Shapechanging without alternate forms? Flying mounts?

[Pragmatic]

Watching my wife play WoW, I'm struck how the "mount collection" (every mount earned can be summoned) could possibly be treated as a shapeshift, instead of a variety of individual (and mutually exclusive) summons.

Given that I'm thinking of having a half-dozen alternate forms (e.g., riding horse, war horse, winged horse), is there a way to have a shapeshifting mount "on the cheap"?

Other question, I saw mounts in the Caverntown PDF (I think...), with encumbered speeds. Has anyone come up with calculations or rules of thumb for flying mounts?

[Railstar]

Take the most expensive alternate form normally, then the others as Alternate Abilities (which I think is 1/5 cost).

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by Railstar

Take the most expensive alternate form normally, then the others as Alternate Abilities (which I think is 1/5 cost).

I was thinking buying in bulk. Like adding Cosmic, for instance.

Or maybe a "slot," but with the Wild Skill-type property. (Don't have my books in front of me.)

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Railstar

Take the most expensive alternate form normally, then the others as Alternate Abilities (which I think is 1/5 cost).

The price for Alternate Form already includes a discount that prohibits using additional forms as AA of each other.
Once you get past 7 Alternate Forms (depending on modifiers) its cheaper to go with Morph.

[Flyndaran]

It could be one form: horse, but with Wings: Switchable for the winged versus ground forms, for just one example. Riding versus war variety could be more an appearance or Elastic Skin if it could ever matter. Otherwise, it sounds like just flavor imagery.
It's not like moderate hidden strength for a human PC often comes up in most games. So a skinny riding horse that still has its war horse strength/temperament probably wouldn't cause problems.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Other question, I saw mounts in the Caverntown PDF (I think...), with encumbered speeds. Has anyone come up with calculations or rules of thumb for flying mounts?

Mounts that have Cannot Hover on their flight usually can not fly at Heavy encumbrance, because their minimum Flight speed is 1/2 Basic Move and their maximum ground speed is less than 0.4 * Basic Move.

Other than that, flying mounts are like any other mount in terms of encumbered speed. Though since a lot of flying mounts will also have Enhanced Move (Flight) 1+ and high Basic Moves, they get penalized by encumbrance fairly hard: a Basic Move 10, Winged Flight, Enhanced Move (Flight) 1.5 pegasus in my game has an unencumbered flight Move of 60, but drops to 48 at light encumbrance. Still fast, but that's a 24 mph difference just for adding a rider.