Poymorph is clear that you can be a unique creature pulled from a fever dream and built up from disparate abilities, a unique entity (such as the star singer of Strawberry Machine Cake), a particular kind of creature (such as a blue dragon), a variant of a particular kind of creature (such as a juvenile mountain eel), or a more general form (such as a cat).
But how "general" a general form can a player get away with? Say I'm using polymorph II. Can I legally write "avian form" (birds), "feline form" (cats), "piscine form" (fish), or "reptile form" (crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and others) on my character sheet?
Without a firm ruling on the matter, I imagine there is a lot of table variation among GMs, with some allowing a broader category (as exampled above) to account for all the as-of-yet-unknown or unpublished alien creatures out there, whereas other, more restrictive GMs might limit you to a specific order, family, genus, or species, rather than a specific class of animal.
I guess it would be one thing to disguise yourself as a cat and quite another to be able to look like a common house cat, a mountain lion, or the Castrovellian eight-eyed sphynx cat.
Obviously you would have to use the same stats, regardless of form (or else use a different polymorph form slot on a different set of stats), but is there anything preventing me from using general terminology to have a variety of different general disguises?
If that's not allowed for some reason (and I would ask that you explain it if you think that to be the case), then the spells seem awfully limiting to me. Being limited to a specific breed of cat from Castrovel would likely look totally out of place on Akiton, for example, and be largely useless as a disguise.
Again, to be clear, I'm not talking about saying "cat" on the character sheet, and then being able to use "house cat stats" and "man-eating lion stats" while also having it count as one polymorph form, I'm talking about the flavor description of the form which, at best, effects disguise check bonuses and how other characters and creatures perceive you.
Regardless of what the rules say (or don't say) on the matter, how would you run it at your table?
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If you're a generic cat like thing that you made up, then you're a generic cat like thing that you made up. You can't make yourself look like a house cat on absolom station and a castrovelian house cat on castrovel.
It's not very good as a disguise.
Unless you combine it with a holo projector or something. You'd get rid of the size and body type penalties.
Agree with BNW, disguise potential is incidental to the spell and mostly useful for being a humanoid who just doesn’t look like the real you and can’t be defeated as easily as Disguise Self.
You can't make yourself look like a house cat on absolom station and a castrovelian house cat on castrovel.
Not at the same time, no, but with seperate castings or with the polymorph adept feat would I be able to be a tiger one time and a lion another?
You can't make yourself look like a house cat on absolom station and a castrovelian house cat on castrovel.Not at the same time, no, but with seperate castings or with the polymorph adept feat would I be able to be a tiger one time and a lion another?
I think you would need to devote seperate forms to it.
Or get the holoprojector.
I guess it would be one thing to disguise yourself as a cat and quite another to be able to look like a common house cat, a mountain lion, or the Castrovellian eight-eyed sphynx cat.
"You decide at the time of designing a polymorph form if its appearance is generic (allowing the target to look like any general example of that type of creature, but never a specific creature) or specific (causing the target to always look like one specific individual that does not change between castings)."
So, even if you choose "feline form", you would appear as a generic feline, and not a house cat or a mountain lion. If you want to appear as a mountain lion, you need to choose a "mountain lion form".
I think you would need to devote separate forms to it.
Or get the holoprojector.
I imagine you would for a common house cat vs a lion (they are generally considered to be different sizes after all), but if I were to write "cat" on my character sheet, would you require me to write "tabby cat" or "Siamese cat" or something else more specific instead?
Where does/should one draw the line when it comes to specificity of form? Does it have to be a published creature, race, or character?
I personally would draw the line at size/stat differences. If your chosen form is "cat" or even "feline form" I don't care if you choose to look like an Eoxian house cat, a baby Golarian tiger, or a Castrovellian eight-eyed sphynx upon casting. I just need your chosen appearance and stats communicated clearly so that my NPCs can respond appropriately.
"You decide at the time of designing a polymorph form if its appearance is generic (allowing the target to look like any general example of that type of creature, but never a specific creature) or specific (causing the target to always look like one specific individual that does not change between castings)."
So, even if you choose "feline form", you would appear as a generic feline, and not a house cat or a mountain lion. If you want to appear as a mountain lion, you need to choose a "mountain lion form".
But those are all general examples of felines...
