Protean Change Shape vs. Protean Change Shape

[Distant Scholar]

In the Bestiary 2, all of the proteans have a form of change shape in their stat blocks. However, the protean subtype also lists a form of change shape which acts differently from the usual change shape.[1]

Is the stat block change shape supposed to further clarify (and, for the voidworm, override) the change shape from the subtype? Or do they have two different change shape abilities?

If it's the former, it seems strange that an imp can change into various shapes all day, but a protean can't. On the other hand, having two change shape abilities is kind of weird, too.

[1]Specifically, it's limited to 1/day, and has a heal effect attached to changing back. And it has different limits (or lack thereof) on what shape it can change into.

[Gordon the Whale]

Distant Scholar wrote:

In the Bestiary 2, all of the proteans have a form of change shape in their stat blocks. However, the protean subtype also lists a form of change shape which acts differently from the usual change shape.[1]

Is the stat block change shape supposed to further clarify (and, for the voidworm, override) the change shape from the subtype? Or do they have two different change shape abilities?

If it's the former, it seems strange that an imp can change into various shapes all day, but a protean can't. On the other hand, having two change shape abilities is kind of weird, too.

[1]Specifically, it's limited to 1/day, and has a heal effect attached to changing back. And it has different limits (or lack thereof) on what shape it can change into.

I was just looking at this myself. The protean subtype version looks very 3.5 to me... It doesn't say which spell it emulates (and therefore, which special abilities it grants), and also lists "giant" as a type, rather than a subtype. I'm leaning toward the version in the stat block for the individual proteans, which is more consistent with the rest of PFRPG.

[Parcelsus]

Personally I love the idea of being able to polymorph at will AND once per day turn into a creature chooseable from a wider variety. However, I doubt this is how this is intended to work, and I definitely think this deserves an errata. At the very least I think beings of pure chaos, if anything, should be able to polymorph quite a lot, much more often than just once a day.