Polymorph, mental statistics and personality

[Lorsa]

So, in D&D 5e, unlike 3.5, the recipient of a Polymorph spell doesn't get to keep its mental attributes. That is, if you get polymorphed into a beast with intelligence 2, that's now your current Int score.

However, it is claimed that the target retains its personality.

So, how does this work? What would the experience be of someone who has been polymorphed? Isn't personality linked to our current mental aptitude? Can you retain any real memories of your time as polymorphed, when the beast in question doesn't form as strong, or long lasting, memories as humans? Our understanding of a situation is inherently linked to our abstract understanding of concepts, which would be completely removed when you become polymorphed.

I could ask a hundred questions about this, but my general questions is; how does it work? How much of the person still remains?

A minor issue is that in theory at least, nor all beasts (of any type) are the same. Can you polymorph yourself into an exceptionally strong bear or a really clever raven or something?

When I ran D&D 3.5, I changed Polymorph to apply new racial modifiers according to the new form. So if you were a really weak human, you became a really weak bear, just slightly stronger. Would the same work in 5e?

[Unoriginal]

So, in D&D 5e, unlike 3.5, the recipient of a Polymorph spell doesn't get to keep its mental attributes. That is, if you get polymorphed into a beast with intelligence 2, that's now your current Int score.

However, it is claimed that the target retains its personality.

So, how does this work? What would the experience be of someone who has been polymorphed? Isn't personality linked to our current mental aptitude? Can you retain any real memories of your time as polymorphed, when the beast in question doesn't form as strong, or long lasting, memories as humans?

I could ask a hundred questions about this, but my general questions is; how does it work? How much of the person still remains?

I'm not sure why people argue about it or are confused by it.

You your mental stats: INT, CHA, and WIS. Those are modified. So, if for example a guard is turned into a chicken, obviously they'll be as dumb as a chicken.

Then, you have your character's personality, symbolized by your alignment, Flaws, Bond, and Traits. This, on the other hand, is not modified. So, let's imagine you have a knight who has the trait "I'll fight to the death to protect my king without hesitation", and said knight is Polymorphed into a pig, then they would still have the same trait. It's just that now they have a pig's capacity to discerne when the king needs protection or not. They'd still fight to the death against the ogre who's trying to demolish the king in an obvious way, because their personality was not altered.

Same way if you have a coward whose flaw is "I'd abandon even my closest allies in order to have no risk for my own skin, even if it's harmful in the long term", and said coward is turned into a T. Rex. The coward-Rex's will still have the same flaw. So if you turn them into a T. Rex hoping they would attack the enemies, well, the T. Rex is going to abandon you to die because they still don't want to ever risk their skin even a little, and are perfectly willing to backstab you to survive.

Isn't personality linked to our current mental aptitude?

Not really, no. The perception would be different, but not the reaction. If you have a wizard turn the king's most powerful and lawful Cleric into a dog and try to kill the king in front of them, then you're probably getting bitten by said dog. But given that dogs don't really have the WIS score of powerful Clercics, fooling the dog into believing you have good intentions for the king so the dog leave the two alone has more chances to success, Even if the reaction will likely be the same if they realize you lied.

Can you retain any real memories of your time as polymorphed, when the beast in question doesn't form as strong, or long lasting, memories as humans?

Well, you retain your memory of your time as animal, it's just they'll be like the animal version of you perceived it.

So if you use say, an owl, you'll remember seeing the langscape as an owl, etc.

Our understanding of a situation is inherently linked to our abstract understanding of concepts, which would be completely removed when you become polymorphed.

How you understand a situation doesn't change your personality. If you're the kind to defend the innocent, you'll stay the kind to defend the innocent, and this even if you're turned dumb, unwise and not charismatic that make understanding the situation complicated. If a librarian absolutely can't stand books to be damaged, they're not going to eat what is obviously a book if turned into a pig. But they'll have much more troubles identifying one if it was sliced into parts and put in their food if they're animals who don't have an issue with eating that king of garbage.

