Koumei wrote:What do TO and CO stand for?
"Theoretical Optimization" and "Character Optimization." They are both frankly retarded disciplines, but it's an attempt by the old CharOp board crowd to fight the very legitimate charge of irrelevancy. Putting a line in the sad and calling a certain portion of their thought experiments "pure theory" is supposed to put the rest of the work they do back into the realm of "shit you might actually use."
Also, since when did Alter Self ever grant Sorcerer spellcasting? I thought it was very specific about only granting a handful of things, all of them purely physical. It sounds like we're not even talking about "depends how you interpret it" or "Yeah, Polymorph rules are confusing so you could slide it past the DM", but actual "No, you can't do this, just as you can't fly by waving a bastard sword in the air."
The theory goes like this: the introduction of the Polymorph Subtype in Player's Handbook II put the onus on spells in the category (currently just Alter Self, Baleful Polymorph, Polymorph, Polymorph Any Object, and Shapechange) to specify that an ability was
not transferred over rather than the other way around. That is, except where otherwise stated you use the creature writeup rather than your character sheet. This has a very few weird implications for strange things that go away, but importantly it means that abilities that have no tags or explanations are explicitly inherited from the creature type when using any of the basic PHB form changing spells.
So since the "spellcasting" ability isn't marked with anything ever, the Polymorph Subtype rules in the PHB II can be said to transfer them to players whenever they change forms using even the lowly Alter Self. So the fact that there ae creatures in monster books who cast as Sorcerers with their hit dice +4 and shit means that you
can read the rules to say that a 5th level character can cast a 2nd level spell to gain the ability to cast 4th level spells in addition to whatever else he does.
Now JaronK is also operating with the 15 minute adventuring day paradigm, so even when people tell him point blank that that shit won't fly under
any circumstances, he gets defensive and goes back to the old standby of changing into a Troglodyte and getting a +6 Natty Armor bonus for half an hour. Apparently this is supposed to be impressive or something.
Basically it falls into the standard CharOp trap of overvaluing big numbers and undervaluing solving problems. You know what's a better use of a 2nd level spell slot than getting a big natty armor bonus for an encounter or two? Casting a fricking
web and wrapping up an entire encounter with melee opponents while your team slaughters them with ranged attacks before they claw their way out.
-Username17
