No, you’re not understanding. There is nothing saying, RAW, you can’t play as a gnoll. The RAW is that you can’t choose a gnoll as your race - but in the case of being polymorphed into one, you didn’t choose that, you were changed into one. And the RAW for that is to assume that everything works the same as before, barring what is explicitly said in the spell for that transformation. And once again, nothing in the spell says you stop playing as a character who is transformed, regardless of if the transformation is “playable” or not. There is not even a “playable” tag for anything, anywhere, in RAW.

You are the thing this post is making fun of.

But nothing explicitly states that you stop playing as the character you were playing as if they were transformed, whether into a playable character option or not. There is no rule saying that that character is playable, but there is no rule saying you can’t play as them. Again, spells do what they say they do.

The target’s game statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the new form. It retains its alignment and personality.

OP could’ve just repeated “spells do what they say they do.” It doesn’t say you lose control of your character in the new form, all it says about the new form and how that affects the character is…well, that line(plus a few other things about the gear they were wearing and whatnot).

Was born close to the 90’s, have a similar freckle much closer to the wrist. Is the late 2010’s mark on the hand instead?

Rocket Race in my ass.

Casting a spell and holding it uses visible components the hobgoblin could react to.

I’d think it’d take at least an arcana check to know that the spell you’re holding is Jump. So yeah, he could react, but would he necessarily be able to react in time to stop you from casting the spell? Not to mention, if he reacts just barely not in time and jumps haphazardly, one could argue the Wizard jumped farther and therefore wins.

Y-you…you do realize the lich, as liches generally work this way, was probably once human, right? And is choosing to believe all life must be quelled? Like…that’s an example of an irredeemably evil person who is actively choosing to be irredeemably evil. Moron.

What exactly does this mean? If you’re ignoring remove curse it’s because being able to remove a curse with just a spell is boring - the point of a curse in fiction is to be a challenge to remove.

Lacey’s Diner.

I vaguely recall one handbook or another even saying somewhere that a commoner’s stats usually sit around 8 or something, so even a level 1 adventurer is a cut above.

I already knew all of the stuff you mention in this, and this part is just actually wrong outright. I’ve never heard of any of the rules saying commoners would have such low traits, and have always heard it as - 10 is the average amount for a human/commoner. 7-9 is slightly below average, anything below is remarkably low, 1-2 is near death. Now, yes, even a level 1 adventurer is uncommon and more powerful on a base-line than a commoner, but IMO that shouldn’t mean magic should be cheap for them. I suppose I do say uncommon at least, though. Common would probably work too, but requiring attunement would make sense considering it’s supposed to be a sort of conduit for an individual’s magic, and magic is usually considered very personal as far as fantasy tends to portray it.