Polymorph/Cloak of the Bat question

[Dimwhit]

Maybe this has been covered, but since I can't do a search on the boards, here goes. I emailed the following to Wizards of the Coast:

So I know that you don't get EX abilities with polymorph, which includes the blindsight of a bat. And outside of blindsight, bats have a vision range of about 10'. So my question is with the Cloak of the Bat, which allows you to polymorph into a bat. Why would this ever be worth it (goes for the normal polymorph spell, too)? If you polymorph into a bat, you can fly at 90' (or whatever it is), but you don't get the blindsight and can only see 10'. Seems a bit weird. And given this is one of the nice aspects of Cloak of the Bat, it seems to be counterproductive. (I realize you can fly without turning into a bat, but still...)

And here was the response I received:

There is currently no errata for this item, and it should be played as such. As for the reason why? We can't help you there, I'm sure the R&D team had some sort of game balancing reason for making it that way.

Obviously, very little help. So is it just me, or does this seem monumentally stupid? First, please don't say, "But the Cloak of the Bat has so many other great abilities, so it's still a great item!" Of course it does, and I know it. It's a very nice item. But why in the name of all that's holy would the allow you to polymorph into a bat with the cloak if you don't get blindsight and you're limited to 10' vision? (Picture that: flying around as a bat at 90' speed with your vision limited to 10'. That's just an accident waiting to happen.)

I imagine most people house-ruled this to allow blindsight, but we don't really use house rules in our campaign, so I'm just wondering if anyone has any brilliant insights into this. (I await the witty retorts.)

 

[IceBear]

I'm hoping that in the revised books, a bat's blindsight gets labelled a natural ability as opposed to an Ex ability. Until then, if you want to play strictly by the rules you're right - it's pretty much useless.

As was debated in the Polymorph nerfed thread, there really seems to have been a disconnect between the designers when they mentioned natual abilities of the creature and (besides movement and natural armor) there aren't any in the Monster Manual

IceBear

 

[Dash Dannigan]

It's not that useless, say you want to escape notice and quickly turn yourself into a harmless little bat. Or your trying to escape a jail cell and turn yourself into a bat to fluter out the barred window. I disagree, still useful.

 

[Berk]

As long as it has poor or better manuverability then it will avoid that wall if it is 10' in front of it since it can make a 90 degree turn within 10' of forward motion. =o)

 

[nharwell]

Well, if you're like me, it's not the first house rule you've made to fix holes, oversights, and other problems in the rules