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does it lose its natural armor bonus?
i know the magic section says ...
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.
so i know the dragon would lose its dragon senses, natural attacks and movement types. but would keep its abilities like natural armor?
and have its stats adjusted from large to medium before applying the spell's +2 to str or dex.
I would think the natural armor is due to their tough skin/scales so it seems to me that it should be lost
Natural Armor: If your race has a tough hide, scales, or thick skin you receive a bonus to your AC.
Natural armor is an extraordinary ability that depends on your original form, so it's lost.
Still always a funny thought, the dragon could alter self into a halfling but still have his almost 40 some strength.
Reminds me of a Larp where a player played a small man with a journal and glasses. We didn't know he had potence (super strength) until he ripped a handicap sign out of the ground and beat someone to death with it.
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Natural armor is an extraordinary ability that depends on your original form, so it's lost.
you're probably right. But it would be nice to see more than just Senses listed in the example of "extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form". Does SR rely on original form? does immunity / resistance to an element?
As is, it could be interpreted by a GM to mean you lose your senses, natural attacks, and movement from your original form.
Since its not really explicit, the "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." leaves a lot of it up to interpretation.
The way Hero Lab does it is stacking the bonuses, keeping Natural Armor. I don't have a problem with it, and I believe it is RAW as well.
Natural armor is an extraordinary ability that depends on your original form, so it's lost.you're probably right. But it would be nice to see more than just Senses listed in the example of "extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form". Does SR rely on original form? does immunity / resistance to an element?
As is, it could be interpreted by a GM to mean you lose your senses, natural attacks, and movement from your original form.
Since its not really explicit, the "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." leaves a lot of it up to interpretation.
Here's how I would do it:
Look at what the polymorph spells give you. Do they give you an extraordinary ability? You probably don't retain the identical ones when you shift to a different form.
For example, frightful presence is an extraordinary ability. You obviously wouldn't keep this ability if a big, scary dragon polymorphed into a raven.
Energy resistance is *usually* extraordinary. If the resistance wouldn't be negated in an anti-magic field, then it's probably extraordinary. That means that a red dragon's immunity to fire is because of the form of a red dragon. Polymorphing to a human causes the dragon to lose this ability. Likewise, when a human polymorphs to a dragon, he gains some degree of energy resistance/immunity.
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well the way the spells are written they're all natural armor bonuses or abilities that you gain.
when it gives you +6 size bonus to strength, and +4 natural armor from beast shape IV, it doesn't expect you to zero out your strength to zero bonus.
Granted they wrote the spells for zero base natural armor humanoids to cast. But there should be a best of both worlds aspect to polymorph magic as well. A Dragon would have to be powerful enough to cast Veil instead of actually turning into a medium humanoid, because it loses so much of the power of its natural form. But since it keeps the great strength of its original form, why not keep some of the other power on the inside? tough muscle and hide beneath the human skin its wearing ?
Meabolex, yours and mine are both are interpretations that could be made about magically hiding your form in a fantasy setting. I for one prefer the less nerfed version for the scaley casters. Since they could keep their 30 strength, its apparent that some things under the skin are still kept, and not all things from the original form are lost. To me it doesn't even make much sense that they'd lose some sense abilities, from a spell creator standpoint: you'd want the best of both worlds if you had the options.
I also hate Magic Circle/Antimagic Aura/sphere spells for casting creatures with a large or larger base size, etc, as the spells don't take into account that the caster may not always be Medium. =P
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why? you're casting a magic spell , it shouldn't necessarily hinder you more because you've got a strong base form.
if you're an ancient red dragon going to cast alter self into a human princess for some ploy. you're going from gargantuan to medium, you're already losing 12 str, gaining 4 dex, and losing 6 con.
If i were a CR 19 dragon going from str 39, dex 8, con 27 to str 27, dex 12, con 21. I would sure hope I kept some modicum of power from my base form like dragon senses or an unusually tough skin. If i didn't, with an intelligence of 20, I might reconsider the plan before it gets that far. =P
the magic as written is biased for the weak fleshy casters. but there are plenty of non humanoid casters with abilities that shift their form, that weaken them greatly, instead of offering them some sort of boost. Barghests, Kelpies, Oni, Archons. Most of the time when they're using any change form ability, they're greatly weakening themselves. I'm just advocating for the monsters. someone has to =)
If something didn't seem unusual, i don't see why you'd get a perception check to determine something was awry with the unusually strong /strange acting human. I would think its more fun to look into their eyes and briefly see them blink like a dragon or see a slitted iris.