How picky are you with Polymorph / Wild Shape / Metamorphosis

[Lonewolf147]

How picky are you at what you allow players to become using these powers? In general, they say 'almost anything you are familiar with'. Well, what constitutes familiar to you?

In my world, the Underdark is a myth. While it does exist, it is long since forgotten about, or only talked about to scare children. My players recently ran into their first ever Mind Flayers. They obviously have no knowledge of the creatures, but now that they fought them would you consider them to be 'familiar' with them to be able to assume their form and use their abilities (as allowed by each spell/power)?

What I'm considering is using a standard knowledge check (DC 10 + the monster’s HD) plus 5. The check can only be done if the PC has encountered, read or been told about a creature. I'm not trying to make it super complicated, I just don't want every monster in all 5 books to suddenly be available to the players just because they exist.

[eggynack]

I usually just assume 10+HD. For wild shape in particular, the standard asserted for familiarity in the rules compendium is that it must be an animal that the character has seen or could reasonably know about. If the PC can make a 10+HD knowledge check, then they must logically know about the creature, as they can identify it. Obviously, actually seeing the creature can work too. The thing is, setting some secondary limitation of the character having read about or been told about the creature in addition to passing a knowledge check makes no sense, because that's already what knowledge measures.

[Keneth]

If they can make a Knowledge check to identify the monster, they can shapeshift into it. They can reattempt the check once per level or after doing research, either by perusing learning materials or by studying a creature they've encountered.

Of course, I only play Pathfinder, so even in the worst cases, the polymorphing isn't really an issue anymore.

[Lonewolf147]

Alright, so being familiar seems to be just seeing or knowing of a creature. Not necessarily knowing anything extra. Leave that to the magic, right. :) Just seeing a mind flayer is enough, let the magic give you access and knowledge of the special abilities (as appropriate for each spell/power).

[Gavinfoxx]

Knowing about a creature is a DC 10+HD of creature check, which Collector of Stories works on, where you can and should take 10 to know about it.

[Psyren]

If they can make a Knowledge check to identify the monster, they can shapeshift into it. They can reattempt the check once per level or after doing research, either by perusing learning materials or by studying a creature they've encountered.

Of course, I only play Pathfinder, so even in the worst cases, the polymorphing isn't really an issue anymore.

All of this. PF Metamorphosis is even better as you pick items off a menu, so you can turn into a "tiger" based on what your egoist thinks a tiger can do even if he has never seen one.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I usually assume that a character that relies on Wild Shape/Polymorph/Metamorphosis does the relevant research in his downtime, so i don't require the player to rp going to the library to read up on tigers if he wants to be one. They make a knowledge check and if they succeed they remember enough to shift into the creature in question.
It does limit wizards and psions more than druids unless they get non-animal/plant forms (since they tend to max knowledge:nature anyway) but it works well enough imo.

OOC, if you want to shift into something while i DM you better have a statsheet ready. I'm not gonna pause the game while you do calculations.

[Windstorm]

Disclaimer: the following is just how I handle it in my current setting.

I handle it similar to spells in a way. If a sorcerer or wizard wishes to use the huge amount of magical energy they have at their disposal to turn into a creature, they need to be familiar with it on a fundamental level. Messing up anatomy when turning into something is...... Bad.

However it's not all for nothing, and certainly not spellcaster's either. Any character who spends enough time to be that intimately familiar with a species gets some additional benefits. I usually try and tailor it to the class in question; sometimes its a slightly increased crit range vs that species. Maybe an extra sneak attack die, maybe a way to fool the creature's natural senses.

So far I've not had any complaints about it, and in practical use it seems to do the job of giving players the feeling of time well spent, while allowing me as the DM to prepare appropriate and challenging encounters.

[Curmudgeon]

Here's how I handle these spells:

The spellcaster has to have seen the form (successful Spot check).
The spellcaster has to have recognized that form for what it is (successful relevant Knowledge check).
I just don't buy that there's some hypothetically adequate research tome which would tell how to assume all the natural (and some Extraordinary) characteristics of hundreds of different creatures the spellcaster has never seen in action. The various Monster Manuals are not included in the Alter Self, Polymorph, or Shapechange spell descriptions, nor the Metamorphosis or Greater Metamorphosis powers. Similarly, I know of no D&D rule source which says there's a way to learn these forms in a library.

