Yes, you can.
The polymorph spell in the Player’s Handbook and SRD states the following:
“This spell transforms a creature that you can see within range into a new form.”
Player’s Handbook
As you are a creature and you can see yourself, you can also cast polymorph on yourself.
Some questions do arise over whether a Spellcaster can concentrate on a spell in their polymorphed form as their mental ability scores diminish in the new form and beasts are unable to cast spells. This has been cleared up by Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls with some sage advice stating that a polymorphed creature can maintain concentration on a spell.
While this is handy as it allows you to polymorph yourself, remember, it also applies to enemy Spellcasters that may have cast a concentration spell themselves and can maintain the effects when you polymorph them.
Why would you want to polymorph yourself?
There are a few reasons you’d want to polymorph yourself:
- Stealth: some creatures are small or sneaky making stealth much easier
- Abilities: Some creatures have useful abilities like flight or the ability to swim fast underwater that you may want to use
- Extra hit points: when polymorphed, damage isn’t taken against your main pool of hit points but against the creature you’ve transformed into. Once you hit 0 hit points in this form, you revert to your actual form with the hit points you had before you polymorphed.
- Extra damage: some creatures do more damage than you can in your natural form
Ask Dungeon Mister: Submit your question
Got a question of your own? Use our form below to submit your own questions and we’ll do our best to provide an answer: