The 3.5 Shapechange Handbook

[Endarire]

I didn't notice any Modron forms in this guide. What are your thoughts on the Secundus for Telepathy and possibly also Cleric20 & Sor20 casting? Tertian for its Psionics immunity and slightly shorter range Telepathy and possibly also Cleric20 & Sor20 casting?

[jmax]

I didn't notice any Modron forms in this guide.

I haven't been through Manual of the Planes cover-to-cover yet. I'd never heard of these before, which is one reason they're not in the handbook. The game in which I have access to shapechange has its own cosmology and excludes many plane-specific stock monsters, so MotP hasn't been high on my priority list.

What are your thoughts on the Secundus for Telepathy

The telepathy is excellent and very much worth mentioning.

Tertian for its Psionics immunity and slightly shorter range Telepathy

Psionics immunity is nice, albeit far less useful than magic immunity. It's unlikely you'd need it at the same time as the last few miles of telepathy.

and possibly also Cleric20 & Sor20 casting?

and possibly also Cleric20 & Sor20 casting?

You do not get spellcasting unless it is explicitly marked as an Ex or Su ability. These are not. I list a few forms that get some spellcasting as Ex, but I lay out my reasoning for why you shouldn't (or possibly can't) use them.

You do however get the Nonaton's Psionics, because they're listed as supernatural abilities rather than psi-like abilities. Personally, I think it's a misprinting - the save DCs are set as though they should be psi-likes. At-will plane shift you can get elsewhere. At-will invisibility, though... now that's handy.


Edit: Added to telepathy section.

[Endarire]

I didn't notice any Tome Dragons (Arcane Dragons) in here from "Dragon 343" page 42. (The Hex Dragons from page 39-41 of that issue are also amusing.) Tome Dragons have a (Su) which reduces the cost of 1 metamagicked spell per round of by 1-4 slot levels (though the 4 is normally out of bounds for PCs). Arcane Dragons also have (good) maneuverability for flight regardless of size category and DEX, which is rare.

I'm unsure if this applies to shapechange, but "Tome Dragons automatically know all divination and conjuration spells on the sorcerer spell list. They can also cast spells from the Knowledge Cleric Domain as sorcerer spells." (Refer to page 44's sample Juvenile Tome Dragon.)

Other creatures in "Dragon 343" may be interesting enough to warrant guide inclusion.

[Endarire]

Beastiary of Krynn 15: Check out the Oblivion (Su) ability of the Frost Dragon!

Any creature that dies (from HP or a CHA score becoming 0) due to this dragon's breath weapon is erased from existence along with all memory that it ever existed! This is nuts!

[Reptare]

Hi, this is a fantastic resource, you all seem to truly be experts on Shapechange. I'm a DM with a group that has just encountered this spell and we spent an unusual amount of time debating whether Shapechange is compatible with Animal Growth.

In particular, the last line of Animal Growth is "Multiple magical effects which increase size do not stack." which is a common refrain for size altering spells. You all seem to take it for granted that Animal Growth works on a druid who has shapechanged into an animal, which at the outset makes sense because shapechange does alter type -- this is the usual problem when PCs want to use Animal Growth on themselves.

However, is there a clear reason why Shapechange does not count as a magical effect which increases size (when used to change form into an animal of larger size than the caster's original form)?

I apologize if I am derailing the thread and/or if this has been answered clearly elsewhere. In particular, there are tons of discussions about wild shape but wild shape explicitly does not grant the caster the new type and therefore clearly does not interact productively with Animal Growth.

Thanks!

[eggynack]

Hi, this is a fantastic resource, you all seem to truly be experts on Shapechange. I'm a DM with a group that has just encountered this spell and we spent an unusual amount of time debating whether Shapechange is compatible with Animal Growth.

In particular, the last line of Animal Growth is "Multiple magical effects which increase size do not stack." which is a common refrain for size altering spells. You all seem to take it for granted that Animal Growth works on a druid who has shapechanged into an animal, which at the outset makes sense because shapechange does alter type -- this is the usual problem when PCs want to use Animal Growth on themselves.

However, is there a clear reason why Shapechange does not count as a magical effect which increases size (when used to change form into an animal of larger size than the caster's original form)?

I apologize if I am derailing the thread and/or if this has been answered clearly elsewhere. In particular, there are tons of discussions about wild shape but wild shape explicitly does not grant the caster the new type and therefore clearly does not interact productively with Animal Growth.

Thanks!

The question of whether transformation magic qualifies as size altering magic is a pretty old one, and I think it generally resolves in favor of a yes with some ambiguity. That's how I tend to read it anyway, so tossing animal growth onto a large creature wouldn't get you to huge. That said, there's still some utility here. You could, for example, use animal growth to increase the size of a fleshraker to large. Moreover, animal growth has some utility beyond just size changing, so that would happen regardless of base size.

As for the issue of type, you are correct that animal growth cannot be directly applied to wild shape. However, what you can do is cast something like aspect of the wolf, a spell that does change your type to animal, then cast animal growth, and finally use wild shape to become something different.

[jmax]

I didn't notice any Tome Dragons (Arcane Dragons) in here from "Dragon 343" page 42. (The Hex Dragons from page 39-41 of that issue are also amusing.) Tome Dragons have a (Su) which reduces the cost of 1 metamagicked spell per round of by 1-4 slot levels (though the 4 is normally out of bounds for PCs). Arcane Dragons also have (good) maneuverability for flight regardless of size category and DEX, which is rare.

I'm unsure if this applies to shapechange, but "Tome Dragons automatically know all divination and conjuration spells on the sorcerer spell list. They can also cast spells from the Knowledge Cleric Domain as sorcerer spells." (Refer to page 44's sample Juvenile Tome Dragon.)

Other creatures in "Dragon 343" may be interesting enough to warrant guide inclusion.

Beastiary of Krynn 15: Check out the Oblivion (Su) ability of the Frost Dragon!

Any creature that dies (from HP or a CHA score becoming 0) due to this dragon's breath weapon is erased from existence along with all memory that it ever existed! This is nuts!

Sorry for the delay - haven't forgotten about you. I know there are a bunch of very potent dragon forms available with shapechange, but those have been the lowest priority for inclusion because I can't use them in any game I play in. Dragon Magazine content in particular gets ranked even lower than that because most DMs don't allow it at all.

If you want to go through Draconomicon and Dragon Magazine and pull out all the dragons worth using, I'll try to get to them sooner rather than later. I consider a form worth using if it has at least one of the following qualities:

• A useful Supernatural or Extraordinary ability that provides utility not available from less obscure source books. If overlapping, potentially worth considering if it keys on a different ability score than already-included material - provided that, if shapechange provides that ability score, said score is at least decent.
• Unusually good defenses, movement modes, ability scores, or natural attacks beyond what is available from less obscure books
• A combination of the above two factors that makes a given creature more worthwhile even if it's redundant on all individual aspects (e.g. if you found something that is incorporeal and immune to magic like the Prismatic Golem but also can also dish out 200+ points of damage per round)
• An ability so game-breaking or campaign-smashing that it needs to be called out as something nobody should ever use

The threshold for inclusion has gotten higher as the book as gotten bigger.

Hi, this is a fantastic resource, you all seem to truly be experts on Shapechange.

Glad it's helpful! Feedback like that keeps me motivated to maintain it long-term even though I don't have a character with access to shapechange and probably won't for at least a year or two.

I'm a DM with a group that has just encountered this spell and we spent an unusual amount of time debating whether Shapechange is compatible with Animal Growth.

In particular, the last line of Animal Growth is "Multiple magical effects which increase size do not stack." which is a common refrain for size altering spells. You all seem to take it for granted that Animal Growth works on a druid who has shapechanged into an animal, which at the outset makes sense because shapechange does alter type -- this is the usual problem when PCs want to use Animal Growth on themselves.

However, is there a clear reason why Shapechange does not count as a magical effect which increases size (when used to change form into an animal of larger size than the caster's original form)?

I apologize if I am derailing the thread and/or if this has been answered clearly elsewhere. In particular, there are tons of discussions about wild shape but wild shape explicitly does not grant the caster the new type and therefore clearly does not interact productively with Animal Growth.

Thanks!

The question of whether transformation magic qualifies as size altering magic is a pretty old one, and I think it generally resolves in favor of a yes with some ambiguity. That's how I tend to read it anyway, so tossing animal growth onto a large creature wouldn't get you to huge. That said, there's still some utility here. You could, for example, use animal growth to increase the size of a fleshraker to large. Moreover, animal growth has some utility beyond just size changing, so that would happen regardless of base size.

I agree that there's a little ambiguity and disagree with the conclusion. Shapechange is changing your whole shape rather than specifically your size. Any size change from shapechange is incidental to the greater change in shape. So you definitely couldn't stack animal growth on top of enlarge person or righteous might, but I think it absolutely should work in conjunction with shapechange (or polymorph, baleful polymorph, or polymorph any object). Further, because the effects are independent, if you cast animal growth while you're in a medium animal shape (with shapechange specifically) and then change to a large animal shape, animal growth should remain in effect. The first form would now be Large, and the second form would now be Huge. It's the same logic as bull's strength persisting across forms.

That said, I think either interpretation is defensible. Since you're the DM, it's your choice. I will point out that, if your players are using shapechange and animal growth together, that's time spent in shapechange where it can't be used to break your game in half.

As for the issue of type, you are correct that animal growth cannot be directly applied to wild shape. However, what you can do is cast something like aspect of the wolf, a spell that does change your type to animal, then cast animal growth, and finally use wild shape to become something different.

I agree that this works mechanically, but I've never liked it. It just feels weirdly abusive of the type system. That said, still totally valid.

[Segev]

Regarding "size-changing magic," I would qualify it as anything that actually says its purpose is to change your size. If it says it changes your size as its primary (or even a secondary-but-really-needs-specifically-calling-out-or-it's-not-obvious) effect, it probably qualifies as "size-changing magic." If, on the other hand, the size change is truly incidental to a broader effect, to the point that it is only mentioned incidentally and that it probably would be assumed if not mentioned (barring pedantic arguments amongst Playgrounders), it doesn't qualify.

So shape-changing magics, even those which help specify their limitations on changed shape based on changes in size (e.g. "You can assume any form from Tiny to Gargantuan"), are not size-changing magics so much as magics where your size changes incidentally.

Therefore, if you cast enlarge person on a halfling to make him Medium-sized, then that halfing casts alter self into a human, he's now a human under the effect of enlarge person, so will be Large. But, if there was a generic enlarge monster, you couldn't stack that with enlarge person to go up two size categories.

[jmax]

Regarding "size-changing magic," I would qualify it as anything that actually says its purpose is to change your size. If it says it changes your size as its primary (or even a secondary-but-really-needs-specifically-calling-out-or-it's-not-obvious) effect, it probably qualifies as "size-changing magic." If, on the other hand, the size change is truly incidental to a broader effect, to the point that it is only mentioned incidentally and that it probably would be assumed if not mentioned (barring pedantic arguments amongst Playgrounders), it doesn't qualify.

So shape-changing magics, even those which help specify their limitations on changed shape based on changes in size (e.g. "You can assume any form from Tiny to Gargantuan"), are not size-changing magics so much as magics where your size changes incidentally.

Therefore, if you cast enlarge person on a halfling to make him Medium-sized, then that halfing casts alter self into a human, he's now a human under the effect of enlarge person, so will be Large. But, if there was a generic enlarge monster, you couldn't stack that with enlarge person to go up two size categories.

