polymorph and weight.

[Yemin]

Any chance the polymorph spell could be editted so when cast it pops in a MOBInVIS creature to which everything in your inventory is given to. It would follow you around till the spell ends / you die at which point everything is returned or is dropped on the ground.

This allows the advantage of being able to use some of the earlier, smaller forms as they would be able to otherwise be used.

Such as birds and other small critters which druids could benefit from as well.

Thanks for reading.

[Korwin]

I very much like this idea.

[Thurgan]

Or perhaps increasing the carry weight substantially while polymorphed, which would probably be easier to code and less chance for something crazy happening with all of someones items.

Obviously this could be abused, and should be handled appropriately if that is found to be the case.

But I do support some form of change along these lines.

[Yemin]

I agree, carry weight would be too easy to abuse, and easily accidentally abused without thought even.

Besides, applying a flat +carry whenever you polymorph also effects your encombrance and thus your AC and then stacks onto making you better in combat than the form would usually allow etc etc.

I've played the game for a while now and have sometimes gone into deep adventure with pets holding items. Nothing's happened to the items. If an item is lost, its usually because someone wasn't paying attention or they tried to do something with the pet it wasn't meant to do.

Either way I'd rather see this measure put in over +carry because PCs cannot even interract with a MOBINVIS NPC. As far as the PC side is concerned they are completely safe as they would be in table polymorph.

I suggested this because I know MOBINVIS is a thing and I have seen items crammed into inventory even past carrying capacity by what I assumed are commands that aren't available to players so it seems pheasable. Perhaps if implement a note should be placed in the help file that PCs shouldstrip and put everything inside 1 or 2 bags.

[Harroghty]

Thurgan alludes to primary problem: if the game were interrupted then you would potentially lose all of your belongings (unless this mobile was made a temporary pet which becomes messy for other reasons).

I would question this from an RP standpoint though. Bruce Banner loses his pants when he turns into the Hulk. Why not just give your stuff to someone prior to changing shape?

[Yemin]

For some reason I had the idea in my head that there were tools that would allow an NPC to save their contents through crashes. and reboots. If there are other types of interruptions, I don't know off them yet.

If no such tools exist I'd be willing to put up with reverting after the OOC reboot warnings and as for crashes, well. I can count on one hand last year how many of those I experienced. I would actually say that last year, I lost more items through general typos and mistakes than through crashes. Dismissing carts, dismissing wron pets, dropping stuff, giving stuff to the wrong NPC, etc etc.

As for your rp approach, hopefully I catch your meaning and my response is appropriate but bruce banner loses his pants because of convenient gold age super hero hand waving.

Polymorph on the other hand is detailed to allow your gear to meld into your armor for the sake of ease by the wizard who developed it so my approach was to try and immitate this feature as much as possible. It would be wildly OOC in context of the spell's mechanics on table to and in FK because of the theft policy backing up this feature need to strip or hand items to someone else beforehand because those actions contradict what the spell should be capable of.

In course of my thoughts on this, I've realized an NPC Following you or even part of your group would not be subject to several instances where your character is moved without standard directions. I'm talking mostly of places like the ladder behind the dripping dagger etc.

Is there a solution for this problem?

Perhaps instead of following you the NPC stays put or is sent to a room to preserve it and then when the spell ends it calls to it to come to your location and dump / give / *send* you the items?

whichever is most efficient. To me it sounds easier to make it *goto* you and void all it has into your inventory then poof.

[Vaemar]

I think I prefer Thurgan's solution.

Maybe also add an increase in inventory slots? I have noticed in some shapes inventory slots are more annoying than carry weight.

However carry weight generally kills ability to polymorph in many small critters, such as birds, bats, frogs, rats, etc.

[Yemin]

Given more thought I am beginning to be swayed as wel.

At danger of sounding lazy, we could look at it with a fifth edition Designer's s eyes. Carrying capacity is easier to implement and safer. We are going to give the player the benefit of the doubt and assume she or he is going to make the decisions that benefit their character the most so we might as well simplify the process and make it an integral part of the design.

This means that we hand wave the fact that +carry to polymorph will automatically give the larger forms light load because those capable of polymorphing into such forms will already use other means, Bulls strength, enlarge person etc to achieve the save for near enough the duration of the process that it shouldn't matter enough to quibble over.

