Slyth Alternate Form

[nailbudday]

The Slyth, found in Underdark, has an alternate form ability that functionally gives it the ooze type but melds all of its possessions, prevents it from making attacks, prevents the casting of any spells unless they've been Silenced and Stilled and you have Eschew Materials, and prevents the use of all other Su abilities you might possess; although you do retain deflection bonuses to AC and force effects modifying AC remain in place.

Is there anything interesting you can do tactically or offensively other than becoming jelly or is this ability as airtight as it looks to be at first glance?

[Bronk]

The Slyth, found in Underdark, has an alternate form ability that functionally gives it the ooze type but melds all of its possessions, prevents it from making attacks, prevents the casting of any spells unless they've been Silenced and Stilled and you have Eschew Materials, and prevents the use of all other Su abilities you might possess; although you do retain deflection bonuses to AC and force effects modifying AC remain in place.

Is there anything interesting you can do tactically or offensively other than becoming jelly or is this ability as airtight as it looks to be at first glance?

Well, Ex abilities and SLAs are still in, and psionics are still in.

[nailbudday]

The issue is getting them. SLAs I suppose I could get from fey-touched or whatever templates fairly trivially, but I can't really think of any particularly useful Ex abilities obtainable through class levels or templates that don't rely on attacks or specific anatomy.

Although I thought manifesting Psionics was a Su ability as well?

Edit: Half-fey, not feytouched. Also, I guess Dragonfire Adept and Warloc would both be fine since they get SLAs but I was hoping for something a little more meaningful than 'I'm just like a normal warlock, but sometimes i can't be crit'

[Goaty14]

Dweomkeeper grants a spell to SLA twice, not to mention it is already broken. I'm also pretty sure jelly has a bonus to escape artist checks in one form or another, which has its own benefits to spying.

[Thurbane]

Slyth's abilities might make for a decent Factotum. -2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Wis isn't horrible for a skill-monkey type.

It is immune to poison, so you can coat your weapons without danger to yourself. You also get a racial bonus on Disguise, Escape Artist and Survival - again, not bad for a skill-monkey type.

Looking at the fluff, your DM might let you take Human Heritage: if you can take flaws (or otherwise get an extra feat at 1st level), you can also grab Able Learner and maybe go into Chameleon.

Do they have the Shapechanger subtype? Maybe look at Warshaper/Shapeshifter PrC/MoMF?

[nailbudday]

Looking at it again Warlock and Dragonfire Adept are both out since they specifically have somatic components. Raw they work because the alternate form doesn't say 'you have no mouth and must scream' but rather specifically says that spells with v,s,m components can't be cast; the RAI is pretty blindingly obvious there though.

Looks like psionics is pretty much the only answer if I ever want to actually use my class abilities as jelly :/

Actually, maneuvers and stances are Ex aren't they? There's probably a couple worthwhile stances I could quiver around in.

[ATHATH]

Can you drop a souped-up sandblaster and then pick it up (and fire it) again once you're an Ooze? IIRC, due to their method of attack, sandblasters can even be used by unseen servants. Does the Slyth's Alternate Form ability use similar language (to that of the Unseen Servant spell)?

[nailbudday]

Hmm, maybe? It lacks the 'cannot make attack rolls' text and just says 'cannot attack'. It doesn't say you can't manipulate items though, so even if that doesn't fly Tanglefoot bags, Razor Ice powder and Thunderstones might not be out of the question.

In regards to the other stuff, yes it is a Shapechanger; warshaper doesn't help because everything is Su, Shapeshifter isn't particularly great since the alternate form isn't limited by uses per day and wildshaping means that I'm spending less time as jelly, and Master of Many forms similarly means that I wouldn't really be spending any time in the alternate form at all. Also I don't think Shifter's Speech would even work while the alternate form is active? It doesn't specify that you can't speak, it specifies that verbal component spells are uncastable, which I think takes precedence since it's more restrictive language and more specific.

The ToB route is also kind of a bust since, surprise, most of the stances involve buffing attack rolls or damage in one way or another. Who would've thought. The real issue is that most of the stances that would actually function are either awful ot crusader specific, and I'm not touching that nonsense with a 30 foot pole. Random assignment of class features, who came up with that crap?

Dragon shaman is semi promising? You wouldn't get the aura or the breath weapon but the draconic adaptation is either ex or sla so you'd retain spiderclimb if you chose green or ventriloquism(how does that work if you have no mouth?) or w/e. Also the level 19 wings... might actually stick around in ooze form since they're derived from class levels and not inherent to the base form, which would be fantastically silly. You'd only get those if your game allowed LA buyoff though.