The woes of the polymorph errata [Archive] - Wizards Community

The woes of the polymorph errata [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Chronosis
05-23-07, 02:43 AM Okay, we all know that the Polymorph (and subsequent Wild Shape and other shape changing) errata pretty much gave a lot of very fun PrC the shaft. For druid prestiges like Master of Many Forms and specialized arcane casters in alteration school it made things really painful. The errata effectively broke the classes and made them almost unplayable. So with that in mind, I wanted to share with you some Feats that I introduced into my campaigns. These allowed my players to keep their favorite characters viable without reintroducing the game breaking mechanics that were the problem with shape changing before the errata. With these feats you can allow extraordinary shape changing back into the game, but keep it limited by it's cost.

Expanded Wild Shape [Wild] - Your shape changing ability is much more effective.
Prerequisites: Ability to use wild shape, Fast Wild Shape {Complete Divine}, Knowledge (Nature) 9
A druid who takes this feat can choose to expend an extra wild shape to increase the number of HD available to them when they wild shape. The extra HD are equal to half of the druid's current HD (rounded down). A druid may take this feat twice and the effects stack; however, a wild shape use must be expended for each extra set of HD. This effectively allows a druid to spend 2 wild shapes to get x1.5HD and 3 wild shapes to get x2HD.

Greater Polymorph [Meta-Magic] - Your polymorph spells are much more effective.
Prerequisites: Caster Level 12, Spell Focus (Alteration), Spellcraft 15
A spell caster who takes this feat can choose to memorize or use his polymorph spell 2 slots higher then normal to improve its power. Normally, the caster would not be able to polymorph into something greater than his HD; however, the greater polymorph would allow the caster to increase the number of HD allowable by 50% (rounded down). A caster may only apply this meta-magic feat once on a given casting for each time they take this feat. You may only take this feat twice.

Please feel free to modify them to suit your own needs. Critiques are welcome, since I'm always looking for ways to balance new abilities in my campaigns.
runestar
05-23-07, 05:13 AM No offense, but are you even aware of the rationale behind the polymorph errata? Your proposed "fixes" has nothing to do with it whatsoever.:confused:
Taluron
05-23-07, 08:45 AM Um, doesn't this proposed fix make it worse?
Chronosis
05-23-07, 12:59 PM No offense, but are you even aware of the rationale behind the polymorph errata? Your proposed "fixes" has nothing to do with it whatsoever.:confused:

One of the errata changes was to Shapechange (and all abilities that reference it)

Shapechange
Player's Handbook, page 277
Second sentence of spell description is in error.
Change “more than twice your caster level in Hit Dice”
to “more than your caster level in Hit Dice.” Also,
change “50” to “25”

Most of the changes to polymorph are along this vein -- to lower, what is in essence available, and to remove the game breaking mechanics of having all the special abilities and features of the chosen form. The errata was two fold, not just removing the special abilities which made the spells/abilities way to good, but also to cap the number of HD shapechange mechanics (both of these errata were introduced together, IIRC, so yes that makes them a PART of the polymorph errata, not distinct). And even though that this particular change is, as stated above, an error correction, it still broke classes that were built around the idea prior to the correction.

There is a nice article about the rationale here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060216a

I'm not looking to fix this or have the special features of each monster available. If I made a feat/ability/class feature that accomplished that, we would essentially be right back where we started. I'm compensating for some of the changes that have been made, by introducing a payment trade-off to allow them to be more powerful. It's not entirely along a different line, it just goes about making adjustments in a way that doesn't seek to "undo" the errata.

Instead the feats look to correct another (hidden) problem of the errata -- the HD limitation that was introduced with Shape changing.

For example:
The Master of Many Forms PrC gets Improved Wild Shape (Huge) at Lv 6, assuming that the PC enters the class at the earliest point they can, for most PCs, that's an ECL of 10. And IWS (Gargantuan) at Lv 10 with an ECL of 14.

Now, go through the monster manual(s) and list for me the number of Huge creatures with 10HD or less and Gargantuan Creatures with 14HD or less. See the problem yet? There are what? two, three of them?

So yes, I would agree with you, maybe my title for this is misleading, it would have been better titled, "Woes of shape changing", but here we find ourselves.
Chronosis
05-23-07, 01:03 PM Um, doesn't this proposed fix make it worse?