Is this a frame of mind the game is willing to use to achieve what the spell should be capable off Harroghty? Overall, it equals more fun if we improve the spell one way or another.

At the end of the day I'm not sure what kind of abuse you could really do with bigger carrying capacity. Items that are not supposed to be moved cannot be regardless of carrying capacity. And I can't think of any items in the game which use weight as a limiting factor to avoid them being abused mechanically.

So far only kind of abuses that come to mind are ones that would make the offender a bad roleplayer at worst and we have a complaints forum for that.

[Vaemar]

For the record, with my wizard, who has small size and not overtly high strength, sometimes to lift her backpack with ore I am forced to polymorph into centaur. But... in general I don't see a very dangerous abuse with this.

The only scenario I can imagine is somebody who finds themselves unable to carry more stuff, and to do that polymorphs into something else. Well, this has two implications:
a)They can already polymorph into a large creature (i.e. centaur, lion, etc.)
b)Polymorph does not last that long, so they would need to pause or prepare many spells

Another thing might be that polymorphing in large creatures, with an increase in carry weight, would allow to move even more stuff than a normal large creature. This implies however:
a1)There are no currently playable large races, so apart from a pair of legacy centaurs nobody will seriously be hurt
b1)And then? It is not an increase that lasts forever and can already be obtained with bulls strength and/or packrat.

Long story short, the abuse potential does not seem particularly worrisome to me. At worst some grinding wizard will be able to bring home a few thousands extra coppers... hardly a threat to the economy.

[Zorinar]

You are often needing the spell most when you are solo because a wizard has a single weapon attack per round plus the fact that wizards use a lot of spells on decent mobs due to the huge HP they have. Polymorph offsets this by giving the caster the number of attacks of the form and the stats of the form, so they dont need to burn through all their spells in the first few rooms. The spell is also short lived so giving your things away and getting them back and putting them back on is not practical, especially when in battle. Using it for things like turning into an eagle so you can travel quickly is great idea, but since you can no longer carry your things it kills all RP value right there unless bulls strength manages to give you enough strength to move. I think that when you polymorph, the player should automatically be given a special bag, that bag reduces the weight to zero of all items in it, and the player can put their stuff in that bag upon casting the spell. No need to change carry weight, no need to play with stats nor the need for writing crazy code that stores all the player's items in memory and them clears them out of inventory while in form which is the 'proper' way that DnD does it. FK seems notorious for vanishing gear and even vanishing corpses as I have with one of my characters. The bag seems the easiest way and solves all the above issues.

[Yemin]

The bag would be, but from another thread I thought bags of holding were not possible?

[Thurgan]

I love to see polymorph and shapechange used. they have benefits and also add some fun rp a good portion of the time. The issue with items and weight is generally only when changing into some kind of animal form, more so small animals.
I think a carry weight increase would not be overpowering, would be the easiest to code, and would provide less chance of something unexpected occurring.

As I mentioned before, sure it can be abused, as can many things. I think if a blerb were added to the help file and possibly an ooc echo when you cast polymorph that if you are found to be abusing it that you will lose the spell ,get tarred and feathered etc.

[Yemin]

Getting tarred and feathered soundsf fun with damage reduction to tar and feather damage.

[Vaemar]

Oh, at present polymorphing to increase carry weight is not abuse. My wizard polymorphs into a large creature exactly to do that. It is the only way a weak little gnome like her can lift her huge ore bags. Please, let's not make life for low-strength wizards even harder.

It would be abuse only if, with a hypothetical carry weight increase, you polymorphed into a creature of your same size. But this could be an abuse already now, because if, say, you are a 10 strength wizard (who is really?) and you polymorph into an elf you get some 14 strength like the average mob. So you have a carry weight increase for the same size.

Or to phrase it better, it would be an abuse if you polymorphed into a creature of your same size and your same strength. I also do not see a great danger in this kind of abuse personally.

If it is a big trouble carry weight increase could be provided only for very small shapes. Or the carry weight for the size "tiny" or lower could be increased for every creature of that size. There are no playable races with that size category, so it would affect mostly mobs.