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Message: <blockquote data-quote="knifespeaks" data-source="post: 1842108" data-attributes="member: 25248">Well, I have never experienced something akin to what you are faced with Frank - but here's my take:First off, the players have to understand that the game must remian, at all times, a challenge. I doubt you are likely to get much argument there! SO, using that as a basis:Shapechange is a SHAPE change. You get all the good stuff, but NONE of the bad - certainly in this instance there is very little of a negative nature that has been presented thus far. But you get the supernatural abilities of (in this case) a Pit Fiend - a greater devil. How do Pit Fiends get these abilities?Devils are extra-planar creatures. Their form, their very essence, is utterly alien to humans/humanoids from the Prime Material Plane. It is this 'otherworldly' nature that gives them their powers (consider Superman in the same light. He was just 'regular' for his kind, but down here, on Earth he was altogether different). I don't think it is then stretching the limit of the magic to say that, to gain the shape, as per this spell, of a Pit Fiend means the caster 'taps into' this otherworldly nature - for all intents and purposes they ARE Pit Fiends. This raises the alignment spectre, but with Wee-Jas in the picture, that presents no great difficulty. But what of the mind of the caster? Is it strong enough, flexible enough, to control the bodies' link to this otherworldly nature? Is it not possible that the mind could be lost to the body - especially one that is so much more powerful than any form the caster has assumed before? Consider the inner torment of Bruce Banner and his time as the Hulk - there is a parallel you can perhaps expand on.I am not advocating advising the player of this either! Allow the change - watch the delight grow, as both the player AND as the character start to 'flex' the muscles this form gives them - and begin to introduce a feeling, in the mind of the caster, that all is not well. The outcome of staying in this form should be that the soul risks being consumed. The player risks losing his identity, lost in the swirling maelstrom that is the otherworldly nature of a Pit Fiend. How exactly the mechanic works I leave to you to design. But magic of this kind shouldn't be the exact science of a magic missile. Consider how wish spells are handled, and I see no reason to not be similarly restrictive for shape change. Shapechanging to less powerful/fanatstic/otherworldly etc beings doesn't of course pose the same problems - you want the spell to be useful, after all.</blockquote>

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