Spending extra wild shapes or bumping the spell into a higher spell slot (6th and 8th level slots respectively) on top of having to take a feat to do so is highly specialized and steep. Druids generally cap out at 3 Wild Shapes per day. Any Druid using this ability would essentially be using all the wild shapes they have available.

So to answer you by asking another question: How do you think it makes it worse?

It does not allow the druid/caster to take on any of the special qualities of the creatures (which was a majority of the errata that people focus on). It also doesn't actually give them the HD of the chosen creature, it simply allows them to choose from creatures with higher HD. So maybe I'm just missing how it "breaks".
Merestil Haye
05-23-07, 01:34 PM One of the errata changes was to Shapechange (and all abilities that reference it)The errata to Shapechange that you note was not made with the great changes of February 2006. It dates back to the first errata file of September 2003. It's got nothing to do with the Great Polymorph Revision. It's a simple typographical error, nothing more.
Chronosis
05-23-07, 04:10 PM The errata to Shapechange that you note was not made with the great changes of February 2006. It dates back to the first errata file of September 2003. It's got nothing to do with the Great Polymorph Revision. It's a simple typographical error, nothing more.

Where, how, why, when the errata were made is besides the point. This is disintegrating into semantics is it not. It's missing the bigger point of the post. So why bring it up unless to throw up a straw-man? It's off-topic. I beg to say it's even trolling for a response.

I was never proposing a "fix" to the polymorph errata itself. To do so would be quite austentatious. I was proposing a "fix" to the classes that have been broken by various errata.

Pointing out that I'm incorrect in my time frame is somewhat irrelevant to the issue. Despite the fact that the response is off-topic and irrelevant, it completely ignores what I wrote about some classes and PrC being designed around said typographical errors. Even if it's a typographical error, some classes that have been published that were fundamentally designed around the error. And when the error was corrected the classes where broke. These classes are not viable left the way they are, for reasons pointed out (but largely ignored) above.

