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View Full Version : Polymorph, Shape Change, et al - a simple fix...



Teloric
2007-02-01, 05:17 PM
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Teloric, and I'm new to this forum. I've been reading the Order of the Stick for a while now, and love it. Recently, my old gaming group has been planning a return to roleplaying, and we're going to look at DnD, in its latest incarnation.

I've been looking at creating a Wizard, and am considering specialization. In my research into this subject, I've encountered numerous articles, opinions, and ideas about the troubles with the Polymorph spell, and similar spells/abilities.

Now it seems to me that the easiest way to control this ability is to take the same approach as the Summoning spells. Can a spellcaster use the summon spells to summon anything? No, unless we're talking about top level spells. So, why should a Polymorph be able to turn into anything?

I propose that the Polymorph spell (and affiliates) be simply changed to list a number of creatures that the spell target may be turned into. This way you could introduce a whole series of Polymorph spells with the names "Polymorph I" and "Polymorph II", etc. Then simply list the creatures that you may turn into. Heck, you could even just use the same lists as the Summoning spells.

Okay, so maybe this isn't a perfect solution, but I think it's a lot more useable, and a lot less abusive.

Cheers!

Fhaolan
2007-02-01, 05:33 PM
I think this one has actually been proposed a number of times, and it usually gets discounted as too much work (as in building the lists available by level). I'm not saying it *is* too much work, just that is why I think the idea gets dropped each time and other proposals show up.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-01, 05:48 PM
You'll note that the direction WotC has been going is even more restrictive. Any book that introduces new spells with the new Polymorph subschool has a spell or two whose entire focus is turning you into one particular type of creature. For instance, if you want to turn into a red dragon, you'd use dragonshape from PHB2. Wanna turn into a hell hound? Use shape of the hellspawned stalker from Complete Mage.

Now, these spells don't actually tackle polymorph directly. But WotC has been officially shunning the spell polymorph for almost a year now. They can't force us to not use polymorph any more than they can force us to use 3.5 over 3.0, but WotC products no longer reference polymorph, and this new line of spells is how they intend us players to handle shapechanging.

Personally, I've always had a thing for themed characters, so being restricted to a single form with any given spell suits me just fine.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 07:13 PM
The thing is, the new Polymorphs aren't much better than the old ones. You lose your class features, which is probably too *much* loss... and you gain some things you didn't gain before.
Like the monster's spellcasting.

daggaz
2007-02-01, 07:23 PM
No kidding. Anything that allows you to gain the powers of a dragon should be AT LEAST as hard to attain as killing said dragon itself. Alone.

Because its infinitely more useful. You can switch to dragonform everyday if you have the right spell. That dragons hoard, tho it will afford you a ton o gold and many a magical item, is finite and will eventually run out or scale out or both.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-01, 07:26 PM
The thing is, the new Polymorphs aren't much better than the old ones. You lose your class features, which is probably too *much* loss... and you gain some things you didn't gain before.
Like the monster's spellcasting.
In some cases, maybe.

Dragonshape (PHB2) specifically prohibits you from gaining red dragon spellcasting. Even if it gave it to you, you'd trade in your 17th-level caster level for the abilities of a 9th-level sorcerer.

Other spells place other restrictions on abilities you do gain. dreaded form of the eye tyrant (Complete Mage), for example only lets you use each eye ray once.

The point is, if any of the new polymorph forms is overpowered in anyway, you can blame it on the spell, disallow it, and still maintain a staple theme of fantasy through other shapechanging spells.

The_Snark
2007-02-01, 07:30 PM
The thing is, the new Polymorphs aren't much better than the old ones. You lose your class features, which is probably too *much* loss... and you gain some things you didn't gain before.
Like the monster's spellcasting.

Uhhh... which spell are you looking at here? I'm looking at Dragonshape, from the PHBII, and it specifically states that you do not get the monster's spellcasting. Don't know if that's what you were referring to.


No kidding. Anything that allows you to gain the powers of a dragon should be AT LEAST as hard to attain as killing said dragon itself. Alone.

Because its infinitely more useful. You can switch to dragonform everyday if you have the right spell. That dragons hoard, tho it will afford you a ton o gold and many a magical item, is finite and will eventually run out or scale out or both.

And gaining the ability to turn into a dragon is a 9th-level spell. Getting the ability to cast those... is a more time-consuming and probably more difficult task than killing most dragons alone. Plus, you might be able to turn into the dragon every day, but not for very long; it's a short-duration spell.

I rather like the new specific Polymorph spells; they're much more thought out, since you can look at a spell and see exactly what it's going to do. As opposed to Polymorph, which is incredibly unpredictable.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-01, 07:53 PM
Uhhh... which spell are you looking at here?
Probably no spell in particular. I imagine he's going by the general description of the Polymorph subschool, which would allow creatures to gain the monster's spellcasting ability by default, since you effectively replace your own stats with a near-verbatim translation of the stats out of the MM.

I imagine most official polymorph spells will carry restrictions on gaining monster spellcasting.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 08:09 PM
Yeah, exactly.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-01, 09:00 PM
O.K.

