Re: session re****t

Chances are suprisingly good that Mary K. Kuhner was not wearing pants 
when he or she said:
> The reason that Summon Monster does not allow you to summon
> monsters of your choice within some constraint, but instead gives an
> explicit list, is to keep it from being "im****t"--there's a high
> cost in flavor but perhaps it's worth it.

And actually, this is precisely the problem, not only with Polymorph, 
but with the Planar Ally spells as well. You can pick any creature 
within certain constraints of CR (which doesn't accomplish what the 
designers were trying to do, because CR and character level don't 
measure the same thing) and creature type (which *could* be a meaningful 
restriction, but isn't in this case, because it confines you to 
precisely the creature type most likely to get cool, abusable abilities 
- namely Outsider).