The Polymorph Revision

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Lago_AM3P
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The Polymorph Revision

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Awhile ago, someone commented that the Bear Warrior PrC were great because they were a stat addition system, not a stat replacement one.

So. For anyone wanting to take on the monumental task of figuring out the stat adjustments of all of the creatures in the game, dividing things out into natural, extraordinary, and supernatural abilities, does this task have any merit?

Similarly, why not just ditch the entire conceit of changing into existing creatures, and just have it be a free-floating system of extraordinary abilities, forms, statistics, skill bonuses, and whatever? Sort of like 3.0E alter self to the next power. Yes, it would be a naked and required power-up to everyone in the party, but what the hey?
Lago_AM3P
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Re: The Polymorph Revision

Post by Lago_AM3P »

When I say free-floating system, I'm talking about splitting up the spell like this.

The character level of the spellcaster determines the amount of points you have to jack on your polymorph spell. There are several columns to draw points from: physical stats, physical attacks, movement modes, etc, to prevent people from just polymorphing themselves a +30 strength but keeping everything else about themselves the same. You can only have so much of something in one column. For occasions where you just want to be a stronger man, leftover points get recycled into an increased duration or something (like 1 round per level if you use all the points, 10 min per level if you use half, 1 hour per level if you use only a fourth, etc.) so that people who want to use this spell to pose as a rat while sneaking into the Dark Overlord's manner can. Of course, there will also be a chart of pre-selected natural and extraordinary abilities you can draw from.


Also said, is there any compelling reason why creatures with multiple arms or limbs not on certain simulacrums of polymorph should automatically get more attacks? I just find it rather silly that in the animal kingdom, the creature that becomes a total whirlwind of death after being pumped up with animal growth or nature's favor or whatever is not the tiger, but the SQUID, and I'm just going to blame this mechanics.
Username17
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Re: The Polymorph Revision

Post by Username17 »

does this task have any merit?


Aside from the monumentally massiveness of the task - yes.

You've got a couple of options:

1. Factor out each of the creatures in the monster manual as actually exist.

2. Asign some kind of arbitrary point system to individual abilities and stat bonuses and let people min/max them on their own each time the spell is cast.

3. Come up with a shelf full of modifier and ability packages which together do what you want them to do.

The problems with 1 should be obvious. Namelich, the monsters as written already break the game hard when they don't even have the ability to stack onto some nice stat rolls. While it would get rid of the extremely serious "I don't care about my strength" problem, the basic imbalance of the Troll's modifiers are basically going to jerk around anything you attempt to layer them on.

The problems with 2 are more subtle. First of all, it's more work. And you're going to end up doing a lot of that work at the game table when you cast the spell. The other thing is that whatever system of costs and benefits you produce I'm probably going to be able to break it.

The 3rd solution is the one you are probably going to want to embrace. Allow people to assume a "Giant Form" in which they keep their hands, get bigger, and have their strength go up, etc.. Allow people to assume a "beast form" in which they get claws, have their physical stats tweak up even more, and get more natural armor and such, but lose hands and speech. Allow people a "flying form" in which the physical stat bonuses are much smaller and they get wings.

Etc. etc.

It's a ginormous amount of work, but it would actually fix polymorph. Short of that - it aint happening.

You'd want:

A Giant Form (looks like you only big, or like a minotaur, or whatever).
A Beast Form (looks like an Owlbear or Girralon or whatever, makes no difference)
A Subtle Form (looks like a rat, or a cat, or whatever)
A Flying Monster Form (looks like a griffon, or a giant eagle, or whatever)
A Flying Person Form (looks like a demon, or an angel, or you with wings, whatever)
A Subtle Flying Form (looks like a raven or a bat, or whatever)
A Tunneling Person Form (looks like an Umber Hulk or whatever).
A Tunneling Monster Form (Looks like an Ankheg or a Behir, or whatever).
A Giant Snake Form (because every evil wizard has to be able to turn into a Giant Snake)
A Swimming Person Form (looks like you with fins, or a triton, or a mermaid, whatever).
A Swimming Subtle Form (looks like a carp, or an octopus, or whatever).
A Swimming Monster Form (looks like a big octopus or a dragon turtle, or that thing from Sinbad, or whatever).
A Dragon Form (surprise - looks like a frickin Dragon - it breathes fire!)

And probably a couple of more of them - such as a form that gave you some kind of benefits just for disguising yourself into other creatures that were basically just like yourself. When you transform into "a guard" it should be more convincing looking than when you turn into a dragon.

You could also have some of the more powerful forms come available with higher level versions of the spell (for example, to become a dragon or a huge giant might take a 5th level spell or something).

So after you wrote up all dozen of those and filled in a few blanks, Polymorph would be incredibly versatile and not break the game.

It's a monumental amount of work, but compared to the effort of actually writing a monster book, it's trivial.

In fact, this can, and probably should, go one step farther:

Forms should probably have a minimum spell level associated with them - and the Polymorph spells should go from level I through IX just like the summon monster spells except not ass. Each spell level should have new forms that come with it and when used to create a lower level form could have a higher duration and have a greater variety of targets.

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Re: The Polymorph Revision

Post by Username17 »

Also said, is there any compelling reason why creatures with multiple arms or limbs not on certain simulacrums of polymorph should automatically get more attacks? I just find it rather silly that in the animal kingdom, the creature that becomes a total whirlwind of death after being pumped up with animal growth or nature's favor or whatever is not the tiger, but the SQUID, and I'm just going to blame this mechanics.


It's a legacy nod to older versions of the rules where everyone got one attack with every weapon they had.

It was retarded then, and it hasn't gotten any better since.

Having multiple limbs should probably give you a flat bonus to hit and maybe to damage. Squid should not benefit nearly four times as much from buffing spells as tigers do - it's a throwback to the bad old days when it was not possible for a monster to get a positive modifier and got multiple attacks to make up for it.

Monsters didn't have stats, nor could they use magic items, and couldn't have class levels, and had a grip of attacks. Why the monster attack mechanic has survived but all the rest of the garbage that justified it has gone is anybody's guess.

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Josh_Kablack
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Re: The Polymorph Revision

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1078966231[/unixtime]]

Similarly, why not just ditch the entire conceit of changing into existing creatures, and just have it be a free-floating system of extraordinary abilities, forms, statistics, skill bonuses, and whatever?


Because fewer than 2% of the gaming populace is capable of efficiently or believably playing a character with an open-ended HERO Variable Power Pool while acting inside the rules as written. And HERO is a system for Engineers.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Crissa
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Re: The Polymorph Revision

Post by Crissa »

I like solution #2, myself, though #1 would be the easiest on the players...

#2 could be a shelf of rules for making #3 happen; a set of basic balances which allow you to take the parts you need... X bonus for diguise, vs Y bonus to act, etc. Still alot of work, but it'd disengage polymorph from the monster books which is the real problem right now.

...Hey, I went to university for engineering. Whaa.

-Crissa
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