bumpity bump bump.
One main thing that stupid characters try to do is say "im going to lower my intelligence by 1 point to make the spell last longer"... nope, the spell doesn't work that way.
Making this a beneficial spell by changing your character is really hard. Your character is never going to be related to what you are turning into, so you have to be the same size. A normal human turns into a fat elf. A dwarf turns into an abnormally tall and fat halfling. A cat-folk turns into a skinny and short half-orc. The volumes have to be the exact same. Same size does not mean medium to medium. It means literally the same volume.
One method this spell is intended for is to be used with stoneshape/wall of whatever. Close off a room with the BBEG and then change 1700 cubic feet of air to acid/Black lotus extract poison (contact, 1/round for 6 rounds, d6 con per round)/frigid water/magma... so many options - remember to specify that you are leaving a 1 inch gap around each living thing in the room. The room is only off limits for 3 hours.
RISE, RISE AGAIN, OH ANCIENT THREAD, SO I CAN BENEFIT FROM YOUR INSIGHT!
Just wanted to get some clarification on this spell, to see how it really works.
1) As it is a Polymorph effect, it shouldn't change the creature type, right?
2)If a human was changed to an elf, would he get extended life span? As it works as Alter Self I guess it would only give him darkvision and low light vision but none of the other special qualities, right?
OK, thanks. That's what I thought.
Sorry, I'm playing Dragonlance right now and elves there have Darkvision, so we houserule that elves have darkvision in our Pathfinder setting. My mistake.
I know about the +2 to Str, but I didn't mention it because I was referring to elf specific stuff and the +2 thing is for all humanoids.
Anyway, what I was more interested about was about creature type and another racial stuff, like lifespan. In a game I'm in, there is a character who might be interested in casting Polymorph any object to turn another character into an elf fir roleplaying reasons. I just wanted to be sure that the changes were mostly cosmetic.
Also, do you know something that could permanently change a character's race aside from Wish, Miracle, Reincarnate and Forced Reincarnate?
The response to the OP says this got answered in an errata. Can anyone find it?
Filthy lies!
7 years later and I'm still waiting for clarification on this spell!
You read that Paizo!? I'm still here! I'll be here forever!