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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 1360781" data-attributes="member: 2629">Ahhhh ... polymorph ... how do I hate thee? Let me recount the ways ...There is great amounts of disagreement on how polymorph works. The designers, custserv and internet gurus disagree on many aspects of the spell's workings. The spell description contradicts itself in a few places (ie; you gain poison attacks, but the poison reverts once outside the body, etc ...)Until WotC provides a clear version of the spell, the best you can do is sit down with your DM and come up with good answers that you both can agree upon (or, that he dictates to you). Here is a summary of some views:Andy Collins (the head honco for the 3.5 PHB), on his boards and on the WotC threads (since removed by the switch in the WotC boards) stated that when polymorphed, you gain the extraordinary attacks of the creature as well as all extraordinary attacks and extraordinary qualities of the creature's type gained because you adopt the creature's type(ie; low-light vision from animals, immunity to criticals from plants, etc ...) Extraordinary attacks that involve separation of the body (poison, manticore spikes, etc ...) should work. He hinted, though he did not directly say, that hit points were intended not to change due to a change in constitution because the alter self provision that hit points do not change was intended to apply to ploymorph. When using natural weapons in polymorphed form, you follow natural attack rules instead of normal attack rules for manufactured weapons (ie; you attack with full BAB with your primary weapon and -5 on all secondary weapons - no iterative attacks), though some creature forms (lizardman, troglodyte, etc ...) mix natural and manufactured weapons which result in your normal attack progression with a manufactured weapon and additional secondary attacks with your remaining natural weapons (all performed at BAB - 5 and using 1/2 strength). (NOTE: I follow this version in my games ... it works well enough, though I'd still advocate redoing it from scratch to balance the form choices for the spell around ECL, CR or LA instead of hit dice.)Custserv has contradicted itself to such an extent that their advice is meaningless. When pointed to an Andy Collins interpretation (from above), they have sometimes said he was wrong (once even commenting, "I don't know who Andy Collins is, but ...") and have sometimes said Andy was 100% correct and that their prior interpretations were wrong.Net Gurus disagree on much of polymorph's workings, but they tend to agree that hit points do change when constitution changes (mostly based upon a sage ruling that stated that he didn't see any reason why the hit points wouldn't change ... which infers that he didn't see the statement in alter self which is incorporated into polymorph by the first sentence of polymorph)(Note that this interpretation differs from the Andy Collins inference). They have wide areas of disagreement upon how natural and manufactured weapons in polymorphed from may be used. They often disagree on whether abilities like poison or manticore spikes can be used. I, personally, am working on a new house rule version of polymorph intended to be very easy to use and balanced so that the spell does not grant powers that are too strong for a PC to have at a given level. I decided upon this when I realized that a PC wizard designed for spellcasting (not melee combat) could become significantly more powerful than the PC barbarian in melee combat by casting this spell. I intend to post the version to the house rules section upon completion, if you are interested. My initial results have been promising, though playtesting is still ongoing. If you're interested, keep an eye out on the house rules section ... I should be posting my versions of alter self, polymorph, greater polymorph (a 6th or 7th level version of polymorph) and shapechange by the end of February.</blockquote>

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