I tend to stick to what mechanisms the game rules provide, rather than what various players try to convince me should be possible.

[Togo]

Depends on the group I'm running for. In general I don't allow the character to change into anything they haven't met in person, or would reasonably have met in downtime (ie common animals)

For groups used to a much more permissive gaming style, such as this board, I tend to allow anything native to the gameworld on which the world is set, but I don't hesitate to ban anything that is called out as not existing in the game world.

I never link it to knowledge checks at all.

[Lonewolf147]

I agree with Curmudgeon that there isn't some know-it-all tome out there, but stepping back and looking at the game system, I think we need to take some liberties here too. A characters knowledge is defined by the knowledge roll they make. The game isn't designed with details on how you gain that knowledge, only that you have skill points each level and you get to make a die roll.

And while there is no specific rule that says you can learn forms in a library, there is also no rule that says you can't. But, if you're going to run your game where you require some sort of explanation for their acquired knowledge, then what's to say they didn't spend some down time at the local zoo, or talking with some animal/creature specialist?


Windstorm, that's a nice idea giving the player a little edge on the creatures they've assumed form of. I may have to consider that too.


sleepyphoenixx, stat sheets yes! Whenever I played a shapeshifter I always had a stack of character sheets of each of my forms. It really sucked every time I leveled up if there where changes I needed to make to all of them. LOL


Gavinfoxx, what is Collector of Stories? I've never heard of that before.

[Eldariel]

Gavinfoxx, what is Collector of Stories? I've never heard of that before.

A skill trick in Complete Scoundrel that gives you +5 to monster identification Knowledge-checks. An absolute godsent.

[Togo]

I agree with Curmudgeon that there isn't some know-it-all tome out there, but stepping back and looking at the game system, I think we need to take some liberties here too. A characters knowledge is defined by the knowledge roll they make. The game isn't designed with details on how you gain that knowledge, only that you have skill points each level and you get to make a die roll.


Not quite. Knowledge skills represent what you have studied. Some classes get very few knowledge skills, most don't get all of them, and certainly p-classes such as master of many forms grant you the class ability to turn into forms you are familiar with without granting any knowledge skills that would cover those forms. It seems clear that from both a RAW and RAI perspective, knowledge checks and familiarity are quite different.

[Lonewolf147]

Not quite. Knowledge skills represent what you have studied. Some classes get very few knowledge skills, most don't get all of them, and certainly p-classes such as master of many forms grant you the class ability to turn into forms you are familiar with without granting any knowledge skills that would cover those forms. It seems clear that from both a RAW and RAI perspective, knowledge checks and familiarity are quite different.

Sorry, didn't see your previous post, looks like we posted at the same time :P

Fair enough. But how would you define familiarity then? My players have a tendency to put skill points into all of their knowledges, class and cross-class alike. That way they all have access to every knowledge and between them they get one roll each to know what something is. Since I'm just used to players having access to all of the knowledge skills, I didn't even think about when someone doesn't have say, Knowledge Arcana, and they meet a dragon. Even without the skill they should know that it's a frickin' dragon! So would that be considered 'familiar with' then? (Yes, for anyone that asks, I know the HD limits preclude most anyone from becoming a dragon, I'm just using this as an example :smallcool: )

[Psyren]

Even without the skill they should know that it's a frickin' dragon!

Knowing something is a dragon is fine. ("Common knowledge" - DC 10, untrained possible.) But knowing that this particular dragon is a Wyrm, has a fear aura, spell resistance, and the spells it might likely have access to - that level of detail would probably require someone who did their homework and has Know: Arcana.

Of course, you can also find some of this stuff out the hard way, mid-fight.

[Lonewolf147]

Knowing something is a dragon is fine. ("Common knowledge" - DC 10, untrained possible.) But knowing that this particular dragon is a Wyrm, has a fear aura, spell resistance, and the spells it might likely have access to - that level of detail would probably require someone who did their homework and has Know: Arcana.

