I'm playing a vivisectionist and starting to think about all the wondrous Monstrous Physique possibilities. Okay, so there appear to only be about a couple dozen or so monstrous humanoids from which to choose for all four levels of the spell. My character, however, is much more interested in turning into monstrous humanoids than beasts or undead. Despite the limited number of creatures, there do seem to be some great options, but I have some questions and thoughts. How have you used the spell? Any thoughts other than "get beast form instead"? I couldn't find much on the message boards.
1) Monstrous humanoids do not appear to fall into the category of creature types for which polymorph spells transform armor and gear. That's a a big advantage, since you can keep your weapons, gear, and armor. Throw in a few extra secondary attacks and it's pretty powerful. Is this the case? Does UM or an errata change this? If so, I can't seem to find it.
Polymorph, however, also explicitly calls for GM discretion. How have you played this? Personally, I think it makes sense for a centaur to get weapons and armor, but not a gargoyle. I'm thinking that a nice simple house rule would be to keep the gear if the monstrous humanoid type uses weapons and to lose it if they don't.
Do you use polymorph discretion with Alter Self?
2) The doppelganger looks fun and useful. With Monstrous Physique II, you, or any of your allies with infusion, can use any weapon, spell completion device, or spell trigger device (mimicry). Anyone use this with siege weapons or anything else interesting? Any blunderbuss-wielding halfling sorcerers out there?
3) Monstrous Physique III and IV have some really great abilities. These don't, however, appear to scale very well, since there are not really creatures to go with the abilities. MP II already gives you fly plus 6 attacks (four-armed gargoyle), mimicry, and the all important speak with sharks. Anything fun or great that I'm missing? Blindsense I guess. By Monstrous Physique IV, I'll probably rather turn into a troll (Giant Form I) anyway.
4) Do you use templates to make the spell more versatile at later levels? If so, which ones? Increasing the size seems like a good way to get some use out of Monstrous Physique III particularly for a grapple build. I'm not so interested in cheese, like a young template to get 6 natural attacks with Monstrous Physique I.
Thanks for any comments, answers, or clarifications.