Best monstrous physique forms?

[Ravingdork]

What are the best monstrous physique forms? Specifically, I'm looking for combat forms for MP4.

[Xexyz]

Ravingdork wrote:

What are the best monstrous physique forms? Specifically, I'm looking for combat forms for MP4.

What's MP4? I've looked at Monstrous Physique and haven't been able to find anything worthwhile, but I was looking for forms that either give defensive abilities (such as diminutive size, couldn't find any) or increased offensive abilities. As best as I can determine the spell won't be worth it until more monstrous humanoids are realeased - ones with more appealing abilities.

[Ravingdork]

I don't care so much about size as I do getting useful abilities.

[Xexyz]

Ravingdork wrote:

I don't care so much about size as I do getting useful abilities.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I looked for forms with good defensive abilities and forms with good offensive abilities, but couldn't find any [forms] with enough to make casting the spell worthwhile, IMO. However I was using other polymorph spells as a comparison, so there might be some use for the spell after all if the MP line of spells is all you can cast.

[Bigtuna]

Gargoyles has been mentioned - like a nice choise - not sure if it's the best...

[Jaryn Wildmane]

transforming into a Calikang gets you 6 arms (the entry list it as only having 4 slams but logic says they should have 6), along with a breath weapon and resist electric 20. You could also possibly convince your gm to give you some of their nifty abilities.

Gargoyles have been mentioned but there are many variant gargoyles that you may be able to take the form of rather than other than normal gargoyles.

[Trogdar]

Id love it if you could turn into a fey creature...

"I change into an atomie!" *poke, poke*

[Mathwei ap Niall]

First lets remember that the Polymorph subschool has been nerfed so badly it's ALMOST useless. You are now denied nearly all of the new forms abilities and can only pick from an extremely limited set of powers each form has. It's so short lets list them here.

All natural attacks (but not all rider effects for those attacks) and:
burrow 60 feet, climb 90 feet, fly 120 feet (good maneuverability), swim 120 feet, blindsense 60 feet, darkvision 90 feet, low-light vision, scent, tremorsense 60 feet, blood frenzy, breath weapon, cold vigor, constrict, ferocity, freeze, grab, horrific appearance, jet, leap attack, mimicry, natural cunning, overwhelming, poison, pounce, rake, rend, roar, sound mimicry, speak with sharks, spikes, trample, trip, and web.

If you'll notice you get none of the defensive abilities (not even their natural armor is allowed over) and several of the abilities are not available on any monstrous humanoid form (I'm looking at you pounce, rake, web & trample).

Now with that said these are the best forms I've been able to find for using this spell.

The best possible forms to assume are:
1. The 4 armed Gargoyle from Shadows of Gallowspire. This form gets gets 6 full BaB attacks a round + 60' flight and 40' land movement as well as the freeze special ability and darkvision. (The regular gargoyle form is almost as good but this one takes a slight lead on it).

2. The Witchwyrd, this form only gives you 4 full BaB attacks a round but you also get the Grab ability on each so can take advantage of all the goodies that comes with multiple grab attempts per round as well as darkvision.

3.Four-Armed Sahuagin Mutant, this bumps you back up to 5 full bab attacks a round and gives you the aquatic and ampibious traits with Darkvision. Situationaly these can make for an even better form for dungeoun crawling since you rarely have room to fly.

4. Caliking, you only get 4 natural attacks (the other 2 or iterative attacks with weapons) making all of them at BaB-5 and your iterative attacks are also at -5 (except the first one). You get a lot of attacks but with the natural penalty and the spell combat penalty you will be missing a lot. Arcane accuracy will remove the penalty (mostly) but any of the other forms will give you so much more from it.
(Calikang is nice but please remember you only get what's on their stat block so only 4 natural attacks and nasty penalties if you try to wield manufactured weapons. A sorceror or witch/hexcrafter who can grow claws however would get all 6 attacks).
Also all of it's special abilities are lost since the polymorph school doesn't allow you to get ANY of it's powers. It's a nice form but not good enough.

