TwoSix
"Diegetics", by L. Ron Gygax
Dad walks into kid's room carrying a scroll of polymorph.
"Who gave you this stuff? Who taught you how to use this stuff?"
"You, all right! I learned it by watching you!"
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D&D 5E Safe polymorphing?
- Thread starter Snapdragyn
- Start date
"Who gave you this stuff? Who taught you how to use this stuff?"
"You, all right! I learned it by watching you!"
Ursula Le Guin's novel "A Wizard of Earthsea" *does* include a mentor giving an apprentice The Talk about safe polymorphing. There are dolphins that were human wizards, and were having way too much fun to revert to human, and eventually forgot that they had ever been anything but a dolphin. There was a wizard who loved bear-shape, became more and more bear-minded, and ended up killing his family.
Of course, it becomes relevant, later in the story.
Of course, it becomes relevant, later in the story.
AmerginLiath
Adventurer
Anyway, you don't polymorph the Evil Overlord into a goldfish so as to kill him – you polymorph him into a goldfish, pop him into a bowl, then bring him home to be your embarrassed pet for the next however many years eating fish chow and swimming in his own fish poop!
Honestly, too, having to deal with sensing and understanding the world through the brain (and thus the mental stats) of the new form – with one's memories of humanoid life as if the dream one just woke up from and is fighting hard to keep remembering the details of so as to not fully become the mouse – is too beautiful a way not to play polymorphing oneself (like Zhuangzi's butterfly dreaming of being a man)...
Honestly, too, having to deal with sensing and understanding the world through the brain (and thus the mental stats) of the new form – with one's memories of humanoid life as if the dream one just woke up from and is fighting hard to keep remembering the details of so as to not fully become the mouse – is too beautiful a way not to play polymorphing oneself (like Zhuangzi's butterfly dreaming of being a man)...
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Basically they removed the 'polymorph self or ally into combat beast' option - at least until shapechange arrives for the favoured few as a 9th level spell.
I guess they could have included some spells which duplicated the druid shapechanging at appropriate levels, but decided that it trod on the druids schtick for some reason?
I don't imagine it would be too difficult to work out some suitable wizardly equivalents of druid shapechanging.
I guess they could have included some spells which duplicated the druid shapechanging at appropriate levels, but decided that it trod on the druids schtick for some reason?
I don't imagine it would be too difficult to work out some suitable wizardly equivalents of druid shapechanging.
AmerginLiath
Adventurer
Although that choice was assuredly deliberate. Just as the "Batman Wizard" can't so easily step on the Rogue's toes any longer, so the changes in personal polymorphing means that changing into animal forms becomes the Druid's niche (especially one type of Druid's particular niche, if the 'combat beast' option is what is desired), while the Wizard remains the classic "he turned me into a newt!" option until 9th-level spells (at which point Shapechange is still a different option mechanically than Wild Shape). While the 5e Wizard remains incredibly versatile, I enjoy the challenges of having limits to what each individual Wizard can master among those choices, as well as which specific niches of other classes have returned to other characters that got copied onto the Wizard spell list over the course especially of 3.x.
The novel Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier is told in the first-person by a young wizard who's polymorph spell has this restriction. Part of learning to cast polymorph involves special mental training: just before casting, she fixes in her mind images of her course of action, so that she will remember them when she is an animal. The final action is always "turn back into a human." People who lack this training and are subjected to polymorph behave like wild animals. It was an interesting take on the idea.
See also, TH White's "The Once and Future King", in which Merlin polymorphs young Arthur into a fish, and then an ant, to broaden his perspective. Arthur, in antform, has thoughts which I don't believe could fit in the brain of an ant, if thought were entirely an epiphenomenon of neurons and synapses. But it's maaaaaagic!
A person in Gaseous Form keeps their INT and WIS, and remembers their identity and purposes, even though their brain is vapor, even though they are literally an airhead. A ghost has ZERO MASS and has conscious thought. So it's pretty clear that in D&D magic, the mind is not entirely dependent on the brain.
A person could possibly *increase* their WIS by being polymorphed into a beast. (Belkar Bitterleaf, I'm looking at you.) Would that work kind of like the "Owl's Wisdom" version of Enhance Ability? Do you lose the elephant's memory, when your time polymorphed into an elephant comes to an end?
I love high-granularity simulation gaming. D&D is not a simulation of *our world*. It is a simulation of a *fantasy world*, or rather, a way to simulate any one of a large set of fantasy words. The relationship between matter and thought may vary, between those various fantasy worlds. It's not as if we even have consensus on how it works in our world. Some say that it's all neurons, synapses, hormones, etc.; others say that we are bodies, but have spirits; others say that we are spirits, but have bodies.
See also "Form of... Bird!" in Kingdom of Loathing.
A person in Gaseous Form keeps their INT and WIS, and remembers their identity and purposes, even though their brain is vapor, even though they are literally an airhead. A ghost has ZERO MASS and has conscious thought. So it's pretty clear that in D&D magic, the mind is not entirely dependent on the brain.
A person could possibly *increase* their WIS by being polymorphed into a beast. (Belkar Bitterleaf, I'm looking at you.) Would that work kind of like the "Owl's Wisdom" version of Enhance Ability? Do you lose the elephant's memory, when your time polymorphed into an elephant comes to an end?
