Design & Development: Dislikes

[FireLance]

If it didn't feature so often in fairy tales and folklore, I'm sure most DMs would rather cut polymorph from their games.

Some of the fixes previously mentioned might work. One form per spell is probably the most restrictive, followed by a pre-selected list of forms (like the summon monster lists) and personal lists of familiar forms.

A more extensive fix would be to give each creature a Polymorph Rating (ECL might do for a start) and only allow spellcasters to polymorph into creatures with Polymorph Ratings equal to their spellcaster level or less.

The most involved system I can think of involves going through every creature in the SRD, and detailing what the PC gains when he uses (a) alter self; (b) polymorph; (c) shapechange to assume the creature's form. You could even tie the acquisition of certain abilities to caster level, so that a lower-level spellcaster will produce a weaker form or a form that has access to fewer abilities than a higher-level spellcaster. But this will be a lot of work for what is essentially a small group of spells.

 

[buzz]

I'd love to see Schubert's and Mearls' rules become core (though I'd want to see the smallest die remain a d4, not d2; I'm with Monte on d6 being the smallest acceptable hit die for a PC).

Granted, you can play IH and basically have them "core".

 

[Frostmarrow]

I wonder if it couldn't mostly be solved by using CR instead of HD. As DM, I'd probably make a material component of flesh, hair or blood of the creature you're polymorphing into if I wanted to limit it. That would usually mean that the character would have to have fought the creature before or paid a great deal for the components while polymorphing into more common animals and monsters would still be trivial.

Interesting idea! I always thought if you polymorphed into something else you'd become that creature entirely. You would simply replace your character sheet for the entry in Monster Manual. You would get the super-natural aswell as the mental stats. If you polymorph into a bird you get the intellectual capabilities of a bird. The player can still control himself and do cunning stuff, but Knowledge checks would still suffer.

Are there any problems with using CR as the benchmark instead of HD? I mean if you polymorph into a basilisk you get a lethal attack but otherwise you are pretty harmless. It seems to me that if you are going to go by CR you must get the whole package or the system breaks down. A basilisk is not worth it's CR without the petrifying bite. Coupled with the material component requirement mentioned above it might just work.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

My resurrection house rule (since we are sharing) is that there is no level loss. Instead

Raise Dead = -2 Con
Resurrection = -1 Con
True Resurrection = no Con penalty.

The raised person is slightly frailer than before, and thus it can only work a limited number of times, but you don't have to recalculate BAB, feats, spells etc. etc.

That was more or less how it was in older editions, and happened to be what I thought was a bad idea even then.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Regarding Polymorph, I'm surprised no one has mentioned this already -- the Neverwinter Nights fix. In that computer game (which is a licensed D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms), you can only polymorph into a limited number of forms.

Obviously, there had to be some limits on the spell, or the game would be unplayable.

Is pen-and-paper D&D unplayable with the wide open polymorph as it exists? I think the answer is yes. Limiting the spell to certain pre-selected forms would accomplish two things: it would allow the designers to select monsters that are appropriately game balanced, and it would drastically reduce the amount of prep time required when casting the spell.

Now, figuring out whether you get all of the creatures natural / supernatural / spell-like / etc. abilities is another rules nightmare. However, with a sufficiently limited number of monsters, the spell could simply specify what you get from each one.

 

[JoeGKushner]

My resurrection house rule (since we are sharing) is that there is no level loss. Instead

Raise Dead = -2 Con
Resurrection = -1 Con
True Resurrection = no Con penalty.

The raised person is slightly frailer than before, and thus it can only work a limited number of times, but you don't have to recalculate BAB, feats, spells etc. etc.

Depending on how easy ability scores are to generate and regain, that rule could be very harsh or not that bad.

I know that as a player, I'd rather have the level loss than the con loss.