Agreed. I would further assert that the language in alter self (from which polymorph and shapechange are derived) makes clear that the size change is incidental:

You acquire the physical qualities of the new form while retaining your own mind. Physical qualities include natural size, mundane movement capabilities...

[eggynack]

I agree that there's a little ambiguity and disagree with the conclusion. Shapechange is changing your whole shape rather than specifically your size. Any size change from shapechange is incidental to the greater change in shape.

The size changing may be incidental, but it still happens. A definition of size changing magic that isn't "magic that changes your size" seems kinda wonky to me. More to the point, I was being a bit imprecise with my language. Animal growth says, "Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack." There isn't really a separate categorization called size changing spells or size changing magic or whatever. The question, then, is whether this is a magical effect that increases size. It is that, so it should count as that.

Further, because the effects are independent, if you cast animal growth while you're in a medium animal shape (with shapechange specifically) and then change to a large animal shape, animal growth should remain in effect. The first form would now be Large, and the second form would now be Huge. It's the same logic as bull's strength persisting across forms.

Animal growth absolutely sticks around across forms. It just probably doesn't increase your size in certain forms. Animal growth doesn't have a size limitation on targeting, after all. It just doesn't stack.

[jmax]

The size changing may be incidental, but it still happens. A definition of size changing magic that isn't "magic that changes your size" seems kinda wonky to me. More to the point, I was being a bit imprecise with my language. Animal growth says, "Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack." There isn't really a separate categorization called size changing spells or size changing magic or whatever. The question, then, is whether this is a magical effect that increases size. It is that, so it should count as that.

We might just have to agree to disagree on this one. Regardless, we've gone outside the scope of shapechange at this point - we should probably open a new thread to continue the discussion.

[LibraryOgre]

The Library Ogre: Mod prod by request.

[Endarire]

Shaedling from Monster Manual V 148, an always CE Medium Fey, can, as an (Ex) ability, make any item from shadowstuff weighing 15 pounds or less. The item disappears (seemingly stops existing) if it leaves the Shaedling's hand for more than 1 round.

Scrolls, potions, artifacts, spellbooks (with whatever spells you want inside), weapons (with the appropriate properties like Bane and Holy), and MANY other things apply. It's like a bound-on-acquire wish for items only! Want a Boccob's Blessed Book with 1000 of the most useful spells to transfer to your real spellbook? Done. Want a staff (including an epic staff) of any spell? Done. Want a rod (like a metamagic rod) or an epic rod (like a Rod of Excellent Magic)? Yours!

Concerned about having too few hands? Use girallon's blessing!

This is more than nuts. It's trail mix!

[jmax]

Shaedling from Monster Manual V 148, an always CE Medium Fey, can, as an (Ex) ability, make any item from shadowstuff weighing 15 pounds or less. The item disappears (seemingly stops existing) if it leaves the Shaedling's hand for more than 1 round.

Scrolls, potions, artifacts, spellbooks (with whatever spells you want inside), weapons (with the appropriate properties like Bane and Holy), and MANY other things apply. It's like a bound-on-acquire wish for items only! Want a Boccob's Blessed Book with 1000 of the most useful spells to transfer to your real spellbook? Done. Want a staff (including an epic staff) of any spell? Done. Want a rod (like a metamagic rod) or an epic rod (like a Rod of Excellent Magic)? Yours!

Concerned about having too few hands? Use girallon's blessing!

This is more than nuts. It's trail mix!

You can definitely make mundane items from it, and you could maybe make an argument for masterwork (it's a very weak argument, since that still requires high craftsmanship), but it definitely doesn't do magic items. The "Typical Physical Characteristics" section goes into more detail about the shadow gossamer material.

Spinnerets sprout from their stomachs, allowing them to weave shadow gossamer—a light, tensile substance stronger than a spider’s webbing.

So you can make whatever shape you want, but it definitely doesn't enchant anything for you. It's just a shapeable substance with useful material properties. At best it's a short-duration upgrade to Shapesand.

Does the Table of Contents help with some of what you asked for in your PM?

[Endarire]

Thanks for clarifying Shaedling.

I liked the Table of Contents. May we get a page listed for each entry? (Note you can use control+Enter to insert a page break.)

Record high and low ability scores: I mentioned this because sometimes you just want something with a super high (or low) stat, like Will o Wisp for 1 DEX or Titan for 43 STR. Persisted strength of the true form and certain Illumians could benefit from this.

Force Dragon and Prismatic Dragon have niche use, being immune to force and prismatic effects respectively. As GM, I used a Prismatic Dragon against a Cleric who was outraged and surprised when prismatic sphere did nothing. These Dragons get their CHA bonuses to deflection AC.

[jmax]

Thanks for clarifying Shaedling.

I liked the Table of Contents. May we get a page listed for each entry? (Note you can use control+Enter to insert a page break.)

Done.

Record high and low ability scores: I mentioned this because sometimes you just want something with a super high (or low) stat, like Will o Wisp for 1 DEX or Titan for 43 STR. Persisted strength of the true form and certain Illumians could benefit from this.

Where exactly are you looking for this to be recorded? There's already a section for High Ability Scores. It scales the font size on each score so you can easily find high combinations.

I don't see any point in specifically adding entries for low ability scores. There would need to be a pretty compelling argument to go through and harvest information to list things that suck. If you're turning into a Will O' Wisp, you're not doing it for melee damage and carrying capacity.

Force Dragon and Prismatic Dragon have niche use, being immune to force and prismatic effects respectively. As GM, I used a Prismatic Dragon against a Cleric who was outraged and surprised when prismatic sphere did nothing. These Dragons get their CHA bonuses to deflection AC.

Added the magical defenses. The CHA-to-AC was already in there.

[Endarire]

Monster Manual III has the Arcane Ooze for Spell Siphon (Su).

[jmax]

Monster Manual III has the Arcane Ooze for Spell Siphon (Su).

