Why did WotC start the Polymorph "Errata Wars"?

[Geron Raveneye]

Not sure what version of the spell you are using, but that's not the one in the SRD or my 3.5 players handbook.



No limit on the size, other than not being smaller than fine, and it explicitly grants extraordinary special attacks (I bolded the relevent text).

This is the version of the spell used by the RPGA until the PHBII changes.

Uhm...if you read my posts a bit more closely, you will see I refer to the "first version" of the spell, the one in the 3E PHB from 7 years ago. That's why I started this thread, too...to find out why especially those spells were errataed to death. I've checked the Tome and Blood version now, and have seen that it mainly contains a few clarifications and explanations, but is basically the same spell as the one in the PHB. But they both contain the size limit and they don't grant EX, SU or SL abilities of the new shape. So somehow I wonder how the abuse was so bad even in RPGA games that the spells got cut down to what they are now.

That's all I aimed for. Really.

 

[Caliban]

Uhm...if you read my posts a bit more closely, you will see I refer to the "first version" of the spell, the one in the 3E PHB from 7 years ago. That's why I started this thread, too...to find out why especially those spells were errataed to death. I've checked the Tome and Blood version now, and have seen that it mainly contains a few clarifications and explanations, but is basically the same spell as the one in the PHB. But they both contain the size limit and they don't grant EX, SU or SL abilities of the new shape. So somehow I wonder how the abuse was so bad even in RPGA games that the spells got cut down to what they are now.

That's all I aimed for. Really.

The 3.5 version of the spells is what was used in the RPGA after 3.5 came out. That allowed the abuses that I showed you. That led to the revamp in PHBII.

They were problematic in 3.0 as well, which is what caused them to change them in 3.5, but I don't remember the exact issues with the 3.0 versions because I didn't see the spells used before 3.5.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Okay..and I see what you mean. Apart from the duration, it looks like the 3.5E version was actually pimped up compared to the 3E version.

 

[Vocenoctum]

One of the wonderful things about 3e is that DMs are encouraged to say "yes." A DM has enough to do without scouring the monster manuals for possible abuses of a single spell, IMHO.

In addition, I really don't want a design philosophy that says "throw everything into the book and let the DM sort it out".

Polymorph worked against that positive philosophy by forcing DMs to either say "no" or have crazy powerful ninjas running around blowing things up with their ubermuscles.

From the player of a Firbolg shaped Psychic Warrior, I very rarely switched forms, just adopting a common one. A current campaign has a druid that uses Dire Lion almost exclusively as well.

I very very much prefer the version where I can say "yes" and not have it be crazy powerful.

Though a high-level "instantly select a form" or the idea of Polymorph being like Summon Monster are all really good ideas, and are actually surprisingly easy to *yoink*.

I would also like a spell that allowed you to adopt "features" or such. Psionics has "bite of" and "claws of" and wings aren't hard to find I guess, but it'd be neat to have an "Assume Form" spell that would give you an Astral Construct checklist to add features from.

I like Changelings, but one of the disappointing things is that they have no ability to form claws, wings, bite, anything. You can physically change appearance to anything, but can't make long nails.

 

[coyote6]

Those make me a little nervous, since the quality of the effect doesn't seem to evenly line up with the spell level, something that became obvious to me when I tried to work out how bite of the wereweasel would work out for the kobolds in my campaign. (I'm basing this on the original set of spells in the Spellbook column on the WotC site. Maybe they've been rebalanced in the Spell Compendium.)

Not so much, IME. They'd work fine for a wizard, with generally low Str and attack bonus; but on a druid, with 3/4ths BAB and wild shape (or even the UA [?] alternative abilities, the name of which I'm blanking on), it can be rather impressive.