On Shapechange and cooldowns

[Chronos]

Shapechange is widely regarded as one of the most powerful spells, and with good reason: There are a lot of monsters out there with powerful abilities. Often, these abilities are limited by some sort of cooldown: They can only be used once per day, or sometimes even less often. But as usually interpreted, Shapechange lets you turn into one monster and use all of its once per day abilities, then into another monster and use all of its daily abilities, and so on. Under some interpretations, you can even turn back into the first monster again, and use all of its abilities again.

But what if we rule it differently? What if, on assuming a new form, instead of assuming that all of its abilities are immediately available, they all start off "on cooldown"? Turn into a dragon, and you'll have to wait 1d4 rounds to use your breath weapon. Turn into something with a 1/day ability, and you'd better have some way of making Shapechange last all day, and not shift into any other form. And unless you're using extreme cheese, you're not going to be able to wait long enough for a Zodar's 1/year Wish to charge up.

Obviously this is a nerf to Shapechange... How much of one? There are still plenty of good monster abilities that are usable at-will, or with very short cooldowns, so Shapechange would still be a good spell, but I think this would curb most of the most broken uses. Does this bring it to a level comparable to other 9th-level spells?

[Biggus]

I like this idea, I'll be interested to hear what the experts have to say about it. I've nerfed Shapechange in my games in a different way (removed aberration, construct, monstrous humanoid, outsider and undead from the types you can assume, as they're where pretty much all of the brokenly-good abilities are) and it's still a great spell. It definitely would be very strong even with your nerf, I'd say still significantly above average for a 9th-level spell.

[Darg]

Shapechange only gives access to the abilities, it never says they are all ready for use. It's something left to the DM to adjudicate. There's no RAW that says one way or another. The way I see it, I wouldn't allow a character to repeatedly assume a different form of the same creature just so they get more uses per/x. So then why would I even give them uses per/x in the first place?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Shapechange only gives access to the abilities, it never says they are all ready for use. It's something left to the DM to adjudicate. There's no RAW that says one way or another. The way I see it, I wouldn't allow a character to repeatedly assume a different form of the same creature just so they get more uses per/x. So then why would I even give them uses per/x in the first place?Except it says, "You gain all extraordinary and supernatural abilities (both attacks and qualities) of the assumed form."

I can only assume that means that you gain all of those things like it says you do.

[Anthrowhale]

Even if Shapechange granted no access to supernatural abilities, it would still be a very solid 9th level spell which was clearly superior to Polymorph Any Object, a great 8th level spell. The ability to change form every round, the ability to go up to 25 HD where you can access epic monsters, and the access to extraordinary special abilities are all big improvements.

The 'pay cooldown' approach seems fine---it still leaves the caster with the potential ability to cast one spell/day to deal with all normalish encounters.

[Chronos]

Well, it's only "one spell per day to deal with all the encounters" if you have some way of persisting it, which is nontrivial. But yeah.

And I'd rather not get into the discussion of whether this interpretation counts as a "houserule" or an "unspecified space in the rules left open for DM interpretation". For purposes of this discussion, assume that the DM says it works that way, regardless of why they're saying that.

[Anthrowhale]

Well, it's only "one spell per day to deal with all the encounters" if you have some way of persisting it, which is nontrivial.
At ECL20 with caster level boosted to 25 (which you want anyways for the forms) a Greater Rod of Extend Spell is adequate for a >8 hour adventuring day and costs only 3% of wealth by level.

[Darg]

Except it says, "You gain all extraordinary and supernatural abilities (both attacks and qualities) of the assumed form."

I can only assume that means that you gain all of those things like it says you do.

Like I said, you gain the abilities. It does not say that you gain any use of them as if you had them for a day/week/year. If a cleric uses all of their turn undead attempts, does that mean they no longer have the ability? No, they still have the ability. They just can't use it again until they regain their attempts.