Hmm. As a debuff, I don't think that's strong enough to merit inclusion (which is why it's not in the handbook already, as I've been through all of the Monster Manuals to harvest abilities). It's nifty, but there are so many nasty things I can do even in bulk to people who fail a mid-DC Fort save that it's not super compelling (Trumpet Archon's 100-ft paralysis blast comes to mind as significantly better if you can get your Charisma to 26 or higher). If they lost all their spells, that would be an awesome trick, but they only lose one (even if it is of their highest level). The form has no useful defenses beyond infinite spell resistance, so you're going to get clubbed to death as soon as they realize what's going on and find you unless nobody in the room prepared for dealing with spell resistance. You can probably pull off one good round before you need to GTFO or die. If your DM rules that your victims don't automatically notice they've lost a spell, you might get more leeway.

However, as a means of getting temporary hit points, it's quite interesting. Very situational, because you need to find a large gathering of arcane casters, and you definitely are taking a risk if you get caught unless you find a ton of friendly casters willing to volunteer their spell slots to buff you. But if you can nom several dozen high-level spells from a room full of casters, you're looking at hundreds of temporary hit points that last an hour - the ability implies strongly that the temporary hit points from multiple absorptions stack.

Probably the way I would approach this with hostile casters - and I need to figure out where to write this technique up in general for the handbook, because there's not a good place for it right now except maybe Cheese - would be to cast Polymorph (or maybe Alter Self depending on interpretation) on yourself after taking Arcane Ooze so that you look human again (notably, neither Polymorph nor Alter Self is subject to Spell Resistance, so you can apply them after taking Arcane Ooze). Polymorph and Alter Self both let you keep your supernatural abilities, so there's a bunch of Shapechange goodness you can use with them. (Any sane DM is going to rule that your next Shapechange form overrides Alter Self/Polymorph, so you get one shot per casting.) That would buy you maybe a few rounds to slurp up their spells, but as soon as someone pulls up True Seeing, you're hosed. You could combine it with Trumpet Archon's bulk paralysis to give you a few rounds of safe slurping, but unless everyone fails the save, you're going to have problems.

Even the temporary hit points use is still really hard to pull off at a meaningful scale, so I'm not sold yet on putting this in. It's nifty enough that I might just do it - hundreds of THP at once is pretty neat even if it is super situational and requires a bunch of setup.

[Endarire]

Shadow Dragon (Draconomicon) has Shadow Blend for total concealment outside full daylight or a daylight effect. Also, energy drain immunity and a level draining breath weapon!

Tarterian Dragons (Draconomicon) have continuous (Su) freedom of movement, just in case you want to slip into that form to slip out of something.

Unbodied may be worthwhile due to its unique ability combo.

MM3's Cave Troll's Dazing Blow seems worth mentioning. See also Monsters of Faerun's Cloaker Lord and Fiend Folio's Rilmani, Sarkrith (especially Spelleater), and Shedu. FF's Steel Predator is useful for sundering, but gets a style points mention from its Alien appearance. FF's Living Holocaust was interesting to me due to control winds.
,
Draconomicon, Monster Manual V, the Fiendish Codexes, Fiend Folio (reexamine the creatures therein), Elder Evils, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Monsters of Faerun, and the Eberron/Faerun books in general seem like handy places to check for forms. Furthermore, the Tome of Battle has creatures with maneuvers shapechange could obtain and the Tome of Magic probably has something worthwhile. Magic of Incarnum may also be useful.

Why do you so highly value Prismatic Golem form? What about its moral code (Ex) SQ?

Also, since you've done the research, what about high INT casting forms for polymorph any object? Maybe that would be a separate handbook.

[jmax]

In general I only add things that provide earlier/easier access or better features than what I already have. The point isn't to list every possible form - it's to list every form you'd specifically want to use, within reasonable constraints. Unless it's super awesome fluff-wise, that means it has to be better mechanically, lower level, or from an easier book. Otherwise it's both extra clutter and an unnecessary performance drop for users with low-end hardware.

My goal here is to cover everything one might want to do with shapechange rather than anything one could do. In that spirit, I have omitted creatures whose abilities are inferior to others with similar abilities unless they have other important qualities, such as an overall stronger form, better mobility or defenses, or a more accessible sourcebook.

Shadow Dragon (Draconomicon) has Shadow Blend for total concealment outside full daylight or a daylight effect. Also, energy drain immunity and a level draining breath weapon!

Energy drain immunity is easy to come by - all undead and constructs are immune.

Shadow Mastiff is core and provides an identical ability, albeit on a weaker chassis. Shadesteel Golom is from a more accessible book, available quite early, and has a very nice chassis as well.

The level-draining breath weapon is interesting, but the save DC is bad. Probably worth listing anyway given the decent area and targeting Reflex - it fits the "many creatures" criterion at a minimum.

In order to be listed here, a debuff must either affect a very large number of creatures, be a free action or non-action to use, have no save (or occasionally a Reflex save), or possess some other unique and very powerful attribute. There are so many potent disables available with shapechange that debuffs just aren’t that spectacular.

What I do like with the Shadow Dragon, and this is definitely worth listing, is the hour-long, 300-ft-radius cloud of perfect darkness it can produce three times per day and then hide in at will while seeing normally - though I might switch to a different shadowy form depending on what I want to do.

Tarterian Dragons (Draconomicon) have continuous (Su) freedom of movement, just in case you want to slip into that form to slip out of something.

Tarterian dragon doesn't offer much that I don't already have from more accessible forms. Spider Eater is core and provides continuous Freedom of Movement at any caster level. At high caster levels, Storm Giant (core) and Hound of the Hunt (much more commonly allowed source) are better in almost every way. There's a brief period at CL 17-18 in which Tarterian dragon is better for simultaneous defense; aside from that, the only thing it brings to the table is faster flight. I'll probably list it anyway for those reasons, but it's pretty narrow.

