Playing a were murder of crows 3.5

[Zakerst]

I know it's not exactly optimal, but what can I do with it to make it work?

I have access to most 3.5 books and can probably get away with importing stuff from PF.

Right now I'm thinking of taking surrogate spell casting and eschew materials, but being so far behind on caster levels is gonna hurt... So I'm open to whatever comes to mind.

[Deeds]

So uh... on moonlit nights you turn into a group of flesh hungry crows?

[Zakerst]

Basically yes the actual stats for the murder of crows are in tome of magic as I recall (away from my books at the moment)

[Thurbane]

Stats for a murder of crows can indeed be found in ToM p.87.

As per the Lycanthropy rules, you need to be within 1 size category of the animal (tiny, in this case), so you'd need to be a small humanoid of some kind.

Whipser Gnomes are a pretty solid LA +0 small race, as are Strongheart Halflings: what kind of character were you aiming for? Skillmonkey, melee, caster etc.?

[Darrin]

My Black Sparrow (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21197986&postcount=91) build can do this around ECL 16ish. A swarm of tiny flying creatures would only be 1000 crows, but that's enough to get Int 27, Cha 28, and spellcasting as an 11th level Sorcerer... so only 5th level spells. If you can get a reduce animal or compression on every crow, then you can get 5000 crows into the swarm: Cha goes up to 88 and Sorcerer casting goes up to 71st level.

[Zakerst]

Mostly I was looking to be a viable character while in swarm form, so likely some kind of Psion or caster as I don't think you can get sneak attack or anything similar as a swarm.

That said if you can think of ways the character could be useful in other roles I'm willing to try them out.

I was actually thinking of strong heart or whisper gnome already as they seemed like solid small races. Chances are I'll be going with the strong heart as I can imagine needing the extra feat for a lot of builds.

[The Viscount]

Being a lycanthrope gets you access to Black blood hunter, if you like that sort of thing. If you go the psionic route you won't need eschew materials since there's no components. Practiced manifester helps on being behind if you're going that way. You can get some use out of warshaper, especially if you plan on using hybrid form. What's the ruling on that? Are you still only 1 creature in hybrid form? Underfoot combat is an excellent way to not provoke AoOs since most monsters will at least be medium. You can have some fun with confound the big folk as well.

[Zakerst]

Seems like hybrid form is still a single creature.
Warshaper might be fun though