Polymorphed while polymorphed

[Kinithin]

Quote:

You can only be affected by one polymorph spell at a time. If a new polymorph spell is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old spell.

If you decide to have the new effect "take the place" of the old one, is the old one suspended or dismissed?

In other words, if the new effect ends, will the old one resume?

[Weirdo]

I believe it would be dismissed. Suppression is a little more complicated than dismissal and probably would have more specific language.

[Kinithin]

That's what I figured too. Suppression always comes with an explanation or example.

(And yeah, I meant suppressed, not suspended.)

I was hoping to take a break from a greatly extended Beast Shape by using Alter Self.

[Astral Wanderer]

I was wondering if, with a simple Alter Self on, one is immune to Baleful Polymorph and similar spells.

[Avoron]

You'd have to specify for the "similar spells," but for Baleful Polymorph specific beats general:

Baleful Polymorph wrote:

Any polymorph effects on the target are automatically dispelled when a target fails to resist the effects of baleful polymorph, and as long as baleful polymorph remains in effect, the target cannot use other polymorph spells or effects to assume a new form.

[Astral Wanderer]

Polymorph Any Object, for example, has no such specific rule.
Level 2 spell vs. level 8 spell.

[Paulicus]

Can't PAO replicate other polymorph spells?

[Crimeo]

A spell can still exist without affecting anybody or anything. For example, a silence spell cast way up on the top of a tall tree on a battlefield where nobody is climbing or flying. We wouldn't say that doesn't exist simply because it's not currently affecting anybody, would we?

So in this case, when the original spell stops affecting its target, I don't see how that can be taken to imply that it is dispelled or stops existing, any more than that silence spell can be assumed to not exist if nothing's in it's radius.

However, one might argue that even if it does still exist, that if nothing ever told us that the original spell "takes back its place as the one polymorph spell affecting the target" again, that it might just STAY not affecting you, even after the more recent spell has ended... which for most (not all) intents and purposes would be roughly the same as dispelling it.

[Kinithin]

Crimeo wrote:

A spell can still exist without affecting anybody or anything. For example, a silence spell cast way up on the top of a tall tree on a battlefield where nobody is climbing or flying.

The example is incorrect. The silence spell *is* affecting an area. But like the example, that's besides the point.

I don't buy that the original polymorph spell lingers around (say, to absorb a Dispel Magic targeted at the caster) if the spell isn't suppressed or suspended. I acknowledge that it's possible; I just believe it's not what actually happens.

[Crimeo]

Quote:

Aside from the incorrect example -- the silence spell *is* affecting an area

Okay, casting prestidigitation but not using any of its abilities for the whole hour. Or casting message/ventriloquism but then not saying anything. Or goodberries none of which anybody eats before they go poof. Or mending on a not-broken object. Or (non-metamagic) light on a small object that already had (a metamagic extended) light cast on it last round by somebody else who is now dead and cannot even possibly dismiss it. Or a magic missile cast into an area of total concealment using the total concealment rules that you can guess where an enemy might be and try to attack that square, but in this case, they guessed incorrectly and it hit nothing.

Quote:

I don't buy that the original polymorph spell lingers around

It would be weird, yes, but is possible and reasonable, that's all. I can also see it as possible and reasonable for the original spell to reassert itself.

It sort of depends on the generic "default physics of spells" which we don't know one way or the other. Like in this case, do spells have some sort of attractive force "pulling them" toward their original target unless something is ACTIVELY keeping them away? Who knows?

[Astral Wanderer]

The relevant part is:

Quote:

you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you

The moment you declare "I don't want it to affect me", it is gone. It does *not* affect you.

The text doesn't say it lingers on and waits for your current polymorph effect to go away to afect you. It doesn't affect you, and that's that.

Paulicus wrote:

Can't PAO replicate other polymorph spells?

It can, but that's a secondary ability that you must choose. If you choose to use it as Baleful Polymorph, you use Baleful Polymorph's rules (except for the save DC). If you choose the main version of Polymorph Any Object, you don't use Baleful Polymorph's rules.

Otherwise, it would also mean when you use Wish, you get at once all the sub-benefits of every single spell it can replicate.