Agreed, but what would you consider to be 'familiar' as required by the spells/powers? Just knowing it's a dragon, or having more intimate knowledge of what a dragon is?

After reading these posts, I'm thinking that just knowing what something is ("Common knowledge" - DC 10, untrained possible) would be familiar enough and the magic does the rest. But, what if you meet a creature you've never heard of. Say, and Armand (MM3). Sure you see it, maybe wave to each other as you pass by, but if you don't have any points in Know Nature and have no other way to learn what it is, does that make you familiar enough to assume its form?


Of course, you can also find some of this stuff out the hard way, mid-fight.

LOL, that's the BEST way!

[Psyren]

I think 10+HD, as mentioned in this thread, is just fine. If you want, you could also enforce some kind of cap on the number of forms each caster can know.

[Curmudgeon]

The spellcaster has to have seen the form (successful Spot check).


Fair enough. But how would you define familiarity then?
Right there: you've got to have see one in the game world.

[Keneth]

The spellcaster has to have seen the form (successful Spot check).

So basically every druid needs to have gone on a tour of the world zoos as part of their backstory.

[Lonewolf147]

Right there: you've got to have see one in the game world.

I still have a hard time with just seeing something gives you familiarity with it.

I know YOU also require a Know check once you see something, but it seems that people are of two camps here. Just seeing it, or needing a Know check, in order to be familiar enough. Now I just need to decide which route I want to take.

[Curmudgeon]

So basically every druid needs to have gone on a tour of the world zoos as part of their backstory.
What back story? They've got 4 in-game levels before they need to know Small and Medium Animal forms.

[Psyren]

Given that you can discover something's truename without ever having seen it, I find it hard to believe that a Spot check is totally required. I think it helps, certainly, but a good library or series of divinations should be able to do the trick too.

Heck, you can even (true) resurrect a creature's body without knowing what it looked like too.


Not saying this is a bad way to handle it but I have no problem with the "library" approach either.

[Togo]

It's very situational - I vary depending on the type of game.

Some monsters are supposed to be obscure, and running them as anything else largely defeats the purpose of them being there. Monsters like the desert troll (immune to fire, killed by water), the wolf-in-sheep's clothing (don't ask), and the gas spore (looks like a beholder) literally rely on being mistaken for something else to work as combat encounters. If you apply knowledge rules literally, then everyone knows what the low HD gas spore looks like, but most have never heard of the high HD beholder. The point is simply that if you already know what the monster is and what it does, you don't really have an interesting encounter any more.

By contrast some monsters don't really work unless you do know what they are. The rust monster, the disenchanter, the banshee, all rely for the full effect on scaring PCs with their capabilities, which doesn't really work if you don't know what those capabilities are. Facing a fearsome spectre that can kill you with its scream, is scary. Facing a random incorporeal opponent that doesn't do much then kills everyone who fails a save is dull. Particularly if you're the one who failed the save you didn't know you'd have to make.

There's a nod to this principle in some of the later monster manuals, where a table is given of what people know about the monster from various DCs of knowledge check. The advantage of that is that information that would undermine the encounter is left to the very highest levels.

If your PCs all invest heavily in knowledge skills, then you need to understand what they're expect to get in return. Sometimes this may be flavour - they want to appear knowledgeable, without getting any critical details. Sometimes they want to know resistances, weaknesses, regeneration bypasses and so on, so they can instruct the rest of the party on suitable tactics. Some see knowledge skills as a critical way to bypass an opponent's capabilities, others desperately want to avoid getting inside knowledge, seeing it as spoiling the encounter.

In general I let players get some capabilities from knowledge checks, but don't let them choose what they get. But I find it's important to tailor it to your particular group of players. For some groups the game is about knowing that Trolls are vulnerable to acid and fire. Stopping them from obtaining and exploiting this knowledge in character is spoiling the game. For others it's about discovering, the hard way, that trolls are vulnerable to acid and fire. Letting them simply know what they is spoiling the game.

[Togo]

I still have a hard time with just seeing something gives you familiarity with it.


Look at this way. Commoners don't get knowledge nature. Do they know what a cow is?

