Phooka: Pricing for Morph modifiers and multiple disadvantages with mitigator

[Cowrie]

I'm working on a race of phooka that have the Morph advantage as part of their template. However, I want it to be that they retain certain traits from their native template no matter what form they take, namely a Revulsion and Vulnerability to iron, Magery 0, and Trickster (15), and they always remove certain traits from animal templates, namely the IQ penalty, Bestial, Hidebound and Cannot Speak. Even the latter part of this is beyond the abilities of unmodified Morph, since Cannot Speak is a physical disadvantage, let alone the former part. However, this isn't Improvised forms either, since the phooka are very limited in the changes they can make. How would you price this as a modifier? Or does it all balance out into a no-cost feature of their shapeshifting?

Additionally, a phooka retains certain physical features of their natural form in any shape. However, which features vary outside of the phooka's control. Depending on the shape and the traits retained, this may be a dead giveaway, something wrong but easy enough to overlook, or within the realms of normal for the species. If they retain their horns when shifted into a dog, while the horns wouldn't be combat-useful like in their true form, it would be obviously wrong. On the other hand, if their black fur and golden eyes were left over, that would take a fairly close look at the eyes of a horse-shaped phooka to be noticed and would be completely reasonable coloration for a cat if the phooka were in a feline form. This probably shouldn't count as the Flawed limitation as-written, but it should be a limitation. Would it be equal in value to Flawed, or only worth -5%?

Finally, going back to some of the traits they keep in every form, The Revulsion and Vulnerability of this race both have a mitigator requiring daily use, a sort of potion. However, both disadvantages depend on the same potion, and only one daily dose is required to mitigate both of them. Should this affect the value of the limitation?

[ericthered]

You can have racial traits that are not added to the morph pool. That solves 90% of your problem.



Being able to speak regardless of your morph sounds like a feature to me: its only worth point in the sense that it effects the templates.


Those parts I think you're just overthinking.



The trait for a "give-away" feature is either supernatural features (if it ruins a disguise that is pretty necessary for day to day life) or unnatural features. Each level gives a +1 to identify. You can attach this permanently to the creatures or require it only on their forms.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Cowrie

I want it to be that they retain certain traits from their native template no matter what form they take, namely a Revulsion and Vulnerability to iron, Magery 0, and Trickster (15),

This is simple - just take the cost of these traits off the phooka's racial template for purposes of calculating what they can turn into, effectively treating them as personal traits. Personal traits always transfer over when you change shape with Morph, so they'll affect all forms.

Originally Posted by Cowrie

and they always remove certain traits from animal templates, namely the IQ penalty, Bestial, Hidebound and Cannot Speak. Even the latter part of this is beyond the abilities of unmodified Morph, since Cannot Speak is a physical disadvantage, let alone the former part. However, this isn't Improvised forms either, since the phooka are very limited in the changes they can make. How would you price this as a modifier? Or does it all balance out into a no-cost feature of their shapeshifting?

Remember that the racial templates you can shapeshift into are always at the discretion of the GM. If you want to allow the phookas to turn into animals, but without all those disadvantages, simply create racial templates for the animals that lack them. As long as the phookas have enough points in their Morph pool that their own racial template is still worth more than that of the animal template without the disadvantages, they can turn into them.

Alternatively, if you do want a modifier, I think a "Retains Mentality" modifier for Morph would be appropriate, at +200%. That would allow the character to always keep their own IQ, and never pick up traits like Bestial, Hidebound, Fixed IQ, and other racial template traits that affected their mind, no matter what template they assume. I think that's fair, because it effectively raises the cost of Morph by 200 points, which is what you'd need to remove -10 IQ from a template anyway. Most templates won't have that much IQ penalty, of course, but since it still needs to cover other disads like Bestial and such, I think it's fair.

Originally Posted by Cowrie

Additionally, a phooka retains certain physical features of their natural form in any shape. However, which features vary outside of the phooka's control. Depending on the shape and the traits retained, this may be a dead giveaway, something wrong but easy enough to overlook, or within the realms of normal for the species. [snip] This probably shouldn't count as the Flawed limitation as-written, but it should be a limitation. Would it be equal in value to Flawed, or only worth -5%?

It's definitely cheaper than Flawed, since Flawed affects all your forms. This basically sounds like a randomly-applied Flawed. If it affects about 50% of transformations, yeah, I'd call it -5%. Adjust the value up or down depending on what percentage of transformations apply.

Originally Posted by Cowrie

Finally, going back to some of the traits they keep in every form, The Revulsion and Vulnerability of this race both have a mitigator requiring daily use, a sort of potion. However, both disadvantages depend on the same potion, and only one daily dose is required to mitigate both of them. Should this affect the value of the limitation?

