D&D 4E Polymorph in 4E?

[Thanee]

War trolls are fine as a monster, just not as a PC option. And that's fine -- I don't want the designers to have to do a "polymorph check" every time there's a new addition to the Monster Manual.

True enough.

Especially the choice of creatures needs to be kept in reasonable bounds.

Though the number one problem with Polymorph is that they use a value to scale its power that is more or less independant of the creature's actual power (speaking of HD here).

Using a more reasonable approach to judge a creature's power and relate it to the spellcaster's level alone would do wonders.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Tarek]

I've heard something to this effect in other venues as well. It seems to imply that monsters will have their own distinct set of abilities; that they wouldn't necessarily have the same feats/special abilities/spell-like abilities that Pcs would.

This leads to my question: how do you think the Polymoprh spell will be handled? It was tricky enough when a monster had a bunch of standardized, reproducible Special Attacks and whatnot...

Any other thoughts/theories/rumors?

IMO, the real problem with polymorph in 3e was the fact that it failed to stick with the 1st and 2nd edition limits. You didn't get a troll's or ogre's hit dice in 1st edition. You didn't get all the "special attacks", you didn't get their AC, etc.

You got to look like the creature, move like the creature, and have the physical senses the creature had.

In 3e, they changed that. They made it more like a slightly limited Shapechange spell, which is where the imbalance came into play.

Never had a problem with Polymorph in 1st edition.

 

[Wolv0rine]

Which in turn was ripping off a much older story.

Well yeah, that's pretty much Disney's bread & butter... ripping off older stories, butchering them, sewing them back together into a frankenstienian mess, and then handing them back to us.

 

[Owldragon]

I definitely think that any polymorph spell will spell out (no pun intended) exactly what abilities it can grant in the spell description. Or at least I think that's what they should do, and what the most recent shapechanging spells seem to be moving towards. I think some variant on the astral construct powers or the shapeshifting variant for druids would be best - you look like whatever you want to look like, but your stats and special abilities depend on choices the spell gives you, not on the monster's abilities.

I prefer that method because it still gives you choices - which is important if it's really polymorph - while still not depending on monsters to be appropriate as characters. It means that monster special abilities won't have unforeseen effects (see: Pun-Pun), and there won't be the problem of monsters lacking a good measure of how powerful they are for player characters. Just let the character look like whatever he or she wants (within reasonable limits) and set the new form's statistics based on some menu of abilities. You could even combine this with the single-form spells, giving the caster an option between the versatility of many possible forms or a more powerful single form.

Of course, all I'm really sure of is that they will somehow change how polymorph is handled. They've issued how many revisions of polymorph in 3rd edition and 3.5?

 

[Jhaelen]

At the very least, a magic system without a spell that allows you to turn into animals is incomplete.

But there are spells that allow you to do this!
It's just not a single spell for any kind of animal, which is perfectly fine. It's specialized spells that allow you to take the shape of a single animal.

 

[Banshee16]

Well yeah, that's pretty much Disney's bread & butter... ripping off older stories, butchering them, sewing them back together into a frankenstienian mess, and then handing them back to us.

Can't blame that on Disney. T.H. White's the guy who wrote the book, and IIRC, that battle was in the book.....so it wasn't a Disney creation.

Of course, it's likely derived from an old Greek story about a hero who tries to capture a nymph who turns into all these different creatures and elements, to try and either kill or escape him, until he eventually defeats her. I don't remember the name of the character though. Theseus? Thetis (was she the nymph?).

Banshee

 

[pawsplay]

But there are spells that allow you to do this!
It's just not a single spell for any kind of animal, which is perfectly fine. It's specialized spells that allow you to take the shape of a single animal.

That's not perfectly fine. Right off the bat, if they're a 9th level that allows you to alter reality, there ought to be a lower level spell that allows you to simply change shape within a range of forms.

Anyway, without such a spell, you don't get Sword and the Stone, you can't do Circe from Greek Myth, and you're defining druid wildshape out of existence.

 

[frankthedm]

Anyway, without such a spell, you don't get Sword and the Stone,

Hags are monsters, they won't need the follow PC rules to provide a cool challenge. And PC wizards changing into bacteria IS outside the range of the ruleset.

you can't do Circe from Greek Myth,

A half goddess also won't need the follow PC rules to provide a cool challenge.

you're defining druid wildshape out of existence.

PHB2's Shapeshifter varient "takes care of" the ability in more than one way.

We've also made it so that no single player's turn takes a lot longer than any other player's turn by eliminating things that cause players to stall on their turns (the shapechange spell as currently written is a fine example).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That's not perfectly fine. Right off the bat, if they're a 9th level that allows you to alter reality, there ought to be a lower level spell that allows you to simply change shape within a range of forms.

Well, wish has ALWAYS been too powerful a spell for 9th level. DMs always had to balance it by horribly misinterpreting wishes to make it dangerous to cast. Basically, if you allowed it to ONLY do what was listed in the 3.5e version of the spell it was only a little overpowered.

Anyway, without such a spell, you don't get Sword and the Stone, you can't do Circe from Greek Myth, and you're defining druid wildshape out of existence.

And this is a bad thing? Wildshape was nearly impossible to balance correctly an caused a wide variety of opinions about the Druid from being one of the weakest classes to easily the most powerful depending purely on their DMs interpretation of wildshape. I'd have NO problem defining it out of existence.

 

[Wormwood]

Wildshape was nearly impossible to balance correctly an caused a wide variety of opinions about the Druid from being one of the weakest classes to easily the most powerful depending purely on their DMs interpretation of wildshape. I'd have NO problem defining it out of existence.

Which is exactly what I did until the PHB2 came out.