johnbragg
2013-09-20, 09:30 AM
For me, characters like Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (I could go on naming similar ones, but when my second was Jafar turning into a giant snake, I realized that my impending trip to Orlando was influencing my examples) are staples of fantasy.
I agree with this quote from the "PF--Am I Missing Something?" thread. It's a staple of fantasy and fairy tales etc etc--magicians turning into animals to escape or to be sneaky, or into ferocious beast-things to fight, ur-druid-ranger-types turning into wild animals. Magicians turning victims into frogs and pigs and such. Magicians using magic to impersonate some particular person.
It's not really a staple of fantasy that the wizard can turn himself into a huge variety of creatures, though. (Unless his thing is shapechanger.)
Would it make sense to replace the Polymorph Self spell with a couple of Feats? Edit--or maybe require a feat to use the particular spell?
1. Animal Shape. Pick an animal or vermin. You have the ability to assume that form X times per day/at will/etc/by casting a spell. You can take this feat multiple times, choosing a new animal each time.
2. Beastform. Pick something out of the Monster Manual with 15HD or less, or custom-build a horror of the same power level. You have the ability to turn into that (subject to the DM vetoing your custom horror.) Maybe you could take this multiple times--maybe if you custom build for a quest, you'd want more flexibility later?
3. A separate spell for when you want to use Polymorph to turbocharge your Disguise Self/Alter Self spell.
This would mean more bookkeeping when the player gets the ability, but less during actual gameplay, since player and DM have the stats of Bargle's animal form(s) and beastform.
I agree with this quote from the "PF--Am I Missing Something?" thread. It's a staple of fantasy and fairy tales etc etc--magicians turning into animals to escape or to be sneaky, or into ferocious beast-things to fight, ur-druid-ranger-types turning into wild animals. Magicians turning victims into frogs and pigs and such. Magicians using magic to impersonate some particular person.
It's not really a staple of fantasy that the wizard can turn himself into a huge variety of creatures, though. (Unless his thing is shapechanger.)
Would it make sense to replace the Polymorph Self spell with a couple of Feats? Edit--or maybe require a feat to use the particular spell?
1. Animal Shape. Pick an animal or vermin. You have the ability to assume that form X times per day/at will/etc/by casting a spell. You can take this feat multiple times, choosing a new animal each time.
2. Beastform. Pick something out of the Monster Manual with 15HD or less, or custom-build a horror of the same power level. You have the ability to turn into that (subject to the DM vetoing your custom horror.) Maybe you could take this multiple times--maybe if you custom build for a quest, you'd want more flexibility later?
3. A separate spell for when you want to use Polymorph to turbocharge your Disguise Self/Alter Self spell.
This would mean more bookkeeping when the player gets the ability, but less during actual gameplay, since player and DM have the stats of Bargle's animal form(s) and beastform.