jonexmachina
First Post
I was wondering if there has been any consensus reached about the hitpoints of creatures created from objects using Polymorph Any Object.
The spell says that "Unlike polymorph, polymorph any object does grant the creature the Intelligence score of its new form. If the original form didn’t have a Wisdom or Charisma score, it gains those scores as appropriate for the new form." (SRD) It doesnt mention skills, feats and hitpoints at all.
The spell gives an example of "Marionette to human". I can understand not giving it any skills or feats - it wasn't alive until a moment ago, so it doesn't have any knowledge or memories. (This would also preclude comunicating with it in most cases - it has no languages)
It has to have hp though - the problem is, how many? If the hp are based on the original substance (as they would be if you were polymorphing a living creature) then it would be possible to polymorph a human out of 1500cu feet of stone, with thousands of hp.
If hp are based off of what the polymorph result would have (so a human gets 1 humanoid hd, and a fire giant would get 15 giant hd, the max because PaO references Polymorph) then
a) it seems unreasonable not to allow them feats and skills based on their racial hd
b) PaO becomes a broken (?) Summon type spell, lasting a minimum of 20 min and creating things that Summon Monster 9 would never allow. This does have downsids, such as - beatdown school only, as they dont get Su or Ex powers - dispel magic turns them back - not under your control. Still seems kinda broken to be able to whip up an army of fire giants.
The only balanced way I could come up with is to give them 1d8 hp, regardless of a final form. That way, if the caster wants his new toys to be tough, he at least has to find some dinosaurs or something as raw materials.
The spell says that "Unlike polymorph, polymorph any object does grant the creature the Intelligence score of its new form. If the original form didn’t have a Wisdom or Charisma score, it gains those scores as appropriate for the new form." (SRD) It doesnt mention skills, feats and hitpoints at all.
The spell gives an example of "Marionette to human". I can understand not giving it any skills or feats - it wasn't alive until a moment ago, so it doesn't have any knowledge or memories. (This would also preclude comunicating with it in most cases - it has no languages)
It has to have hp though - the problem is, how many? If the hp are based on the original substance (as they would be if you were polymorphing a living creature) then it would be possible to polymorph a human out of 1500cu feet of stone, with thousands of hp.
If hp are based off of what the polymorph result would have (so a human gets 1 humanoid hd, and a fire giant would get 15 giant hd, the max because PaO references Polymorph) then
a) it seems unreasonable not to allow them feats and skills based on their racial hd
b) PaO becomes a broken (?) Summon type spell, lasting a minimum of 20 min and creating things that Summon Monster 9 would never allow. This does have downsids, such as - beatdown school only, as they dont get Su or Ex powers - dispel magic turns them back - not under your control. Still seems kinda broken to be able to whip up an army of fire giants.
The only balanced way I could come up with is to give them 1d8 hp, regardless of a final form. That way, if the caster wants his new toys to be tough, he at least has to find some dinosaurs or something as raw materials.