A minor issue is that in theory at least, nor all beasts (of any type) are the same. Can you polymorph yourself into an exceptionally strong bear or a really clever raven or something?

Normally youu just become an average, typical example of the beast. Which is still pretty good.

If a DM decides to let you use the stats for an exceptional beast, it's up to the DM to make this choice.

When I ran D&D 3.5, I changed Polymorph to apply new racial modifiers according to the new form. So if you were a really weak human, you became a really weak bear, just slightly stronger. Would the same work in 5e?

That'd remove 50% of the benefits from having Polymorph in your arsenal, and IMO I would say it would be extra-work to earn nothing, but eh, if you prefer things that way.

[Keravath]

The usual argument is whether retaining "personality" includes memory and experiences which affects the choices of action and behaviour available to the polymorphed creature.

Polymorph says the character retains alignment and personality.

The PHB p121 "your character's personality—the array of traits, mannerisms, habits, beliefs, and flaws that give a person a unique identity"

... this does not specify memory or experience.

The clone spell says: "The clone is physically identical to the original and has the same personality, memories, and abilities"

In the above instance the game designers have specifically treated memory as distinct from personality.

-----------

Many folks like to use polymorph to turn a front line fighter who has low hit points into a T-rex or some other beast with a lot of hit points and good damge who then attack the enemy and pretty much act as if they retain all their memory and experience and sometimes pay lip service to the much lower intelligence.

Others use polymorph to scout or access a different movement rate and travel to a specific destination.

However, all of these actions are predicated on the polymorphed creature retaining all their knowledge and experience so that they can plan and take reasoned actions rather than relying on the beast instinct and actually being limited by the low intelligence.

As a result, how polymorph works, strongly depends on how folks interpret "personality". RAW appears to say one thing but it appears it is often played differently and Jeremy Crawford has said that he intended the spell to allow the players to retain sufficient knowledge and experience to make the spell useful for utility actions.

[Lorsa]

I'm not sure why people argue about it or are confused by it.

Because I find it to be confusing. Is that such a strange thing to you?

You your mental stats: INT, CHA, and WIS. Those are modified. So, if for example a guard is turned into a chicken, obviously they'll be as dumb as a chicken.

Which will make it rather difficult to use on yourself or your allies, won't it? As they might no longer understand what "sneaking into the camp" means.

Then, you have your character's personality, symbolized by your alignment, Flaws, Bond, and Traits. This, on the other hand, is not modified. So, let's imagine you have a knight who has the trait "I'll fight to the death to protect my king without hesitation", and said knight is Polymorphed into a pig, then they would still have the same trait. It's just that now they have a pig's capacity to discerne when the king needs protection or not. They'd still fight to the death against the ogre who's trying to demolish the king in an obvious way, because their personality was not altered.

Same way if you have a coward whose flaw is "I'd abandon even my closest allies in order to have no risk for my own skin, even if it's harmful in the long term", and said coward is turned into a T. Rex. The coward-Rex's will still have the same flaw. So if you turn them into a T. Rex hoping they would attack the enemies, well, the T. Rex is going to abandon you to die because they still don't want to ever risk their skin even a little, and are perfectly willing to backstab you to survive.

So you are saying the only type of personality that remains are those linked to Flaws, Bonds and Traits? That would make it a rather narrow part of your personality. Also, what if you opted out of using the mechanical elements of personality? Then nothing remains of the person being polymorphed?

Also, many bonds are quite abstract in nature. I doubt a chicken understands what "a king" is. I guess you would say something like "since the knight feels a duty to protect a certain individual, so will the animal". But if the king resigns and is replaced by another, a knight would understand what happened and thus change their allegiance, whereas an animal would not (unless it was done in the natural hierarchy-changing way of the animal in question).

Similarly, a pig wouldn't understand spellcasting, so if a wizard attacked the king, the pig wouldn't know the wizard was actually the source, but rather run around in confused panic. Some animals probably wouldn't understand ranged attacks from a bow either. I mean, most animals are really stupid compared to people. And it is really hard for us to imagine how the world is perceived for them.

