Author Topic: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange  (Read 2821 times)

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ILM

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Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« on: September 06, 2011, 12:19:45 PM »
I'm trying to find a houserule that will still allow transforming goodness but prevent the crazy abuse made available by the polymorph spell line. I'm aware of all the newer polymorph subschool spells as well as the Pathfinder changes to the line, but I had something else in mind. To make sure I'm covering all bases, however, I need to make sure I'm aware of all the dirty Polymorph tricks. This is where you come in.

What are all the polymorph (or AS, PAO, Shapechange) ugly tricks you can think of? What are all the stupidly powerful forms? I'm talking Choker, Efreeti, Dragon Turtle - not just the forms that hit really hard for the level at which you can turn into them, but those that grant abilities that remain desirable at practically any level. For this purpose, assume that you're always the appropriate type (i.e. no restrictions on Polymorphing to an Outsider or whatever).

altpersona

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2011, 01:37:25 PM »
dragon turtle...

hydras

innate spell casters

no type restriction? then i change to abomination for divine rank.
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2011, 04:03:37 PM »
There are too many problematic forms to list. The concept behind the spells is broken. Going around and fixing the individual monsters isn't the way to approach fixing them, and listing all the problematic monsters is pointless. There are several viable fixes already out there. You just need to decide what you want the spells to do, pick the one that fits the best, and modify it to your tastes (if needed).

The two main trains of thought are either to limit what they can get numerically (no more than CL/2 in natural armor bonus, etc), or make the spells whole character replacement (i.e. you lose access to your entire character, and use the stat-block for the monster wholesale).

What doesn't work is allowing casters do dumpster dive for monster abilities that they can layer on top of their spellcasting ability with no cost. This even includes things as mundane as awesome physical stats, attack routines, etc. This is what the current spells do (excluding the later polymorph school stuff, which are basically option 2 above).
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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2011, 05:02:26 PM »
I'm all for only allowing the Monomorph spells, as my groups do. Those are still useful, but far from broken.
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ILM

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2011, 06:22:40 AM »
There are too many problematic forms to list. The concept behind the spells is broken. Going around and fixing the individual monsters isn't the way to approach fixing them, and listing all the problematic monsters is pointless. There are several viable fixes already out there. You just need to decide what you want the spells to do, pick the one that fits the best, and modify it to your tastes (if needed).

The two main trains of thought are either to limit what they can get numerically (no more than CL/2 in natural armor bonus, etc), or make the spells whole character replacement (i.e. you lose access to your entire character, and use the stat-block for the monster wholesale).
Well that's the thing, I'm aiming for #2; however, some are still problematic, such as the low-HD Efreeti's free wishes. Since I'm trying to keep it simple and not ad-hoc ban stuff as players bring them up, I was leaning towards adding a line to the effect of "no effect with a permanent duration can be used nor any ability based on one that would have an XP cost" but I just want to make sure I'm not leaving out something egregiously bad. Another option is to outright ban any outsider, aberration or abomination form and call it a day.

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Endarire

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2011, 07:18:07 AM »
Pathfinder has its own series of polymorph spells.

There's no simple, effective, fair way to fix something as complex as polymorph.  My polymorph rewrite is about 6 pages long.
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Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
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ILM

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2011, 08:09:03 AM »
But that's the problem. Rich Burlew's fix makes sense, but it's a university thesis. I'm sure your rewrite is great, but 6 pages is way too much IMO. It's a spell (or four, but you get my point). 98% of the forms you'll use pose absolutely no balance issues - then there's the 2% or crazy stuff. There has GOT to be a way to fix that without requiring your players to take night classes just to navigate the convoluted exceptions and counter-exceptions of a lengthy houserule.

Changing it to make a player use the monster's stat-block wholesale instead of bizarrely stacking stuff on top of his own abilities already fixes any and all spellcasting-related balance issues. If you want to get technical, just say that the character keeps his mental scores for the purposes of, well, understanding what's going on but not for spellcasting. Or something. All that's left then to fix is abilities that are overpowered by themselves when infinitely available to PCs. There can't be all that many, and there's got to be a way of getting rid of all of them.

Finally, there's the writeup of the spells to change. I'm leaning towards merging them into one, variable-level spell: you prepare it in a level X spell slot and can pick forms up to 2*X HD or CR, whichever is the highest. The one point I'm still on the fence about is whether one spell gives you access to all forms, but you need to prepare it with a specific form un mind (which screws over Wizards and other prepared casters) of if each form should count as its own spell (which screws over Sorcerers).

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2011, 09:10:42 AM »
Quote
Changing it to make a player use the monster's stat-block wholesale instead of bizarrely stacking stuff on top of his own abilities already fixes any and all spellcasting-related balance issues. If you want to get technical, just say that the character keeps his mental scores for the purposes of, well, understanding what's going on but not for spellcasting. Or something. All that's left then to fix is abilities that are overpowered by themselves when infinitely available to PCs. There can't be all that many, and there's got to be a way of getting rid of all of them.
You're talking about every single published monster here.
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Kajhera

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2011, 09:52:24 AM »
There are too many problematic forms to list. The concept behind the spells is broken. Going around and fixing the individual monsters isn't the way to approach fixing them, and listing all the problematic monsters is pointless. There are several viable fixes already out there. You just need to decide what you want the spells to do, pick the one that fits the best, and modify it to your tastes (if needed).

The two main trains of thought are either to limit what they can get numerically (no more than CL/2 in natural armor bonus, etc), or make the spells whole character replacement (i.e. you lose access to your entire character, and use the stat-block for the monster wholesale).
Well that's the thing, I'm aiming for #2; however, some are still problematic, such as the low-HD Efreeti's free wishes. Since I'm trying to keep it simple and not ad-hoc ban stuff as players bring them up, I was leaning towards adding a line to the effect of "no effect with a permanent duration can be used nor any ability based on one that would have an XP cost" but I just want to make sure I'm not leaving out something egregiously bad. Another option is to outright ban any outsider, aberration or abomination form and call it a day.

Require them to spend any XP or material components for spell-like abilities. The number of transformational abilities I know that actually grant spell-likes is pretty much limited to a Planar Shepherd's Wild Shape anyway, but I'm sure there are more somewhere.

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #10 on: September 07, 2011, 11:20:46 AM »
The best way I've found to deal with the problem of the polymorph line of spells is to make the standard gentlemens agreement with your players.
something along the lines of "If you don't change yourself into an unholy mixture of dragon, hydra, and shadow at 3rd level I wont drag the wish, the word, punpun and a cheerleading squad consisting of kings o' smack, hulking hurlers, and little red raiding hoods."
Works for my group atleast :D

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #11 on: September 07, 2011, 09:46:03 PM »
First off, it shouldn't give Spellcasting.  Just throw that line in there, that solves a bunch.

Second, the bonuses should max out based on caster level, to avoid silly stuff like Dwarf Ancestors giving 15 Natural Armor at level 5.  Third, it should have a specific list of abilities it can give, so as to avoid the occasional accidentally broken Ex ability. And fourth, the number of natural attacks you can gain should also be based on caster level, to avoid the insanity that Hydras can turn into at lower levels.

That should get you most of the way there.

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Endarire

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Re: Help with a houserule: Alter Self, Polymorph, PAO, Shapechange
« Reply #12 on: September 07, 2011, 10:45:57 PM »
Another solution is to fix the non-casters so they're credible and more worthy of a polymorph than the Wizard casting it.
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Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"