Draconomicon, Monster Manual V, the Fiendish Codexes, Elder Evils, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Monsters of Faerun, and the Eberron/Faerun books in general seem like handy places to check for forms.

I've done MM5, Fiendish Codexes, Monsters of Faerun, and I think Manual of the Planes. The rest are somewhat lower-priority sources for various reasons, including both obscurity and setting limitations. I may take a pass through the rest at some point, but I've been mostly working on other projects lately, so I probably won't be spending multiple consecutive days crawling through books page by page in the near future.

Why do you so highly value Prismatic Golem form? What about its moral code (Ex) SQ?

Moral Code is not an Ex or Su ability, so it does not come with Shapechange. Even if it did, the literal wording says it stops obeying its creator if given conflicting instructions. There's no creator and no instructions, so it's irrelevant.

[Endarire]

Intro
Thankee.

I'm not trying to overwhelm you with clutter, but offer suggestions on nifty forms. Maybe I got stuck on the notion of "seems fun/unique" instead of "world rending power."

I didn't mention the Create Shadows ability because that was Great Wyrm (37HD) only.

Table of Contents: The page number for Minions is wrong.

Nifty Creatures to Me
Still, the Tome of Battle Valkyrie gets martial maneuvers, all of which are (Ex) or (Su). Naityan Rakshasa from ToB shapeshifts into various forms for use of certain ToB maneuvers.

Lost Empires of Faerun has the Helmed Horror which gives it immunity to 3 spells of its creator's choice. (If the caster can choose these spells, especially on each turn, that's potent!)

If you're in a game where incarnum matters, there's the Incarnum Dragon for its Meldshaping, Consume Soulmelds, breath weapon, and chakra binds.

For odd minionmancy, I suggest Fiend Folio's Yellow Musk Creeper: Kill something through INT damage and it becomes a non-Undead Yellow Musk Zombie (that is, a Plant creature).

Want to escape detection while permanently killing off foes? Bastion of Broken Souls 42 has the Soulmarauder Energons, most notable for their Phase Change ability and Soul Consumption ability. Soul Consumption requires an hour, but works best if you can warp to a fast time plane.

Secrets of Sarlona 147 has the Essence Reaver for spell & power absorption, which kinda looks like Baldur's Gate II's Slayer form. It also has Karalaq Quori which are... weird.

Expedition to the Demonweb Pits: Oculus Demon (page 201) has its free action Eyebolts and is healed by negative energy. At 70' (perfect), it flies faster than a Beholder and has 100' telepathy.

Fortress of the Yuan-Ti: The Risen King (page 53) may be too unique of a creature to count, but it's interesting due to Invoke the Serpent's Wrath and Undead Ward.

Underdark: Elder Brain (page 85) has Bud Brain Golem to make a Brain Golem 1/day, 240' blindsight, and 350' mindsight ("Telepathic Awareness"). Kuo-Toa Leviathan (page 92) gets Sea Mother's Blessing (WIS bonus to AC like a Monk's AC bonus that seemingly stacks with a Monk's AC bonus). A Portal Drake (page 98) has Portal Sight, allowing it to look through any portal and see the other side of any portal it's been through.

Shining South: Rattelyr Dragon (page 63) gets Hood Extension for spell turning for a number of spell levels equal to its HD. A Laraken (page 66) has Absorb Magic. The Starsnake (70) absorbs all directed spells and SLAs and converts these into electrical zaps shot at the caster.

Heroes of Horror: Dusk Giants (page 148) get Cannibalize, which grants them extra hit dice by eating foes. Phantasmal Slayer (152) kills anyone who looks at it via phantasmal killer with the possibility of dazing creatures once and dealing damage every round.

Sources with No Notable Creatures for Shapechange Purposes:
-Anauroch, Enpire of Shade: Sharn would be spiffy if not for archetypical form which prevents shapeshifting into them.

-Complete Arcane

-Complete Psionic

-City of Stormreach

-City of the Spider Queen

-Cityscape

-Dark Sun Campaign Setting

-Deep Horizons

-"Dragon" Compenium (volume 1)

-Dragonlance Campaign Setting

-Dragonmarked

-Dragons of Eberron

-Dungeonscape

-Eberron Campaign Setting

-Elder Evils

-Exemplars of Evil

-Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

-Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk

-Expedition to Undermountain

-Explorer's Handbook

-Five Nations

-Ghostwalk

-Pool of Radiance

-Races of the Dragon

-Red Hand of Doom

-Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

-Secrets of Xen'drik

-Scourge of the Howling Horde

-Shackled City Campaign

-Shadowdale, the Scouring of the Land

-Shadows of the Last War

-Sharn, City of Towers

-The Sinister Spire

-The Speaker in Dreams

-The Fright at Tristor

-The Twilight Tomb

-Tome and Blood

-Tome of Magic

-Voyage of the Golden Dragon

-Waterdeep, City of Splendors

-Whispers of the Vampire's Blade-

[Noxangelo]

the reason dinosaurs are on spell lists is because they still exist in most settings. in forgotten realms they live on chult i believe and eberron never had an ice age so the big ones are only found in zoos or out of the way places, things like the compsognathus would be on the same level as foxes.

[jmax]

Intro
Thankee.

I'm not trying to overwhelm you with clutter, but offer suggestions on nifty forms. Maybe I got stuck on the notion of "seems fun/unique" instead of "world rending power."

Apologies if that came across as hostile. I started out listing all of the cool things and quickly discovered that it made the guide way too big to be useful - in addition to the really good stuff getting lost in the shuffle, there were the aforementioned performance problems. (The latter will go away if I ever turn this into a real web page/app, which I've only been talking about for 3 years :-P)

I definitely appreciate your enthusiasm! Shapechange is a really fun ability, and it's a shame it doesn't see more use. Although if I had published this ten years ago, I do wonder how many DMs would have just table-flipped and banned Shapechange entirely. This spell is definitely the Knowledge Is Power sort.