Alternatively, what does a generic feline even look like? Different people can have different answers, and most wouldn't be wrong. Starfinder makes it even harder, as it's hard to justify what is and is not generic with such a high level of diversity and unknowns in the setting. We don't even know if there are cats anymore or if they all went the way of Golarion.
The way I understand it is:
- If you want anything specific from your form, you have to design it. So no Eoxian house cat without stating that it's an Eoxian house cat form.
- When you cast the spell, you can design your form in a very generic way. You can say if it's a male or female, for example. For a feline form, I would allow something like: It looks more like a lion or a cat because you have to look like some type of feline. But not a mountain lion. Otherwise, you just choose generic human, and you design whoever you want.
As much as it pains me to say it, I think ravingdork has a point here.
The levels we have are "Scruffy, that individual calico Golarion house cat" and "generic form" . Generic form could be "any golarion housecat" or "any small house cat like thing likely to be named a planethere_housecat
with that said...
I don't think this is so much an important part of any build that it absolutely NEEDS official clarification. The holoprojector solves the table variance problem rather cheaply.
The holoprojector solves the table variance problem rather cheaply.
But can you even use such a device when in a form that has a different creature type than your own? Or do I have to cheese, and say that I'm turning into a humanoid creature type, that just so happens to look like a house cat, to make that work?
What, exactly, is wrong with table variation?
There will always be some amount of table variation, but generally, it should be minimized wherever possible (unless there is good reason for it, such as to accommodate a group's specific play style) so that when a person moves from one table to the next (particularly in organized play, but also in home games) the rules don't suddenly change on them.
Changing rules makes it much more difficult to come up with feasible character concepts/builds and can make playing the game much more stressful than it needs to be. Nobody likes surprise rules (at least nobody that I've ever met).
And saying that you're humanoid without being humanoid would be... A stretch.
Unless you're taking the construct, elemental, plant, undead or vermin type, your designated polymorph creature type is essentially meaningless (since you don't really gain any type, but rather keep your own). There literally is no reason to ever declare it different than (1) your own, or (2) one of the above. There also doesn't appear to be any rule preventing you from doing so.
Fevered dream forms, remember? It doesn't have to match up with anything at all. Worst case scenario the GM opts to deny the player the Disguise bonus.
The disguise bonus is the meaningful rules element, certainly.
It is, but last I checked the rules aren't terribly clear on precisely when you get said bonus, or if it is even optional or situational. It may well be you always get a bonus to look like the thing your transform into.
Although a bonus to disguise checks to look like a fevered-dream monstrosity has a lot less utility than say, a bonus to disguise checks to look like a common household pet.
was thinking about this and every time i've seen the word "type" its been pretty synonomous with species.
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There literally is no reason to ever declare it different than (1) your own, or (2) one of the above. There also doesn't appear to be any rule preventing you from doing so.
A. I don't want to turn into a [thing] wearing my armor and backpack. It worked for Banjo, I guess, but I think most Starfinder games have a more serious tone.
B. It's not an option, because my type isn't one of the listed options for the spell I'm casting.
was thinking about this and every time i've seen the word "type" its been pretty synonomous with species.That's VERY much not how the system uses "type". "Animal" is a type. "Humanoid" is a type. "Construct" is a type. "Magical Beast" and "Monstrous Humanoid" are types. They're fairly broad categories, but Alien Archive does provide some description on what the boundaries might be.
Size and Type
Ysoki are Small humanoids with the ysoki subtype.
Size and Type
Vesk are Medium humanoids with the vesk subtype.
Well, that's an odd question.
I think I would limit a generic form to very similar forms. Same number of eyes, legs, range of coloration as the base/original generic form.
So you could be a black cat or a calico, but might need to invest in some googly eyes to be an eight eyed castrovellian cat.
But could you gain the Disguise bonus to disguise as a black cat using a generic form?Well, that's an odd question.
I think I would limit a generic form to very similar forms. Same number of eyes, legs, range of coloration as the base/original generic form.
So you could be a black cat or a calico, but might need to invest in some googly eyes to be an eight eyed castrovellian cat.
The same bonuses you get for disguising yourself as a generic cat. You wouldn't get any additional bonus to disguise yourself as a specific black cat.
Wouldn't that be a stealth check and not a disguise check?