Small Humanoid and Alter Self

[Hiro Quester]

Is it worth it for gnome bard in a mostly core game to learn alter self?

We have access to PH, plus race variant options from the races of wild, stone, destiny. Races in MM are probably okay, too.

Alter self seems useful for disguises. But disguise self does that, too.

Alter self is also useful for movement modes, racial abilities (like aquatic elves’ swim speed and gills).

And for racial skill bonuses and bonus feats, natural armor, etc.

But most of the useful options are in non-core, right? (E.g. no humanoid with flight exists in our books without FF’s avarial).

And there are no tiny humanoid forms for a small gnome to take, for better stealth, hide, ranged attacks, etc.

Lizardfolk’s +5 to natural armor seems potentially useful for a 2nd level spell, I guess...

Alter Self also competes for a limited space in 2nd level spells known.

Maybe it would be better to learn something like invisibility instead, and just get a hat of disguise.

Am I missing something, that makes it still awesomely useful, even for a small bard in a mostly-core game?

[Rebel7284]

It's still great for amazing armor bonuses (worth it just for this). Ability to get swim/clim speed can be amazing too.

edit: Troglodyte has +6 Natural Armor.

[ericgrau]

Core only forms are good for dungeons due to the duration. Cast at entrance. That much AC or an extra natural attack are nice. Like troglodyte. If you melee, you may look for an extra bite attack form that also grants good AC, and then you get it on top of your regular attacks at -5 to hit. Though if you have to blow a combat round on the spell then it's not really worth it. If you do a lot of wilderness battles then it's not so worth it. At rare times you might use it to swim, climb or, yes, disguise too. But these aren't its main purpose. Regardless make sure your other 2nd+ level spell is something to attack with though. And only get it after you get 2+ 2nd level spells per day, so you have something to attack with too.

I don't know what forms are available from those books you mentioned, so someone may chime in with which form(s) may help make alter self more worth it. Or you can Google up a guide and see if it uses anything from those books.

Other good core 2nd level bard spells:

Glitterdust
Heroism likewise for dungeons, likewise after reserving a slot for an attack spell.
Invisibility after you have level 3+ spells
Pyrotechnics, if you prep well enough to set it up consistently.
Silence, after you have level 3+ spells.
Locate object, after you have level 3+ spells.
Minor image maybe since you're a gnome, but illusions tend to be DM dependent. So ask him how he rules them. Also it's not much better than silent image.

2-3 of those are attack spells. So most likely you'll want glitterdust and then maybe alter self or heroism for dungeons. If you rarely do dungeons then 2nd spell either pyrotechnics or settle for a so-so spell. Or hopefully the splatbooks have some nice spells. Sample combat: Alter self already cast ahead of time. Ideally bardic music started and maintained before you entered the room, unless you're trying to be stealthy. Round 1 glitterdust. Round 2+ enter melee with weapon and (round 3+) bite attack. With your boosted AC and often the lack of round 1 melee against you, hopefully you'll distract a hit or two away from your allies. Or at least deal a small amount of damage. A reach weapon like a longspear can make it easier for hurt allies to safely withdraw. If you dumped strength then round 2+ range attack or spells, but purposely move to leave yourself open to enemy attack.

[Hiro Quester]

I'm mostly playing BFC, Buffer and enemy debuffer. Specializing in Illusions (gnome, spell focus), charms, fear and useful spells like grease and glitterdust.

We are also in a magic-limited game, in which buffs are limited (one spell-level per character level, so a level 3 character can have a level 1 nd level 2 spell on them as a max). that's why Bardic Music is useful, SU abilities don't count to that buff limit.

Other 2nd rank spells I was planing on learning:

Scare (until level 8 where I trade it for Bane) (I'm PrCing into Dread Witch, and this is a Prerequisite; DW adds Bane to spell list.)
Alter Self (or Invisibility)
Glitterdust
Suggestion (traded the bardic music for Counter Fear)


So apart from Alter Self (or invisibility), all the others are for BFC or control of enemies. I don't really Melee (I buff those who do).

Alter Self is supposed to be so darn useful. But it also sounds a little cheesy, turning into a troglodyte for the duration of a dungeon crawl. It's not terribly stinky cheese, but a little ripe.

Invisibility has a min/level duration, while alter self is 10 times longer duration. That matters.

But in terms of surviving encounters, invisibility might make the difference at lower levels. I don't have many "attack" spells either, so invisibility can be useful to hide and not be a target while I concentrate on illusions, buffing allies, or scaring enemies.

If I had access other splatbooks I'd be looking wider (always been a fan of Harmonize, to be able to start bardic music as a move action).

But between Alter Self and Invisibility, I'm leaning towards Invisibility now.

[ericgrau]

Alter self to gain flight is a bit cheesy. For +6 AC, caster self only, and only during dungeon crawls, it's a mediocre spell. If you do mixed wilderness and dungeons I'd say it's not worth getting. If you do 90% dungeons then I do think it's worth getting.

Invisibility to buff and illusion could be a trap. With its low duration you could waste a precious combat round and make yourself much less effective in battle. Likewise you'd want to use it at the start of a dungeon, meaning you'll want to extend it and perhaps recast it. A lesser rod of extend spell is a good deal at 3,000 gp. Scrolls can help you recast it for long dungeons, since hopefully most dungeons won't be too long. Later a wand of invisibility is much more useful because you can spam the whole party to bypass some encounters, or conserve it when you can't use it. Basically it's a wand of "bypass a certain dozen encounters". If bards didn't get so few spells per day you might do that without a wand. But what you can do instead is get some extra scrolls and combine your spells per day with the scrolls in case an important encounter comes that you want to bypass. Enough scrolls to do it 1 time or so.

