Psionics Psychometabolism Question

[Roto]

So, I had a big question in my game come up in regards to Psionics and the Metabolism, Minor power in particular.

The rules regarding Psychometabolism state that for the purpose of psionics, psychometabolism powers are equivalent to powers of the transmutation school. What I took this to mean was that the Metabolism, Minor power operated under the same rules as Polymorph spells in regards to what you get and don't get. Is this accurate at all?

[Vatras]

That comparison was made for the purpose of transparency and interaction with magical effects.

Metamorphosis (minor) and it's big brothers differ from polymorph spells and the rules for them don't apply. If you look at the general rules for polymorph and then at the psionic power, you can see a lot of differences:
- psionics allow you to imitate a specific person, polymorph doesn't
- the power allows you any form of your size, while the spells define what goes (beast shape, alter self, etc.)
- polymorph grants you various effects automatically, the power does not; as it says, all the changes are purely cosmetic, and you get only what you pick from the tables; polymorph would grant you physical stats, natural attacks and some other stuff, but the psionic power requires you to pick that from the table; if you don't pick the natural attacks from table A, you don't have them
- polymorph grants you the movement modes allowed by the spell chosen; the power requires you to pick those from the options and doesn't grant you one
- furthermore, the psionic power grants you named bonuses to the stats, which can be redundant due to buffs or items

So the power allows you more flexibility in shape, but less inbuilt effect. It is in most cases inferior to the spells. But you can get various effects without altering your shape from the power, which you can't with polymorph.
For example, you can change your shape into another human or an elf (or turn your eyes blue), and add the appropriate number of effects to you. Assuming you are a psion 5, you manifest minor metamorphosis and enhance it with 4 PP, bringing it to your limit of 5 PP. The power grants you one effect (=buff) from the two A tables and your enhancing it adds two more for a total of 3 effects. You could give yourself +2 STR, increase your size and the cleave feat, so you end up with +4 STR and reach. If you are are martially minded psionic, this is a nice buff. You could as well get +2 DEX, burrow speed and resist fire 5. This mix-and-match buff is what the power actually does, and compared to other buffs at those levels, they are good.