Quote Originally Posted by Condé View Post
I... Didn't know that.
PHB also says that it doesn't reshape you, so that's understandable. If you'll please pardon my rant:

Spoiler: it totally doesn't change your actual shape
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"Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others ... A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities". "You make yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. ... The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form, nor does it alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment." Nowhere within the spell or its school/subschool is it suggested that it actually reshapes your body.

In fact, unless you hold the belief that it does change your shape without changing the way your body feels to others, it says the opposite. If you cast the spell and shrink, then someone comes around the corner and pokes the space above your head, they feel your ear. That makes sense if the spell is a change of appearance and is ridiculous if it's a physical change. Likewise, if you reshape your billy club into a large tuning fork, then hit it against a stone, it makes a <tunk> sound instead of a <tiiinngggggggg>. Perfectly sensible as an illusion, ridiculous as a physical change.

And it's a good thing disguise self doesn't actually change your shape, because it doesn't grant the new form's abilities, like vision and movement and breathing. If you handwave that away by saying (without evidence) that you've reshaped your body but retain your original body's qualities, you still have to contend with the fact that your original eyes might be 1 ft. below your altered eyes, so you're now seeing out of your neck. Or 1 ft. higher, and you're seeing from a point above your altered body. That you leave five-toed footprints even though you now have three toes. That the weapon you're holding doesn't turn around when your hands turn backward so you can impersonate a rakshasa.


"Alter" can refer to something's appearance as well as to its physical shape, as when you change a white cloth by dyeing it. When you read that sentence in the Disguise skill ("Magic that alters your form ..."), interpret "alter" in the broader sense and all the problems go away.