[astura]

What about Popobala? In terms of natural attacks it´s quite good including 2d6 for bite.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/popob ala

Melee bite +25 (2d6+6 plus 1d4 Cha drain), 2 talons +25 (1d6+6 plus grab and popobala fever), 2 wings +20 (1d6+3)

[Gertak]

Bit surprised no one mentioned these guys:
(each * represents the level of MP you need to get that ability. Ones with a / represent partial at the first level and full at the later)

Charda
Small creature, which is a plus and a minus.
* 1 bite
* 4 claws
*/**** 90' darkvision (it has 120 but no MP gives that much)
* amphibious and aquatic
*** overwhelming
*/** 60' swim
*** Ferocity
*** Cold Vigor
**** Resist Cold 20
**** +8 save vs Poison
(This is a great all around form. It is small so you lose out on the strength bonus and your weapon damage will drop a little but it has a large number of very nice abilities. In a cold environment the Cold Vigor does help offset the str loss. Overall a great underwater form)

Girtablilu
Large but with undersize weapon
* 1 sting
* 2 claws
* 2 human arms for normal weapon/spell combat/crane wing/Unarmed
* Darkvision 60'
**** Tremorsense 30'
** Grab
*** Constrict
*** Poison
(Sting—injury; save Fort DC 20; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4 Dex; cure 2 consecutive saves.)
(This is a great overall form against anything without real high AC, since you will probably want to use a manufactured weapon, making the sting and claws hard to land. The grab and constrict are really nice once you hit MP3, making up for the lower number of attacks of some other forms. The poison is really the bread and butter to me, though. True you do have to be 13th level as a magus to even get access to it but the dc 20 save is decent and the 2 consecutive helps it do it's job. The dex penalty can really start to add up, especially on lower fort save opponents.)

On the Caliking don't forget it does have a breath weapon, a useful bonus on the MP4 that is fairly hard to get on a decent form. It is a line, unfortunately, but still a DC 22 save with 14d6 damage. Though looking at the character, the breath weapon is really about the only reason I would use the form. It's really too bad you don't get Defensive Slam, that could really make it worth using.

I know this post is old enough the original poster likely doesn't care at this point but it is one of the first posts to come up when doing a google search on Monstrous Physique forms so I wanted to add this in for more options for anyone interested.

[Azothath]

Monstrous Physique 1-3...
I really think that the different classes have different goals using this spell.
Lots of natural attacks work well if you are STR based.
If you have Two-Weapon Fighting that will help with multiple weapon attacks.
Dex based and non-combatants will gravitate to the smaller forms, though reach is a powerful draw.
Don't underestimate ferocity(Charda, Shobhad), it make keep you up.
Sor/Wiz should not engage in combat, but poison use on a projectile isn't unheard of(just take antitoxin or someone cast Delay Poison first), or using doppleganger to double as a wand wielding cleric, or acting as a mount, or leaving webs about...

For combat;
5Cmbt/Fly: Popobala(med) is good at Mon Phy 1&2.
5Cmbt/Aquatic: Charda(sm) works well at all levels.
6Cmbt: Calikang(lg) is an option at Mon Phy 2&3.
5Cmbt/Fly: Four-Armed Gargoyle(lg) is an option at Mon Phy 2.
2Cmbt: Minotaur Elder(lg) is situational, Mon Phy 2.
3Cmbt/Mount: Centaur(lg) is situational, Mon Phy 2.
2Cmbt/Wpn&ArmrProf/MagicItemUse: Doppleganger(med) is situational, Mon Phy 2.
4Cmbt: Girtablilu(lg) is an option at Mon Phy 3 (poison).
3Cmbt/Web: Jorogumo(med) is an option at Mon Phy 3 (poison!) and web lets you know if anything touches your web(no range).
2Cmbt Medusa(med) is a situational option, Mon Phy 3 (poison).
2Cmbt/Fly Thriae Queen(hg) is an option, Mon Phy 3 (poison!).

{edit - removed Arach}

[StreamOfTheSky]

Calikang. 6 attacks and only needs MP2!

[Azothath]

StreamOfTheSky wrote:

Calikang. 6 attacks and only needs MP2!

Mon Phy 2 or 4... depending on what you're doing with it...

[soupturtle]

There's a great guide to all polymorph spells, including monstrous physique, here.

But in terms of monstrous physique, the headline is basically the four-armed gargoyle, at least for combat usefulness. That's already available at MP2 though. MP4 just doesn't add that much.

Also, I wouldn't agree that the polymorph spells are almost useless. They're not universally useful, but with the right martial/caster combination (which is now easier than ever with spell-like abilities qualifying you for eldritch knight at level 3) you can make a hard to beat natural attack monster.

[Azothath]

soupturtle wrote:

There's a great guide to all polymorph spells, including monstrous physique, here.

...

thanks - a useful listing for polymorphs.