elements of Morph

[whswhs]

I've been looking at the structure of Morph for some time, with an eye to how it can be analyzed as made up of different components. The base cost is 100 points; how many points are different features worth?

The Basic Set says that Cosmetic is -50%. That says that for 50 points, you can change your outward appearance, but not your abilities or racial template. This seems to say that you can't acquire most traits that cost points, though you can explicitly improve change appearance if you have the points to cover better than usual appearance.

This seems to imply that the other 50 points pay for the ability to buy traits that cost points.

For smaller costs, Flawed, -10%, in GURPS Powers, makes you unable to impersonate a specific being; you always have some problem or inaccuracy. That suggests that the ability to look like a specific individual costs 10 points. This seems to fall into the cosmetic side.

Mass Conservation, -20%, makes you unable to change weight/mass. You cannot exactly imitate an individual with different weight (but presumably you could still impersonate someone with roughly the same weight, as otherwise this would be part of not being flawed, raising its cost). For 20 points, you can change weight. Weight and SM have no point cost in themselves, so this seems to fall on the cosmetic side.

Retains Shape, -20%, makes you unable to change body plan; if you're a quadruped, you can't become a humanoid or a cancroid, for example. The ability to change body plan seems to cost 20 points. Since body plans are meta-traits with point values, this falls on the non-cosmetic side.

At this point, there are 20 unspent points on the cosmetic side, and 30 on the non-cosmetic side. I'm going to say that the 30 points pay for being able to take on the parts of a racial template that cost points, other than body plan: senses, attacks, and so on. The 20 points seem to pay for the ability to imitate someone's appearance imperfectly, or perhaps to imitate the appearance of a race—for example, maybe you can make yourself look like an elf, but it's yourself-as-an-elf, not the specific elf you're modeling yourself on.

To sum up:

Cosmetic: look liike you belong to a race with your own body plan and approximate size, 20; change mass, 20; look like a specific individual, 10

Non-cosmetic: change body plan, 20; imitate other racial traits, 30

Does that make sense? Are there any other limitations that ought to be figured into this?

[Hide]

What about "Morph with unlimited" and "Morph with improvised forms"? (These are not limitations, I know).

Do you think it is worth considering "projected form"? (Altough it is for "alternate form").

- Hide

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Hide

What about "Morph with unlimited" and "Morph with improvised forms"? (These are not limitations, I know).

Do you think it is worth considering "projected form"? (Altough it is for "alternate form").

I think those are obvious, because they aren't residual elements left behind after subtracting other elements; they're additions. You can just give them the appropriate cost; for example, Unlimited costs 50 points. So I didn't feel puzzled by them.

[Flyndaran]

Morph does include a set number of memorized forms equal to your IQ.
I wouldn't call that much of a limitation though, but it is something.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Morph does include a set number of memorized forms equal to your IQ.
I wouldn't call that much of a limitation though, but it is something.

To me it seems like a significant limitation for adventurers. I've read the Animorphs series and while the characters have some favorite morphs that they often fall back on, most missions involve having to acquire a new morph at some point. They'd have a harder time if they could only retain 10-12 morphs at a time. For one thing, in an emergency those forgotten morphs wouldn't be available. And would they get to choose which to forget when they learn a new one?

It might depend on what you're using Morph for, I guess. The Animorphs are fighting a guerilla war against body-snatching aliens and there're only 6 of them, and they have to do everything like secret spies. So darn-near every situation requires a new morph to fit into wherever they're infiltrating, except when they're willing to travel slowly as houseflies.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Morph does include a set number of memorized forms equal to your IQ.
I wouldn't call that much of a limitation though, but it is something.

Oh I did not recall that, is that on the basic book? What if I want to go beyond it?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Hide

Oh I did not recall that, is that on the basic book? What if I want to go beyond it?

I think it's called Improvised Forms.

[Refplace]

Interesting process. The main thing I have considered with Morph is the comparison to Alternate Form. Basically after 6 or 7 forms its usually cheaper to use Morph. Though that numbers does change based on pool size and limitations.

[whswhs]

An interesting further comparison is that Elastic Skin, for 20 points, gives you the ability to change certain aspects of your appearance, but not your mass or any traits that cost points, and you don't get automatic success at looking like someone else. Instead you get +4 to Disguise. This seems fairly comparable to the residual element in Cosmetic Morph; perhaps it would be fair to allow Morph with Flawed to give a bonus to Disguise, taking you most of the way there, but not letting you actually disguise yourself without a skill roll. Even if not, there are two 20-point traits that are roughly similar.

[transmetahuman]

Clairosmia - 20 points out of 50.
Clairaudience - 35
Clairvoyance - 45
Add clairaudience and clairosmia to clairvoyance - +5 pts
It's a mistake to assume that limitations are priced in a way that the utility that's lost would be worth that amount as a standalone advantage. Warp is a good example as well.