Baleful Polymorph into a Monkey - Verbal Spells?

[Altalazar]

If you turn someone into a monkey with Baleful Polymorph - a sorcerer - what would you think the effect on the sorcerer's spellcasting (if Will save was made)?

I'd think Somatic would still be ok, because monkeys have dexterity comparable to humans, but for the verbal, not having vocal cords that can talk like us would be a hindrance - mages don't speak regular language when they do spells, but they do need to speak. I was thinking of a penalty or some sort of skill check or spell failure percentage, but at the very least, it should be harder to do the verbal part of spells. Or should there be no penalty, given that creatures other than human-speakers can cast spells?

 

[shai-hulud]

Well, to answer your question, I refer you to the Natural Spell feat. A druid usually cannot perform the verbal or somatic components of a spell in their wildshaped form. But with the feat, they can.

From purely a rules point of view, I would think it would be impossible for the monkey to perform the verbal components.

From a House Rules point of view, I would say that at first, the monkey would not be able to cast spells at all. He would need to get used to his new form. Then, at some later time, I might allow him to retrain using the PHB II variant for retraining, to replace one of his feats. The new feat would grant him something akin to Natural Spell, allowing him to cast spells as a monkey. Since retraining usually costs wealth, I would say it would instead cost him gametime (he would need to practice rather than adventure). Alternatively, he could simply continue adventuring with the party and gain enough experience to gain enough levels. Once he reached an appropriate level, he would be able to take a homebrewed feat that would grant him spellcasting again.

 

[Altalazar]

I can see what you mean about wildshape, but usually druids don't wildshape into small primates, they wildshape into creatures that don't have hands with good manual dexterity and they don't have primite vocalizations that were perhaps precursors to our language ability.

It is an interesting idea, to make it get easier with time - though one would hope the player in question just gets it dispelled. If he had silent spell, he could do it without worrying about vocalizations - or perhaps a rod of silent spell would do the trick, come to think of it. He has the appropriate spell to fix it, if he could only cast it.

 

[pawsplay]

A monkey has nothing like the vocalization ability of a humanoid creature.

 

[Imre]

Scientifically speaking, monkeys lack what is called the pharynx which in humans allows for the resonation of sounds yielding the richness of linguistically distinguishable phonemes.

In short: no, a monkey could not cast spells with verbal components.

 

[Thanee]

Monkey don't speak a language, so no.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Tetsubo]

Have the Monkey take the Natural Spell feat. Problem solved. Other than that... they Monkey is screwed...

 

[Altalazar]

Monkey's have vocal cords. They can make noise. They have dextrous hands. And the sorcerer kept his mind.

Was it somewhat generous to let him at least attempt to cast spells? Yes. I decided to give him a 60% spell failure chance for verbal spells (which is pretty much all of them).

As it was, he rolled really well on that, but rolled terribly when he tried to cast dispell magic (and not on himself, but on the lich opponent and his summoned fire elementals) - really really bad. He was hard pressed to roll over a '5' on a d20, and he needed at least a '15' or so.

If he had been a giraffe or something, I couldn't see him doing anything verbal, but a monkey at least seemed like there should be a chance. Letting him try to cast did make the rest of the (very long, 2 session long) combat fun for the player, and ultimately, that's what matters most.

Thanks for all the input. Incidentally, though he could probably get it fixed now, the combat ended and there were no more spells left on anyone so he's still a monkey.

 

[D.Shaffer]

I am never quite sure why everyone requires a character to take 'Natural Spell'. Sure, they might not be able to make the exact same verbal and somantic 'components' as they used to, but I find it hard to believe that they couldnt adapt the spell at some future point without requiring a spell.

This is especially true for Divine spells where you're being granted the spell through a higher power to begin with. Unless your deity is someone who considers race very important, why would your deity refuse to let you cast Cure Light Wounds just because you growl instead of speak Common?

Arcane spells would be harder but if you wanted to learn an arcane spell that used animal specific gestures and growls, I'd allow that. (With the caveat that you couldnt use them when human again.)

 

[shilsen]

This is especially true for Divine spells where you're being granted the spell through a higher power to begin with. Unless your deity is someone who considers race very important, why would your deity refuse to let you cast Cure Light Wounds just because you growl instead of speak Common?

Why does your deity refuse to let you cast spells with V components in an area of Silence?

Why does your deity refuse to let you cast Cure Light Wounds and heal 1d12+20 hp?

Why does your deity refuse to let you cast an unlimited number of spells daily?

The answer to all the above, and to your question, is that your deity doesn't control your casting, but simply grants you the spells. The rules of magic still govern the casting of the spell. So though your deity can grant you a Cure Light, he can't let you cast it any better than your personal ability allows you to do. He can grant you spells but you can only prepare as many as you are personally able to do (i.e. what your level and stats let you). He can grant the monkey the spells, but the monkey, lacking the physical requirements to actually cast them, cannot do so.