Shapeshifting (Cats)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

How do actual GMs deal with small animal shifting like that?

The swarm rules. There's not much point in turning into one ant.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The swarm rules. There's not much point in turning into one ant.

There is if you need to be that small.

As for cats having a high Per, I sort of wondered if it was at least partially for the pun.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

There is if you need to be that small.

Sorry, I am not following. A swarm of ants is composed of hundreds of individual ants, each of which is that small.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Sorry, I am not following. A swarm of ants is composed of hundreds of individual ants, each of which is that small.

Yes, but the swarm as a whole can be quite large. If you need to get somewhere through a small crack or similar (and don't have other options, like Body of Air or Teleport), do you want to go as one ant, or a whole bunch of ants, when you're just going to turn into something else when you get there?

I was thinking of niche applications.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Yes, but the swarm as a whole can be quite large. If you need to get somewhere through a small crack or similar (and don't have other options, like Body of Air or Teleport), do you want to go as one ant, or a whole bunch of ants, when you're just going to turn into something else when you get there?

I was thinking of niche applications.

If you want to bother learn a spell for a niche application then having effective ST 0 and less than one HP seems to be an acceptable loss.

Or you can shift into a swarm, have a more versatile spell, and still fit through the crack

As a GM, I wouldn't allow the former, because it is unlikely to be much fun. You could learn a lot of other spells that would let you infiltrate cracks, each of which is going to be easier for the system to handle and more versatile for you.

[JoelSammallahti]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Shifting into a T Rex with two fewer or more points of strength is inconsequential. But shifting into an ant with negative two Strength is an issue, I think.
How do actual GMs deal with small animal shifting like that?

I've had a couple of shapeshifting wizards in my fantasy campaign. (Different magic system, but it's still shapeshifting.) My ruling was that as long as final modified ST is 5 or more, you just add. If this would produce ST 4 or less, you treat the racial ST penalty as -10% per level, round nearest, max 5. Do the same with HP, if that's different.

It is a bit of a hassle, but in practice I think I had to actually concern myself with it no more than three times over the whole campaign. Players turning into small, weak animals didn't really do a lot of attacking or lifting, so usually ST was irrelevant.