Wizard casts Majic Jar, into a willing recipient. Once in the host body, wizard casts Polymorph any Object on his original body. Just for simplicity, transforming it into an adlet.
questions: does the spell give the wizards now polymorphed body a new "soul" or intelligence? since you can polymorph a rock into something with an INT score? Or did the wizard just transform it's body into a new form, "permanently" and can end the Magic Jar spell as normal. If that's the case, does the wizard now have to make a will save or have his mind polymorphed into that of an adlet?
www.yzzerdd.com wrote: Wizard casts Majic Jar, into a willing recipient. Once in the host body, wizard casts Polymorph any Object on his original body. Just for simplicity, transforming it into an adlet.
questions: does the spell give the wizards now polymorphed body a new "soul" or intelligence? since you can polymorph a rock into something with an INT score? Or did the wizard just transform it's body into a new form, "permanently" and can end the Magic Jar spell as normal. If that's the case, does the wizard now have to make a will save or have his mind polymorphed into that of an adlet?
/sigh Ok, lets break the bad news quickly. Polymorph Any Object only does what it says it can do. So when you turn your body into an Adlet you use the most appropriate polymorph effect that Polymorph Any Object could duplicate, which is what Greater Polymorph could duplicate, which is Alter Self. So your body would look like an Adlet, but the only ability you'd gain is Low Light Vision and Scent. Oh, you'd also gain a 1d6 bite attack. But nothing else.
Now if you insisted that you want to transform your dead body into a living subject I'd allow that. And as per the wording of Magic Jar at the end of the spell you'd die since you have no body to return to. You transformed your body into another creature. Ergo, you destroyed your own body. Therefor, you die at the end of Magic Jars duration and the only way you could be brought back is by True Resurrection, Clone, or a Wish/Miracle to create you a new body plus a spell to bring you back to life.
Oh, and Alter Self doesn't require you to take on the mentality of another species so I don't think your Wizard would need to make a saving throw since PAO is just acting as a longer duration version of alter self in this case.
Having the adlet alter self permanently isn't bad...
More difficult PAO.
Familiar is a Quasit.
PAO quasit to pit fiend.
For 1 week your familiar is a pit fiend?
www.yzzerdd.com wrote: More difficult PAO.
Familiar is a Quasit.
PAO quasit to pit fiend.
For 1 week your familiar is a pit fiend?
PAO doesn't allow to transform into demons. It only allows the forms allowed by greater polymorph (humanoids, animals, magical beasts, elementals, dragons, plants) and objects.
Some people argue that other forms should also be allowed (some GMs also allowe it to work like vermin shape or undead anatomy or other spells that were added only after the polymorph any object was published, so they had no chance of being mentioned in CRB), but for other forms there's no clear ruling what abilities you get after transformation. For with most polymorph spells you only get some abilities of the creature you transform into, like natural attackss and such. You don't even get full physical stats, you still use your original stats, with possible modifiers from the spell. If your GM allows other forms, they need to clarify what abilities you get in the new form, especially since there is no spell like form of the outsider. And even if it did exist, a form of a pit fiend might have been outside of the rangee of PAO.
Even with a permissive GM, the quasit will still be a quasit, just in a body that looks like a body of a pit fiend. It will have its natural attacks, but most likely its physical stats will be below the stats of a true pit fiend, and it won't have any of its supernatural abilities.
Well, Elementals are Outsiders. PAO can do Elemental Body 3. So you'd get a large sized creature, and er...stats... every type has its own stats. Yeah, that isn't helpful.
It probably isn't a good idea to go beyond what the spell actually allows. But if a GM did, the Quasit would be significantly more powerful than its normal form, but a total joke to whatever demon it is transformed into. Probably not a Pit Fiend since PAO does tiny to large sized creatures. And the stat boost would be something like +4 to one, +2 to another, and +4 to Natural Armor. No SU or EX abilities, probably a cap of 10 points for resistances and no DR.
And no extra HP so your PAO Quasit is just a paper tiger.
Meirril wrote: Well, Elementals are Outsiders. PAO can do Elemental Body 3. So you'd get a large sized creature, and er...stats... every type has its own stats. Yeah, that isn't helpful.
It probably isn't a good idea to go beyond what the spell actually allows. But if a GM did, the Quasit would be significantly more powerful than its normal form, but a total joke to whatever demon it is transformed into. Probably not a Pit Fiend since PAO does tiny to large sized creatures. And the stat boost would be something like +4 to one, +2 to another, and +4 to Natural Armor. No SU or EX abilities, probably a cap of 10 points for resistances and no DR.
And no extra HP so your PAO Quasit is just a paper tiger.
I disagree. Right in the spell it allows you to polymorph a human into a marionette (which isn't at all allowed by greater polymorph). You want to limit the spell to what greater polymorph allows, but this spell is a higher level spell than greater polymorph. The only question I have is how long would it last in the given circumstance.
"human to marionette" isn't allowed in any polymorph spell other than PAO
Human to marionette is functionally equivalent to flesh to stone.
Fair enough, how about: "sheep to wool coat"
It's doing more than flesh to stone, it's not within the scope of that or any other transmutation spell, that I'm aware of.
Turning creatures into objects and objects into creatures is made fairly clear in the text of the spell, even ignoring that table.
Turning a creature into a non-magical object that doesn't involve any special materials is a lot less complicated than turning a creature into another creature and deciding what options to allow it to access by doing so.
There's basically no real risk of some kind of gamebreaking combo (real or perceived) being facilitated by turning a creature into an object or an object into another object, especially with GMs that are going to actively curtail attempts by the PCs to exceed WBL.
