Mnemnosyne
2013-04-01, 07:48 PM
I've been thinking about how to make permanent, undispellable physical changes to a character, things that would normally come about more from an Instantaneous spell than a Permanent one. This is primarily for purposes of appearance; body sculpting, fashion, that sort of thing. It's not meant to give actual additional abilities, but who knows, maybe it would.
Perhaps there's a more straightforward, simple way to do it that I don't know about. An instantaneous spell that has the correct effects, or some other permanent, undispellable means. If so, would be glad to learn about it. But, assuming there's not...
Polymorph any object can easily be used to make a Permanent physical change to a body, if the race of the original subject and the target form are the same - the idea is purely to make the character taller, shorter, slimmer, fatter, increase or reduce the size of features like breasts, butt, thighs, give more sculpted muscle appearance, or change the face. But these changes are forever subject to being dispelled, and they are suppressed in an area of antimagic.
So, I think to myself, what if we combine flesh to stone with polymorph? Polymorph the subject into the desired appearance, then flesh to stone them. What happens when the polymorph expires, or is dispelled? The polymorph presumably can't return them to their original form, because they're now a statue. Hell, they're not even a valid target for normal polymorph at this point. Does that mean that the statue is unaffected when polymorph expires, so what you have is a statue of the polymorphed form? Seems reasonable. And what's the result if we then cast stone to flesh on the statue? Does it change back into the original, pre-polymorph character, or does it change back into the original race/type/etc, but with the same shape as the statue?
To be honest, I don't fully expect RAW to cover this one way or the other. I'd be a bit surprised if someone can explain it in a way that there's a clear answer found within the rules, since personally I can't find any interpretation of the rules that actually answers these questions. Assuming lack of RAW, I'm looking for other people's opinions on what the result would be; I'd like to see if others agree with my line of reasoning or not.
Now, so far, this isn't being abusive or trying to stretch the mechanical effects too much, we're just looking for a way to reshape bodies without granting any new abilities of any kind. But assuming it does work to reshape bodies cosmetically, we then have to ask, what happens when we try to add physical features? If we use the same process, but change the person into something with claws, or wings? Would the person retain the ability to fly, or would the stone to flesh restore the 'added' parts as otherwise inert lumps of flesh, so the person is now stuck with huge fleshy wings that have no muscles or ability to lift?
Perhaps there's a more straightforward, simple way to do it that I don't know about. An instantaneous spell that has the correct effects, or some other permanent, undispellable means. If so, would be glad to learn about it. But, assuming there's not...
Polymorph any object can easily be used to make a Permanent physical change to a body, if the race of the original subject and the target form are the same - the idea is purely to make the character taller, shorter, slimmer, fatter, increase or reduce the size of features like breasts, butt, thighs, give more sculpted muscle appearance, or change the face. But these changes are forever subject to being dispelled, and they are suppressed in an area of antimagic.
So, I think to myself, what if we combine flesh to stone with polymorph? Polymorph the subject into the desired appearance, then flesh to stone them. What happens when the polymorph expires, or is dispelled? The polymorph presumably can't return them to their original form, because they're now a statue. Hell, they're not even a valid target for normal polymorph at this point. Does that mean that the statue is unaffected when polymorph expires, so what you have is a statue of the polymorphed form? Seems reasonable. And what's the result if we then cast stone to flesh on the statue? Does it change back into the original, pre-polymorph character, or does it change back into the original race/type/etc, but with the same shape as the statue?
To be honest, I don't fully expect RAW to cover this one way or the other. I'd be a bit surprised if someone can explain it in a way that there's a clear answer found within the rules, since personally I can't find any interpretation of the rules that actually answers these questions. Assuming lack of RAW, I'm looking for other people's opinions on what the result would be; I'd like to see if others agree with my line of reasoning or not.
Now, so far, this isn't being abusive or trying to stretch the mechanical effects too much, we're just looking for a way to reshape bodies without granting any new abilities of any kind. But assuming it does work to reshape bodies cosmetically, we then have to ask, what happens when we try to add physical features? If we use the same process, but change the person into something with claws, or wings? Would the person retain the ability to fly, or would the stone to flesh restore the 'added' parts as otherwise inert lumps of flesh, so the person is now stuck with huge fleshy wings that have no muscles or ability to lift?