Questions to understand the costs of Shapeshifting - Alternate Form

[Bruno]

Racial templates are very important to Shapeshifting, so it's relevant here: The GM designs and approves all racial templates in the game.

This means you can ask the GM to have your character turn into a human-smart crow, and if the GM likes the idea he can make a version of the crow template that's human-smart. It will cost more, because IQ 10 costs more, but you get what you pay for. This doesn't have to be "all crows in my gameworld are as smart as humans" (although that's certainly a thing that the GM could do) - this can be a custom shape for were-crows, or only for wizards who turn into crows, or only for your character (who gets to be a unique and special snowflake).

It's, by default, only the GM who gets to design racial templates - but like in all things that are "the GMs job" the GM can pass out responsibilities. This includes getting you to design your own special crow if he has other things to do. He can also then throw out your design or change it, if he doesn't like it.

This extends back to "normal" racial templates - the GM doesn't have to accept your request to play a special kind of elf that's native to caves and gets Dark Vision, but he's not required to reject it either.

[Hide]

For the record, what happens if a racial template has a negative score?
I am working with a racial template.

I mean, let's imagine that a racial template has ST0, and I currently have ST11
That is going to yield points to my PC.

What do I do? And what happens, mechanically speaking?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Hide

For the record, what happens if a racial template has a negative score?
I am working with a racial template.

I mean, let's imagine that a racial template has ST0, and I currently have ST11
That is going to yield points to my PC.

What do I do? And what happens, mechanically speaking?

There's a minimum cost.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Hide

For the record, what happens if a racial template has a negative score?
I am working with a racial template.

I mean, let's imagine that a racial template has ST0, and I currently have ST11
That is going to yield points to my PC.

What do I do? And what happens, mechanically speaking?

"...it costs 15 points for a racial template worth no more than your native racial template."

So whether the racial template you are turning into costs the same as your native template, cost -60 less, or cost -200 less it doesn't matter, it costs a flat 15 points to turn into that form. The "difference in point cost" only comes into effect if the form you can turn into costs more than your native template.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

"...it costs 15 points for a racial template worth no more than your native racial template."

So whether the racial template you are turning into costs the same as your native template, cost -60 less, or cost -200 less it doesn't matter, it costs a flat 15 points to turn into that form. The "difference in point cost" only comes into effect if the form you can turn into costs more than your native template.

I see, I got it! Thanks a lot.