Polymorph Any Object abuse

[Elurindel]

I'm wondering how exactly I can handle a certain player of mine who is stretching my patience and the rules to their limits.
Here are a few of the things his half-dragon sorceror/dragon disciple is pulling off with this spell of much arseness:

*Casting it on a pebble, claiming it can form a Great Wyrm for 20 minutes at most
* Casting it on his Wyrmling familiar, claiming it can become a Great Wyrm permanently
*Casting it on HIMSELF, claiming he can become a Great Wyrm permanently

I can find nothing in the rules that says he cannot do this, but I am about to throw my DM weight around here in order to level the playing field. I am considering letting an enemy do it, on order to create a Great Wyrm from a pebble, who knows Polymorph any Object, who creates a Great Wyrm from a pebble who knows Polymorph any Object, who...you get the idea.

Just how do I limit this spell so I stop him from overshadowing the other players?

[Emperor Tippy]

There is a 15 HD limit on PaO. So no great wyrms. But you can turn pebbles into Plantar's.

[Elurindel]

Ah, that's where I was going wrong. I had neglected to check the exact description of the original polymorph spell. Thank you muchly.

[Reel On, Love]

Just how do I limit this spell so I stop him from overshadowing the other players?

You ban the hell out of the spell, because it is completely and irreparably broken. You do the same with Shapechange and Polymorph, for the record. Also, Gate.

Then you make SLAs cost Xp if the spell they're imitating does.

[Elurindel]

I plan to let the players decide for themselves, once they see that the dragon they're fighting next session can create being that can create another, and another, until they can mass-sacrifice themselves to summon Bahamut from Deities and Demigods. Once they know this, they'll rally against it instantly, and I shall then point out that Great Wyrms can't be made with the spell anyway.

This has been most informative, and I doubt I'll be letting the spell back into my game. I'll let him take a new one to make up for it, but after seeing the many ways it can be abused, it's not worth making so many rules for.

[D Knight]

as a side note you can not be a dragon disciple because of its reqerments that say that you can not be half dragon already. and if i my ask what lv is your party at?

[Albonor]

as a side note you can not be a dragon disciple because of its reqerments that say that you can not be half dragon already. and if i my ask what lv is your party at?

What if he simply reached level 10 as a DD? But yeah, that means level 26 at least...

[Elurindel]

as a side note you can not be a dragon disciple because of its reqerments that say that you can not be half dragon already. and if i my ask what lv is your party at?

He became a half dragon by being a dragon disciple. I allowed him to gain more sorceror spell levels to make up for how useless the class is. He's currently level 24, if memory serves.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Pshaw.

If you play with pebbles, just go ahead and turn it into a Black Hole.

Really, the guy probably just needs a talk about how he's being a douche. If e would have wanted to break the game, he would have done so already.

[Emperor Tippy]

He became a half dragon by being a dragon disciple. I allowed him to gain more sorceror spell levels to make up for how useless the class is. He's currently level 24, if memory serves.

What level does he cast at?

[Elurindel]

What level does he cast at?

18th level. Also, he believes that the indigo level of a Prismatic Wall cancels out the other effects, such as taking damage, possible insanity etc. when passing through it. Is he correct? It says "redundant" in the spell description, which isn't quite the same thing.

[Emperor Tippy]

18th level. Also, he believes that the indigo level of a Prismatic Wall cancels out the other effects, such as taking damage, possible insanity etc. when passing through it. Is he correct? It says "redundant" in the spell description, which isn't quite the same thing.

He is wrong. You are effected by every layer in order. The wall is not trying to pass through it's self (which the indigo level would block).

[Occasional Sage]

Also, have a look at The Giant's two posts on Polymorph abuse in the Gaming section. He has some good ideas about how to rebalance ploymorph; not sure if they're directly applicable to your case, but worth looking certainly.

[Aquillion]

Note that creatures 'created' via Polymorph Any Object are not under the caster's control. In fact, they're not even guarenteed to be friendly -- if he creates a Planar, it could instantly attack him (standing around confused doing nothing is more likely IMHO, though the spell doesn't really give any detail on their mental state.)

Now, the familiar thing does work. PAO is considered the most broken spell ever printed for a reason. (Shapechange and Gate might compete, but those at least only work when you cast them, for the most part -- PAO lasts forever if you use it right.)

The Dungeonomicon or one of those books had a houseruling for the whole polymorph-line that made them a bit more playable. Of course, they just ignored PAO (it's just too broken), but for polymorph:

You vanish and a monster of your choice appears in your place. The creature shares your alignment, personality and goals, and will continue to act as you would within the limits of its intelligence and abilities. The creature must be at least 3 CR less than your character level, may not have the incorporeal or swarm subtype, and is unexceptional for its type. If the monster is killed, the spell is ended. When the spell ends, the monster vanishes and you appear where the monster was with an amount of lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage on you equal to the amount the monster had suffered when the spell ended (this means that if the spell ended because the monster was slain and the monster had an equal or greater number of hit points as you, you may well be dead when you appear).

Notice that you essentially become an NPC for the duration, though most DMs would probably allow you some input into how the monster acts (since it shares your goals, you can say what those goals are -- DMs usually let people control animal companions directly, too, even though that's not RAW. But basically, it prevents a lot of abuse.)

Regarding Prismatic Wall, it specifically says the layers are listed in the order encountered. Note that the footnote for the violet layer is only for objects and effects, not creatures, because being destroyed does render the effects that the other six colors have on objects redundant. It does not, though, render the effects that the other six layers will have on a creature (before it reaches the violet layer) redundant, since that creature will end up on another plane.

Debatably, though, if you fail your save against the blue layer (getting turned to stone), the indigo layer will fail to render you insane... and the violet one will then destroy you instead of sending you to another plane, since you're an object. Hey, shouldn't that be spelled out specifically? It seems like a major point...

[Triaxx]

That's not much of an abuse. Taking the badguy's super armor and polymorphing it into paper mache is abuse. Turning the Barbarian's spiked chain into sausage links... is likely to get the character killed.

[Aquillion]

That's not much of an abuse. Taking the badguy's super armor and polymorphing it into paper mache is abuse. Turning the Barbarian's spiked chain into sausage links... is likely to get the character killed.

Even that's not so great, since his armor will get his fort save (it's an attended item). That's just using it as a save-or-die.

The absurd things are PAOing yourself into something with a higher int score, or PAOing the fighter/rogue into something horribly nasty with painful natural attacks... things like that. PAO's broken part is how it can be made to last forever, so you can cast it once and get a huge advantage for the rest of your adventuring career (assuming it isn't dispelled, but even then, it cost you nothing to cast, so you've forced the enemy to waste a turn dispelling it and then you just cast it again outside of combat.)

Seriously, as described in the spell, with no twinking or anything special added to it, and no particular cheese beyond PAO itself, it can last forever and give your caster a huge untyped bonus to your casting stat, while probably massively increasing your physical stats, giving you superior movement modes, and giving you a powerful natural attack if you ever happen to need it. Why on earth would they print a spell like that?

[Elurindel]

It does seem like a horrendous spell in many ways, especially as you could replicate all kinds of creatures and augment them with casting abilities.

One other question: When polymorphing from one dragon colour to another, would he lose the immunities and weaknesses of the former, and gain the latter, or simply gain the immunities and weaknesses of both?

[Chronos]

Actually, I'm not sure that the dragon thing works. Polymorph Any Object doesn't say it lets you change the target's age, so while you could polymorph a red wyrmling into a blue wyrmling, I don't think you could polymorph a red wyrmling into an adult red dragon.

[Triaxx]

I decided against mentioning the Halfling Gigilo.