of the druid during the wildshape change, and deposited in an adjacent square of the druid's choice.
I'd let it go, 'cause it's "cool." NPC gets out when the wildshape ends.
I'd let it go, 'cause it's "cool." NPC gets out when the wildshape ends.
I think it would be "cool" if the druid burst into little tiny humming bird bits if this was attempted, leaving a bewildered NPC prone in middle of a gory mess. That would be cool. But then the players would hate me. Why do you hate me? WHY!?!
I don't believe there are any rules for this sort of situation explicitly. I think the only thing that is relevant is the whole "item meld into druid" but. But a person isn't an item. I would say that the NPC probably is harmlessly expelled from the mouth as the druid changes, which is probably not the desired effect that the player wanted. Which means there will probably be some retroactive not wildhshaping and a mad scramble to figure out how to GTFO without the NPC dying.
|
I think that this line stops the NPC from being caught up in the wild shape:
form the PRD magic section on polymorph:
When you cast a polymorph spell that changes you into a creature of the animal, dragon, elemental, magical beast, plant, or vermin type, all of your gear melds into your body.
(bolding mine)
The NPC is not your gear. If a person can be claimed as gear, then some spells ,like invisibility for example, should also work on them if the caster casts it on themselves while "owning" the NPC. This opens some other fun loopholes too, for example, your gear is unaffected by magic unless you roll a 1 on a saving throw. Thus the NPC in your mouth (that just sounds bad), never needs to make any saving throws, and even if you do fail with a 1, your shield, armor, head gear, item in hand, cloak, sheathed weapon, bracers, clothing, and jewelry would all have to be affected first, before that "anything else" that the NPC is in would be affected. (as shown here in the PRD.)
I would work it as the NPC finds themselves standing, unharmed and covered in dino spit (+2 circumstance bonus vs grapple), next to a hummingbird.
Thus the NPC in your mouth (that just sounds bad)
Hey, I don't go to your castle and knock the NPC's out of your mouth. - Heard on the forums
Hmm, do slaves count as gear?
|
If the NPC had jumped into a Bag of Holding the druid was carrying I'd allow it, since the NPC would be in a real, clearly defined extra dimension and the druid is merely carrying the physical entrance into that dimension in his merged gear.
Otherwise living creatures aren't gear and I'd go with "harmlessly expelled."
Good idea, though.
I once played a barbarian that kept a tied up rabid goblin as a club, if you asked him he would consider it "gear";). joking aside to the op, as others have stated, this is in the houserule territory. whoever is dm can rule the results as they wish.
|
NPC living person is NOT an item of gear, and thus it cannot be transformed with the Druid.
Spat out on the ground, random directional die to determine what spot he falls into, ingloriously covered in T-Rex saliva and probably more than a bit perturbed at having been "gummed" and "tongued" (now who sounds naughty?) by a talking dino.
Bonus "cool" points if the talking T-Rex is purple.