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When changing shape via a polymorph spell or effect, do you retain your natural armor bonus? For example, If I cast baleful polymorph to turn a barbed devil into a rat, would his AC be 21 or 31?
"While most of these should be obvious, the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed. Your new form might restore a number of these abilities if they are possessed by the new form."
Not explicitly mentioned in the preceding paragraphs (probably because most races people are intended to use don't have natural armour bonuses) so it's ultimately up in the air.
On the one hand, it's something that depends upon the physical form and is a class feature explicitly granted by polymorph spells.
On the other hand, it isn't mentioned, and the two traits could easily overlap.
Personally, I'd rule toward "you lose any prior natural armour bonus while polymorphed" as it seems like it makes a lot more sense, especially since you lose all movement types and senses from your prior form.
Though if you're looking to cripple an enemy, why use a rat? Their senses are actually pretty good. I'd say make them into a naked mole rat or something.
I'm more a fan of the classics myself. Nothing like turning someone into a toad. They're gonna be hard pressed to run away when their movement speed changes to 5 ft.
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I'm more a fan of the classics myself. Nothing like turning someone into a toad. They're gonna be hard pressed to run away when their movement speed changes to 5 ft.
Of course, in this case, if they made their will save you'd end up with a toad that can use greater teleport at will...
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No, they do not lose their natural armor bonus typically.
" Each polymorph spell allows you to assume the form of a creature of a specific type, granting you a number of bonuses to your ability scores and a bonus to your natural armor."
Basically, if the spell is going to remove static natural armor bonus not specially gained then the spell will say so.
"While under the effects of a polymorph spell, you lose all extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form (such as keen senses, scent, and darkvision), as well as any natural attacks and movement types possessed by your original form. You also lose any class features that depend upon form, but those that allow you to add features (such as sorcerers that can grow claws) still function. While most of these should be obvious, the GM is the final arbiter of what abilities depend on form and are lost when a new form is assumed. Your new form might restore a number of these abilities if they are possessed by the new form."
Unless your natural armor comes from a class feature, supernatural ability or extraordinary ability which depends on your original form and did not add to your form you do not lose NA bonus. An example is growing claws from a class feature which does not depend on your form as the ability causes them to grow. Or an eyebiter mesmerist who changes form to one which has no eyes can not produce their eye familiar.
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I think we've gone through this argument several times before. It usually comes down to:
you lose all extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form (such as keen senses, scent, and darkvision)
And then someone remarks that natural armor isn't an extraordinary or supernatural ability. However, neither is keen senses.
I do believe natural armor depends on your original form (having tough skin, exoskeleton etcetera). I think it deserves the "practically an exceptional ability" treatment "such as keen senses". Once you transform into a different creature, you no longer have your old skin. So you lose the bonus and have to take whatever the spell offers you.
It would be useful to settle this once and for all by FAQ though.
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Turtle wizard polymorphs into a human
Turtle wizard has no shell.
Turtle wizard has no natural armor bonus.
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All form dependent abilities are lost when you shift out of your natural form.
I would like someone to explain how natural armor ISN"T form-dependent.
Spell enhancements to natural armor, such as barkskin, would continue to function.
Aye, add me to the natural armour is form dependent (unless spell) side of this argument.
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If polymorph effects removed natural armor, then Youthful Appearance would be a MAJOR debuff to almost any creature in the bestiary above CR 3. The higher the CR, the bigger the debuff usually as natural armor is the basis for most critter's AC. Along with Alter Self. Also, Mauler Familiar's Battle Form(supposed to be a polymorph effect) has issues because a big debuff with its buff(gain medium, +2 strength lose all natural armor).
Change Shape is disastrous for most things that have it.
Fleshcurdle is a polymorph spell which is designed to give a penalty to the natural armor bonus of the thing it affects.
Remember, most polymorph spells only give you a moderate(if at all) natural armor no matter how much armor the creature you are turning into has, and this is not an increase but a static bonus which does not stack with existing natural armor bonus. This is because you don't actually become the creature. A balancing act from the old way that polymorph functioned. As is, polymorph is only supposed to do exactly what it says and reading too much into it will cause issues.
Let's take Anthropomorphic Animal for instance. It is a polymorph spell. So, by this definition they lose their natural armor. Would you ever want to do that to an animal as a benefit?
When changing shape via a polymorph spell or effect, do you retain your natural armor bonus? For example, If I cast baleful polymorph to turn a barbed devil into a rat, would his AC be 21 or 31?I vote for 21.
