laughingbuhda
First Post
Hi all, if you are bored, can you make head or tail of the Polymorph Any Object spell, or, indeed, any of those spells in the description chain for me?
<start rant>
Questions specifically for PAO include:
1) Are creature types and HD restricted as per Polymoph? If not, what is to stop someone polymorphing, using PAO, the whole party into some stronger gribbly type, e.g. astral devas, which, using the duration calculation table supplied, would result in a duration of 'Permanent'?
2) What is an 'object'? Is a pool of lava an 'object'? Is a small house an 'object' or several 'objects' constituting a 'door', 'windows', ad regressive infinitum?
Questions for PAO, Polymorph and Shapechange include:
3) The Alter Self spell, to which all the higher-powered polymorph spells refer, state clearly that hit points do not change from the transformation, but more powerful versions of the polymorph spell chain (including Polymorph, PAO and Shapechange) say that your Constitution changes to match that of the new creature, so do your post-transformation Con bonuses (or penalties) apply? If so, what on earth is the Constitution of a fly, or had we best restrict polymorphs and shapechanges to creatures with stats in the Monster Manual?
Questions specifically for Shapechange include:
4) Do you regain hit points as if rested for the night as per the Polymorph spell everytime you change your shape, which can be as often as once a round as a free action? To prevent this being broken, I would have thought that you regain hit points from your first transformation only.
I suppose, for the PAO spell not to be broken, the creature types and HD have to be restricted as per Polymorph, so, at best, we can turn the party permanently into trolls or something like that, which is not necessarily beneficial. And, for the purposes of the spell, an 'object' is probably something that can be physically detached and whose dimensions fit entirely within the area of the spell, which is quite small. And, for the purposes of the spell, you can't change into any creature without stats in the game, e.g. a mosquito.
The 'Rules of the Games' clarification on WOTC on the whole topic of polymorphing is no more elucidating, although they appear to suggest the restrictions are as per Polymorph, but then goes on to add more creature types for PAO.
I do wish WOTC would just spend a bit more money (even passing them on to the consumer) and print spell descriptions in full; these 'refer to some other spell which in turn refer to some other spell except where vaguely addressed here' descriptions are extremely confusing.
<end rant>
<start rant>
Questions specifically for PAO include:
1) Are creature types and HD restricted as per Polymoph? If not, what is to stop someone polymorphing, using PAO, the whole party into some stronger gribbly type, e.g. astral devas, which, using the duration calculation table supplied, would result in a duration of 'Permanent'?
2) What is an 'object'? Is a pool of lava an 'object'? Is a small house an 'object' or several 'objects' constituting a 'door', 'windows', ad regressive infinitum?
Questions for PAO, Polymorph and Shapechange include:
3) The Alter Self spell, to which all the higher-powered polymorph spells refer, state clearly that hit points do not change from the transformation, but more powerful versions of the polymorph spell chain (including Polymorph, PAO and Shapechange) say that your Constitution changes to match that of the new creature, so do your post-transformation Con bonuses (or penalties) apply? If so, what on earth is the Constitution of a fly, or had we best restrict polymorphs and shapechanges to creatures with stats in the Monster Manual?
Questions specifically for Shapechange include:
4) Do you regain hit points as if rested for the night as per the Polymorph spell everytime you change your shape, which can be as often as once a round as a free action? To prevent this being broken, I would have thought that you regain hit points from your first transformation only.
I suppose, for the PAO spell not to be broken, the creature types and HD have to be restricted as per Polymorph, so, at best, we can turn the party permanently into trolls or something like that, which is not necessarily beneficial. And, for the purposes of the spell, an 'object' is probably something that can be physically detached and whose dimensions fit entirely within the area of the spell, which is quite small. And, for the purposes of the spell, you can't change into any creature without stats in the game, e.g. a mosquito.
The 'Rules of the Games' clarification on WOTC on the whole topic of polymorphing is no more elucidating, although they appear to suggest the restrictions are as per Polymorph, but then goes on to add more creature types for PAO.
I do wish WOTC would just spend a bit more money (even passing them on to the consumer) and print spell descriptions in full; these 'refer to some other spell which in turn refer to some other spell except where vaguely addressed here' descriptions are extremely confusing.
<end rant>
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There was a thread on this subject a while back, but I don't have search and google search isn't cooperating. I did find several old threads on polymorph 