I love high-granularity simulation gaming. D&D is not a simulation of *our world*. It is a simulation of a *fantasy world*, or rather, a way to simulate any one of a large set of fantasy words. The relationship between matter and thought may vary, between those various fantasy worlds. It's not as if we even have consensus on how it works in our world. Some say that it's all neurons, synapses, hormones, etc.; others say that we are bodies, but have spirits; others say that we are spirits, but have bodies.
See also "Form of... Bird!" in Kingdom of Loathing.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
I've been trying to resist linking this, but it just seemed too relevant to the topic at hand. I'll spoiler tag it, though.
[sblock=hpmor]Harry hesitated. He couldn't help himself. Actually, under the circumstances, he shouldn't be helping himself. It was right and proper to be curious. "What else can you do?"
Professor McGonagall turned into a cat.
Harry scrambled back unthinkingly, backpedalling so fast that he tripped over a stray stack of books and landed hard on his bottom with a thwack. His hands came down to catch himself without quite reaching properly, and there was a warning twinge in his shoulder as the weight came down unbraced.
At once the small tabby cat morphed back up into a robed woman. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter," said the witch, sounding sincere, though the corners of her lips were twitching upwards. "I should have warned you."
Harry was breathing in short gasps. His voice came out choked. "You can't DO that!"
"It's only a Transfiguration," said Professor McGonagall. "An Animagus transformation, to be exact."
"You turned into a cat! A SMALL cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signalling! And cats are COMPLICATED! A human mind can't just visualise a whole cat's anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and what about the neurology? How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?"
Professor McGonagall's lips were twitching harder now. "Magic."
"Magic isn't enough to do that! You'd have to be a god!"
Professor McGonagall blinked. "That's the first time I've ever been called that."[/sblock]
[sblock=hpmor]Harry hesitated. He couldn't help himself. Actually, under the circumstances, he shouldn't be helping himself. It was right and proper to be curious. "What else can you do?"
Professor McGonagall turned into a cat.
Harry scrambled back unthinkingly, backpedalling so fast that he tripped over a stray stack of books and landed hard on his bottom with a thwack. His hands came down to catch himself without quite reaching properly, and there was a warning twinge in his shoulder as the weight came down unbraced.
At once the small tabby cat morphed back up into a robed woman. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter," said the witch, sounding sincere, though the corners of her lips were twitching upwards. "I should have warned you."
Harry was breathing in short gasps. His voice came out choked. "You can't DO that!"
"It's only a Transfiguration," said Professor McGonagall. "An Animagus transformation, to be exact."
"You turned into a cat! A SMALL cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signalling! And cats are COMPLICATED! A human mind can't just visualise a whole cat's anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and what about the neurology? How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?"
Professor McGonagall's lips were twitching harder now. "Magic."
"Magic isn't enough to do that! You'd have to be a god!"
Professor McGonagall blinked. "That's the first time I've ever been called that."[/sblock]
Hah, thanks, Saelorn, and I was indeed thinking of that passage from HPMOR. And now I'm thinking of how Potter challenged the assumptions about Transfiguring part of an object... and what he'd try in Forgotten Realms.
Along the lines of TwoSix's post, there might be recreational uses of Polymorph, or as perhaps it should be more clearly named, Polymorph Into Beast. One could have an alternate identity, and a social life under that identity, which was furry as a tomcat; there might be venues in which polymorphed wizards and wildshaped druids meet and compare experiences, particularly at certain seasons of the year. I nominate Phil Foglio to research this, since there were related topics he never fully resolved in the "What's New" column in Dragon Magazine.
Back to more practical uses: Polymorph Into Beast seems to me an amazing utility spell. It subsumes Water Walk, Water Breathing, Spider Climb, Jump, etc., and most uses of Enhance Ability; you can carry tons as an elephant, dig as a badger, travel overland as a horse, sing as a nightingale, track as a bloodhound, see for miles as an eagle, pass through tiny spaces as a mouse, topple trees and build dams as a beaver, chuck wood as a woodchuck. You can't spellcast while flying, but if you can poly into Roc then you can carry the whole party. As a Giant Ape, you throw rocks like a living catapult. As a T-rex, you win the village's annual "who can eat the most hot dogs" competition... as long as you have a way to get them into your mouth, other than using your inadequate forelimbs.
Along the lines of TwoSix's post, there might be recreational uses of Polymorph, or as perhaps it should be more clearly named, Polymorph Into Beast. One could have an alternate identity, and a social life under that identity, which was furry as a tomcat; there might be venues in which polymorphed wizards and wildshaped druids meet and compare experiences, particularly at certain seasons of the year. I nominate Phil Foglio to research this, since there were related topics he never fully resolved in the "What's New" column in Dragon Magazine.
Back to more practical uses: Polymorph Into Beast seems to me an amazing utility spell. It subsumes Water Walk, Water Breathing, Spider Climb, Jump, etc., and most uses of Enhance Ability; you can carry tons as an elephant, dig as a badger, travel overland as a horse, sing as a nightingale, track as a bloodhound, see for miles as an eagle, pass through tiny spaces as a mouse, topple trees and build dams as a beaver, chuck wood as a woodchuck. You can't spellcast while flying, but if you can poly into Roc then you can carry the whole party. As a Giant Ape, you throw rocks like a living catapult. As a T-rex, you win the village's annual "who can eat the most hot dogs" competition... as long as you have a way to get them into your mouth, other than using your inadequate forelimbs.
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