(And I think it should be 30 if it kept it's +10, not 31, the spell wouldn't stack with it's original +10 Nat AC)
I wasn't intending to imply that they did stack. Just a math error on my part I guess.
Logically, yes. But the rules aren't always logical.
In this case they are, there's a clause telling you to use logic and sense to figure out what carries over and what doesn't.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Logically, yes. But the rules aren't always logical.In this case they are, there's a clause telling you to use logic and sense to figure out what carries over and what doesn't.
Fortuneately we have a GM that uses logic to get a proper interpretation of the rules as the GM is the final arbiter of what the rules mean regarding the natural armor.
All form dependent abilities are lost when you shift out of your natural form.
I would like someone to explain how natural armor ISN"T form-dependent.
Spell enhancements to natural armor, such as barkskin, would continue to function.
The issue is that strength, Dex, and Con are also logically form dependent, but you don't lose or gain them except for size differences, which don't capture racial or structural reasons for better/worse stats. If a dragon spurned into a mouse is absurdly strong compared to a normal mouse, why can't it have absurdly tough skin, too?
For magic to work the way it intends it twists your form into the appropriate shape but doesn't change under the skin stuff more than necessary. You lose peripheral or highly specialized abilities, but keep the core of you, including your type. I suggest that natural armor is part of that core and you do keep it. The turtle wizard has a hard shell underneath the soft human skin. The dragon mouse has tough scaly stuff, as well as immensely powerful/optimized/compressed muscles.
The issue is that strength, Dex, and Con are also logically form dependent, but you don't lose or gain them except for size differences, which don't capture racial or structural reasons for better/worse stats.
There is no issue. You are told explicitly, with math, how to adjust a creatures states.
You are not explicitly told to do that with somethings natural armor
Natural armor defaults to "is it form dependant?"
And the answer to that is clearly yes.
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The explicit assignation of ultimate arbitration* to the GM in this case (which rarely occurs in the rules) suggests that everyone on every side of this issue is right, provided they are the GM.
Now, if you'll pardon me, I've got tables to flip.
*ETYMOLOGICAL ASIDE: Notice how arbitration looks like arbitrary...?
The explicit assignation of ultimate arbitration* to the GM in this case (which rarely occurs in the rules) suggests that everyone on every side of this issue is right, provided they are the GM.
I find in practice this generally works out as the GM chooses whichever interpretation is most beneficial to the players when it first comes up, and then does an abrupt about-face when they perceive the PCs as "abusing" it.
It's legitimately an "ask the table how they think it should work" situation and just go with the consensus.
The issue is that strength, Dex, and Con are also logically form dependent, but you don't lose or gain them except for size differences, which don't capture racial or structural reasons for better/worse stats.
There is no issue. You are told explicitly, with math, how to adjust a creatures states.
You are not explicitly told to do that with somethings natural armor
Natural armor defaults to "is it form dependant?"
And the answer to that is clearly yes.
You are told explicitly what abilities that are form dependent to remove. Is natural armor EX, SU, a natural attack or movement form? Is it a class feature? If not it's as black and white as adding or subtracting from the stat numbers.
*edit* forgot class feature
The issue is that strength, Dex, and Con are also logically form dependent, but you don't lose or gain them except for size differences, which don't capture racial or structural reasons for better/worse stats.
There is no issue. You are told explicitly, with math, how to adjust a creatures states.
You are not explicitly told to do that with somethings natural armor
Natural armor defaults to "is it form dependant?"
And the answer to that is clearly yes.
You are told explicitly what abilities that are form dependent to remove. Is natural armor EX, SU, a natural attack or movement form? Is it a class feature? If not it's as black and white as adding or subtracting from the stat numbers.
*edit* forgot class feature
Natural armor is not mentioned because player character races generally do not possess it.
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You are told explicitly what abilities that are form dependent to remove. Is natural armor EX, SU, a natural attack or movement form? Is it a class feature? If not it's as black and white as adding or subtracting from the stat numbers.
*edit* forgot class feature
No, you're given examples of abilities to remove, "such as Keen Senses", which doesn't fit any of the Ex/Su etc categories.
Keen Senses: Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
A lot of racial abilities are also in the universal monster rules, such as Darkvision, so you can look them up to see whether they're Ex or Su. But Keen Senses isn't, and it's right there in the list of examples of things that polymorph removes.
