Help: Giant Squid Beast Shape


Rules Questions


A gm that helps run pathfinder society in my area said that I can only stay a squid as long as I can hold my breath... I think that is wrong. This gm has in the past been wrong about beast shape rules, so I am checking to see if I'm right. I'd love it if a paizo employee would back me up on this ruling, he may not believe me otherwise.

While using Beastshape, do I lose the ability to breathe in air and therefore suffocate? If so, where does it say that? I don't gain the animal, or other templates (specifically aquatic) through beastshape.

Aquatic=> An aquatic creature can breathe water. It cannot breathe air unless it has the amphibious special quality. Aquatic creatures always treat Swim as a class skill.

Amphibious=>Creatures with this special quality have the aquatic subtype, but they can survive indefinitely on land.

My sources:

The transmutation school describes how Wild Shape is ruled (because it is a polymorph effect). It does not say anything about receiving the aquatic template.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic#TOC-Transmutation
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid#TOC-Wild-Shape-Su-
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/beast-shape
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types#TOC-Aqua tic

It does say "If the form grants a swim or burrow speed, you maintain the ability to breathe if you are swimming or burrowing." It does not say -- if you don't have a land speed, you lose the ability to breathe air.

Grand Lodge

You assume the creature's form. You can't take actions of which the creature is physically incapable, such as wielding weapons, casting spells, speaking or in this case breathing air.


"Your base speed changes to match that of the form you assume. If the form grants a swim or burrow speed, you maintain the ability to breathe if you are swimming or burrowing. "

Not only does it NOT say "you lose the ability to breathe air", it also NEVER says "you gain the ability to breathe underwater". It just says "you maintain the ability to breathe if you are swimming".

As long as you are swimming, by RAW you should be able to breathe, regardless of whether you are swimming at the bottom of a 100' deep lake or 20' deep in the lava of an active volcano. It says "breathe", not "breathe air" or "breathe water". If your GM "helps" PFS in your area, maybe he should take a few deep "breaths" of neither air nor water before he "helps" your game next time with his left-field rulings.


So...

The counter argument (ROI)=> Squids can't breathe out of water because (insert xRoi reason here).

Here is some interesting research you can read about gas exchange in vertebrates and invertebrates. I'd specifically look at page 9 about squid and octopi, and how movement is necessary for respiration.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Af7IwQWJoCMC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19& dq=respiration+in+squid&source=bl&ots=TZn3VsYqIl&sig=MifHiMRGPI DUUd2F68PD_FQCrOk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=G_NSUIyaMMWviAKntYCwDQ&ved= 0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=respiration%20in%20squid&f=false

I'm currently trying to find scholarly information about whether gas exchange would be possible for squid without the intermediate of the water. I think it would be if they were able to be in a weightless environment and achieve homeostasis. If they can keep the membranes of their gills moist, they should hypothetically be able to have some gas exchange occur (albeit not as well as organisms evolved for an atmospheric environment).

Also, for pathfinder ROI=> You cannot breathe out of water in beast shape as a squid because I say so, and as it is a primarily aquatic animal and cannot 'row' breathe out of water. Well that means that 1) you've just applied the aquatic template to a beast shape druid (good job opening that can of worms) and now all templates of any other animals are up for debate (especially those that controvert the polymorph rules). 2) I now have the animal template applied to my beast shaping druid of stupidity...

Congratulations you have stumbled upon a angry looking Dire Tiger (Smilodon fatalis), or saber-toothed cat if you'd prefer. That is larger than you've heard they get to, she's almost the size of a house!

She charges you, and covers 120' of movement (plains druid adds 10' of movement, and as per polymorph effects you get the base land move speed of the animal).

She pounces onto you. You are bitten, clawed, and raked at a +25 to hit.

You take:

8d6 + 25 from the bite
6d6 + 25 from each of my claws (x2)
6d6 + 25 from each of my rake attacks (x2 Also, pounce rules!)

