Baleful Polymorph and Hit Points

[Romnipotent]

I have a character, a sorcerer, who was recently in a mage dual. Consequently he was turned into a Tamarin monkey with Baleful Polymorph. Now, he failed the fort save, and passed his will save. Leaving the guy a small monkey, with his original brain. Now, for the shame of loosing he's decided to stay all monkeyed, that and he likes being light enough to mage hand himself across a river.

So, if he had Con 16, and now 10, does he loose the 30 hit points he had from that con? (level 10) I think he does, but overall I would rather keep those hit points, afterall, we all die sometimes, and less is better.

Romers

 

[geezerjoe]

Yes. Having run a barbarian a few times I can tell you that adjustments to Con effect hit point totals retroactively.

Good when you gain Con, bad when you loose it.

 

[Romnipotent]

OOO OOO ARRRR ARRRR ARRRRR!!!!

as Abu Sahid would say

 

[reiella]

Yes. Having run a barbarian a few times I can tell you that adjustments to Con effect hit point totals retroactively.

Good when you gain Con, bad when you loose it.

Except when dealing with polymorph...

Then it depends on your Sanity Score...

Either 1) Polymorph doesn't affect Hit Points (it explicitly doesn't, alter self doesn't, etc). Therefore, the con difference does not mean squat for hitpoints.

or 2) Polymorph doesn't affect base hit points, but does affect bonus hitpoints from Constitution modifier.

I believe RAW implies 1, but common sense implies 2. But I'm wrong.

 

[Romnipotent]

Its baleful, meaning I get the physical stats of the animal, and its a permanent spell. thats the issue, just wondering how it travels.

 

[Saeviomagy]

...he likes being light enough to mage hand himself across a river...

Gah!

One nonmagical, unattended object weighing up to 5 lb.

No matter how you twist it, a monkey is a creature, not an object.

And a polymorphed one is magical to boot.

 

[Iku Rex]

Short summary:

1. The rules.
Your hit points remain the same (alter self), or, as the DMG (errata) puts it, you retain your original hit points.

Both Complete Warrior and Complete Arcane has stats for polymorphed NPCs, and in both cases they retain their original hit points despite a changed Con.

2. The Skip.

"Unlike previous versions of the D&D game, the subject's hit points change according to his new Constitution score."

 

[Romnipotent]

so this a DM decision, lets see what he decides:
1) Lower HP, Cohort of protection
2) keep hitpoints, choose another feat after ditching Leadership

 

[Li Shenron]

We have played Polymorph in both ways, and frankly I don't know which is the better one. It depends on the case I guess. I think the rules aren't 100% clear but seem to point to the direction of not changing the Hp at all, but also there was a Sage Advice or article IIRC which said the opposite.

Recently I've been thinking that it might be even better to use Rich Burlew's version of the ploymorphing rules (not necessarily his spells however), which would change Polymorph spells so that only racial modifiers of the abilities change. [e.g. as a human with 16 Con, you had +0 from your race and "rolled" a 16; therefore as a monkey with +0 as well you would still have Con 16]

 

[Diirk]

How does he cast spells as a monkey ? Silent metamagic everything ? Seems a tad impractical...