If you see anything in the handbook that seems insufficiently useful to be worth including and is a candidate for removal, please let me know. I would love to make it smaller without losing valuable content. Right now it's definitely too close to the Kitchen Sink side of everything.

I didn't mention the Create Shadows ability because that was Great Wyrm (37HD) only.

Bah. I thought that sounded too good to be true. I missed that detail. This is another reason I haven't done all of the dragons: The compound listings are annoying. Oh well - at least I hadn't done the write-up yet.

Table of Contents: The page number for Minions is wrong.

The table of contents is auto-generated, and Google Docs doesn't always do it perfectly. I regenerated it in Print Layout, which seems to have fixed the Minions! section - I can't promise everything is perfect, but they're also all links, and those definitely work.

Nifty Creatures to Me

In-lining (bold for ease of picking out the ones I want later):

• Valkyrie - I don't think this works for getting maneuvers. Individual maneuvers are Su and Ex abilities, but those are things the individual valkyries learn, and the ability to learn them is not marked as Su or Ex. I would treat this the same as spellcasting. I'll probably list it anyway just as a unique effect that probably doesn't work (just like my spellcasting section).
• Naityan Rakshasa - This one, on the other hand, explicitly does work because it derives from an Su ability. I'll have to look into whether those maneuvers and stances are worth listing - my guess is they aren't given the weak chassis, but it's worth a look.
• Helmed Horror - I would interpret that as the typical ones, but a generous DM might let you choose once per casting of Shapechange. I definitely wouldn't allow changing them every round.
• Incarnum Dragon - I know nothing of incarnum, so I don't even have the context to evaluate this one.
• Yellow Musk Creeper - I looked at this one and ultimately decided it wasn't practical/useful. I don't remember precisely why. I think it was because the yellow musk zombies can't go more than 100 feet from their parent creeper for the first 2 days, which means you have to stay in the form for them to persist usefully (and the form is otherwise pretty bad aside from the regeneration). You also don't get direct control over them - they just fight to protect you, and by the time you have Shapechange, they won't be protecting you from anything that could actually harm you.
• Soulmarauder Energon - I find the Roar ability more compelling than the Soul Consumption; there are other ways to prevent resurrection already in my book, and most of them are from much more accessible sources. As written, I don't think you can use Phase Change for devouring souls, and it's not clear whether Shapechange's duration would continue to tick down while out of phase, which probably means it would. I do like the chassis for the Soulscaper, but given the obscurity of the sourcebook (only exists in a specific adventure module) I'm not sure it's worth listing just for that. That's a very nice touch AC to layer on top of being incorporeal though. If it had golem immunities, it would likely displace Prismatic Golem as the top defensive form. The roar is interesting, and I do like Soulsight. I'll think on this one, but for Soulsight and Roar rather than Soul Consumption.
• Kalaraq Quori - Weird indeed, but it's already in my handbook. It has quite a few lovely things. A shame it doesn't exist in my DM's setting. This is probably my favorite form that I can't use.
• Essence Reaver - Ooooh, shiny. I'm surprised I missed this. It's an awfully long ability description, but they had me at the bit where you can cast the absorbed spell yourself. It's a shame it doesn't do divine spells, but this is a nice way to bum a high-level arcane spell off a buddy. This is definitely worth including.
• Oculus Demon: Hmm. It's the triple-free action that saves the Eyebolts from complete obscurity. The initial effect (sickened) is crap, but since you can fire three at once, you only need two of three to stick in order to render the target panicked, which is probably about equal to a single save for the panicked effect - though less random. (If I can make all three stick to knock the target unconscious, I have plenty of other ways I could have done that.) I'm on the fence as to whether I should include this - I have tons of ways to incapacitate a single target, some even through the same effect (panic), but this is the only panicked effect I have that targets Fort or is based on a decent Con score - most are Will saves based no Charisma. I still have a ton of disables that target Fort for one or more creatures, but they're subject to different immunities. I'll have to think about it...
• Oculus Demon again: ...except there is also that Paralysis Gaze. Now we're talking. I've got a few paralysis gaze attacks already, but they all target Fort, and this targets Will. It's also a better chassis that the other options up to 20 HD - at 21st Nightwalker is roughly equal. Between the earlier access and targeting a different save, this is worth including.
• Risen King: I don't have access to this book. What does it do?
• Elder Brain: I have it from Lords of Madness, but I missed the Brain Golem option. I'll look into it. I have the other abilities.
• Kuo-toa Leviathan: Nifty. At this point I expect druids and Animal clerics to have a Monk's Belt with a wilding clasp though. Even without, I don't think this is going to result in good enough AC to be worth taking the form just for that.
• Portal Drake - That is the mother of all niche abilities. Interesting. Worth including for the uniqueness, although whether it's at all useful depends on interpretation - if you have to be in Portal Drake form for a portal to count as traversed for this purpose, it's useless.
• Rattelyr Dragon - The spell turning is easily outclassed by Mockery Monarch (which has infinite Spell Turning), but this is available three levels earlier... and Mockery Monarch is so bizarre I sort of expect every DM to just ban it. Worth including.
• Laraken - Not as good as Essence Reaver's, and the sourcebook is equally obscure, but it's available a level earlier and won't be banned on the basis of acknowledging the existence of psionics. Worth including, if only just barely.
• Starsnake - Dream Shield only works while sleeping, so that's out. If you're sleeping in combat, you're dead.
• Dusk Giant - Now this is interesting. There are a few different interpretations that determine how useful this is. First of all, if your DM lets you keep the gains in other forms (I wouldn't), then like the Barghest under the same conditions this is incredibly slick - if you don't mind having to keep feeding it, but since you can use non-sentient creatures, at least it doesn't require continuous murder. The downside would be that those Hit Dice might count toward your Effective Character Level. However, most likely you'd just be powering up this specific form, and unlike with the Barghest, this one is actually worthwhile - even if you have to start from Least Dusk Giant and work your way up, that Greater Dusk Giant is a doozy just for the ability scores. 48 Str, 32 Con? Sweet. Nightcrawler is just as strong and immune to most things targeting Fort, but this is available 7 levels earlier - and if you push it all the way, you can get 54 Str and 35 Con. Ask your DM if the atrophy sets in while you aren't using the form - if not, you can be always-on at maximum once you attain it. And of course the DM might just let you change straight to max if your caster level is high enough. This one is really quirky, but it's sufficiently cool to be worth including.
• Phantasmal slayer - Interesting, but we have Devourer's death touch, which doesn't require the first Will save and has a better attack bonus. Further, Devourer's isn't a Fear effect, so fewer things are immune to it - Devourer's should probably be listed as a [death] effect, but it isn't, so it's not (unless the DM says otherwise, which she well might). It's nice that this is incorporeal, but I think that's offset by the second save. What I do like is the automatic 1-round daze on first sight with a successful save. Buying yourself and your allies a guaranteed round of unfettered action as far as the eye can see is definitely worth including. Forget the touch itself - once you have them dazed for a round, you can afford to use a more vulnerable form with a stellar offensive attack like the Banshee's wail.

