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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9633787" data-attributes="member: 7737">Pointless PolymorphingThe Sorcerer's Crown gamebook absolutely LOVES Polymorph Other: it gets more play than any other spell and, as we know, can be the key to get us off Dalris's kinsman's boat and back into the barren Yellow wasteland Marsh where we belong.But let's pretend we take the highway to Saven and defeat the knights using our weapons and/or Rufyl's O.P. stinger. Then we are left with the problem of what to do about some still living captives. We could merely tie them up and gag them, but why use a commonsense approach when there is a perfectly good magical overkill just waiting to happen?---32At the precise moment you utter the last word of the powerful enchantment, the paladin is enveloped in a greenish sheath of some opaque magical substance. At first it seems so thin that the warrior might easily tear it with his hands, but it hardens rapidly so that all signs of interior movement vanish. Then the long shell begins to wrinkle and darken, as if it were a pea pod shriveling and shrinking in the hot Tikandian sunlight."It's cracking!" you tell Dalris, who is standing in the road with a frown marring her beautifully tanned face."And you're already cracked!" she retorts, although you notice that her dark eyes are glued to the diminutive envelope to see what emerges. The enchanted shell finally collapses, leaving in the middle of the road a confused terrapin crouched and trembling in terror."Ha!" you exclaim, tossing a small pebble at the tortoise. It bounces off the polymorphed paladin's new 'armor' and frightens the creature so badly that it draws its head into its shell. "He won't be talking to anyone now!" you announce with glee.---The illustration is glorious:[ATTACH=full]402204[/ATTACH]---I will nitpick one thing.… you notice that her dark eyes are glued to the diminutive envelope to see what emerges.From (20) we know that Dalris has "olive" colored eyes. I wouldn't describe that eye color as "dark".---Speaking of Dalris, we do have one chance to use Polymorph Other on HER. I will leave the implications of this choice to the psychiatrists. On the topic of psychiatry, this is one of the more bat-guano crazy decisions that WIS 3 Carr Delling makes in the entire book.This happens when we are in the Yellow Marsh, desperate for a way to combat the powerful creature that Rufyl has sensed and warned us about.---120I could change Rufyl or Dalris temporarily into a form powerful enough to handle the thing in the fog! you think.According to your research, the intelligence of a subject cannot be increased by the Polymorph Other spell. That means the new form will be restricted to the average intelligence of a pseudodragon if I use Rufyl, and the thing down there has got to be a lot brighter than that.You glance at Dalris's slim figure advancing slowly into the fog and know what you must do. [...] At the spot in the incantation where you must name the new form to be assumed, you pause, then add a phrase describing Dalris's new shape as 'anything stronger than the thing in the fog'.[INT test with a target number of 27 (!). On success…]71At the instant you mutter the last word of the spell, Dalris's body arches in the monster's grasp. The bard's chest swell so suddenly that the yellowish fingers open, dropping the transforming body to the bare ground. You watch in horror as, with a hideous rending noise, Dalris's beautiful form splits into a shattered, bloodless shell.The towering thing that emerges from the bard's carcass has a horned, batrachian head with a spiny carapace extending to the tip of its switching tail. You watch it rise on its hind feet, carrying its cavernous maw at least thirty feet above your head. It is filled with sharp, pointed teeth, each one nearly a foot long."A tarrasque! You turned Dalris into a tarrasque!"[This from Rufyl who proves he has higher INT than we do by running away. As does Shanif after the marid points out the irony that an archdruid's daughter will now ravage the countryside and turn it into, you guessed it, a barren wasteland.]You try to spot the speaker of the message that thunders directly into your brain, but you catch only a fleeting glimpse of the giant humanoid hand dissolving into a yellow mist and blending with the fog. The tarrasque's huge forepaws swipe the haze where the hand had been, only to fan the stinking yellow fumes. Then the horrible creature turns towards you with saliva dripping from its lipless mouth and fangs. It's hungry. ✠---Like I said: bat-guano crazy. And a fitting end for OUR Carr Delling in this case.But we are not done with pointless polymorphing, because there is another target for the spell, conveniently in the same general location as Dalris.Cue mysterious music…!</blockquote>

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