Unlike its higher level siblings, this spell seems SO limited to me! I'm having a hard time coming up with fun and creative forms to apply to my character sheet.
I can't even make it a poor man's alter self, since if I change race, it still looks like me (presumably keeping me from getting the +10 bonus to Disguise checks to look like a member of that race).
What are some creative concepts you guys have come up with for this spell?
For my militant xenodruid, I've come up with "aquatic aspect" with a swim speed and water breathing and a "predator aspect" with 30 foot land speed (potentially useful if cast on a slow race) and track (scent).
That still leaves me with two more, but I'm totally drawing blanks for ideas.
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My SRO Xenodruid who is fascinated by life will start with a simple humanoid form.
Human
Medium Humanoid
Speed: 30
Special Ability: Breath Weapon (Fire)
It's an interesting experiment with experiencing what being alive is like--although even a higher-level polymorph can't really do that. It also makes them tall! And strong! This form about doubles their height, and that's neat.
The 1st-level polymorph doesn't say there's an exception to your equipment being absorbed if its type doesn't match the target (although Raia doesn't seem to have lost her clothes in the illustration), so it may also be their first experience with becoming spontaneously naked and unarmed when casting this spell. That'll be an ongoing concern, since they'll never be capable of creating a polymorph form that is of their own type--Mystics can't create Construct forms at any level. And if they could, masking that you're carrying person-type gear would probably be an advantage in that situation anyway, so it's just something they'll need to be aware of and plan around.
...what? Okay. Look. They're a robot from a planet of robots and first human they ever met was their Xenowarden mentor who could breathe fire. They didn't even realize it was something unique to her (an augmentation or maybe a spell... ?) until they showed her how they'd been working on designing the form and she pointed it out. They've been trying to get this spell working for months now, and they're not going back to start over now. You'll just have to deal with it.
That'll let them cast the spell in advance on a humanoid ally to give them a nice surprise attack without making it obvious they have an active spell on them, meaning it actually has a tactical use. Okay? Okay. They're not changing it now.
I was trying to think of what special ability I could give a human form, since racial abilities are banned by polymorph 1, and all the human's racial abilities are specifically disallowed anyway. I was originally thinking one of the defense abilities. Humans get more racial HP then SRO's, and the small robot thinking the big people are really tough and that getting exaggerated by the spell made sense enough.
But then I remembered the Futurama scene where the robots from the planet of robots thought that humans could breath fire, and I decided to reference that. This character's reaction to the misconception is pretty different, of course ("Humans are cool! Did you know they can breathe fire, Parent?" "...I don't know enough about humans to dispute that.").
Of course, that's only one. I need three more. Uh... a fish? A fish sounds useful.
Thank you...for that...
...such an awesome post.
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Unless you're a slow race you pretty much want to slap a 20' swim speed on every form since it's free. If you're a slow race take that 30' land speed for everything except one form.
You probably won't hit and certainly won't do much damage if you do, but the natural weapon for hands free AOOs is also a free option.
Take a mix of small/medium forms for that +1 to dex/strength skill and ability checks, a minor but occasionally useful benefit.
A compression form for escapes or infiltration combined with small size.
Limited telepathy for intrigue/social uses.
Fire resistance 2 is poor but not terrible as a flexible use of the spell known.
Trample is an option for a medium form facing multiple small or tiny enemies.
Once Polymorph Adept comes online with the availaibility of Polymorph 3 I'd forget and relearn this spell to reset my 1st level forms to aquatic breathing, limited telepathy, compression, and probably tracking(scent). I can imagine wanting to swap into one of those during the duration for a specific use and not necessarily wanting to overlap any of these abilities in higher level forms since they don't have much combat utility.
Thank you! That was a big help! :D