There are definitely a few things in there worth picking up. Thanks!

Sources with No Notable Creatures for Shapechange Purposes:
-Anauroch, Enpire of Shade: Sharn would be spiffy if not for archetypical form which prevents shapeshifting into them.

Hah! You'd think WotC would have thought to put that on a bunch of other things, but nope. Oh well - it looks like it would have been nifty.

-Complete Arcane

-Complete Psionic

-City of Stormreach

-City of the Spider Queen

-Cityscape

-Dark Sun Campaign Setting

-Deep Horizons

-"Dragon" Compenium (volume 1)

-Dragonlance Campaign Setting

-Dragonmarked

-Dragons of Eberron

-Dungeonscape

-Eberron Campaign Setting

-Elder Evils

-Exemplars of Evil

-Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

-Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk

-Expedition to Undermountain

-Explorer's Handbook

-Five Nations

-Ghostwalk

-Pool of Radiance

-Races of the Dragon

-Red Hand of Doom

-Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

-Secrets of Xen'drik

-Scourge of the Howling Horde

-Shackled City Campaign

-Shadowdale, the Scouring of the Land

-Shadows of the Last War

-Sharn, City of Towers

-The Sinister Spire

-The Speaker in Dreams

-The Fright at Tristor

-The Twilight Tomb

-Tome and Blood

-Tome of Magic

-Voyage of the Golden Dragon

-Waterdeep, City of Splendors

-Whispers of the Vampire's Blade-

Thanks - having a bunch of books not to look through is helpful. Although I've actually pulled a few nifty things out of Waterdeep, City of Splendors - take a look at the handbook if you haven't seen them (just search for "Waterdeep").

[Endarire]

The Risen King (21 HD Medium Undead) is an oddity. To start, he also takes extra HP damage as if he were an Outsider and Undead, but can't be banished as if he were a true Outsider. (Assume all ability DCs scale with your CHA mod since this thing is Undead, and likely also a unique creature.)

-Fast Healing 7

-DR 15/Overcome by Good Silver

-60' blindsense

-Aura of Awe (Su, Mind-Affecting): Sanctuary (Will DC 26 negates). If overcome by a creature, that creature is immune for 24 hours.

-Hypnotic Gaze (Su, Mind-Affecting): Daze for 1 round, -2 on saves against his Hypnotic Gaze (and some SLAs of his shapechange doesn't grant) for d4 rounds. Fort DC 26 negates.

-Invoke the Serpent's Wrath (Su): Swift action, usable every d4 rounds. A living subject in 30' takes 10d6 damage (Fort 26 halves) as a viper swarm bursts from this creature and remains for 4 rounds afterward.

-Poison Blood (Ex): Any creature not immune to poison who damages the Risen King with a piercing or a slashing melee weapon (seemingly in melee, and not via a Dancing weapon or a spiritual weapon) takes 2d4 damage (Reflex 26 negates).

-Unholy Ward (Ex): Add CHA mod to HP per HD. Add CHA mod to accuracy, Fort saves, and deflection AC.

-Writhing Reach (Ex): 10' reach as a Medium creature instead of 5'.

He also has skills and SLAs and feats not gained via shapechange.

[jmax]

The Risen King (21 HD Medium Undead) is an oddity. To start, he also takes extra HP damage as if he were an Outsider and Undead, but can't be banished as if he were a true Outsider. (Assume all ability DCs scale with your CHA mod since this thing is Undead, and likely also a unique creature.)

-Fast Healing 7

-DR 15/Overcome by Good Silver

-60' blindsense

-Aura of Awe (Su, Mind-Affecting): Sanctuary (Will DC 26 negates). If overcome by a creature, that creature is immune for 24 hours.

-Hypnotic Gaze (Su, Mind-Affecting): Daze for 1 round, -2 on saves against his Hypnotic Gaze (and some SLAs of his shapechange doesn't grant) for d4 rounds. Fort DC 26 negates.

-Invoke the Serpent's Wrath (Su): Swift action, usable every d4 rounds. A living subject in 30' takes 10d6 damage (Fort 26 halves) as a viper swarm bursts from this creature and remains for 4 rounds afterward.

-Poison Blood (Ex): Any creature not immune to poison who damages the Risen King with a piercing or a slashing melee weapon (seemingly in melee, and not via a Dancing weapon or a spiritual weapon) takes 2d4 damage (Reflex 26 negates).

