Is tibbits’ alt form su or sla

[daremetoidareyo]

What it says on the tin. Is there any first party source with a tibbit statblock? Cuz it isn’t in dragon comp.

[hamishspence]

Supernatural would be simplest. Like with Dopplegangers, another Monstrous Humanoid with the Shapechanger subtype.

[NotInventedHere]

"Alternate Form" is (Su) by default, and supernatural makes the most sense generally. (I went back to the Dragon Compendium and checked what issue Tibbits were from originally, to see if the original article had a stat block. And it did!... unhelpfully, the original issue is Dragon 135, from July 1988. It pre-dates 2nd edition, let alone 3rd. There *is* a stat block, but it doesn't describe the form-changing in any way, and bears basically no resemblence to the DrC version beyond the broadest strokes of 'is a cat and also a person'. The folks who wrote the Dragon Compendium book basically came up with their version of the tibbit themselves.)

[Darg]

By the rules, it would be a natural ability:


Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.

But as it's dragon, some salt may be in order.

Of course, the wording could make it a spell ability instead.

[Gruftzwerg]

Feline Transformation: At will, as a standard action, a tibbit can transform into a house cat. This effect is similar to the spell polymorph but with a number of key changes.

If we just take the ability text from DC we can say that it is an SLA since it is a magical effect referring to the polymorph spell.


Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name.


edit: Maybe important to note here. Many polymorph based SLA monster abilities have been changed to SU alternate form at some point in 3.5 IIRC. A DM might extend that to Tibbits.

[Zarvistic]

The shapechanger subtype does mention they have the su ability to change form. Would leave the tibbit without such an ability if it wasn't su.