Alternate Form versus Growth [Powers/Supers]

[AlexanderHowl]

If you were going to make a character that could turn into a SM+4 giant, which would you prefer, Alternate Form (SM+4 Giant) or Growth 4? I would personally prefer Alternate Form (SM+4 Giant) because of its flexibility, but I am curious about other people's preferences and their reasons for their preference.

[Refplace]

Just depends what I am going for. Growth is faster and unless you take limitations you can have intervening stages. Also you might take streatching limb only as an alternative ability.

[AlexanderHowl]

If you are talking about alternative abilities, you could have some taking Growth and/or Stretching as alternative abilities of Alternative Form. After all, Alternative Form (Giant [350]) [330] would allow for some massive abilities.

[Plane]

One major benefit of B58 is the transition where you automatically destroy any wall/ceiling with DR less than your maximum thrust damage. HP or injury tolerance apparently don't even matter. That's actually super amazing, I can't even think how to design an innate attack like that.

Sure it takes "one second per point of DR" which presumably could slow down the "one second per SM" rate, but that's still VERY powerful.

Alternate Form (high SM giant) presumably lacks this benefit, so you're going to have some problems changing into a giant from a tiny room, maybe with the walls crushing you instead?

Originally Posted by Refplace

Growth is faster and unless you take limitations you can have intervening stages.

It's possible to take Reduced Time for Shapeshifting to cut that down. I'm not entirely sure how that would work with Growth though.

Powers also suggested with it and Shrinking that talent could add to SM changed per second, which would make it further competetive (take Reliable if lacking Talent)

I don't know of a 'no intervening stages' limit for Growth being defined distinctly, rather it's folded into the 0% "Maximum Size" where in exchange for that limit you get the "1 second to transform regardless" enhancement".

Given that Alternate Form (SM+?) is fixed to max size too, that's probably the form of Growth worth comparing to.

Basically how much does it cost us to have a 1-second Alternate Form.

10>5>3>2>1>0 is 5 steps, a +100% reduced Time enhancement atop the base cost of 15 raising it to 30 points, the same value of Growth 3.

Ergo: Alternate Form is a better option for instantly changing to SM4+....

Except you lack the ability to annihilate walls/ceilings which I think is super useful so long as you buy enough Striking ST to get max thrust dmg exceeding most DRs. Ignoring injury tolerance and high HP and regeneration and hardened DR is really really cool.

[Aldric]

I think it would depend on what I was going for:
Ant-man uses growth (and shrinking), the Hulk has an alternate form. If you still look like yourself, only larger, growth makes more sense, whatever the point cost may end up, alternate form is for when you want to become something else.

And regarding the ability to break through walls, I think it's worth noting that, barring some very strange buildings, you could already break through by punching the wall, eventually.
But I would probably change it

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Aldric

I think it would depend on what I was going for:
Ant-man uses growth (and shrinking), the Hulk has an alternate form. If you still look like yourself, only larger, growth makes more sense, whatever the point cost may end up, alternate form is for when you want to become something else.

Accurate>Basic>Cheap. If they grow, take Growth. If they change to a different form, take Alternate Form.

[Plane]

Another thing which comes to mind is that you could use Extra Effort to get more levels of Shrink/Grow, but I don't think you can use EE to change what Alternate Form goes too.

One solution here might be to go back to the way 3e priced Alternate Form, where there was a base price of new advantages with disadvantages used to limit it (similar to Temporary Disadvantages in 4e) so that there was always a positive cost.

Then for 0-point stuff like SM we'd just have to look at the 'under the hood' to find the underlying ups and downs (kinda like http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=128 but it should somehow total zero instead of 26-49=-23 like Bruno calculated)

I thought I remembered seeing a different math approach before but can't find it.

Originally Posted by Aldric

I think it's worth noting that, barring some very strange buildings, you could already break through by punching the wall, eventually.
But I would probably change it

Even though wood DR is ablative against crushing, it retains minimum DR 1 so you can in theory punch through it eventually with a ST of 2 (1d-5) though it might take awhile with normal punches unless you're damage-maxing via AOA:strong + Springing Attack.

It's the strange buildings thing that appeals to me, those buildings enchanted with double HP via one of those Magic spells are just as easy to burst, afflicting ITDR on walls won't help them resist the grower, etc.

[Aldric]

Originally Posted by Plane

It's the strange buildings thing that appeals to me, those buildings enchanted with double HP via one of those Magic spells are just as easy to burst, afflicting ITDR on walls won't help them resist the grower, etc.

On the other hand a DRx ablative force field would prevent growth if max thrust was lower than x, even if a few punches could easily take it down