[Crimeo]

Quote:

The text doesn't say it lingers on and waits for your current polymorph effect to go away to affect you. It doesn't affect you, and that's that.

Spells ALWAYS linger on unless something stops them or their time is up. So yes, it should linger on, since the rule said nothing about removing the spell, only to stop affecting somebody it affects. (Heck, some polymorph spells even have multiple creatures as targets! Surely the whole spell doesn't end if ONE of them has another poly effect happen)

Whether it affects you once again automatically after the interrupting spell has passed, or whether it would need "permission" to do this from some rule, is a different matter.

[Paulicus]

@AW

Still, I doubt many GMs would rule that alter self makes you immune to PAO. It's clearly not intended.

[Crimeo]

Paulicus wrote:

@AW

Still, I doubt many GMs would rule that alter self makes you immune to PAO. It's clearly not intended.

Why bother with minutes long, slot burning spells that you need to anticipate ahead with, when for just 4k gold you can get bracer's of falcon aim that ALWAYS have you under a polymorph effect thus apparently making you immune to all others? Buy now while supplies last!

[Astral Wanderer]

Crimeo wrote:

only to stop affecting somebody it affects.

Uhm, no.

It doesn't stop affecting you. It doesn't affect you to begin with.
Multiple targets are not an issue. Other targets are affected normally and the spell goes on for them, but the already polymorphed target is not affected. It doesn't linger on for him. Like when you don't win the SR of a creature with a multiple-target spell.

[Secane]

From the Core Rule Book, under Magic --> Transmutation --> Subschools --> Polymorph

"You can only be affected by one polymorph spell at a time. If a new polymorph spell is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old spell. In addition, other spells that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell."

One polymorph spell in effect at any given time. Since it takes the place of the old spell, the old spell if effectively ended.

[Crimeo]

Astral Wanderer wrote:

Crimeo wrote:

only to stop affecting somebody it affects.

Uhm, no.

It doesn't stop affecting you. It doesn't affect you to begin with.
Multiple targets are not an issue. Other targets are affected normally and the spell goes on for them, but the already polymorphed target is not affected. It doesn't linger on for him. Like when you don't win the SR of a creature with a multiple-target spell.

? Ilm talking about spell A affects you, let's say duration 1 hour. then is still in place 5 minutes later when spell B affects you with duration 1 minute. You choose (as per this rule) to have spell B be the one that affects you now.

So both of them have affected you at one point, and both spells succeeded in casting. So long as nothing says they go poof after that, they still both continue existing until their durations are up. It's just that A isn't affecting you anymore. But it IS still affecting, for example, other creatures it originally targeted. And it IS still going to absorb dispel magics cast on you potentially.

You seem to be talking about a situation where the person keeps choosing spell A, but that's a less interesting and less stringent test case for exactly these sorts of reasons.

[Astral Wanderer]

I am indeed talking about choosing A, because choosing B isn't an issue at all (exactly the absolute opposite of more interesting or stringent), except where you make up odd beliefs about magic being in the air.

The fact that B goes on for others is irrelevant for you. You chose to not be affected, and it doesn't affect you, as said more than enough already. If you resisted to B with your SR but other creatures didn't, it would be the same. They are affected, you aren't. The spell is not "waiting that your SR goes poof" or something like that. It didn't stick to you, period. To be affected you need a totally new casting, which will have on its own to win your SR, or, back to the specific case, to be chosen by you.

[Crimeo]

Quote:

The fact that B goes on for others is irrelevant for you.

Yeah, I know. Already agreed (which is why it is not so interesting of a scenario to focus on).

But what is your opinion on the situation where somebody chooses B? Do you agree with me on that too?

If so, well then that's not an interesting scenario either, and we agree on everything, so /thread.

[Kinithin]

Astral Wanderer wrote:

The relevant part is:

Quote:

you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you

The moment you declare "I don't want it to affect me", it is gone. It does *not* affect you.

The text doesn't say it lingers on and waits for your current polymorph effect to go away to afect you. It doesn't affect you, and that's that.

The question isn't What happens to the new spell if you declare "I don't want the new spell to affect me"?

The question is What happens to the old spell if I declare "I do want the new spell to affect me"?