So, there's one form-dependent ability that explicitly gets removed, while not being neatly pidgeonholed in a category of abilities. Thus, the door is open for other form-dependent abilities that don't fit in a neat category to also be lost. Like natural armor.
It doesn't prove that you lose natural armor, but it counters the objection that natural armor won't be lost because it's not in the listed categories for sure.
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If polymorph effects removed natural armor, then Youthful Appearance would be a MAJOR debuff to almost any creature in the bestiary above CR 3. The higher the CR, the bigger the debuff usually as natural armor is the basis for most critter's AC. Along with Alter Self. Also, Mauler Familiar's Battle Form(supposed to be a polymorph effect) has issues because a big debuff with its buff(gain medium, +2 strength lose all natural armor).
Change Shape is disastrous for most things that have it.
Fleshcurdle is a polymorph spell which is designed to give a penalty to the natural armor bonus of the thing it affects.Remember, most polymorph spells only give you a moderate(if at all) natural armor no matter how much armor the creature you are turning into has, and this is not an increase but a static bonus which does not stack with existing natural armor bonus. This is because you don't actually become the creature. A balancing act from the old way that polymorph functioned. As is, polymorph is only supposed to do exactly what it says and reading too much into it will cause issues.
Let's take Anthropomorphic Animal for instance. It is a polymorph spell. So, by this definition they lose their natural armor. Would you ever want to do that to an animal as a benefit?
These are interesting objections. I think whoever assigned these things the Polymorph descriptor wasn't really paying attention. I mean, Youthful Appearance would also cause a dwarf to lose Darkvision. I think the designer was trying to use the "no two polymorphs at the same time" rule to prevent weird stacking, and didn't realize that the polymorph descriptor comes with a lot more baggage.
So, I think those spells aren't evidence of retaining your natural armor, but of a mistake while writing them.
Alter Self and Change Shape are not mistaken. Changing form to infiltrate may also make you a lot more vulnerable. An incubus changing shape to look human also loses his DR. Why should natural armor be different? If you want to look and feel like a soft and pliable human, you can just suffer the weirdly un-armored skin that comes with it.
Spells like Youthful Appearance probably have you lose all the abilities that normal polymorph spells have you lose... and instantly regain all of the abilities that fit "you, but younger" which should be all of them under most circumstances. (A dragon using it would probably lose a fair amount from it, for instance, but most races don't gain or lose such abilities to a notable degree from aging)
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http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monsterCreation.html
You'll note that when building a monster according to the rules (unlike using the racial builder) that natural armor is arbitrary and added to meet a AC target based on CR and monster toughness. It is also explicitly added prior to the monsters special abilities, unlike Keen Senses which is a racial ability based on the race builder.
If you disagree but can see the argument is rational, even if you don't think it's correct - please click the FAQ link. I certainly wouldn't be upset to have this clarified. Heck even people previously noted this topic has come up before.
My problem with the 'common sense' idea - is that if I change a titan into a bunny - having a bunny with 30 strength is just as silly as one with 30 AC (or whatever). If you can stuff a 'Titan' of musculature onto a creature the size of a rabbit why can't it's hide be tough?
The polymorph already cripples the creature (assuming it makes it's will save) I don't think it's meant to be an auto-kill - but rather a really really tough mixture of the old and new.
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Well, if you turn a Str 45 Elysian titan into a bunny, it first loses 16 strength for rescaling to medium as per the general polymorph rules, and then another 2 for turning tiny. So it ends up with strength 27 :P
Which is still a very large amount, but it seems titans are strong even for their size. They're almost godlike, after all.
The thing is, those ability-adjusting rules weren't written so much with shapechanging monsters in mind, but as an all-out effort to put a stop to one of 3.5s scariest abuses: DruidZilla. Back then, you just gained the physical stats of whatever you turned into. It's fine to dump Str and Dex because you'll get the dire tiger's Str and Dex which is better anyway. So Pathfinder insists that you add a modifier to your stats appropriate to size rather than just gaining those stats.
It annoys me that pathfinder so consciously countered druidzilla, and then turned around and recreated it with the synthesist summoner. That thing should have so clearly have used the new polymorph style rules.
The weird thing is that the synthesist isn't even that powerful in most games with rolled stats, because of all the fudging and rerolls giving everyone inflated stats. But in a game that uses point buy, It is just horribly abusable.
Even in point buy games, it's still weaker than the base summoner, and both are weaker than most full casters.
The difference is that while a regular Eidolon is stronger than most martials, the Summoner buffs the party, so they still feel good (everyone loves Haste). A Synthethist steals the spotlight without giving anything back.