Not really, no. The perception would be different, but not the reaction. If you have a wizard turn the king's most powerful and lawful Cleric into a dog and try to kill the king in front of them, then you're probably getting bitten by said dog. But given that dogs don't really have the WIS score of powerful Clercics, fooling the dog into believing you have good intentions for the king so the dog leave the two alone has more chances to success, Even if the reaction will likely be the same if they realize you lied.

As I said above, it depends on how I try to kill the king. Seems like distracting the dog with food, sticks or balls would be much easier than distracting the Cleric though.

Well, you retain your memory of your time as animal, it's just they'll be like the animal version of you perceived it.

Which is what, exactly? How does animal memory work? How long does it last? What grasp do they have of cause-effect and other stuff? Compared to a human memory, it seems the time spent as a animal would be quite hard to account for.

I mean, cats and dogs don't understand what they are being punished for unless they are punished at the exact time they are doing it (and cats rarely even then). So animal memory is radically different from ours.

And my question is also in the reverse. How much of your human life can you really remember when you have the intelligence of a chicken?

So if you use say, an owl, you'll remember seeing the langscape as an owl, etc.

I doubt being polymorphed would suddenly give you perfect visual memory recollection, so you wouldn't remember how many "houses" you saw while flying over a village, nor how many "soldiers" that were approaching the castle.

How you understand a situation doesn't change your personality. If you're the kind to defend the innocent, you'll stay the kind to defend the innocent, and this even if you're turned dumb, unwise and not charismatic that make understanding the situation complicated. If a librarian absolutely can't stand books to be damaged, they're not going to eat what is obviously a book if turned into a pig. But they'll have much more troubles identifying one if it was sliced into parts and put in their food if they're animals who don't have an issue with eating that king of garbage.

Except it does. If I am a cat, I don't have a concept of "innocent" anymore. So I wouldn't know who to protect. The librarian-turned-pig I could see not eating books as you say. If I can't understand concepts that are integral to my personality, how can I still have the same personality? It doesn't really make sense to me.

Normally youu just become an average, typical example of the beast. Which is still pretty good.

If a DM decides to let you use the stats for an exceptional beast, it's up to the DM to make this choice.

I guess that would alter the CR of the beast, so it depends on the level of the one being polymorphed.

That'd remove 50% of the benefits from having Polymorph in your arsenal, and IMO I would say it would be extra-work to earn nothing, but eh, if you prefer things that way.

What is the 50% benefit here? That you can make your opponents really dumb?

[Segev]

As with everything in 5e, “ask your DM.”

However, the idea that “retains his personality” somehow doesn’t mean the character is still the same person and likely to act the way the unmorphed character would want to (barring specific things the changes mental stats would interfere with mechanically) seems to me to be people fishing for gotchas to pull out to make the spell much more limited than it indicates.

If all it is supposed to be is a debuff, why even include the possibility of things that are useful forms? Why make them retain personality if it is practically meaningless from a gameplay perspective? And let’s be honest, here: the “lose memories” and similar argument positions all lead to justification for insisting that the character will not behave at all how the character would have if he were mentally still himself in any way.

[Lorsa]

As with everything in 5e, “ask your DM.”

However, the idea that “retains his personality” somehow doesn’t mean the character is still the same person and likely to act the way the unmorphed character would want to (barring specific things the changes mental stats would interfere with mechanically) seems to me to be people fishing for gotchas to pull out to make the spell much more limited than it indicates.

If all it is supposed to be is a debuff, why even include the possibility of things that are useful forms? Why make them retain personality if it is practically meaningless from a gameplay perspective? And let’s be honest, here: the “lose memories” and similar argument positions all lead to justification for insisting that the character will not behave at all how the character would have if he were mentally still himself in any way.

The problem with this is that the DM is me. And I am not looking for any gotcha stuff, in fact, neither of my players have this spell.

I am wpdering how it works in general, and for any NPCS the characters might face.