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An important thing to remember when looking at Polymorph and Polymorph Any Object in Pathfinder 1st Edition, especially when trying to understand anything weird or unusual about them is that they're very much reactions to the D&D 3.5 version that they are based upon.
Polymorph was rather infamous for being a powerful, open-ended spell that only became more powerful with just about every published creature, and one of the things Paizo decided to change heavily when adapting the OGL content they had to work with into a new system.
You can take a look at the D&D 3.5 versions of Polymorph Any Object and Polymorph and compare them with the more defined and limited Pathfinder versions.
Understanding the mindset and intention behind the change is important to understanding why others are defining the abilities very narrowly to you.
www.yzzerdd.com wrote: It's doing more than flesh to stone, it's not within the scope of that or any other transmutation spell, that I'm aware of.
It is more like a combination of Flesh to Stone (living to inanimate) and Baleful Polymorph (harmless creature), or Fabricate.
PAO is a very difficult spell to adjudicate because the source spell from 3.0/3.5 allowed for transformations way beyond the limited scope of Pathfinder polymorph spells. The designers tried to leave the spell some freedom for the player's imagination without leaving a bank check that can be abused freely.
Now Yzzerdd is asking about ways to abuse PAO by paying attention to the description of the spell but wanting to go beyond the mechanical limitations that the description ends with. Those limitations at the end are important. If you don't feel that the effect can be generated by those end spells, then that use of PAO shouldn't be allowed.
PAO is a very flexible spell, but it has its limitations too. Look at Shapeshift. Even 9th level polymorph spells are quite limited. Expecting PAO to do 'anything' is unrealistic.
Meirril wrote: Now Yzzerdd is asking about ways to abuse PAO by paying attention to the description of the spell but wanting to go beyond the mechanical limitations that the description ends with. Those limitations at the end are important. If you don't feel that the effect can be generated by those end spells, then that use of PAO shouldn't be allowed.
I just read the Archives of Nethys text for PAO.
Polymorph Any Object wrote: This spell can also be used to duplicate the effects of baleful polymorph, greater polymorph, flesh to stone, stone to flesh, transmute mud to rock, transmute metal to wood, or transmute rock to mud. That is not at all worded as a limitation and is largely unchanged from the 3.5 wording where it was intended as an add-on or additional ability of the spell.
So I'm going to have to ask you for your source on that sentence being intended as a limitation.
Coidzor wrote: Polymorph Any Object wrote: This spell can also be used to duplicate the effects of baleful polymorph, greater polymorph, flesh to stone, stone to flesh, transmute mud to rock, transmute metal to wood, or transmute rock to mud. That is not at all worded as a limitation and is largely unchanged from the 3.5 wording where it was intended as an add-on or additional ability of the spell.
So I'm going to have to ask you for your source on that sentence being intended as a limitation. The limitation is not in this sentence (which is in fact an additional option), but in the sentence:
Polymorph Any Object wrote: This spell functions like greater polymorph, except that it changes one object or creature into another. Since PAO works like greater polymorph, all limitations of greater polymorph apply, unless they are removed by the description PAO. And greater polymorph has a specific list of forms that it allows. PAO adds the forms of objects to the list, but no new living forms.
Quote of what's been said before on PAO
PAO is the most misunderstood spell in the game (and with good reason. It's not well written). Here is what it can actually do:
It functions as the spell Greater Polymorph (which itself functions as either: animal or magical beast as Beast Shape IV, elemental as Elemental Body III, humanoid as Alter Self, plant as Plant Shape II, dragon as Form of the Dragon I; Note that this means PAO cannot do aberrations, constructs, fey, monstrous humanoid, oozes, outsiders other than elementals, undead, or vermin), with the following exceptions:
1)The duration works differently, as shown in the tables (potentially being permanent)
2)It can turn creatures into objects, using the rules listed in the spell
3)It can turn objects into creatures (while it says it can do this, the mechanics for doing so are not fully explained, due to how polymorph changed between 3.5 and PF. For instance, what is the objects HD? BAB? base saves? etc.)
4)Finally, PAO can be used to mimic one of the following spells instead of the above uses: baleful polymorph, greater polymorph, flesh to stone, stone to flesh, transmute mud to rock, transmute metal to wood, or transmute rock to mud
Note that when polymorphing into a creature, you do not gain that creature's stats or special abilities. Instead, you gain bonuses to your own ability scores as appropriate for the polymorph spell (Beast Shape IV for animals, etc.), and any special abilities that polymorph spell lists, as well as all natural weapons.
Personally, as a home rule I would allow greater polymorph (and by extension polymorph any object) to transform also into monstrous humanoids (as monstrous physique IV), undead (as undead anatomy III), vermin (as vermin shape II), fey (as fey form II) and oozes (as ooze form II). All of these spells are of the same power level as other polymorph spells that greater polymorph can mimic, it's just that they haven't appeared in the Core Rulebook, so greater polymorph couldn't mention them.
Still there are no spells that allow polymorphing into aberrations, constructs, or outsiders other than elementals, so these forms remain unavailable.
Adjoint wrote: All of these spells are of the same power level as other polymorph spells that greater polymorph can mimic I strongly disagree. Vermin Shape and Ooze Form may be fine, but the others, especially Monstrous Physique (because Pounce), have the huge boon of being able to mimic humanoid shapes - that means not only is casting and speaking no issue, but those forms can also wield weapons, and all equipment stays. Armor, wands, spell component pounces, all remains usable.
Relevant for PaO is also that monstrous humanoids have a duration factor of at least 7 (one week), and the Deathsnatcher is an easy 9 (permanent).
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