Are you evil aligned? Do you have dr that is only overcome by good aligned weapons? Oh, well then take full damage and 2d6 extra from each of my five attacks as my holy amulet of mighty fists takes effect.

How did I get to here? =>Plains druid (8)/Barbarian (4) base build abilities stat for melee fighting, for pfs. If you go ROI then that means I get the aquatic template, which means I also receive the animal template, which opens the door for spells that can only be targeted on animals like:

Animal Growth => http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/animal-growth(I just became Gargantuan!)

Atavism => http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/atavism
(I got a new template applied, yay I'm now a simple advanced, gargantuan dire tiger with pounce, yipee!)

Note: this spell load-out precludes that my fellow druid (primed for spell casting) is at my table. Also, I'm not getting into grab rules yet. There are only three magical things I wear: the belt of con, the belt of wisdom, and the holy amulet of mighty fists, and I have natural spell as a feat.

ROW=> I like what laarddrym pointed out earlier, as long as I'm swimming I get to breathe. It is legitimate by the rules as written, and frankly as far as I have researched it may check out biologically (still working on verifying that assumption and wondering if any scientists ran this experiment). *Squids, in SPAAACE!*

With sky swim you gain the giant squid's swim speed through the air, which row means I can breathe, that is only for the x many minutes that I can use sky swim for however. In this case it would be 8 minutes per casting (at 12th level). Which, I think is actually pretty reasonable for an optimized build. Certainly better than the alternative.

Grand Lodge

Do you get all the awesome benefits of along with the drawbacks?

I was sure that you simply got what the spell tells you that you get.

As far as I knew, it was taking the shape of the creature, not becoming the creature.

Who knows?


RAW: Squid's inability of breathing water is part of aquatic subtype which isn't bestowed by polymorph effects in general, so you don't lose ability to breathe air. You gain ability to breathe water because polymorphing into forms with swim speed grants breathe water ability as a rule.


I can say a normal octopus will die if it gets out of water. They like to escape tanks and if you don't securely lock the top of the aquarium, you will find a dead octopus on your floor 20 feet from the box of water it needed for living (true story; my wife worked at a pet store... had to stop carrying these things because they would escape and die). Now, squids may be different... but that's besides the point.

As for a druid wildshaping... I agree with the others here. You do not GAIN or LOSE anything not explicitly listed by the wildshape ability, the polymorph subschool description, beast shape X, or the previous beast shape N where N < X. If it doesn't say you lose your ability to breath air, you don't lose it. The rules are very specific in stating that you only gain or lose specifically described qualities.

Grand Lodge

The squid shape(which is all you get) is not an actual squid.

This is why you can wildshape into an incredibly weak gorilla, because you are incredibly weak, not the gorilla.

Pathfinder wildshape is not 3.5 widshape.

This is something everyone must simply accept. Especially DMs.


Laarddrym, Drejk, and MurphysParadox you guys are awesome! Thank you for pointing out things I hadn't thought of.

Especially liked Drejk's succinct response. Laarddrym's description of me still being able to breathe if I was submerged in 20' of lava yet still swiming (got a good laugh for that one). Also, found the octopus narritive funny from MurphysParadox.

Starglim, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'd be interested in your source. I can't find your information anywhere. Granted, I'm looking verbatim but... If you wouldn't mind posting where you got it. Perhaps it would help with the rules discussion. My husband was alluding to an odd way that by 'row' a horse could potentially climb a rope.

BlackBloodTroll... thanks for commenting! Didn't you have that post a while back about 'to kill a fellow player character' my husband and I found that really funny. :)

Anybody else care to weigh in?

Grand Lodge

Yes. I was the one who killed a fellow PC.


I don't think we ever actually learned whether or not you did, I think he and I dropped it prior to that.

Some of the posts hypothesizing how to do it were hilarious though, and your responses to them are primarily what I remember. Did a double take when I saw your comments above. Something seemed oddly familiar.

Grand Lodge

You can find the conclusion here.