[Eldariel]

Look at this way. Commoners don't get knowledge nature. Do they know what a cow is?

A hotly contested topic, actually. The classic "identifying X is DC 10+HD Knowledge-check and thus anything with more than 0 HD is outside the DC 10 max for untrained Knowledge"-problem, right up there in the dysfunctional rules.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Look at this way. Commoners don't get knowledge nature. Do they know what a cow is?

People today know what a cow is, even those living in a city who have never seen a cow up close. That doesn't mean they know anything about cows.
Profession:Farmer can substitute as "knowledge:taking care of farm animals" if you want the internal consistency.

The way i rule it identifying a common animal or monster is automatic. Pretty much everyone knows what a horse or cow or dragon looks like and can identify one on sight.
What knowledge does is tell you the difference between the various species of dragon/shambling corpse/snake/plant-thingy/etc. and, depending on your roll, what it's abilities and weaknesses are, one tidbit of info per 5 point over the DC of the monster.
Say you correctly identify the corpse munching on the party dwarf as a ghoul. DC 12 gets you the name and the fact that ghouls can paralyze enemies, DC 17 adds that their bite carries a disease, DC 22 lets you remember that a humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul on the next midnight.
Immediately important stuff like immunities and weaknesses comes first, then abilities roughly in order of danger potential.

In character even most farmers have probably at least heard of a dragon and will identify any big winged lizard that breathes something as one.
A Beholder on the other hand is probably fairly obscure (despite being one of the more well known monsters in RL), something that only scholars and seasoned adventurers know of.

It obviously requires a bit of DM adjudication but at least it makes some sense, as opposed to RAW where you either know nothing or everything about a creature (or you know everything one day and nothing the next).

[Urpriest]

Here's how I handle these spells:

The spellcaster has to have seen the form (successful Spot check).
The spellcaster has to have recognized that form for what it is (successful relevant Knowledge check).
I just don't buy that there's some hypothetically adequate research tome which would tell how to assume all the natural (and some Extraordinary) characteristics of hundreds of different creatures the spellcaster has never seen in action. The various Monster Manuals are not included in the Alter Self, Polymorph, or Shapechange spell descriptions, nor the Metamorphosis or Greater Metamorphosis powers. Similarly, I know of no D&D rule source which says there's a way to learn these forms in a library.

I tend to stick to what mechanisms the game rules provide, rather than what various players try to convince me should be possible.

I don't see any familiarity clause in Alter Self or Polymorph. While I could understand applying these sorts of restrictions to Wild Shape, in the case of those other spells you are reading in requirements that don't actually exist.

In practice, I'd let a successful Knowledge check to identify a creature (the minimum DC, 10+HD) count. You then know of the creature, having come across it in your studies of the topic, and can tell the spell to turn you into it. By doing so you may learn things about the creature you didn't otherwise know, if your Knowledge skill isn't high enough to know more than the base results.

[Eldariel]

In character even most farmers have probably at least heard of a dragon and will identify any big winged lizard that breathes something as one.
A Beholder on the other hand is probably fairly obscure (despite being one of the more well known monsters in RL), something that only scholars and seasoned adventurers know of.

This is extremely campaign settings dependent. What creatures are more or less frequent depends entirely on the location the characters are at and the creatures thereabouts. Literate people with a penchant for stories might know of a great number of fantastic beasts, but not which are real. And indeed, while Dragons are certainly well-known to us, there's nothing to say they would be well-known in the campaign setting.

A campaign could have Illithids or Beholders or Aboleths as the creatures people whisper of at nights since those happen to have been the most active lately, while Dragons might be considered a fairy tale or they might be all but unheard of. Indeed, e.g. in Eberron people probably won't know much of Dragons because of their location.

[Keneth]

A hotly contested topic, actually. The classic "identifying X is DC 10+HD Knowledge-check and thus anything with more than 0 HD is outside the DC 10 max for untrained Knowledge"-problem, right up there in the dysfunctional rules.

Thankfully fixed in Pathfinder with the relative rarity modifier and the fact that it uses CR instead of HD, so all common animals are generally DC 5-10.