Just remember that monster spellcasting is a pretty specific ability. The polymorph subschool rules would probably take at least three pages if they tried to outline every exception based on specific details. It's easier just to say, "The caster keeps these abilities, and everything else is changed to the monster's," and then let the spells sort the rest out. The subschool provides the general framework. The spells themselves handle the details.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 09:06 PM
True. The new Polymorph spells aren't worth using, but that just means they're less good than the standard Good-to-Awesome wizard spells. Nothing wrong with that.

However, the new Polymorph descriptor applies to the old polymorph spells, except they differ. This means that Polymorph, Shapechange, et cetera still do exactly what they say (even if the descriptor would not allow them to do some of these things)... but also that anything new not covered by the old spell text is taken into account.
Shapechange now grants the monster's spellcasting.

tarbrush
2007-02-01, 09:09 PM
Say what? I thought the whole point was that the new subschool rules didn't apply to the original polymorph tree?

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 09:11 PM
As far as I know, they technically do--it's just that for 95% of the new rules text, the original spells override it, because the new rules say the old rules win out.

Talya
2007-02-01, 09:15 PM
Meh. I generally don't play casters, I prefer melee types. My first experience with a caster is in a campaign I'm in now where I'm playing a sorceress. But my thoughts have always been that Level 9 spells are supposed to be just a step below godlike...one on one, no martial character should ever be a match for the likes of a spellcaster...wizardry is traditionally truly spectactular in the eyes of mere mundane types, and if you can match them without magic, then there's no point to the magic itself.

That said, I think the game system does a great job of giving spellcasters extreme weaknesses and limitations that compensate for this. Yes, that wizard in the form of a titan using shapechange is spectacular, but he's only got a couple of those spells to cast, and at least 30 more hours before he'll get 8 hours rest, if then...

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 09:18 PM
That said, I think the game system does a great job of giving spellcasters extreme weaknesses and limitations that compensate for this. Yes, that wizard in the form of a titan using shapechange is spectacular, but he's only got a couple of those spells to cast, and at least 30 more hours before he'll get 8 hours rest, if then...

...no, it really doesn't. Spellcasters can overcome all their weaknesses. The wizard isn't using Shapechange to be a Titan, he's using Shapechange to be a Choker and cast two standard-action spells a round. He's got (at 20th) around five or six 9th-level spells, as many 8th- and 7th- level spells, seven or eight 6th-level spells,and so on.

When he's out, he just Teleports to the bottom of the sea or the other side of the world or something, casts Magnificant Mansion, and rests up.
(Or, if he's a real cheesemonger, he casts Time Stop, Plane Shifts to the Astral Plane, which is timeless, rests up there, and comes back out during the exact same time stop he went in during.)

Caelestion
2007-02-01, 09:20 PM
The Astral Plane is timeless as regards ageing and suchlike. It is NOT a zero-time place, you know. The timeflow in all the D&D worlds and planes is identical.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 09:26 PM
The Astral Plane is timeless as regards ageing and suchlike. It is NOT a zero-time place, you know. The timeflow in all the D&D worlds and planes is identical.

That second part is DEFINITELY not true. Different planes have different time traits--time passes faster/slower in some than in others. As an example, Thelanis, the "faery court" plane in Eberron, has seven days pass for every day on the material plane. This isn't something peculiar to Eberron, but a plane made using the general options for planes.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#time:

Flowing Time

On some planes, time can flow faster or slower. One may travel to another plane, spend a year there, then return to the Material Plane to find that only six seconds have elapsed. Everything on the plane returned to is only a few seconds older. But for that traveler and the items, spells, and effects working on him, that year away was entirely real.Looking the Astral Plane up, you're right--Timeless is different from a different time flow, and the Astral Plane has the former trait but not the latter.
However, there are other planes, some of which DO have a different time flow, in most cosmologies. The wizard can visit one of those.

PirateMonk
2007-02-01, 09:36 PM
The Astral Plane is timeless as regards ageing and suchlike. It is NOT a zero-time place, you know. The timeflow in all the D&D worlds and planes is identical.

Unless the DM feels otherwise, or period?

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 09:38 PM
Pirate, that's an absolutely ridiculous and pointless question. Everything in a game is unless the DM (well, really, the group, who generally invests the DM with Decision-Making Authority) says otherwise.

Mewtarthio
2007-02-01, 09:41 PM
But he'll carry the effects of the Time Stop with him. Time Stop does not have a target of "everything in the multiverse except caster," it has a target of "you." The Wizard only gets 1-5 rounds, no matter where he goes. He could Plane Shift to the friggin' Far Realms of Madness, where time does not pass at all relative to the Prime Material, and he'd still only have 1-5 rounds to do whatever he wants to do. Granted, it would be theoretically possible for him to travel to the Far Realms, rest up, and then come back to find no time has passed for the Fighter, but the Far Realms aren't exactly suitable for use as a hotel.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 09:45 PM
Time Stop IS personal, isn't it. My bad!

