Reflections on Polymorph

Some things I just want to leave well enough alone. The polymorph spells are one of those. But a friend and Patreon supporter asked me to give my take on polymorph, pointing me towards this four-year-old post from Delta’s D&D Hotspot. The post pedantically quotes versions of polymorph from original D&D, AD&D, 2nd and 3rd editions and so on. It does not offer much insight and it does not produce a solution. The post spends a lot of time talking about how powerful polymorph is as a spell, ending with the effort to delete polymorph from the game. If you’re not familiar with why polymorph is a conundrum, take some time and read through Delta’s post.

Part of why polymorph has become so powerful has been a tendency towards fan-service ~ for a lot of gamers, the idea of being able to transform into a dragon and then lay waste to the enemy is just too tempting … and they believe that polymorph is specifically for that. This has produced an endless parade of rules trying to embrace that possibility while limiting it, at the same time. This has produced bullshit rules like system shock survival, losing intelligence, losing your mind and beginning to think like the creature you’ve been turned into, random hit point giving, limiting the number of attacks even though the transformed creature may normally have more, whether the polymorphed creature can “disguise themselves,” strength, dexterity and constitution gains, limitations of gaseous/ethereal forms, limits on which creatures can be transformed into and on and on. And since each is a stop-gap, and each dumb stop-gap hamstrings the player from becoming a marauding whatever, each new description of the spell eliminates some previous hamstring while imposing another. The end result has been a ghastly mess, with no clear consensus, no rationale, no certainty over which set of rules will be applied and so … yeah. Ban the spell. Not because it’s powerful, but because no one knows what the hell it does and the arguments … won’t … stop.

It’s a waste of time, since I’m only adding another layer of rules to the layers that already exist (and who the fuck needs that?), but for shits and giggles I’ll talk about how I’d run it. I haven’t had to employ the spell for 15 years, because none of my player mages able to throw 4th level spells were interested in it, but someday one might ~ so I’ll set the standard today.

First and foremost, a lot of the confusion comes from arguing that making me into a dog and making the other guy into a dog ought to be different things. If I cast a spell that makes me into a dog, then everyone seems to agree I should be able to go on thinking like a caster. But if I transform YOU into a dog, then you have to think like a dog (unless you make your saving throw or you resist the spell or whatever other endless reflexive horse-pucky we want to keep dredging up to make this spell stupidly complicated). I say no. If the science/magic exists that will change me into a dog, researched until we found the formula, I argue that the formula is unchanged when applied to someone else. I change you into a dog, you still think like you. But you’re a dog.

This will suck for people who want to punish others by transforming them into a dumb animal. We have literary precedents that say the victim ought to be a dumb animal and we have precedents that say the victim is still self-aware. I can see an option where a 5th or 6th level mage spell, improved polymorph other, exists … because then it is on par with magic jar or a feeblemind spell. But NOT at 4th level.

Two. If you are yourself, then you are still you, no matter what you transform into. Your strength is your strength, your other stats are unchanged also, I don’t give a damn how smart the dragon is or how dumb the ochre jelly. Your hit points are your hit points, so yes, if your 5th level fighter with 45 h.p. becomes a snail, that snail has 45 hit points. Step on it all you want; it’s going to take a lot of jumping to kill it.

That doesn’t mean your 18 strength fighting snail can lift a sword. Height rules vs. weapons and encumbrance still apply, so forget it! This is part of the problem I keep seeing where this particular spell is concerned. Just because you’re polymorphed into a tiger doesn’t make you suddenly proficient with claws, bite and raking. You’re a humanoid in a tiger suit; not a natural instinctive tiger born from its mother’s womb. You can swing that paw, but you’re definitely getting a non-proficiency penalty with it. If you want, you can build up and take your proficiency in feline paws-and-claws (I’ll be generous and let you have the whole package as one proficiency), but that doesn’t suddenly transfer to dragon claws, giant lobster claws, bird claws or bear claws. Sorry. Biology doesn’t work that way.

So, there you are: you decide you’re going to transform into a black pudding. Awesome. I’m totally willing to let you have full black pudding powers to eat metal and whatever else, including seeping through cracks and having immunities. How, exactly, do you move? What parts of your new body need to press against the floor and how does that work? Do you know? I’m guessing not … unless you’ve been studying black puddings or you’ve already experimented with the concept for a while. But your first time? Ha. You’re like a patient with two new prosthetic limbs that thinks you’re ready to jump out of bed now and run the hallways. Uh uh.

Take that dragon. How exactly does that breath weapon work? Do you swallow first? Do you contract your chest? How do you control the stuff coming out? Don’t say you’re immune to it because I can argue that easily. Spit out of your mouth and you’re fine. Ever cough some spit up into the back of your nose? Pleasant? Now imagine you’re a human mage in a brand new red dragon suit, and that spit is now burning fire.

The sheer idiocy connected to the polymorph spell gives me fits. You’re smarter, you’re dumber, you’re this, you’re that … but no one takes any effort to consider the simple limitation of needing practice. Which limits automatically how many creatures you can meaningfully transform into. It’s less a smorgasbord and more a mess of strange dishes that might give you terrible heartburn or worse. Approach the problem cautiously.

Very well, how many attacks do you get as a tiger? As a 7th level mage, you usually get one. But I’m willing to bend some on the fan service and let you accumulate to three attacks. Not the first time you’re a tiger, no; but perhaps there’s a simple side experience accumulation you can gain with each form of creature. As you cause damage or sustain damage in a particular form, you gain the same experience as always … but the experience you gain specifically as a tiger is mirrored into the tiger column. The same with the dragon column or the black pudding column or whatever. You need 400 x.p. to figure out how to manage a claw-bite combination and 800 x.p. to manage a claw-claw-bite. Then 1,200 to manage the raking skill. There. You’re a tiger. Your THACO is still that of a 7th level mage, and you’re still -5 to your attacks because you’re an unproficient mage, but you can’t have everything.

Still, if you really like being a tiger, you can build up. You can get that proficiency and reach 11th level for a tiger-comparable combat table and start to feel, you know, like being a tiger in a fight is fun.

But can you be everything?  Not effectively. It is, after all, just a 4th level spell. It’s not wish.