It seems very strange to me to fit a human sized personality into an animal intelligence. Not sure how it is possible. I can't really fathom how this spell is meant to work, as it seems to me if you get the intelligence or a T-Rex, you won't really care about the fight anymore but rather go hunting for food (or a mate).

[Segev]

The problem with this is that the DM is me. And I am not looking for any gotcha stuff, in fact, neither of my players have this spell.

I am wpdering how it works in general, and for any NPCS the characters might face.

It seems very strange to me to fit a human sized personality into an animal intelligence. Not sure how it is possible. I can't really fathom how this spell is meant to work, as it seems to me if you get the intelligence or a T-Rex, you won't really care about the fight anymore but rather go hunting for food (or a mate).

To me, it seems clear that the intent is that the player controls the character still. The mechanics of the mental stats change, but in general, the behavior of the character doesn't. D&D is already very bad at dictating personality via mental stats; we don't expect players of average intelligence to truly play super-geniuses to form, do we? No. There's also nothing in the mechanics to enforce a PC with an Int of 6 behaving in a "stupid" manner; that's up to the player to determine, generally, except where the stat is used in a roll.

One might question a player playing a polymorphed rat about him writing complex algebraic equations in chalk on the wall of a prison cell, but in general, whatever you wanted the character to do when polymorphed, if it's within the mechanical ability of the creature to perform, it should be able to do.

Trying to inject "animal instincts" or anything that would cause them to forget what they're doing is reading waaaaay too much into what is very clearly a way of saying, "The stats change, but the person is still the person."

[DeTess]

I'd just explain it away using the argument that the soul in the polymorphed creature is still the same. The polymorphed wizard might not be quite the same genius while looking like a T-rex, but he still wants those annoying adventurers kicked out of his wizard tower so he can get back to his plan of world domination.

[strangebloke]

Just roleplay your character as you normally would, except that you're really stupid.

I mean, a dog has INT 3, right? But a dog still can recognize friend from foe, and knows to listen to its allies if they start pointing and yelling at something.

[Treantmonk]

I think the point is that the Paladin your Polymorphed into a T-Rex will not turn on the party.

That's I think the whole point of the "retains their personality" portion of the spell.

[JNAProductions]

I think the point is that the Paladin your Polymorphed into a T-Rex will not turn on the party.

That's I think the whole point of the "retains their personality" portion of the spell.

Yeah. They'll fight the party's foes, protect the party's allies, etc. etc., just don't expect advanced tactics.

So a T-Rex'd party member will certainly be fighting the Orcs you were in combat with-they just might not have the brains to go after the Eye of Gruumsh buffing them from the back, unless directed by another party member.

[Segev]

Here's an interesting tangent: is language a statistic that gets overwritten?

For the most part, a "yes" here means that the new form probably won't speak any languages. But Giant Owls, for instance, explicitly understand (but cannot speak) Sylvan. What if the target couldn't originally understand that language?

What does this do when you use it to turn into, say, a different humanoid race? Do you learn new languages and lose old ones?

The most straightforward answer to this seems, on the surface, to be, "Nah, you don't change your languages." This would, however, then mean that even the Int 1 rat you polymorphed the rogue into could fully comprehend the languages he usually speaks, so you can give him complex instructions. The only potential limitation is if those complex instructions require a ton of logical reasoning to work out. But, "The key is the one with the tree on it; the other keys are trapped fakes," would be perfectly understandable to even a really stupid person who was nevertheless fluent in the language.

[UrielAwakened]

I feel like people overthink this and the entire reason that section is in the spell is so you don't have people asking why you don't randomly attack your allies by mistake when you become a TRex.

[Tanarii]

In 5e Personality is a defined thing. It's your Personality traits, Ideals, Bond and Flaw. Just keep using those to help inform your decision making (aka roleplaying) and you're golden.

Mental stats affect checks and class features. That's what they're for. Use the new ones if you need to make a check or use a feature based off them, and you're golden.

If a check or feature doesn't involve an ability score, then it isn't involved the resolving the action you're taking. So don't worry about it.