I don't know why the synthesist wouldn't be casting spells like haste too.
It annoys me that pathfinder so consciously countered druidzilla, and then turned around and recreated it with the synthesist summoner. That thing should have so clearly have used the new polymorph style rules.
You speak of Paizo as if it's some perfectly monolithic block with one unified creative vision.
Fact is a lot of cooks stir this particular pot. Some stir it differently than others. Not all of them have the same vision, and even the folks who are in charge of the creative process don't seem to be as dictatorially top down as one would imagine. So you're going to get incongruities such as the person who built the summoner and/or the synthesist never got the Druidzillaphobia injection. Or incgrouties such as Prone Shooter.
These are interesting objections. I think whoever assigned these things the Polymorph descriptor wasn't really paying attention..
Your new form might have other qualities from your old form.... in this case i think its pretty safe to say smoking hot you has everything decrepid old you has.
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Your new form might have other qualities from your old form.... in this case i think its pretty safe to say smoking hot you has everything decrepid old you has.
These are interesting objections. I think whoever assigned these things the Polymorph descriptor wasn't really paying attention..
While it makes logical sense that this is so... it is not mechanically correct. Polymorph is one of those Pathfinder rules that only work because people generally get how it is meant to function despite what is written in the rules.
I don't know why the synthesist wouldn't be casting spells like haste too.
If he does, he's not pouncing the first round of combat, and thus a regular summoner is stronger.
Or, to quote myself, The ability to cheat on the point buy can not compete with a free quicken on every single spell (plus the ability to use the summon monster SLA without being one hit away from death).
Your new form might have other qualities from your old form.... in this case i think its pretty safe to say smoking hot you has everything decrepid old you has.
These are interesting objections. I think whoever assigned these things the Polymorph descriptor wasn't really paying attention..
*casts smoking hot self on decrepit old self*
Well crap... no change... apparently this is as good as it gets...
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...that natural armor is arbitrary and added to meet a AC target based on CR and monster toughness.
When making monsters in the traditional fashion, it's hardly arbitrary. The natural armor bonus assigned to creatures is based just as much on fluff as it is on CR. Bunnies simply do not have the natural armor bonus of rhinos. That's because they have soft fur rather than a thick, rock-hard hide.
Sure, game developers try to adhere to the numbers and meet their CR goals (if any), but they also consider the logic behind the numbers too. That's why many monsters get to add Charisma to their AC or have other work arounds for AC adjustment to meet that target number, when simply piling on more natural armor doesn't make thematic sense for the creature in question.
...that natural armor is arbitrary and added to meet a AC target based on CR and monster toughness.When making monsters in the traditional fashion, it's hardly arbitrary. The natural armor bonus assigned to creatures is based just as much on fluff as it is on CR. Bunnies simply do not have the natural armor bonus of rhinos. That's because they have soft fur rather than a thick, rock-hard hide.
Sure, game developers try to adhere to the numbers and meet their CR goals (if any), but they also consider the logic behind the numbers too. That's why many monsters get to add Charisma to their AC or have other work arounds for AC adjustment to meet that target number, when simply piling on more natural armor doesn't make thematic sense for the creature in question.
That's not really how they lay it out.
Step 7: Other Statistics
Using Table: Monster Statitics by CR, Table: Creature Statistics by Type, and Table: Statistics Summary, you can now determine many of the creature's other statistics.
When building a creature's Armor Class, start by adding armor, shield, and natural armor bonuses to its Dexterity modifier. If a creature does not wear armor, give it a tougher hide to get it near its average AC. Remember that creatures with higher hit point totals might have a lower Armor Class, whereas creatures with fewer hit points might have a higher Armor Class. If a creature's Armor Class deviates from the average by more than 5 points, it might not be the right CR.
There are alot of 'average' and 'high' and 'low' numbers there - but they literally call for just giving it a high natural armor class to justify it's CR.
As to logic behind the numbers...
If you decide to give a creature an unusual size for its CR or HD, you should justify the unusual choice in the monster's description to account for the discrepancy—in most cases, such unusually sized monsters should be highly magical in nature. See Table: Size for more information on creature sizes and expected scores.
I also disagree - the guidelines they use themselves flip that script - they literally call on the monster designer to justify unusual numbers with the fluff rather than using the fluff to come up with the numbers. That of course goes along with the entire CR system and the math behind it which is always setup so that even an epic fight according to the CR system highly favors the player characters.