And all this means you don't get glitterdust and get all no-direct-attack spells, which hurts. Pick up some more scrolls like CMW or a wand of CLW for when you run out of spells, since you can't even shoot a weapon while invisible if you want it to last. Besides that I only see remove fear in core. Some very clever uses of silent image can avoid the scroll's poor save DC; but that's hard to pull off in combat and when there's no save again depends on your DM. Show him the illusion rules and see what he thinks for when no save applies. IMO it's whenever it's subtle enough that a foe isn't going after the illusion directly, but your DM may say otherwise.

Since casting makes noise enemies can make a DC 20 listen check to locate you. Which means locate your square, not see you. Still that means they can attack you with 50% miss chance. Moving after you cast can help. Then the listen DC is move silently + 20, remembering that if you move at full speed instead of half you get a -5.

[Hiro Quester]

We are doing a lot of dungeons. At least I expect we will be. So perhaps +5 natural AC (we just made friends with a community of Lizardmen)isn’t outrageous.

And alter self is also useful for infiltration, disguises, etc. getting back into a bar after being banned, trying again to get into the mayor’s party after being refused entry, etc.

Getting invisibility on a scroll or a wand seems useful for later perhaps. I can already hide decently. Perhaps that’s enough.

I won’t take remove fear, because I’m taking the gnome bard substitution that gives a counter fear bardic music instead of suggestion. Allies within 30 ft use my perform check (which I pump fairly high) as an extra will save vs fear.

That means I will probably take suggestion as a spell though (can be used in emergencies, without having to fascinate first). I previously played a bard to 21st level and never used suggestion bardic music once.

[Crake]

Alter self to gain flight is a bit cheesy. For +6 AC, caster self only, and only during dungeon crawls, it's a mediocre spell. If you do mixed wilderness and dungeons I'd say it's not worth getting. If you do 90% dungeons then I do think it's worth getting.

I have to whole heartedly disagree. It can be used to gain flight/swim/climb speeds, arguably the ability to breathe underwater (I would consider breathing underwater to be a "natural ability", others insist it's a part of the aquatic subtype which you do not get with alter self), it can also be used to gain a variety of skill bonuses and feats, while also being great for infiltration/blending in, as it cannot be saved against the way an illusion could, and also gives you the physical mannerisms of the form you take.

It can also be better than polymorph in similar circumstances, because it lets you maintain your own physical ability scores, rather than forcing them into the 10/10/10 array that a human would provide when polymorphing.

[HighWater]

Alter Self is supposed to be so darn useful. But it also sounds a little cheesy, turning into a troglodyte for the duration of a dungeon crawl. It's not terribly stinky cheese, but a little ripe.

I'm still not sure how using any humanoid from MMI is cheese when using Alter Self. Let's look at this excerpt from the spell description:

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.

All Alter Self's popular uses (except for the disguise bonus) are listed right here as explicitly permitted; it is not as if a designer went herp-a-derp and forgot to exclude (SU) abilities or something crazy like that. All signs point to the creators explicitly expecting you to turn into a lizardfolk or troglodyte if you need an AC boost and to turn into something that can swim properly if the situation requires it. Can you argue about the wisdom of including a humanoid with a flight speed in a later splatbook? Sure! I didn't even consider pleading with my DM when he made me roll (and fail) to know the form when I asked about it, but the MM1 seems pretty fair game...

Alter Self is great for dungeon crawls, because the Trogs +6AC will last long enough for you to feel safe from stray arrows when exploring dungeons and perhaps even lets you take some of the heat off the frontliners which generally makes them like you. It won't make you break the game. The utility move options usually won't come up often, but when they do, you don't break the game. The disguise bonus is great for roleplaying and gives the party alternatives to handling social encounters. It generally won't break the game though. Is Alter Self powerful? Yes, due to versatility, but I don't see it breaking anything (well, maybe excluding the flight speed).

Invisibility on the other hand... can break encounters right in half by completely negating them if you have enough instances to cover the party: as both a player and a DM I'm not a big fan of just ignoring encounters rather than interacting with them. If you only have enough castings to cover yourself, you're kinda heightening the heat the others will take as there's one target less. Any kind of noise, on the other hand, can make invisibility problematic. Same goes for it's short duration. Personally, I would only consider Invisibility (although rather powerful) if it is going to make a teammate -very- happy (looking at the Rogue) if you cast it on them...

[Jay R]

A gnome illusonist can take the Illusion Mastery (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#illusionMastery) variant, and get more illusion spells. That makes taking alter self more worthwhile.

[ericgrau]

I have to whole heartedly disagree. It can be used to gain flight/swim/climb speeds
I agreed flight wasn't just good, but cheesy. But the OP doesn't get flight forms with the books available. Swim and climb is much more rare for a spell you have ready every day.



I won’t take remove fear, because I’m taking the gnome bard substitution that gives a counter fear bardic music instead of suggestion. Allies within 30 ft use my perform check (which I pump fairly high) as an extra will save vs fear.
I definitely wouldn't learn remove fear. But I would carry 1 or 2 25 gp scrolls, among many other random utility scrolls. It only came up during the topic of invisibility, so this is a bit of a tangent now.


We are doing a lot of dungeons. At least I expect we will be. So perhaps +5 natural AC (we just made friends with a community of Lizardmen)isn’t outrageous.

I like the idea of using lizardfolk. Better style points and less knowledge questions to use a creature you've seen in battle, and only 1 less AC. You also get a +4 to balance, jump and swim. Which doesn't seem like much at first but is enough to overcome minor obstacles with all 3 of those skills.

And yes the random utility uses now and then. But I wouldn't learn a spell that you use rarely. If anything I'd scroll it. In fact I'd take at least 1 scroll of disguise self just in case you run out of alter self. And at least 1 of most level 1 utility scrolls, since they're 25 gp a pop.