D&D 5E How did they decide on the mechanics of Polymorph?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I agree the mechanic looks wonky - how is it working in play for people? I can't imagine they didn't do a lot of iterations on a spell with such a spotty history

 

[Riley37]

you can´t polymorph yourself with polymorph... I believe with the animal´s mental abilities, you can´t concentrate on spells. So we really need a polymorph self spell.

Extensively discussed in the Safe Polymorphing thread.

In fact, the topic was polymorphed into a horse, to see what would happen if we beat it to 0 HP and beyond.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I came to the conclusion, that polymorph is one of the few spells scaling with level.

My fix is:

memorized at level 4, you can only polymorph someone into a lvl 4 creature +/-1 for each higher level.