transmute a Cloud giant to an eagle (and similar situations)

[Grindergrend]

Transmutation spells are a very interesting option though they remain a very powerfull way of breaking a game system entierly.

I ame currently trying to figure out how size change is supposed to be accounted for creatures of unusual size.

A cloud giant (Huge creature) druid 5 can wildshape into a small creature, for instance, an eagle. If i simply apply the ability effects as written, I end up with an eagle pocessing a nice 35 strength while retaining all its nice small size bonuses to attack and AC.

I was wondering if this is the desired result or if I messed up somewhere.

Things get very fun when the same cloud giant uses giant form 1 to take the form a smaller giant (say a hill giant) and gaining a nice strength bonus in the process.

If the same giant decided to use Giant form 2 to change into a cloud giant that could be interesting too.

Now some might say, these situations are not standard game encounters, although that last point is debatable, I could reformulate the point this way.

If fighting against a nasty evil cloud giant monster, a benevolent wizard PC managed to toss in a succesful baleful polymorph, would the resulting creature retain the fearsome strength and Constitution of the original creature.

That seems totally absurd to me, but can lead to interesting situations. Maybe i overlooked something, but untill now, I could not find any official ressource that helped me clarify that point.

Of course the situation can also work the other way round, for example an imp using his shapechange power to take the form of a boar only taking a slight +2 size bonus to Strength.

If anyone has answers I will gladly take them. Please attach links for official material.

[Sissyl]

Medium creatures are the baseline. For the giant druid, I would guess you first neutralize the bonuses due to size, then add in the new ones for a Small creature.

[Grindergrend]

Sissyl wrote:

Medium creatures are the baseline. For the giant druid, I would guess you first neutralize the bonuses due to size, then add in the new ones for a Small creature.

That seems reasonnable, but does it mean that small sized creatures should actually get a bigger bonus than the one stated in the spell?

an Halfling druid turning into a wolf (beast shape I ) should first apply attribute change for a medium creature (+4 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con) and then apply the spell bonuses. If so that would certainly make small sized druids an interesting option.

[David knott 242]

The Magic chapter of the Core Rulebook has a table of modifiers to apply to creatures that are smaller than Small or larger than Medium before applying any other modifiers from a polymorph spell. That is the table you use to compensate for ability score bonuses based on the original creature being outside the Small to Medium size range.

[Grindergrend]

Thanks a lot. Is that table available somwhere online?

[Matthew Downie]

Size Changes table? (A bit more than half way down the page.)

[David knott 242]

Yes, the Magic section of the PRD has that table under Polymorph under Transmutation.

[David knott 242]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Size Changes table? (A bit more than half way down the page.)

No, you use the table on this page.

[Grindergrend]

So that balefully polymorphed cloud giant would end up being a 27 Strengh eagle, still bad, but not that Bad.

And an Imp polymorphed into a boar would end up with a net +6 size bonus to strength (for a nice 16 total). Groovy!

[thewastedwalrus]

Actually, the polymorph size table is based on medium and small base creatures. The polymorphee is altered to one or the other first then has the spell's modifiers.