Daelkyr 1/2 Blood and Alter Self [Archive] - Wizards Community

Daelkyr 1/2 Blood and Alter Self [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Melvin the Mediocre
05-09-07, 11:05 AM If I have a Daelkyr 1/2 blood transmuter that wants to use alter self frequently, are there any interesting aberations for him to turn into? I was thinking there might be something he could use as an alternate form that would have small size and natural armor as a defensive spell. But when I started thinking about it, I could only come up with about 3 ideas. The double goblins from the ECS (I forget their name now), gricks, and etheral filchers.

Upon inspection, the goblin guys are small, but have no natural armor. Etheral filchers have a slight natural armor, but are medium and don't speak, so no casting. I suppose you could make a case that they CAN speak, they just don't. But I'm not going to. Finally the Grick has good AC, but I'm not sure if it can speak or not. It has an int of 3. Plus it has tentacles, and I'm not sure what the ruling is on casting with out fingers.

So should I just drop this spell, or are there cool uses I'm not thinking of. I browsed the MM and found that Skum can swim well and chokers can fly....

BTW if I am reaing things right, he will loose darkvision while altered even though all aberattions have dark vision. It is a special quality based on race. You loose special qualities that don't come from class levels, and you do not gain them from the creature you turn into. Wierd but oh well.
Nived
05-09-07, 02:51 PM Wow, this never occured to me. I knew that the Half Blood's type made him immune to many spells but it didn't even occur to me what this would mean for alter self.

Well sadly the consolodated lists don't organize by HD... but they do by CR.

Give me a little time and I'll see if I can cobble together a list of HD 5 and lower Aberrations.

Wow.
Yadot
05-09-07, 06:12 PM [3.5]Forms for Alter Self
Scroll down to find the useful forms of Abberations.
Phalo
05-10-07, 02:06 AM If I have a Daelkyr 1/2 blood transmuter that wants to use alter self frequently, are there any interesting aberations for him to turn into? I was thinking there might be something he could use as an alternate form that would have small size and natural armor as a defensive spell. But when I started thinking about it, I could only come up with about 3 ideas. The double goblins from the ECS (I forget their name now), gricks, and etheral filchers.

Upon inspection, the goblin guys are small, but have no natural armor. Etheral filchers have a slight natural armor, but are medium and don't speak, so no casting. I suppose you could make a case that they CAN speak, they just don't. But I'm not going to. Finally the Grick has good AC, but I'm not sure if it can speak or not. It has an int of 3. Plus it has tentacles, and I'm not sure what the ruling is on casting with out fingers.

So should I just drop this spell, or are there cool uses I'm not thinking of. I browsed the MM and found that Skum can swim well and chokers can fly....

BTW if I am reaing things right, he will loose darkvision while altered even though all aberattions have dark vision. It is a special quality based on race. You loose special qualities that don't come from class levels, and you do not gain them from the creature you turn into. Wierd but oh well.

you keep your darkvision as long as your new form has eyes

You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack).
Melvin the Mediocre
05-10-07, 09:11 AM [3.5]Forms for Alter Self
Scroll down to find the useful forms of Abberations.

That is awesome! But sadly it confirms that my poor little half blood would not be able to cast while in an altered form. So I guess I'll skip the spell (which is a shame because it really has some cool niche uses.)
Melvin the Mediocre
05-10-07, 09:20 AM you keep your darkvision as long as your new form has eyes

You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack).

Check out the next line:

You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack).
You keep all extraordinary special attacks and qualities derived from class levels, but you lose any from your normal form that are not derived from class levels

Darkvision is a special quality, but not a spell-like special quality. It is very odd wording which is where the confusion comes to bare.
Nived
05-10-07, 02:41 PM I was under the impression you could still cast spells if you could speak (most Aberrations can), and had hands of some sort cabable of making the somatic components if needed, which a great many can.

So it wouldn't interfer with your casting.

As for Darkvision, I think its screwy if you have it naturally that you loose it changing to a form that has it but that's just my opinion.