Pretty straight forward. Same as any other time in the game. Personality and situation and desired goal help inform player decisions for what the character wants to do, decisions lead to declared action (intent and approach), the DM decides resolution method for the declared action (by specific rule, or more generally by determining if some kind of check is needed), and outcomes and consequences are determined based on the resolution. Rinse and repeat.

[Thrudd]

That's it. As far as the game is concerned, your stats do not dictate how you role play, they are for mechanical effects. Ability scores are not the character's "mind". The effect of the polymorphed character's stats being changed is to alter the saving throws, abilities and checks that depend on those stats and nothing more. The player (or DM) still retains full tactical control - they still have the same "mind". If you want to polymorph an enemy, you'll turn them into something small and harmless and easy to catch. If you want to help an ally you'll turn them into something big and strong (and hope the enemy doesn't have anything that forces a mental saving throw).

In terms of real life, of course your mental state dictates your personality and how you behave and what you know. There is no way a person would act the same if they suddenly had the intelligence of an animal, nor could they be relied on to make good decisions in a fight, nor even to know why they should fight unless they were in immediate threat and couldn't run away or were very hungry.

[igor140]

Actually, pigs are more intelligent than many dogs... ... ...

That doesn't add anything to this conversation, it's just a thing.

[BurgerBeast]

I think it’s confusing if you think of it as retaining one’s exact or entire personality. Obviously your mental attributes affect your personality. However there are aspects of the personality such as general disposition, perhaps to some extent the big 5 personality traits, or their predecessor the Myers-Briggs attributes, which could be thought of as preserved. Is your character mischievous, snobby, or cynical? These could survive (in some form or other) through changes to Int, Wis, or Cha.

I suppose a helpful thing to consider would be real-life people who have suffered injuries or diseases that have conceivably had these effects on them. People will vary in their interpretations of such things but they’re worth thinking about.

[Lorsa]

The usual argument is whether retaining "personality" includes memory and experiences which affects the choices of action and behaviour available to the polymorphed creature.

Polymorph says the character retains alignment and personality.

The PHB p121 "your character's personality—the array of traits, mannerisms, habits, beliefs, and flaws that give a person a unique identity"

... this does not specify memory or experience.

The clone spell says: "The clone is physically identical to the original and has the same personality, memories, and abilities"

In the above instance the game designers have specifically treated memory as distinct from personality.

-----------

Many folks like to use polymorph to turn a front line fighter who has low hit points into a T-rex or some other beast with a lot of hit points and good damge who then attack the enemy and pretty much act as if they retain all their memory and experience and sometimes pay lip service to the much lower intelligence.

Others use polymorph to scout or access a different movement rate and travel to a specific destination.

However, all of these actions are predicated on the polymorphed creature retaining all their knowledge and experience so that they can plan and take reasoned actions rather than relying on the beast instinct and actually being limited by the low intelligence.

As a result, how polymorph works, strongly depends on how folks interpret "personality". RAW appears to say one thing but it appears it is often played differently and Jeremy Crawford has said that he intended the spell to allow the players to retain sufficient knowledge and experience to make the spell useful for utility actions.

I am sorry I didn't reply to you specifically before. It may seem rude but was not meant as such.

So it isn't only me who has had some issues with this spell then? And people play it very differently. Makes me wonder why the text describing the spell isn't better written, so we can clearly understand the intent behind it and how to roleplay a polymorphed creature.

-----------

Now to a general reply:

There seems to be three general interpretations, or ways to run the polymorph spell.

1. The polymorphed character becomes as stupid as the animal, with only the basic core (or game mechanical bonds, ideals and flaws) of the personality affecting the animals behavior.

2. The polymorphed character gets the game statistics of the animal, and as long as you pay "lip service" to a dumber mind, e.g. by not utilizing complex tactics, you are fine.

3. The polymorphed character gets the game statistics of the animal, but this does not alter their behavior in any way and you can act exactly the same way as you would otherwise do.

If we then look at these in order:

1. This seems to me as the most 'natural' interpretation, given that the spell clearly states you get the intelligence score of the animal. However, it makes the spell not only rather useless in terms of a utility buff (and can only be used as a debuff), but also very complicated to roleplay. As I said before, switching back and forth between two minds which are clearly not understanding the world in the same way is a major headache.

2. While this may seem like a golden middle way, I dislike it because of that very reason. It doesn't really care about what attaining animal intelligence should do, nor does it assume you are completely the same. It has no real foundation in the description, or the rules, and seems like a "I can't make up my mind so I'll be here on the fence" kind of option.

3. This seems to me as the option that would make the spell actually very useful as a party buff. You could use it for scouting, for example, which would be impossible with the first (and to a lesser degree second) interpretation. However, it has very little basis in the rules. The spell says your intelligence drops to that of the animal.

Some may claim that intelligence by no means have any impact on how a character is (or should be) played. I disagree completely. The description of intelligence on p. 177 of the PhB states that "Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall and the ability to reason". So I expect my players to portray their character to the best of their abilities. Roleplaying someone much much smarter is difficult, but roleplaying someone stupid is easy. Therefore, I don't see the argument of "just ignore the game mechanics, they have no effect on the character" as being valid. Attributes clearly measure something of the character, and intelligence measure ability of reason. So, low intelligence = low ability to reason.

If we just look at the game mechanics, and forget about roleplaying, it is also clear that memories are lost when you take the animal form. Since your knowledge checks drops, there is information you had before which you can no longer recall. So just following the game mechanics, we reach the conclusion that not all memories are being transferred to the new form (which leads to the question of which and how many).



In all honesty, it would be much easier if the spell simply didn't affect mental statistics at all. Is there a good reason why they should? Is it just a hamfisted "solution" to the problem of druids (or polymorph wizards) completely dumping their physical attributes in favor of the mental ones? What is the reason behind reducing the intelligence of a polymorphed character. There must be one - and an intention with how it is meant to work.

Follow-up questions then is of course if a character also retains languages, skill/tool proficiencies etc. The spell says that the polymorphed character replaces their game statistics. And language would count among that, so another point in favor of interpretation 1.

I seriously can't make sense of this spell. There are too many contradictions, and taking the text to its logical consequence makes the spell effectively useless as a buff.

[Unoriginal]

In all honesty, it would be much easier if the spell simply didn't affect mental statistics at all. Is there a good reason why they should?

A smart T. Rex is much, much dangerous than a normal T. Rex. And a spell shouldn't blow the druid's Wildshape out of the water.

I seriously can't make sense of this spell. There are too many contradictions, and taking the text to its logical consequence makes the spell effectively useless as a buff.

There is no contradiction. You just play a dumb animal for a while, which grants you offensive and defensive might in exchange of not being as smart, wise and charismatic as you could be (which of course makes your saves worse, including how you don't have proficiency) and not being able to use your class powers.

[Lorsa]

There is no contradiction. You just play a dumb animal for a while, which grants you offensive and defensive might in exchange of not being as smart, wise and charismatic as you could be (which of course makes your saves worse, including how you don't have proficiency) and not being able to use your class powers.

Which means you can't use the spell for scouting or traveling, for example. And that even using it in combat is a bit of a dodgy thing.

[Unoriginal]

Which means you can't use the spell for scouting or traveling, for example. And that even using it in combat is a bit of a dodgy thing.

Well yeah. That's the principle.

Though to be 100% in combat it's still pretty good. Getting a bunch more HPs and good attacks (depending on the form) can really help turn the tide. You just have to deal with the inconvenient parts too. And if you want to use it for traveling, well, it's possible if one of the PCs can direct the PC-turned-into-a-beast.

And if you don't want to use it as a buff, turning your enemies into frogs is always useful.

[Lunali]

And if you don't want to use it as a buff, turning your enemies into frogs is always useful.

This brings up what I find to be the more interesting question. Will an intelligent creature forcibly turned into something harmless try to continue attacking their enemies or will they try to end the polymorph first?

[Tanarii]

Some may claim that intelligence by no means have any impact on how a character is (or should be) played. I disagree completely. The description of intelligence on p. 177 of the PhB states that "Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall and the ability to reason". So I expect my players to portray their character to the best of their abilities. Roleplaying someone much much smarter is difficult, but roleplaying someone stupid is easy. Therefore, I don't see the argument of "just ignore the game mechanics, they have no effect on the character" as being valid. Attributes clearly measure something of the character, and intelligence measure ability of reason. So, low intelligence = low ability to reason.

A player or DM is free to make decisions for their character on whatever basis they want. That includes ability scores.

But as far as the game, or the DM's judgement of an ability score's affect on the results of a players intended action, are concerned: if an ability score affects something directly, there is either a rule for it, or the DM calls for a check related to it.

In other words, if there's no ability score involved in deterring determining resolution (outcomes or consequences), there's no requirement for anything to depende on the ability score. Players decisions about declared intended actions (intent and approach) are their own to make, based on any relevant factors they want to consider.

If we just look at the game mechanics, and forget about roleplaying, it is also clear that memories are lost when you take the animal form. Since your knowledge checks drops, there is information you had before which you can no longer recall. So just following the game mechanics, we reach the conclusion that not all memories are being transferred to the new form (which leads to the question of which and how many).

Absolutely not clear that memories are 'lost'. You definitely may have trouble accessing them on the fly though. Ie when the DM requires an Int check to recall something you knew. Also when you make Int checks to deduce something.

intelligence checks are like any other check. Given time and no consequences for failure, the DM should be using the automatic success rule. This means if you aren't in a stressful situation you should be able to take ten times as long to recall information you already know, and hasn't permanently slipped your mind. You can never recall information you don't already know.

An intelligence check is to recall information right now (however long 'now' is), or if there is a possibility you didn't deduce something like the meaning of a 'clue' (failure has consequences), or it's a detail that's permanently slipped your mind (failure has consequences). Low intelligence makes it harder to recall information right the now.

Int checks are some of the most underused or misused ability checks. DMs just love to use them to determine the state of a character's knowledge, as in "does your character know this information" ... and that's it. So many players think that's what they're for.

Edit: I should be clear I don't force players that remember something to make Int checks to allow their characters to also remember it in the heat of the moment. I allow them to make checks to have their character remember things the player has forgotten in the heat of the moment. And oh boy do players forget things! "Didn't we get instructions on how to activate the thingamajigy without blowing up the world? Nobody wrote those down?"

[Unoriginal]

This brings up what I find to be the more interesting question. Will an intelligent creature forcibly turned into something harmless try to continue attacking their enemies or will they try to end the polymorph first?

Well they're still smart enough to realize the change. What they try afterward depends.

Doubt most of them would figure out how to break the spell, though.

[rbstr]

Which will make it rather difficult to use on yourself or your allies, won't it? As they might no longer understand what "sneaking into the camp" means.

Yes polymorphing might screw up plans with complexity if they require any complexity.


Lets, for a second, put a person on drugs/alcohol instead of polymorphing them. Plenty of people keep their personality when they're drunk off their butts. They probably understand a group's goals and have their same motivations as before but communicating that they need to be sneaky instead of shouting in a face to face conversation might be a bit difficult.

Polymorph your guy in the middle of a fight and he's gonna keep the understanding of needing to hit the bad guys. But he probably won't get it when you shout "Get out of Fireball formation" or "target the wizard!" at him.

[Asmotherion]

Effectiveness.

If you were a Charismatic, Intelligent and Wise Mage with an Obnoxious personality and looked down on everyone else, but everyone tolerated you just because they knew deep down you were always right, but now suddently you're a dim-witted rat with the same Personallyty, and your best arguement is to bite anything that oposes your goals, the effectiveness of your supperiority complex is not played right.

