[*]I don't have a better Polymorph...off the top of my head.
What I use...
ALTER SELF
Transmutation
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level (D)
You assume the outward appearance of a creature of the same type as your normal form. The new form must be within one size category of your normal size. You can change into a member of your own kind or even into yourself. For the duration of the spell, you may switch between forms as a full round action.
You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack).
If the new form is capable of speech, you can communicate normally. You retain any spellcasting ability you had in your original form, but the new form must be able to speak intelligibly (that is, speak a language) to use verbal components and must have limbs capable of fine manipulation to use somatic or material components.
You acquire certain physical qualities of the new form while retaining your own mind. These qualities include natural size, mundane movement capabilities such as natural burrowing, climbing, walking, swimming, and flight speeds (maximum speed of 30 feet (clumsy) for flying or 60 feet for nonflying movement), natural weapons (such as claws, bite, and so on), and any gross physical qualities relating to appearance (presence or absence of wings, number of extremities, and so forth). You likewise lose the qualities of your normal form when you make this change. You gain any racial skill bonuses to strength, dexterity, or constitution based skills (maximum +8), but you lose the racial skill bonus to skills of this sort of your natural form. You do not gain the natural armor class of the new form, but you may retain your own. A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal.
You do not gain any extraordinary special attacks or special qualities not noted above under physical qualities, such as darkvision, low-light vision, blindsense, blindsight, fast healing, poison, regeneration, scent, and so forth.
You do not gain any supernatural special attacks, special qualities, or spell-like abilities of the new form. Your creature type and subtype (if any) remain the same regardless of your new form.
You can freely designate the new form’s minor physical qualities (such as hair color, hair texture, and skin color) within the normal ranges for a creature of that kind. The new form’s significant physical qualities (such as height, weight, and gender) are also under your control, but they must fall within the norms for the new form’s kind. You are effectively disguised as an average member of the new form’s race. If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on your Disguise check.
When the change occurs, your equipment, if any, either remains worn or held by the new form (if it is capable of wearing or holding the item), or melds into the new form and becomes nonfunctional. When you revert to your true form, any objects previously melded into the new form reappear in the same location on your body they previously occupied and are once again functional. Any new items you wore in the assumed form and can’t wear in your normal form fall off and land at your feet; any that you could wear in either form or carry in a body part common to both forms at the time of reversion are still held in the same way. Any part of the body or piece of equipment that is separated from the whole reverts to its true form.
Polymorph Self
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Personal
Duration: 10 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
This spell functions like alter self, except that you change into another form of living creature. The new form may be of the same type as the subject or any of the following types: aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin. The assumed form can’t have more Hit Dice than your caster level to a maximum of 15 HD at 15th level. You cannot assume a form smaller than two size class below your own nor more than one size class larger than your own, nor may assume an incorporeal or gaseous form. You cannot assume a form you are not intimately familiar with, having spent at least a few hours in observation of either the living creature or its largely intact corpse.
You gain the shapechanger subtype for the duration of the spell, and are treated as having the type of the creature you assume for the purposes of any baneful effect.
While in a particular form you gain the racial type of that form, losing your own racial bonus feats and skills and gaining many racial feats or skill bonuses possessed by the new form. You gain the racial Strength and Dexterity modifiers of the new form, but retain your own Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and Charisma scores. In no event may you more than double your own strength or dexterity in this manner. If you are naturally clumsy or weak or unhealthy, then your assumed form will be likewise clumsy, weak, or unhealthy.
You also gain all the movement modes of the new form. You gain all extraordinary abilities possessed by the new form but not any supernatural or spell-like abilities.
You retain your own BAB, base saving throw bonuses, and HD.
Upon assuming your first new form after casting the spell, you heal hit point damage as if you had rested for a night (though this healing does not restore temporary ability damage and provide other benefits of resting; and changing back does not heal the subject further).
As long as the spell duration continues, you may change to a new form once per caster level. Changing shape is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity. When you can no longer change form, you must remain in that form until the spell ends. If slain, the subject reverts to its original form, though it remains dead.
Material Component: An empty cocoon.
Polymorph Other
Transmutation
Level: Sha 5, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates, Will partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes
As polymorph self, except you target a willing or unwilling creature and force them to change to a new shape and the creature once transformed cannot voluntarily change form or regain its former shape.
If the new form would prove fatal to the creature the subject gets a +4 bonus on the save.
If the spell succeeds, the subject must also make a Will save. If this second save fails, the creature loses its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, loses its ability to cast spells (if it had the ability), and gains the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own. It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving there from (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren’t extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities. A creature so transformed forgets its former life and companions and has all the attitudes and desires typical of a creature of its new form. It strongly resists any attempt to change or cure it but whatever means it has available.
The danger of forgetting your former self does not end. For each day that the creature remains in the new form, it must make another Will save or transform fully into its new form. After one week in the new form, additional saves are made but once per week, and after two months have passed they need be made only once every two months. If at the end of two years, the victim still retains his own mind, no further saves to resist the effect are required.
Incorporeal or gaseous creatures are immune to being polymorphed, and a creature with the shapechanger subtype can revert to its natural form as a standard action. Casters with currently active Polymorph Self can revert to their own or a different shape provided that they passed the Will save to retain memory of who they were.