-Unholy Ward (Ex): Add CHA mod to HP per HD. Add CHA mod to accuracy, Fort saves, and deflection AC.

-Writhing Reach (Ex): 10' reach as a Medium creature instead of 5'.

He also has skills and SLAs and feats not gained via shapechange.

Sounds nifty. A shame that it's explicitly unique.

[Endarire]

Reserves of Strength debatably removes the caster level caps for spells instead of increasing their caps by the amount of caster levels boosted.

Unsure how useful this is considering how many useful forms are 20 HD or less.

[Endarire]

@jmax
What abilities do you believe are most useful to check for in new forms? I know this handbook doesn't yet account for every form, but it's a big enough data project that I was inclined to ask.

Thankee!

[jmax]

@jmax
What abilities do you believe are most useful to check for in new forms? I know this handbook doesn't yet account for every form, but it's a big enough data project that I was inclined to ask.

Thankee!

In some ways it's more art than science. Some bits are easy and obvious, and others are more nuanced. All of them require a final pass to see if the form is worth using relative to something already in the handbook.

The easy stuff:

• High stats - look for anything with Str above 40, Dex above 30, and Con above 30. That's not a hard minimum, but it's a good baseline.
• High AC - in general, base AC above 40 or touch AC above 30 is noteworthy
• Resistances and defenses - SR above 30, any regeneration, DR 10 or 15 requiring a rare combination of damage types (e.g. epic and silver, silver and good), energy immunities or several overlapping resistances
• Status immunities
• Flight above 90 feet (good maneuverability)
• Lots of natural attacks with good stats, or several natural attacks with amazing stats

Special abilities are more nuanced. At this point you probably aren't going to find a really new category of ability, so going based on the groupings in the outline is probably a good start. For any given form, look at its Ex and Su abilities to see what category they fit in, and then check to see whether they're better in at least one way (which can be amazing defenses and such as well as the specific ability) than a form already listed there. Being from a more common sourcebook or fewer hit dice counts as one way, and it's very possible to boot something else off the list if your new monster is better in every way (which can be targeting a different save - that's pretty common). Anything with a saving throw DC based on a physical ability score is only worthwhile if that score is at least ok - no matter how amazing it is, if it's Con-based on a form with 10 Con, it's going to suck.

Then the final pass is looking really hard to see if it's really worth including. For the easy stat-block stuff, you're looking for whether the whole package together is really better (or more accessible) than the whole package for something already listed - in general that means a lot of good, overlapping stuff. For the special abilities, it's assessing whether this is really something worth using - and, if so, would the situation in which you'd be using it be survivable for that form.

And then the new step for dragons specifically is to make sure the ability you've gotten really excited about is actually at an attainable age category :-P

Finally, after all that, see whether the new entry obsoletes anything in its categories - if you can remove something less accessible for the same effect, great.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to try to remove chaff, including stuff that I never should have included in the first place. I appreciate removal suggestions at least as much as new entries.

In actual game-play, I find myself always gravitating to the same few forms except in fairly niche situations - hence the "Go-To Forms" section near the beginning. Never once have I said to myself "Gee, I need a bunch of fire damage right now - what are my options?" I have definitely gone for massive-scale debuffs and incapacitates, but I've probably never used a single-target one that wasn't a save-or-lose, a save-and-you-suck-anyway, or a no-save-just-suck.

[Endarire]

I reread the Zodar stat block. Note that Zodars can walk at 60', they can't speak (though tongues should counteract that), and they can double their STR scores from 25 to 50 for 3 rounds per day, each as a free action.

[CIDE]

Beastiary of Krynn 15: Check out the Oblivion (Su) ability of the Frost Dragon!

Any creature that dies (from HP or a CHA score becoming 0) due to this dragon's breath weapon is erased from existence along with all memory that it ever existed! This is nuts!

That sounds like a less crappy version of that one 9th level Truenamer spell.

The Risen King (21 HD Medium Undead) is an oddity. To start, he also takes extra HP damage as if he were an Outsider and Undead, but can't be banished as if he were a true Outsider. (Assume all ability DCs scale with your CHA mod since this thing is Undead, and likely also a unique creature.)

-Fast Healing 7

-DR 15/Overcome by Good Silver

-60' blindsense

-Aura of Awe (Su, Mind-Affecting): Sanctuary (Will DC 26 negates). If overcome by a creature, that creature is immune for 24 hours.

-Hypnotic Gaze (Su, Mind-Affecting): Daze for 1 round, -2 on saves against his Hypnotic Gaze (and some SLAs of his shapechange doesn't grant) for d4 rounds. Fort DC 26 negates.

-Invoke the Serpent's Wrath (Su): Swift action, usable every d4 rounds. A living subject in 30' takes 10d6 damage (Fort 26 halves) as a viper swarm bursts from this creature and remains for 4 rounds afterward.

-Poison Blood (Ex): Any creature not immune to poison who damages the Risen King with a piercing or a slashing melee weapon (seemingly in melee, and not via a Dancing weapon or a spiritual weapon) takes 2d4 damage (Reflex 26 negates).

-Unholy Ward (Ex): Add CHA mod to HP per HD. Add CHA mod to accuracy, Fort saves, and deflection AC.

-Writhing Reach (Ex): 10' reach as a Medium creature instead of 5'.

He also has skills and SLAs and feats not gained via shapechange.

Where is the risen king from?

Reserves of Strength debatably removes the caster level caps for spells instead of increasing their caps by the amount of caster levels boosted.

Unsure how useful this is considering how many useful forms are 20 HD or less.

Gibbering Orb is the common solution to that question.

I reread the Zodar stat block. Note that Zodars can walk at 60', they can't speak (though tongues should counteract that), and they can double their STR scores from 25 to 50 for 3 rounds per day, each as a free action.

I think the biggest perk of the Zodar (barring the Wish use) is their damage immunities.