Polymorph question

[GrinningIdiot]

Re outsiders:
Can't think why outsiders are that powerful, you don't get their spell like abilities do you? Maybe it's cause they are created on planes by deities and you need to be really powerful to mimic that level of power. Again that's just speculation, haven't read any good mechanical reason.

EDIT Not sure if it meantions extraplanar. Couldn't you turn into a gith-yanki? They're humanoid with the extraplanar subtype.

[ForceofGreed]

But githyanki are from the material plane, right? Anyway, polymorph does not give supernatural abilities, but shapechange does. Outsiders are powerful, because they come with boosted stats that you wouldn't see on something else - usually. The mechanics reason to not polymorphing into something insanely powerful would be you need a certain amount of power to mimic something higher. It's like a frog trying to pass a high school test when a lvl 9 wizard says polymorph into adult red dragon, where he gets special attacks, but not abilities (can anyone see an ECL 9 wizard using a CR 15 dragon''s breath weapon? or maybe turn into a vampire, and transform a whole church into them?)

[GrinningIdiot]

The origins of teh gith-yanki and gith-zeari (spelling?) are open to conjecture. Most material says the were thralls to a mindflayer pan-planar empire. It's not clear if they were from the material palne from that but they then moved to the astral plane and limbo.
I'm not sure outsiders are _that_ powerfull without there speacial abilities. Astral Devas are pretty good fighters and get a very good fly speed but i don't think that's any better than a small dragon's mundane attacks.

[Securis]

If you level into the Master Transmorgrifist (a PrC out of Complete Arcane) and make enough levels, eventually you get the supernatural abilities and finally if you get high enough you can mix and match between all the shapes you have specialty in.