Sovereign Court

Paleo, you've pointed out an interesting loophole, although intentionally exploiting it to point it out doesn't put your best foot forward with your GM.

I hope they do add some errata to show that taking the form of an aquatic creature restricts you to that creature's ability to breathe; it just makes sense.

Grand Lodge

It is not a loophole. There are many things you do not gain from the Beast Shape spell. The Aquatic subtype is one of those things.

Sovereign Court

... That's pretty much the reason I called it a loophole, bbt.

The intention is for wild shape to mimic natural creatures and yet the rules don't support even that much. That's a loophole; a flaw; a break in verisimilitude.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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The part of the giant squid that grants it the ability to breathe water is its aquatic subtype. The part that makes it not able to breathe air is the lack of the amphibious quality.

A druid uses wildshape to turn into a giant squid functions as beast shape III.

Beast shape III does not grant the Aquatic subtype or the amphibious ability.

Beast shape III DOES allow the user to gain the squid's swim speed (although not at speed 90, the spell's max, but at speed 60, the squid's swim speed).

Now, looking back at the base polymorph rules on page 211, we see that, "if the form grants a swim...speed, you maintain the ability to breathe if you are swimming..." That means that while you're swimming, you can, essentially, breathe water. It does not remove your ability to breathe air if you normally breathe air.

Therefore, a STRICT by-the-rules reading in this case informs us that if you wildshape into a giant squid, you can breathe water ONLY WHILE SWIMMING (not if you're floating in the water, as if when stunned or paralyzed or unconscious), and can breathe air normally.

Frankly, that super-strict by-the-rules reading is wacky. I think that the easiest solution is to just allow the aquatic subtype to apply when needed, and to add amphibious to the list of powers granted. After all... that's the WHOLE INTENDED POINT of the various polymorph spells. If beast shape III can grant more powerful effects like blindsense, flight, poison, pounce, and the like... allowing it to also grant the Aquatic subtype and the amphibious special quality is hardly over-the-top. Of course... in that case, your giant squid WOULD end up having to hold its breath when fighting out of water or risk suffocation, but I think that's actually kind of cool and interesting.

(Bonus Round: The reason "amphibious" isn't mentioned on the beast shape lists is that the amphibious special quality didn't really gel and propagate into the Bestiary until very late... at a point AFTER the Core Rulebook was finalized. This is the same reason there's weird disconnects between how horses are presented in the two books, or why early printings of the Core Rulebook had a few weird errors on the summon lists.)

PATHFINDER SOCIETY ORG PLAY: In a game like the Pathfinder society massively multiplayer offline campaign, you pretty much need to play by the RAW. And until the design team gets a chance to look at this and/or Mike & Mark get to weigh in... a druid who wildshapes into a giant squid can breathe water AND air... assuming the duruid himself can breathe air, of course.

ALL OTHER PLAY: If you wildshape into a creature that can breathe water, you can breathe water. If that creature doesn't also have the amphibious quality, you must hold your breath when you have no water to breathe. And frankly, if you use this ruling in a Pathfinder Society game, I'm pretty sure that no one will mind, as long as you're clear about it up front and if a player suddenly realizes that not being able to breathe air is a bad thing, don't be a jerk and let him go back and either choose a different form OR a different act in that round entirely if he wants.


Isn't treading water considered swimming? But, yes, the idea that the Aquatic subtype would make things much cleaner across the board. Thanks, Oh Great Toothy One.

Grand Lodge

Paleo wrote:
Starglim, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'd be interested in your source. I can't find your information anywhere. Granted, I'm looking verbatim but... If you wouldn't mind posting where you got it. Perhaps it would help with the rules discussion. My husband was alluding to an odd way that by 'row' a horse could potentially climb a rope.

No source, just arguing by analogy, which is often unreliable in rules discussion, almost as bad as physics or biology.

(RAW: Rules As Written)


How about breathing lava, JJ?

I'm now even more amused at the thought of a Beast Shaped character with resistance 30/fire, fast healing and a baller Con score swimming in lava for a few rounds just to show off =)

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