Ulorian - Agent of Chaos
Legend
Beat me to the punch...
D&D General Simulacrum and then True Polymorph
Zubatcarteira
Now you're infected by the Musical Doodle
The way I see it is that when you polymorph yourself you lose all your normal features, although you can still use them if the new form has those. Say, a Wizard True Polymorphs into a Ki-Rin, they won't have their Wizard spellcasting, but can use the Ki-Rin's Cleric spellcasting.
This is my interpretation also.
It still leaves unanswered if the intent is to allow you to keep spellcasting, despite the fact that you assume the statistics of the new form, or it's simply allowing you to use innate spellcasting, if the form has it.
I'm on the fence with this one. It's a 9th level spell, so it should be very powerful- at this point, whatever campaign you're in is probably close to it's conclusion. And I know from my experience with regular Polymorph, because it takes away class abilities, the people I play with aren't keen on being changed under normal circumstances.
But it does sound kind of busted to gain a more powerful form, possibly one with flight or other cool abilities, and keep everything you had as well, possibly on a permanent basis. Because at this point, anyone capable of casting this spell should transform their whole party into celestial beings or whatnot, lol.
Which is a pretty sweet capstone (better than the ones your classes give you). But it's not exactly fair to parties who don't have 9th level casters who can grant such a benefit to them. "Sorry guys, you didn't drag a Wizard along with you until this point in the game, so no super cool buffs for you."
I will say that what you and UngainlyTitan are saying is probably the intent. But if I ever ran for a high level party in 5e (which is highly unlikely), I might at least consider allowing it to work the other way, perhaps as a Boon of some kind.
Zubatcarteira
Now you're infected by the Musical Doodle
If you wish to turn into another creature and keep your spellcasting and other class/race abilities, the Shapechange spell does exactly that, but it has more limitations to compensate for it.
The existence of Shapechange is one of consideration of my reasoning. I do not want True Poly to be better.
That's also fair. Though Shapechange does have it's own advantages, that it allows you to freely shift from one shape to another during it's duration, which can be pretty sweet.
LordEntrails
Hero
My understanding: Polymorph you don't retain abilities from before, i.e. spell casting. But you do gain the new abilities of the new form.
Now their is a really good point upthread, that you gain the form, i.e. stone giant, but not the unique abilities of Archmage King Karl of the stone giants. Now, is archmage a special instance of human/elf/etc or are they generic enough you can TP into an archmage?
In comparison, shapechange says "You transform into an average example of that creature, one without any class levels or the Spellcasting trait." But TP doesn't say that, so...?
Now their is a really good point upthread, that you gain the form, i.e. stone giant, but not the unique abilities of Archmage King Karl of the stone giants. Now, is archmage a special instance of human/elf/etc or are they generic enough you can TP into an archmage?
In comparison, shapechange says "You transform into an average example of that creature, one without any class levels or the Spellcasting trait." But TP doesn't say that, so...?
It does raise a few questions when it comes to variant creatures. You encounter a Firenewt Warlock of Imix. You attempt to Polymorph into one. What do you become? Is the "Warlock of Imix" a distinct creature? Should you become a Firenewt Warrior instead?
What are the stats for "generic Firenewt"?
Or how about a Cloud Giant Smiling One? The creature has Innate Spellcasting, so it's obviously not the same as a regular Cloud Giant, but is that saying Smiling Ones are distinct creatures, or it gained this ability through some other means?
Especially problematic since the spell uses CR as a metric for what you can turn into. Since the spell says you gain the statistics of the creature, this can often include things like "Multiattack- you can make two attacks with a scimitar". Now unless the creature was born with this knowledge, it's not an ability innate to it's form...but the spell doesn't ask you to make value judgements about what is or is not an innate ability.
If you Polymorph into a Giant Ape, you can throw big rocks at people with surprising accuracy- irregardless of your own ability to throw big rocks. Surely, a real Giant Ape has to practice chucking boulders around to gain this ability.
But the spell wouldn't be very useful (or fun) if you were unable to use all the abilities the monster possesses, so there is apparently a limit to how specific we're intended to rule on the spell. Just where that line is, unfortunately, isn't very clear.
