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Baleful Polymorph wrote:

If the spell succeeds, the subject must also make a Will save. If this second save fails, the creature loses its extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, loses its ability to cast spells (if it had the ability), and gains the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own. It still retains its class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features (other than spellcasting) that aren't extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.

So, did the PC make the second save?

We have not tried it yet, we are looking for an out but we may face a permadead character here. (we ended the session on a bit of a cliffhanger)

The hope is that the save is made and all is well, however the character is a fighter so will saves are not so great. My question is around the worst case scenario, the save fails and intelligence drops to 1 or 2.

As an added note, our GM allows us to intentionally fail saves if we wish to. This allows us to target our friends and allies with potentially harmful stuff if they are willing. Not often used but occasionally someone gets to take one for the team in some fashion.

I agree that the intelligence drops to that of the animal (1 or 2) but I was only able to find reference to a few things regarding what you can or cannot do with various low intelligence scores.

From the SRD:
"Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards because it affects their spellcasting ability in many ways. Creatures of animal-level instinct have Intelligence scores of 1 or 2. Any creature capable of understanding speech has a score of at least 3. A character with an Intelligence score of 0 is comatose. Some creatures do not possess an Intelligence score. Their modifier is +0 for any Intelligence-based skills or checks."
"If you have a penalty, you can still read and speak your racial languages unless your Intelligence is lower than 3."

This might be read to indicate that you are just an animal now, which begs the question, whats the point of retaining ANY of your skills/feats?

If we look at the descriptor for wisdom, we see a nod to rational thought.

"Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition. Wisdom is the most important ability for clerics and druids, and it is also important for monks and rangers. If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Wisdom. Every creature has a Wisdom score. A character with a Wisdom score of 0 is incapable of rational thought and is unconscious."

Hello,
I have finally found a question that a forums search did not answer. (doesn't mean its not out there, just didn't see it)
Game is pathfinder, all core material allowed, no 3rd party without DM approval.

Spell in question is baleful polymorph (from PC to PC to turn them into a bird or other flying critter)

My group and I are in a sticky spot in a battle we can't win. Time to run away.
We have an out for all but 1 character.

I would like to know the official rule on what happens to someone who is polymorphed into an animal with an intelligence of 1 or 2.

From the rules I could not tell if the transformed player would be able to continue to make rational decisions.

do they:
A) become that animal and no longer care about what they were before or that they NEED TO RUN AWAY
B) retain all memories and plans but lose the ability to communicate and can RUN AWAY to regroup and get the polymorph dispelled.

Edit: I put this in under rules but if someone feels this needs a different category please let me know.