I think requiring the same or different substances for a Mitigator is basically a wash. The same substance is more convenient, but also more subject to getting lost or stolen, and it's easier for someone searching for your weaknesses to get all of it at once.

[Cowrie]

Originally Posted by ericthered

You can have racial traits that are not added to the morph pool. That solves 90% of your problem.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

This is simple - just take the cost of these traits off the phooka's racial template for purposes of calculating what they can turn into, effectively treating them as personal traits. Personal traits always transfer over when you change shape with Morph, so they'll affect all forms.

This makes perfect sense. I'll do that.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Being able to speak regardless of your morph sounds like a feature to me: its only worth point in the sense that it effects the templates.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Remember that the racial templates you can shapeshift into are always at the discretion of the GM. If you want to allow the phookas to turn into animals, but without all those disadvantages, simply create racial templates for the animals that lack them. As long as the phookas have enough points in their Morph pool that their own racial template is still worth more than that of the animal template without the disadvantages, they can turn into them.

This is probably fair.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Alternatively, if you do want a modifier, I think a "Retains Mentality" modifier for Morph would be appropriate, at +200%. That would allow the character to always keep their own IQ, and never pick up traits like Bestial, Hidebound, Fixed IQ, and other racial template traits that affected their mind, no matter what template they assume. I think that's fair, because it effectively raises the cost of Morph by 200 points, which is what you'd need to remove -10 IQ from a template anyway. Most templates won't have that much IQ penalty, of course, but since it still needs to cover other disads like Bestial and such, I think it's fair.

This is massively overpriced, because RAW, unmodified Morph already allows racial IQ modifiers to be dropped and mental disadvantages to be omitted. The only one of the disadvantages necessary to be removed not covered by that is Cannot Speak.

Originally Posted by ericthered

The trait for a "give-away" feature is either supernatural features (if it ruins a disguise that is pretty necessary for day to day life) or unnatural features. Each level gives a +1 to identify. You can attach this permanently to the creatures or require it only on their forms.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

It's definitely cheaper than Flawed, since Flawed affects all your forms. This basically sounds like a randomly-applied Flawed. If it affects about 50% of transformations, yeah, I'd call it -5%. Adjust the value up or down depending on what percentage of transformations apply.

I don't think supernatural features qualifies, since some of the features that can appear are glaringly obvious at even a casual glance, like the horns on a dog in my example.

Regarding pricing the modifier bases on how often it affects transformations, technically, there are remaining features every time. It's just whether the features are an instant giveaway, a potential giveaway or within normal realms for that form that varies. Also, I should note that if a form is memorized, the flaw for that form sort of stabilizes, and will be the same every time thereafter unless that form gets replaced. In any case, I feel like the majority of form flaws fall in the category of stuff where either you need to look closely to notice or a relatively obvious feature that's easy to hide. That makes up, on average, about 60% of form flaws. Blatantly obvious flaws, which I believe are closest to what's intended by the Flawed modifier, given the text says it completely precludes impersonation, make up maybe 30% of form flaws. Only about 10% of forms can fully pass for normal. So, I'm leaning towards -6% as a value, counting the amount of time it's obvious fully and halving the amount of time it takes a closer look.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

I think requiring the same or different substances for a Mitigator is basically a wash. The same substance is more convenient, but also more subject to getting lost or stolen, and it's easier for someone searching for your weaknesses to get all of it at once.

Yeah, thinking about it that way, it probably is a wash.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Cowrie

This is massively overpriced, because RAW, unmodified Morph already allows racial IQ modifiers to be dropped and mental disadvantages to be omitted. The only one of the disadvantages necessary to be removed not covered by that is Cannot Speak.

The difference here, however, is that while Morph does allow you to drop racial IQ modifiers, those still increase the cost of the template. So if the racial template you're transforming into, without its IQ modifier, Bestial, etc. would be more expensive than your Morph pool + own racial template, you couldn't transform into it. This enhancement is effectively a way to sidestep the process of figuring out the exact cost of a racial template without the mental disadvantages.

Originally Posted by Cowrie

So, I'm leaning towards -6% as a value, counting the amount of time it's obvious fully and halving the amount of time it takes a closer look.

Seems reasonable. On Morph, an extra -1% is even worth it, since it will save at least 1 point. On anything cheaper, though, I'd just round to -5%. :)

[Pursuivant]

Isn't there a limitation to Shapeshifting if you retain a specific feature in all your forms?

If it doesn't exist I'd count it as a -5% or -10% limitation myself.