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<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6242488" data-attributes="member: 6669384">I have at least a partial solution to Polymorph, and the Summon Monster spells.My gripe with Summon Monster spells is that they often summon templated versions of standard book monsters.&nbsp; Fiendish or Celestial is the usual add on, but the players end up spending a lot of time trying to add the templates on the fly so they can figure out what their temporary critter can actually do.The Polymorph spells have a similar problem:&nbsp; Somebody decides to become a Fairy Dragon, then we spend far too long trying to determine what the almost-a-fairydragon can do.My solution (to at least that aspect) is to tell the players:&nbsp; &quot;If you don't know what the creature/form can do, then you can't do it.&nbsp; Do your homework ahead of time.&quot;It's like the player who, upon rolling an attack, has to sit there and and take his/her BAB, add in ability modifiers, magic weapon bonuses, and applicable feats every time.&nbsp; I tell them, &quot;Calculate it one time, and write it down next to that weapon on your sheet. &quot;&nbsp; The good character sheet programs do it automatically, but I've seen players who don't use such things or, worse yet, do use them but don't know what that &quot;funny number&quot; on the sheet is, and re-do the math every time anyway.So, for any attack, spell, summoning, item, feat or what-have-you, do your homework before you try it in game.&nbsp; The guy who picks a spell from his sheet and declares that he's throwing it, then has to go find the book to see what it actually does drives me crazy.Okay, crazier.&nbsp; And I can't afford to be much crazier than I already am. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 6242488, member: 6669384"] I have at least a partial solution to [I]Polymorph,[/I] and the [I]Summon Monster[/I] spells. My gripe with [I]Summon Monster[/I] spells is that they often summon templated versions of standard book monsters. Fiendish or Celestial is the usual add on, but the players end up spending a lot of time trying to add the templates on the fly so they can figure out what their temporary critter can actually do. The [I]Polymorph[/I] spells have a similar problem: Somebody decides to become a Fairy Dragon, then we spend far too long trying to determine what the almost-a-fairydragon can do. My solution (to at least that aspect) is to tell the players: "If you don't know what the creature/form can do, then you can't do it. Do your homework ahead of time." It's like the player who, upon rolling an attack, has to sit there and and take his/her BAB, add in ability modifiers, magic weapon bonuses, and applicable feats every time. I tell them, "Calculate it one time, and write it down next to that weapon on your sheet. " The good character sheet programs do it automatically, but I've seen players who don't use such things or, worse yet, do use them but don't know what that "funny number" on the sheet is, and re-do the math every time anyway. So, for any attack, spell, summoning, item, feat or what-have-you, do your homework before you try it in game. The guy who picks a spell from his sheet and declares that he's throwing it, then has to go find the book to see what it actually does drives me crazy. Okay, crazier. And I can't afford to be much crazier than I already am. :) [/QUOTE]

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