Beasts of Malar (Monsters of Faerun) are magical beasts with the shapechanger subtype, who have the following ability:
Shapeshifting (Su): Shifting between forms is a full-round action for the Beast of Malar; the shift becomes complete at the start of its subsequent action. Every time the beast shifts shape, it can heal up to its normal daily resting rate of damage, 9 points. Note that this allows the beast to heal even lethal damage that it cannot normally regenerate. Beasts of Malar frequently fail to take full advantage of this fact by fighting to the death instead of running off to recover and then attack again.
The forms available are all medium-sized, and are panther, bat, and "clawed slayer" (a VERY muscular wolverine-like form).
Supernatural abilities are magical, detect as magical, and go away in an antimagic field (though they can't be dispelled). The problem with the Beast of Malar is that it has no "base" form to "revert" to if it enters an antimagic field. Does this then imply that being in any given form is not magical in nature, but the actual shifting of forms is? IE - A beast of malar that enters an antimagic field will remain in the form it was when it entered, but cannot change form so long as it remains in the antimagic field.
Related to this question is how a beast of malar registers to detect magic and the like. If the creature is inherently "magical" because it is effectively always under the effect of a supernatural ability, then it will always be detected by detect magic. If, however, the supernatural ability only functions as magical during a change in form (thus meshing with my previous interpretation that an AMF would only prevent further changes), then the beast of malar would only detect as magical when it is actually changing form.
So, is that interpretation correct? Only detects as magical when shifting, and AMF would only prevent further changes?