While that list of alter self forms is interesting its not complete,

The Dustblight from Sandstorm for instance I find a particularly useful form 5HD. This form is roughly humanoid, can speak common, and has hands (with three fingers and a thumb), so should be able to cast. It has an impressive +7 natural armor bonus, 30 ft burrow, and 1d8 bite attack. Though it has no useful racial skill bonuses to speak of, its a nice defensive form for casting.
Melvin the Mediocre
05-10-07, 03:03 PM As for Darkvision, I think its screwy if you have it naturally that you loose it changing to a form that has it but that's just my opinion.

While that list of alter self forms is interesting its not complete,

The Dustblight from Sandstorm for instance I find a particularly useful form 5HD. This form is roughly humanoid, can speak common, and has hands (with three fingers and a thumb), so should be able to cast. It has an impressive +7 natural armor bonus, 30 ft burrow, and 1d8 bite attack. Though it has no useful racial skill bonuses to speak of, its a nice defensive form for casting.

1) I couldn't agree more, but rules is rules and its not worth arguing.
2) It also ignores the fact that the spell specifically states you do not gain multiple attacks even if the form you take has multiple appendages
3) What is Sandstorm? It sounds a little obscure, but that would be an AWESOME critter to trun into.
4) And um, I seem to have clipped it out of my quote, but when you said "it" should be able to cast, what are you refering to? The thing about most of the MM aberations is they tend to have hooves and tentatcles. The skum could cast, but it's best ability is water breathing and a swim speed. That's one of those "niche" uses I mentioned. It would be REALLY fun for me to run around altered into a grick (I'm funny that way), but it doesn't speak and has no hands.
Nived
05-11-07, 01:37 AM Sandstorm (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/177390000) is to deserts what Frostburn was to arctic enviroments.

And when I was talking about casting its a case by case basis, but things like Dolgaunts (Eberron Campaign Setting) have hands and mouths and can speak, they should be able to cast spells (course the Dolgaunt has no eyes... and that could be a problem)

Also
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87622.jpg
That's a Dustblight.
Melvin the Mediocre
05-15-07, 08:33 AM Hey wow... the dolgaunt is great!
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040511a

It gtes 360 foot blind sense from the tentacles all over its body, which to me means that an alter self spell would grant that. Plus it has +3 natural armor as well as tentacles for a 10 foot reach. There's a great way to deliver touch spells. Vampiric tentacle to the face :gah: SPLAT :yuck:

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Melvin the Mediocre 05-09-07, 11:05 AM	If I have a Daelkyr 1/2 blood transmuter that wants to use alter self frequently, are there any interesting aberations for him to turn into? I was thinking there might be something he could use as an alternate form that would have small size and natural armor as a defensive spell. But when I started thinking about it, I could only come up with about 3 ideas. The double goblins from the ECS (I forget their name now), gricks, and etheral filchers. Upon inspection, the goblin guys are small, but have no natural armor. Etheral filchers have a slight natural armor, but are medium and don't speak, so no casting. I suppose you could make a case that they CAN speak, they just don't. But I'm not going to. Finally the Grick has good AC, but I'm not sure if it can speak or not. It has an int of 3. Plus it has tentacles, and I'm not sure what the ruling is on casting with out fingers. So should I just drop this spell, or are there cool uses I'm not thinking of. I browsed the MM and found that Skum can swim well and chokers can fly.... BTW if I am reaing things right, he will loose darkvision while altered even though all aberattions have dark vision. It is a special quality based on race. You loose special qualities that don't come from class levels, and you do not gain them from the creature you turn into. Wierd but oh well.
Nived 05-09-07, 02:51 PM	Wow, this never occured to me. I knew that the Half Blood's type made him immune to many spells but it didn't even occur to me what this would mean for alter self. Well sadly the consolodated lists don't organize by HD... but they do by CR. Give me a little time and I'll see if I can cobble together a list of HD 5 and lower Aberrations. Wow.
Yadot 05-09-07, 06:12 PM	[3.5]Forms for Alter Self Scroll down to find the useful forms of Abberations.
Phalo 05-10-07, 02:06 AM	If I have a Daelkyr 1/2 blood transmuter that wants to use alter self frequently, are there any interesting aberations for him to turn into? I was thinking there might be something he could use as an alternate form that would have small size and natural armor as a defensive spell. But when I started thinking about it, I could only come up with about 3 ideas. The double goblins from the ECS (I forget their name now), gricks, and etheral filchers. Upon inspection, the goblin guys are small, but have no natural armor. Etheral filchers have a slight natural armor, but are medium and don't speak, so no casting. I suppose you could make a case that they CAN speak, they just don't. But I'm not going to. Finally the Grick has good AC, but I'm not sure if it can speak or not. It has an int of 3. Plus it has tentacles, and I'm not sure what the ruling is on casting with out fingers. So should I just drop this spell, or are there cool uses I'm not thinking of. I browsed the MM and found that Skum can swim well and chokers can fly.... BTW if I am reaing things right, he will loose darkvision while altered even though all aberattions have dark vision. It is a special quality based on race. You loose special qualities that don't come from class levels, and you do not gain them from the creature you turn into. Wierd but oh well. you keep your darkvision as long as your new form has eyes You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack).
Melvin the Mediocre 05-10-07, 09:11 AM	[3.5]Forms for Alter Self Scroll down to find the useful forms of Abberations. That is awesome! But sadly it confirms that my poor little half blood would not be able to cast while in an altered form. So I guess I'll skip the spell (which is a shame because it really has some cool niche uses.)
Melvin the Mediocre 05-10-07, 09:20 AM	you keep your darkvision as long as your new form has eyes You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack). Check out the next line: You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack). You keep all extraordinary special attacks and qualities derived from class levels, but you lose any from your normal form that are not derived from class levels Darkvision is a special quality, but not a spell-like special quality. It is very odd wording which is where the confusion comes to bare.
Nived 05-10-07, 02:41 PM	I was under the impression you could still cast spells if you could speak (most Aberrations can), and had hands of some sort cabable of making the somatic components if needed, which a great many can. So it wouldn't interfer with your casting. As for Darkvision, I think its screwy if you have it naturally that you loose it changing to a form that has it but that's just my opinion. While that list of alter self forms is interesting its not complete, The Dustblight from Sandstorm for instance I find a particularly useful form 5HD. This form is roughly humanoid, can speak common, and has hands (with three fingers and a thumb), so should be able to cast. It has an impressive +7 natural armor bonus, 30 ft burrow, and 1d8 bite attack. Though it has no useful racial skill bonuses to speak of, its a nice defensive form for casting.
Melvin the Mediocre 05-10-07, 03:03 PM	As for Darkvision, I think its screwy if you have it naturally that you loose it changing to a form that has it but that's just my opinion. While that list of alter self forms is interesting its not complete, The Dustblight from Sandstorm for instance I find a particularly useful form 5HD. This form is roughly humanoid, can speak common, and has hands (with three fingers and a thumb), so should be able to cast. It has an impressive +7 natural armor bonus, 30 ft burrow, and 1d8 bite attack. Though it has no useful racial skill bonuses to speak of, its a nice defensive form for casting. 1) I couldn't agree more, but rules is rules and its not worth arguing. 2) It also ignores the fact that the spell specifically states you do not gain multiple attacks even if the form you take has multiple appendages 3) What is Sandstorm? It sounds a little obscure, but that would be an AWESOME critter to trun into. 4) And um, I seem to have clipped it out of my quote, but when you said "it" should be able to cast, what are you refering to? The thing about most of the MM aberations is they tend to have hooves and tentatcles. The skum could cast, but it's best ability is water breathing and a swim speed. That's one of those "niche" uses I mentioned. It would be REALLY fun for me to run around altered into a grick (I'm funny that way), but it doesn't speak and has no hands.
Nived 05-11-07, 01:37 AM	Sandstorm (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/177390000) is to deserts what Frostburn was to arctic enviroments. And when I was talking about casting its a case by case basis, but things like Dolgaunts (Eberron Campaign Setting) have hands and mouths and can speak, they should be able to cast spells (course the Dolgaunt has no eyes... and that could be a problem) Also http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87622.jpg That's a Dustblight.
Melvin the Mediocre 05-15-07, 08:33 AM	Hey wow... the dolgaunt is great! http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040511a It gtes 360 foot blind sense from the tentacles all over its body, which to me means that an alter self spell would grant that. Plus it has +3 natural armor as well as tentacles for a 10 foot reach. There's a great way to deliver touch spells. Vampiric tentacle to the face :gah: SPLAT :yuck: