Spell Creation - What Am I Missing?

Let's assume for a moment that one of my players wants to research a spell to turn himself into a dragon for the duration of an encounter, with all the commensurate special abilities (namely flight and breath weapon). 

Looking at the guidelines in the Transmogrification section, I see the following numbers: Transform into the form of a living creature (35), gain physical characteristics (10), physical attacks (10), and special abilities (20) (75 total), form limited to dragon (x0.75), HD limited to caster level and 2x target level (x0.75), target 1 living corporeal creature (x1), range self (x0.5), duration 1 turn/level (x0.8), beneficial effect (x1), arcane (x1), total cost 17.

That's a 2nd level spell.  Assuming a 5th level mage (minimum needed for spell research), that gives me flight plus access to 3 uses of a 5d6 breath weapon for a 2nd level spell, when fireball and fly each use a 3rd level slot (and fireball require research breakthroughs to avoid being a 5th level spell).

What am I missing?  Are we counting on the Judge's final say to ensure such abuses don't happen, or is there something else in the rules that keeps this in check?  I see that the partial transformation guidelines assign a higher cost to flight than that provided under total transformation (which I could only assume would also apply to a breath weapon), but I don't see a way to incorporate those higher costs into the spell.

IANAA, but two things spring to mind.  The more important one is that dragon breath attacks' "1d6 per hit die" look like nothing else in the monster chapter.  I'm guessing that's a legacy element, and one that may well need some GM discretion when it's duplicated by a spell.

The less important is that "may cancel at will" is a 1.3 multiplier.  Without it, you're stuck as a dragon past the encounter, whether that's useful or not.  With it you're up to a cost of 22 and a third level spell (which still seems cheap for 3x breath attacks).

In general, Transmogrification and Summoning spells are the most abusable in the system because you can generally "cherry pick" a specific monster for a specific purpose.

Were it my campaign, I'd simply disallow that spell (or at least disallow the 0.75 modifier) because form "limited" to a dragon is really no limitation. "This spell is limited to only letting me transform into the most powerful creature in the game..." 

[quote="Dave R"]

IANAA, but two things spring to mind.  The more important one is that dragon breath attacks' "1d6 per hit die" look like nothing else in the monster chapter.  I'm guessing that's a legacy element, and one that may well need some GM discretion when it's duplicated by a spell.

The less important is that "may cancel at will" is a 1.3 multiplier.  Without it, you're stuck as a dragon past the encounter, whether that's useful or not.  With it you're up to a cost of 22 and a third level spell (which still seems cheap for 3x breath attacks).

[/quote]

I agree that breath weapon is one of a few outliers in regards to monster special abilities, but it's hardly the only one.  Personally, I think 20 spell creation points is a bit too cheap for access to all special abilities of the form assumed.  There must be a way to scale that to allow for different "power tiers" of special abilites to become available for different costs (it's already done on the partial transformation table).

In regards to the ability to cancel the spell at will, I was purposely building the spell on the cheap.  The inability to cancel the spell is a disadvantage, but I think it's made up for by the early access to breath weapon and flight.

 

[quote="Alex"]

In general, Transmogrification and Summoning spells are the most abusable in the system because you can generally "cherry pick" a specific monster for a specific purpose.

Were it my campaign, I'd simply disallow that spell (or at least disallow the 0.75 modifier) because form "limited" to a dragon is really no limitation. "This spell is limited to only letting me transform into the most powerful creature in the game..." 

[/quote]

So if we get rid of the 0.75 modifier for the dragon "limitation", we get to 23 creation points, or a 3rd level spell.  That's still too low for flight and the equivalent of 3 fireballs.  A dragon transformation should clock in at least 5th level, if I just eyeball it (and that's probably with a research breakthrough).

I think the real trouble is that the cost of "all special abilities" on a full transformation is way too low.  If I want to gain a troll's regenerative abilities while maintaining my own form, I'm looking at 160 points.  But I can turn into a troll completely and get the regeneration, movement, and attacks for only 65 points, which I can then further reduce through modifiers.  That sort of thing is a problem, and the dragon example is just the most obvious example of it.

I think there'd be call for putting in a small additive multiplier per special ability "star", at the very least, and see how many of the egregious cases that catches before getting into worrying the more mundane attack/movement effects.

 

This would be my first attempt at a solution; it does seem odd that one * and four *'s would cost the same.

I think I’d start by saying it’s 20 points per special ability and see what that breaks. (Polymorph Other, for example, would allow the caster to pick one special ability to grant the recipient.)

[quote="koewn"]

I think there'd be call for putting in a small additive multiplier per special ability "star", at the very least, and see how many of the egregious cases that catches before getting into worrying the more mundane attack/movement effects.

 

[/quote] This sounds like a good idea. Maybe as a beta test, 20 points for the first star and 10 per additional star? For a 5 HD dragon, it should count as ** (both the 4 HD Very Young and 6 HD Young are **), so it would be 30 points for special abilities instead of 20.

 

Physical attacks might also deserve a kicker if the creature deals exceptionally high damage. This is just a SWAG, but I might cost it at double the average damage dealt by the creature's attacks (so a troll, with d6/d6/d10, averages 12.5 damage per round and would have a physical attacks cost of 25; a young dragon at d4/d4/2d6 would have a physical attacks cost of 24). With special ability 30 and physical attack 24, and removing the "single form only" modifier, Dragonform would be a 29.7 spell, or the extreme upper edge of 3rd level. It would be 38.6 with an At-Will Cancel.

Pathfinder, one of the more modern tweaks of D&D 3rd edition, made attempts to reign in polymorph effects by metering the benefits out over a series of spells (Beast Form I, II, etc.)  Each one granted a progressively higher potential limit of what the animal had (30' move, then 60' move, then 30' fly, etc. etc.) along with an increasingly large modification to stats, either STR for big animals or DEX for small animals, for which the target animal's stats were irrelevant.  This cuts back on much of the cherry picking that occurs with polymorph effects.

 

You could try something similar.  Instead of simply thinking of this as a polymorph effect, think of it as a buff spell that provides the difference between an average human's stats and a dragons, plus the abilities (flight, etc.).  I think if you added together all the benefits, you'd get a more reasonably leveled spell, although possibly going too far in the other direction.

That's a splendid idea.