[Thrudd]

If you want to impose rules that force stats to impact player decisions, that can be done, but it obviously isn't BtB. For instance, a character that has low intelligence normally isn't forced to act in any particular way in or out of combat- the player just makes role play decisions, and the DM has no way to enforce that they "properly" depict what it would be like to have such-and-such a level of intelligence (as if it were even possible to do so in an objective way). When they get changed into a TRex it's no different- the BtB method is the "lip service" method, which is to say that stats have no real, mechanical or enforceable impact on how the player controls them. IRL, retaining personality and moral outlook (alignment) would be impossible if your mental attributes changed to that of an animal. Since the game says that this is what happens, one can only conclude that the decision making part of the mind is not affected by the shift. Therefore, ability scores do not represent the decision-making parts of the mind.

Here's an optional house rule to make polymorph a bit less optimal as a combat and scouting strategy and to enforce more plausible behavior for low intelligence, assuming behavioral changes along with the stat decrease-
Below some threshold of intelligence (maybe 3, since that is the minimum human intelligence), players receive a reduced list of possible animal behaviors/actions.

1 They can move towards and/or attack something that is directly threatening them or an ally.

2 They can be ordered by an ally to move somewhere specific and stop or stay, with an intelligence check DC 8.

3 they can follow or move alongside an ally

They are subject to special morale rules- if they take damage beyond a certain threshold from an attacker, they must spend their next round doing nothing but moving away from the attacker unless they make a wisdom saving throw (maybe DC 10 plus damage done, maybe adjusted based on % of total hp lost). They will not approach any more enemies in that combat, moving away from any that approach, unless they get cornered or spend an action to make a successful wisdom save against the original DC.

After the spell ends, In order to recall something perceived while in animal form the player must make a DC 10 intelligence check using the animal's intelligence score. Possibly, this may be applied only to certain types of information that would be thought of as beyond an animal's ability to know/recognize. For instance, as an animal, you may recall that creatures were seen someplace, and identify that there was one or more than one (but no counting). You may recall that something hurt you. But you won't know details like they were armed in such and such a manner, or know what they were saying (no real language comprehension), or identify that one guy looked like a spell caster, or know that some were captives of the others.

[Lunali]

Well they're still smart enough to realize the change. What they try afterward depends.

Doubt most of them would figure out how to break the spell, though.

Most 'harmless' shapes will have few hit points, it doesn't take a whole lot of creativity to find a way to take a little damage.

[Dalebert]

I think it's a disaster trying to read too much into this. It threatens to turn the PC into an NPC with the DM not letting them make any choices about what they do and I don't think that's the intent, e.g. "You're too dumb to do that." I will apply the obvious stuff only--you can't communicate anymore unless someone has Speak with Animals, for instance. You certainly can't read. You won't figure out any puzzles, But beyond that I would consider you an exceptional version of that animal. You retain your personality, you essentially have your memories as a human. You remember what you wanted to do before you turned into an animal.

Let's talk about intent. Alteration wizards have an ability to turn into a low CR animal. This ability becomes almost useless if you try to speculate wildly about how stupid the caster gets when they become an animal and you start banning all kinds of choices in a fairly arbitrary manner.

[Tanarii]

I think it's a disaster trying to read too much into this. It threatens to turn the PC into an NPC with the DM not letting them make any choices about what they do and I don't think that's the intent, e.g. "You're too dumb to do that."

Thats pretty much my point of view. If you're going to be explicit about it, do that. Take away the PC and declare it an NPC for the duration of the spell.

Alternately, if you have players that will play in the spirit of your declaration, feel free to declare the spell makes you "act like an animal in all ways except your declared personality traits (including alignment)".

In fact, that's what I assumed was the intent should happened, until I thought about it some more. (Edit: an participated in umpteen of these threads. You can probably find posts by me saying the opposite less than 6 months ago ) But then I realized it's probably not the original intent of the 5e designers to require that. They weren't afraid of establishing roleplaying rules in 5e by any means, but they're usually explicit when they exist.

Other times, they seem to make an effort to allow fairly free player decision making. If they made it clear the creature retains its personality, they probably didn't intend a poly morphed creature becomes an actual or de facto NPC.

Also, as you say Transmutation Wizards class feature is fairly telling.