Rules of the Game - polymorphing pt1
- Thread starter Plane Sailing
- Start date
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
James McMurray said:
The problem is, these articles DO need to spell out everything if they are going to be useful to people who need stuff spelled out. There doesn't seem to be any point in spelling out most of the stuff but missing out another element because there will still be some DMs and PCs agonising over whether or not the wizard can be sneak attacked or critted now he is polymorphed into an ooze, or whether changing into a dragon form renders you immune to sleep and paralysis, whether changing into a plant form means that you don't need to sleep.
Plus some factors of a type clearly CANNOT be relevant - a wizard polymorphed into an ooze or vermin form cannot obtain the 'type' benefit of immunity to mind-affecting effects because of mindlessness because he still has a mind (one presumes). What about plant creatures which are not "mindless" but are still immune to mind-influencing stuff. What happens there?
Creature type has too many questions to be left on one side. I hope that it gets dealt with in part two of the article.
Li Shenron
Legend
Frankly, this article didn't say anything new to me.
I don't think that any ruling for polymorph spells so far have succeeded in being exhaustive, there are always cases when the DM has to adjudicate a specific form about how it works.
Until a few months ago I was quite irritated by this fact, but nowadays I am not anymore, I simply take for granted that the DM judgement is required sometimes and that's fine. It would be nice if Skip acknowledged this fact and provided suggestions in specific cases or when specific incongruences occur (such as when you polymorph into a member of the same race and lose darkvision by the written rules), rather that trying to rationalize the rule for the general case, which so far has always left unsolved cases behind.
I like a lot the idea of having this regular articles on the WotC website, and I am going to print out several of them to keep in front of me during our sessions.
What I like less is the fact that often it seems to me that Skip's attitude is that of lawyering the rules as they are currently written, trying to justify afterwards what had raised an issue with "realism" or "balance" from part of the audience.
I don't think that any ruling for polymorph spells so far have succeeded in being exhaustive, there are always cases when the DM has to adjudicate a specific form about how it works.
Until a few months ago I was quite irritated by this fact, but nowadays I am not anymore, I simply take for granted that the DM judgement is required sometimes and that's fine. It would be nice if Skip acknowledged this fact and provided suggestions in specific cases or when specific incongruences occur (such as when you polymorph into a member of the same race and lose darkvision by the written rules), rather that trying to rationalize the rule for the general case, which so far has always left unsolved cases behind.
I like a lot the idea of having this regular articles on the WotC website, and I am going to print out several of them to keep in front of me during our sessions.
What I like less is the fact that often it seems to me that Skip's attitude is that of lawyering the rules as they are currently written, trying to justify afterwards what had raised an issue with "realism" or "balance" from part of the audience.
The Souljourner
First Post
Frankly, I don't find there to be anything worth mentioning in this first article. It's pretty much just a glossary, and is labelled as such. I don't even know how they can claim it to be "part one" when there's no actual information about polymorph in the article, or at least, very little.
I'll be interested to see what comes next, but as far as I'm concerned, that so-called part one was a waste of a mouse click.
-The Souljourner
I'll be interested to see what comes next, but as far as I'm concerned, that so-called part one was a waste of a mouse click.
-The Souljourner
