Polymorph question

[talltwin36]

I am going to come at this in a round about way because at least one of my players reads these forums and I do not want to give away too much.

Can the polymorph spell heal missing limbs/body parts? There is a human NPC who is captive of the BBEG. The NPC is a high level druid that the party is trying to rescue. The BBEG and done some surgery on the druid and so now the druid does not have items needed to talk or cast spells with or see. Can a polymorph fix this, even as a temporary fix? They are thinking of polymorphing him into another human so that he can casts spells that will help them all escape. I was thinking that since the original form is missing hands, the new form would be missing hands.

msquared

[PinkysBrain]

Can the polymorph spell heal missing limbs/body parts?

It's not a question of healing, when you use polymorph "You are effectively disguised as an average member of the new form’s race.". Average members of a race are not missing parts. Hell, any high level druid has natural spell ... and he doesn't need any body parts to be able to wild shape. He could simply wild shape and cast spells.

If possible I would have the Druid using the PHB2 shapeshift variant and allow the player's their polymorph trick to work. From a player's perspective it's annoying to be confronted with houserules late in the game ...

[Matthew]

Hmmn. Actually, I would be inclined to rule any bipedal form he switches into is missing the appropriate limb, but I can see the other side of the argument as well. In short, it's up to you.