Of course, the time stop isn't necessary. He can shift to a slow-time plane, rest up, and come back. The Far Realms doesn't make a great hostel, but a Magnificent Mansion whose entrance is in a Rope Trick whose entrance is in one of the rooms of another Magnificent Mansion could help with that... of course, it's much better to just, well, pick a different plane.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-01, 10:18 PM
However, the new Polymorph descriptor applies to the old polymorph spells, except they differ. This means that Polymorph, Shapechange, et cetera still do exactly what they say (even if the descriptor would not allow them to do some of these things)... but also that anything new not covered by the old spell text is taken into account.
Shapechange now grants the monster's spellcasting.
Hm. Rules Hiccup.

The old polymorph spells minimized the number of times they said you didn't get a specific ability. After all, you aren't supposed to get anything at all except for what the spell mentions. Those few places that explicitly say, "You don't get..." are just clarifications for when the base rule isn't enough. And since the writers couldn't forsee them being retroactively being added to a group with more liberal rules, they didn't feel the need to outlines exceptions to those liberal rules.

I doubt there was any intention to add to the power of previously existing spells with the creation of the Polymorph subschool. To that extent, it would probably have been better if the section on retrofitting older spells said something to the extent of, "Older spells follow the rules laid out in their own descriptions, and only their own descriptions. Though they are now in the polymorph subschool, they follow none of the previously mentioned rules of the subschool, save for otherwise identical rules mentioned in the spell description. They are only considered part of the polymorph subschool for the purpose of interaction with other spells and effects."

Unfortunately, that section instead simply states that the old rules take priority over the new, leaving room for the new rules to affect the old spells in unpredictable ways when there is no conflict between the rulesets.

(Yeah, I did my best, but I'm afraid the above may be overly verbose and unclear. If anyone needs me to rephrase that, just ask. Or maybe someone that's better at that kind of thing can "translate" for me... :smallfrown:)

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-01, 10:24 PM
Oh, of COURSE making Old Polymorph more powerful wasn't intentional. But it happened.

Fizban
2007-02-02, 03:23 AM
I happen to like the new polymorph spells, but they need some sort of scaling effect. As it is, they become useless pretty much right when you get your next level of spells. Even just throwing in some extra BAB and base saves would help.

ken-do-nim
2007-02-02, 09:49 AM
Oh, of COURSE making Old Polymorph more powerful wasn't intentional. But it happened.

I can't wait to shift into a ghaele eladrin:



Ghaeles in humanoid form can cast divine spells as 14th-level clerics (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/cleric.htm). A ghaele has access to two of the following domains: Air, Animal, Chaos, Good, or Plant (plus any others from its deity). The save DCs are Wisdom-based.



Who needs mystic theurge anymore? :-)

I happen to like the suggested polymorph/shapechange modifications on this very website in the Gaming section.

PinkysBrain
2007-02-02, 09:53 AM
The Giant's rules change very little, the spells still combine what amounts to half a dozen buff spells into one with bonuses way in excess of existing buff spells, and are even less balanced than the original in a few ways (fast healing).

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-02, 02:28 PM
I can't wait to shift into a ghaele eladrin:


Ghaeles in humanoid form can cast divine spells as 14th-level clerics. A ghaele has access to two of the following domains: Air, Animal, Chaos, Good, or Plant (plus any others from its deity). The save DCs are Wisdom-based.

Who needs mystic theurge anymore? :-)
Sure, but when are you gonna get a chance within the spell's duration to prepare any of those cleric spells?

ken-do-nim
2007-02-03, 12:38 AM
Sure, but when are you gonna get a chance within the spell's duration to prepare any of those cleric spells?

:smallcool: Too bad wizards don't get persistent spell.

TheOOB
2007-02-03, 12:52 AM
It's tough to have a simple solution to a complex problum. The best solution I can think of would be create a variety of spells that grant bonuses and special abilities much like a druid shapeshift ability (PHBII), and let the flavor of what form they turn into be handled by the player.

ishi
2007-02-03, 12:54 AM
:smallcool: Too bad wizards don't get persistent spell.

Wait, what? When did I miss this?

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-03, 01:04 AM
:smallcool: Too bad wizards don't get persistent spell.
Problem is: Persistent polymorph requires an epic 10th-level slot. They need a couple of their own cleric levels to burn a divine metamagic persistent spell. :smallwink:


Wait, what? When did I miss this?
Ken was being sarcastic.

ishi
2007-02-03, 01:10 AM
Dammit, I'm tired and not good at detecting written sarcasm...

I'm going to bed.

If you really wanted it, couldn't you take Arcane Thesis to get your persistent Polycheese?

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-02-03, 01:27 AM
Ah, I forgot about that. That would work, too, as it would make it 4+5=9. Within reach pre-epic.

PinkysBrain
2007-02-03, 09:04 AM
It's tough to have a simple solution to a complex problum. The best solution I can think of would be create a variety of spells that grant bonuses and special abilities much like a druid shapeshift ability (PHBII), and let the flavor of what form they turn into be handled by the player.
Completely fixed spells are a solution, a menu based approach is another solution ... I prefer the menu based approach since I wouldn't like to need an entire book just for polymorph family spells ;)