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Most poly-morph spells are very much a sort of less than lethal affair in most cases I find. The ones that come of the top of the head are shrink person,grow person, and the all important baleful poly-morph spell. while all these are useful in their own way, there is one poly-morph spell from fairytales that is much more lethal in its potential, very often forgotten in its origin, and possibly even more disturbing in its subtext than even some of the most horrifying monsters in pathfinder.
This is the Inorganic poly-morph spell(i don't really have a name for this spell yet -_-). When the victim is hit by this spell, the effect is similar to that of baleful poly-morph, but rather than turning them into an animal, it turns them into an object equal to or one size smaller than the victims size. That is if they fail the fortitude test to resist the poly-morph effect. their hardness points as an object are equal to half their current hit-points, and they can only be restored to normality by anything that would reverse baleful poly-morph.
Any hardness damage or injuries sustained on the object will be transferred across to the victim in some way upon restoration.If they are destroyed as an object, the victim is permanently dead, and can only be restored to life by the wish spell.
If they fail the will save to resist the poly-morph mind-altering effect, they are permanently turned into the object and are considered dead by counts until they given a true restoration spell, or a wish is used. Because if you fail the will save, you will become the object and that object is non-living already.
The origin for this comes from the story of Frau Hexen(or hex Trude in non-german translations), in which a girl seeks out a infamous witch, who then turns the girl into a log and throws her on the fire. there is no revenge, no happy ending, no girl brought back to life. just the witch sitting comfortably by the fire musing about the lovely glow the most recent log makes.
This is a spell slot level 8-9 spell, because if it is possible to turn the tarrasque into a colossal wardrobe, the spell is way more powerful than any other poly-morph spell should be.
Mechanically speaking, it isn't much different than flesh to stone.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/fleshToStone.html
So I'm not sure why it would need to be an 8th level spell.
Thematically though its an interesting idea.
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Mechanically speaking, it isn't much different than flesh to stone.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/fleshToStone.html
So I'm not sure why it would need to be an 8th level spell.
Thematically though its an interesting idea.
the reason i thought it would be an 8th level spell was because i initially thought that baleful polymorph was a 7th slot spell, rather than a 5th slot spell. so more likely it would be a 6th or 7th level spell instead.
Also while flesh to stone is very effective, i think that being able to turn unfortunate victims into products of wood or cloth is way more nasty, since you can then just chuck the wizard or fighter into a burning brazier.
And if they only failed the fortitude save, they still are able to keep their sentience and senses, so they are conscious of what is happening and are completely powerless to resist it. you can only mentally scream as you burn into ash.
Still doesn't stop flesh to stone from being a terrifying prospect. I mean think about what could happen while you are stuck as a statue.
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I have scanned the witches spell list from 9th level to 0th level can-trips. I know about poly-morph any object and... I am so very upset that pathfinder has again not used more details from the witches own back catalog of stories to draw new abilities from.
I mean some witches want to be the kind that make full size gingerbread houses and throw foolish children into burning hot ovens to roast. Really it's quite liberating to at least have spells in that category available for witches to use. It just says 'i know you probably shouldn't, but just in case you do, the spell is right there if you want it.'
I guess that means that means that wizards and sorcerers are stingy spell hoarder's that really need to stop taking every body else's spell options. When more than 90 percent of every spell or arcane power is under your thumb, That is when the gods themselves tend to cut you out of reality for being a nuisance.