shapechange forms for a good priest?

[Braininthejar2]

Barring spellcasting ability shenanigans, what would be good shapes for a good priest to use with shapechange (gained through animal domain)

Asking for fluff reasons - I know he could theoretically change into a beholder like everyone else.

A large silver dragon seems nice - giving a respectable breath attack and a lot of survivability till his next turn.

[Eldariel]

The power of Shapechange is not just that it gives you a new form, it's that you can get a new form once per turn as a free action. Just off the top of my head: Leonal has Holy Word Roar, is biped with Pounce and comes with Lay on Hands (which you can replenish by turning into the form again, or turning into another form and back). Avoral is quite similar with less of the good stuff but has True Seeing (though that requires concentration).

Bronze, Copper, Gold and Silver Dragons (and all noncore Dragons, particularly planar Dragons like Pyroclastic, Shadow, etc.) all have great utility breath weapons to unleash on hordes depending on enemy vulnerabilities. They all amount to AOE save or dies or loses. Also Dragon mobility is hilarious.

Cryo/Pyrohydras with lots of heads (cut your own heads to double up on them - use magic like Overland Flight to avoid the movement speed issues) make for great breath weapons. At best 24 heads for 3d6 each for a total of 72d6 of either fire or cold.

Chronotyryn [FF], Choker and company for casting multiple spells per round are extremely strong. Angel forms tend to come with strong DR, Regen, Lesser Globe of Invulnerability + Super Magic Circle Against Evil and True Seeing.

Something like Titan for pure bashing. Pit Fiend and Balor are great too but you might be averse to those forms. Planetar and Solar do just fine though. Leonal isn't horrible either but it lacks the pure stats; Titan is generally your best Core option.

Marut is a good form to default to when you need a fighting construct form. Iron Golem is another good one if you need Magic Immunity, but Marut's construct immunities and DR will trump a ton of what enemies might have available.

More comprehensive special ability list (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=9399.msg151820#msg151820). Notably Archons get Greater Teleport at will, Bebilith/Ethereal Slayers [MMII] gets Plane Shift at will, Aboleths/Formian Taskmasters/Neogi [MMII] get Dominate Monster at will, etc.

[Braininthejar2]

I've heard of many of those. Just figured a good priest would not want to turn into evil outsiders, and that cuts the list considerably.

[Eldariel]

I've heard of many of those. Just figured a good priest would not want to turn into evil outsiders, and that cuts the list considerably.

Aye, of the ones I listed Balor, Pit Fiend, Bebilith & Ethereal Slayer are Evil Outsiders and Chronotyryn & Choker are typically evil other things (Magical Beast and Aberration respectively). Your Cleric will of course do as he pleases, though I do find using forms of ordinarily evil creatures to save the world somehow karmic justice.

[jmax]

Check out my Shapechange Handbook (https://docs.google.com/document/d/127el4KqlL2ALu1chZ9WLPGFOu1InVTJ2pmxAmYAARbE/edit?ts=59f7dabb#) and search for "angel", "archon", or "eladrin" to get started. There's other stuff, but that's the low-hanging fruit. There's also a ton of stuff that isn't inherently aligned, and you shouldn't have any moral qualms using those either.

Everything is indexed by ability rather than creature, since what you can do is generally more important than what you are. But you can definitely find thematic stuff in there.

If you're super interested in alignment-based forms specifically, I can add tags specifically for forms that are inherently aligned in nature. It's something I've been thinking about doing anyway because I have an idea for having inherently aligned forms nudge shapechange users towards actions that would fit that alignment, and I'd want to give fair warning. Not that I ever DM at all, but maybe someday.

Pssst - Hey Eldariel, you get a shout-out in the preamble :)