Favourite Alter Self forms

[kardar233]

Hey, I'm building a character that uses a mix of Fleshshifter Armor and a Hat of Disguise to take on any form he wants. Alter Self is a pretty open-ended spell, so I was wondering what your favourite forms to change into are.

I'll just quote from the SRD as to what benefits you get from the assumed form:

You acquire the physical qualities of the new form while retaining your own mind. Physical qualities include natural size, mundane movement capabilities (such as burrowing, climbing, walking, swimming, and flight with wings, to a maximum speed of 120 feet for flying or 60 feet for nonflying movement), natural armor bonus, natural weapons (such as claws, bite, and so on), racial skill bonuses, racial bonus feats, and any gross physical qualities (presence or absence of wings, number of extremities, and so forth). A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal.

Assume a Medium Humanoid base, though if you have one you really like feel free to put it up. Keep requirements to LA+0 however.

[Godskook]

Varag is an *AWESOME* alter self form, offering spring attack(A great low-level feat with god-awful pre-reqs normally) and 60' base land speed among other lesser goodies.

[Thurbane]

Troglodyte (+6) and Crucian (+8) are pretty sweet for natural armor.

I'm pretty sure there's an Alter Self guidebook on the WotC forums somewhere that does a pretty detailed analysis of the forms available.

[Wings of Peace]

I'm a fan of taking the feat Otherworldly and then Alter Selfing into a Dwarven Ancestor for the +18 natural armor bonus. But low optimization DMs tend to not appreciate that combo.

[Thurbane]

I'm a fan of taking the feat Otherworldly and then Alter Selfing into a Dwarven Ancestor for the +18 natural armor bonus. But low optimization DMs tend to not appreciate that combo.
Yes...I remember when that particular Monster Manual was released, the Dwarven Ancestor was on of the most beloved new monsters for exactly that reason (or if you're a LA +0 outsider, like Neraphim or Lesser Aasimar).

[Gwendol]

There are previous threads in this forum discussing Alter Self (try Google it).

Tren is a solid choice for NA (+8), and you get swim speed.

Blackscale lizardfolk to get Large size.

[Thurbane]

Blackscale lizardfolk to get Large size.
Monstrous Humanoid, unfortunately. AFAIK, there are no naturally large creatures with the Humanoid type.

[Talya]

Monstrous Humanoid, unfortunately. AFAIK, there are no naturally large creatures with the Humanoid type.

Could be nice for a Goliath bard-gish, but doesn't matter quite so much, as your weapons and armor won't resize with you in any event. (Goliath should already be using large weapons, but armor...notsomuch.)

Crucian (Sandstorm, generic, +8 natural armor), Raptorran (Races of the Wild, generic, flight!), Tren (Serpent Kingdoms, Forgotten Realms -- like Crucian but with swim speed!), and Averiel (Races of Faerun, Forgotten Realms - better flyers than raptorrans) are the sweet spots for Humanoid.

[Gwendol]

Gah! Missed that they were Monstrous...

I'd say it depends on the situation what to transform into; do you need to climb, swim, fly, burrow, or just be able to move really, really, fast?

[Sucrose]

If I'm an outsider, I'm rather partial to Mephit forms, particularly Earth, as it's clear that its fly speed is nonmagical. Changes one's size to Small, which is favorable for everything except weapon dice and combat maneuvers, grants solid natural armor, and is Core, so relatively unlikely to be disallowed (as compared to other Alter Self shenanigans, anyway).

[Qwertystop]

Actually, I was wondering this too, but for a specific situation. The Nimblewright (MM 2) is an intelligent, humanoid-shaped Medium Construct (Large if you advance it by HD) with Alter Self at-will. The flavor text implies that it uses this ability to disguise itself as just about any humanoid. By "implies" I mean that it says almost exactly that, but it says "its magic" without specifically mentioning Alter Self. It has no other disguising spells.

I am being allowed to play one of these, but downgraded to 1 HD and no LA.

However, Alter Self would only allow it to pretend to be a construct. I therefore have 2 questions:
1: Am I missing something here that would allow it to do what the flavor text says it does?
2: What are some good Small, Medium, or Large Constructs to Alter Self into? I am going to go Warblade specializing in Tiger Claw (Maybe a little bit of Stone Mountain as a DR-breaker, since my main weapons are natural weapons and therefore unswappable) as soon as I get to level 2.