The fundamental semantic nitpicking is highly counter-productive. If you disagree with it, that's fine. If you want to post a reason why you disagree with it, that's fine too. But please don't attack the logic of the person posting simply based on semantic reasons when several points that have been made are being ignored; that just makes everyone look stupid.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Chronosis 05-23-07, 02:43 AM	Okay, we all know that the Polymorph (and subsequent Wild Shape and other shape changing) errata pretty much gave a lot of very fun PrC the shaft. For druid prestiges like Master of Many Forms and specialized arcane casters in alteration school it made things really painful. The errata effectively broke the classes and made them almost unplayable. So with that in mind, I wanted to share with you some Feats that I introduced into my campaigns. These allowed my players to keep their favorite characters viable without reintroducing the game breaking mechanics that were the problem with shape changing before the errata. With these feats you can allow extraordinary shape changing back into the game, but keep it limited by it's cost. Expanded Wild Shape [Wild] - Your shape changing ability is much more effective. Prerequisites: Ability to use wild shape, Fast Wild Shape {Complete Divine}, Knowledge (Nature) 9 A druid who takes this feat can choose to expend an extra wild shape to increase the number of HD available to them when they wild shape. The extra HD are equal to half of the druid's current HD (rounded down). A druid may take this feat twice and the effects stack; however, a wild shape use must be expended for each extra set of HD. This effectively allows a druid to spend 2 wild shapes to get x1.5HD and 3 wild shapes to get x2HD. Greater Polymorph [Meta-Magic] - Your polymorph spells are much more effective. Prerequisites: Caster Level 12, Spell Focus (Alteration), Spellcraft 15 A spell caster who takes this feat can choose to memorize or use his polymorph spell 2 slots higher then normal to improve its power. Normally, the caster would not be able to polymorph into something greater than his HD; however, the greater polymorph would allow the caster to increase the number of HD allowable by 50% (rounded down). A caster may only apply this meta-magic feat once on a given casting for each time they take this feat. You may only take this feat twice. Please feel free to modify them to suit your own needs. Critiques are welcome, since I'm always looking for ways to balance new abilities in my campaigns.
runestar 05-23-07, 05:13 AM	No offense, but are you even aware of the rationale behind the polymorph errata? Your proposed "fixes" has nothing to do with it whatsoever.:confused:
Taluron 05-23-07, 08:45 AM	Um, doesn't this proposed fix make it worse?
Chronosis 05-23-07, 12:59 PM	No offense, but are you even aware of the rationale behind the polymorph errata? Your proposed "fixes" has nothing to do with it whatsoever.:confused: One of the errata changes was to Shapechange (and all abilities that reference it) Shapechange Player's Handbook, page 277 Second sentence of spell description is in error. Change “more than twice your caster level in Hit Dice” to “more than your caster level in Hit Dice.” Also, change “50” to “25” Most of the changes to polymorph are along this vein -- to lower, what is in essence available, and to remove the game breaking mechanics of having all the special abilities and features of the chosen form. The errata was two fold, not just removing the special abilities which made the spells/abilities way to good, but also to cap the number of HD shapechange mechanics (both of these errata were introduced together, IIRC, so yes that makes them a PART of the polymorph errata, not distinct). And even though that this particular change is, as stated above, an error correction, it still broke classes that were built around the idea prior to the correction. There is a nice article about the rationale here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060216a I'm not looking to fix this or have the special features of each monster available. If I made a feat/ability/class feature that accomplished that, we would essentially be right back where we started. I'm compensating for some of the changes that have been made, by introducing a payment trade-off to allow them to be more powerful. It's not entirely along a different line, it just goes about making adjustments in a way that doesn't seek to "undo" the errata. Instead the feats look to correct another (hidden) problem of the errata -- the HD limitation that was introduced with Shape changing. For example: The Master of Many Forms PrC gets Improved Wild Shape (Huge) at Lv 6, assuming that the PC enters the class at the earliest point they can, for most PCs, that's an ECL of 10. And IWS (Gargantuan) at Lv 10 with an ECL of 14. Now, go through the monster manual(s) and list for me the number of Huge creatures with 10HD or less and Gargantuan Creatures with 14HD or less. See the problem yet? There are what? two, three of them? So yes, I would agree with you, maybe my title for this is misleading, it would have been better titled, "Woes of shape changing", but here we find ourselves.
Chronosis 05-23-07, 01:03 PM	Um, doesn't this proposed fix make it worse? Spending extra wild shapes or bumping the spell into a higher spell slot (6th and 8th level slots respectively) on top of having to take a feat to do so is highly specialized and steep. Druids generally cap out at 3 Wild Shapes per day. Any Druid using this ability would essentially be using all the wild shapes they have available. So to answer you by asking another question: How do you think it makes it worse? It does not allow the druid/caster to take on any of the special qualities of the creatures (which was a majority of the errata that people focus on). It also doesn't actually give them the HD of the chosen creature, it simply allows them to choose from creatures with higher HD. So maybe I'm just missing how it "breaks".
Merestil Haye 05-23-07, 01:34 PM	One of the errata changes was to Shapechange (and all abilities that reference it)The errata to Shapechange that you note was not made with the great changes of February 2006. It dates back to the first errata file of September 2003. It's got nothing to do with the Great Polymorph Revision. It's a simple typographical error, nothing more.
Chronosis 05-23-07, 04:10 PM	The errata to Shapechange that you note was not made with the great changes of February 2006. It dates back to the first errata file of September 2003. It's got nothing to do with the Great Polymorph Revision. It's a simple typographical error, nothing more. Where, how, why, when the errata were made is besides the point. This is disintegrating into semantics is it not. It's missing the bigger point of the post. So why bring it up unless to throw up a straw-man? It's off-topic. I beg to say it's even trolling for a response. I was never proposing a "fix" to the polymorph errata itself. To do so would be quite austentatious. I was proposing a "fix" to the classes that have been broken by various errata. Pointing out that I'm incorrect in my time frame is somewhat irrelevant to the issue. Despite the fact that the response is off-topic and irrelevant, it completely ignores what I wrote about some classes and PrC being designed around said typographical errors. Even if it's a typographical error, some classes that have been published that were fundamentally designed around the error. And when the error was corrected the classes where broke. These classes are not viable left the way they are, for reasons pointed out (but largely ignored) above. The fundamental semantic nitpicking is highly counter-productive. If you disagree with it, that's fine. If you want to post a reason why you disagree with it, that's fine too. But please don't attack the logic of the person posting simply based on semantic reasons when several points that have been made are being ignored; that just makes everyone look stupid.