Polymorph subschool question

[draxsiss]

Hi,

I recently was rereading my polymorph subschool rules and had some questions maybe some of you could answer for me.



1) The basic gist seems to be that you become the creature Spell likes/supernatural/extraordinary/movement ALL stat scores ect. Only retaining your hp (and HD for purposes of spells that effect that) and your alignment is that correct?

2) It says you lose all class features does this include spells? Does this mean that someone who polymorphs into something can' t end the spell except via duration?

3) The spell caps at 15 Hit dice, but can you polymorph say in to a half dragon troll or a half celstial Gnome? Or any other combination of template?

4) Familar interaction, with say the Dragon form or Troll form spell (from the PHB 2) does this mean that your familar (as long as it is within 5 of you) will ALSO transform into said monsters?

5) can you use the "left over hit dice" to go in to class levels, Example I want to be a firegiant with 2 levels of barbarian?

6) If you get hit with a dispel magic/greater dispel magic/antimagic field, will a permanent duration polymorph any object wear off?

Many thanks for your help and information. :)

[Deadline]

1) The basic gist seems to be that you become the creature Spell likes/supernatural/extraordinary/movement ALL stat scores ect. Only retaining your hp (and HD for purposes of spells that effect that) and your alignment is that correct?

Not exactly. The very important part that you omitted here is the first part of that sentence:

Unless stated otherwise in the spell's description, the target of a polymorph spell takes on all the statistics and special abilities of an average member of the new form ...

Almost every polymorph spell states otherwise in some fashion or another.


2) It says you lose all class features does this include spells? Does this mean that someone who polymorphs into something can' t end the spell except via duration?

Yes, but again almost every single polymorph spell states otherwise.


3) The spell caps at 15 Hit dice, but can you polymorph say in to a half dragon troll or a half celstial Gnome? Or any other combination of template?

I seem to recall there being an issue with polymorphing into a templated creature, can't remember where I saw it though.


4) Familar interaction, with say the Dragon form or Troll form spell (from the PHB 2) does this mean that your familar (as long as it is within 5 of you) will ALSO transform into said monsters?

If you share the spell, yeah.


5) can you use the "left over hit dice" to go in to class levels, Example I want to be a firegiant with 2 levels of barbarian?

I don't believe so, no. I think it falls under the "average member of the new form" bit. A plain Fire Giant is an "average member", a Fire Giant Barbarian is not. Come to think of it, this may also apply to any templates that are non-inherited.


6) If you get hit with a dispel magic/greater dispel magic/antimagic field, will a permanent duration polymorph any object wear off?

Yes:

Permanent: The energy remains as long as the effect does. This means the spell is vulnerable to dispel magic.

[draxsiss]

Other questions

a) do you keep the feats you have? or do you gain the feats of the new form (and if you do what feats do you gain if you say polymorph into a dragon that does not have standard feat for an "average" dragon)

b) Does this make polymorph any object into the ultimate mage killing spell as if you cast it on a a mage to say be a pesant (commoner 1 human average) they lose their spell casting, their items and presumably high ability scores making this effectively a save or die (unless an antimagic field or displmagic is hand) ?

[ExLibrisMortis]

PAO is certainly a good way to kill someone permadead (barring wish and true resurrection, so it's not all that dead), by turning someone into a rock, turning the rock into mud, purifying the mud into water, and finally putting the water inside the Styx.

[Deadline]

a) do you keep the feats you have? or do you gain the feats of the new form (and if you do what feats do you gain if you say polymorph into a dragon that does not have standard feat for an "average" dragon)

Depends on the spell. For Polymorph, you'd keep your own feats, but you would gain any racial feats of the new form (those marked with a superscript "B").


b) Does this make polymorph any object into the ultimate mage killing spell as if you cast it on a a mage to say be a pesant (commoner 1 human average) they lose their spell casting, their items and presumably high ability scores making this effectively a save or die (unless an antimagic field or displmagic is hand) ?

Not really. PaO allows both a save and spell resistance, meaning you are unlikely to kill all that many appropriate CR opponents with it. And PaO specifies that it functions like Polymorph, which states that it functions like Alter Self, which specifically states that you keep your class abilities. If said wizard fails the save and you punch through it's spell resistance, then you can potentially harm its spellcasting by turning it into an average Human, because PaO specifies that the target gains the Intelligence of the new form. But as has already been pointed out, if you are successfully getting PaO off on a spellcaster, you could just turn them into a rock instead.

And rather specifically, Alter Self, Polymorph, and Polymorph Any Object do not grant you the supernatural special attacks, special qualities, or spell-like abilities of the new form. You also only get a very specific (as spelled out in Alter Self and Polymorph) subset of the form's extraordinary special attacks or special qualities.