Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Why doesn't the Transmogrification spell in RPM include any Altered Traits for the changes needed to turn a person into something else?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Because most animal templates are 0 or less. For spells that add traits above your racial template then you need to add Altered Traits. See Sylph Form (same page) for a RAW example of that.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Hmmm... I ported this over from the Evolve thread, I'll have to look into a lot of my other spells now. Unless it was adding something majorly super human (which would use Energy or Matter), I assumed as per above.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Put another way, transforming a stone statue into a living breathing version of itself requires a Greater Transform Matter + Greater Transform Body + Greater Create Mind (and that's RAW), but requires no Altered Traits. You almost never use Altered Traits unless it's adding a ability that's under the control of the subject, not the caster. In this case, the subject cannot change shapes back and forth, therefore you don't need Altered Traits.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Right, that's how I understood it. But using the very awesomeAnimalia as a resource, would a Cheetahneed to pay extra as it is 37pts over? What about something with even more change involved,like a Sandtiger Shark?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

That's going to be up to the GM, but really, I wouldn't bother with it in most instances. If you're going to do that kind of point accounting don't forget to add Social Stigma, lack of Wealth, etc. that normally comes with being a animal. Let's face it, being stuck as a animal is going to suck for most people. You're going to end up in a zoo which is effectively prison or killed if you are turned into a really dangerous animal.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

That brings me to my next question: in uplifting an animal with Greater Transform Mind, would the same apply? Not changing the body at all, just giving my Dog human-like intelligence while keeping his paws and such - even keeping his lack of speech - would I need to buy off all of the negative mental animal traits AND raise his IQ, or would (as I understood it) Greater Transform Mind do it?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Right, or Verdant Growth or Wallwalker. But in the section on costs, it notes that adding disadvantages is 1 energy per -5 points of point value. So I would expect that turning someone into an animal that has a -71 point template, would add 15 energy, as Altered Traits:Weasel Template or whatever.
In that case, why are there rules for Altered Traits adding disadvantages at all?
The templates in Animalia have most of those included via the Wild Animal and Domestic Animal metatraits. And yes, it sucks a lot to be turned into most kinds of animals; that's why turning someone into a frog is a classic curse, and a powerful one. It seems odd to me that it costs the same amount of energy as turning someone into say, a dog, which sucks but allows considerably to be accomplished while you are one.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

And the reverse, please: Would adding Greater Transform Mind to Transmogrify turn a man into a Dog with without pricing all of the effects separately?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Right, you're going to pay extra energy to turn someone into a negative point template, I see where you are going. Honestly, it's the same reason you don't get back points for having a negative point template with the Alternate Form advantage, that is it's worth less than the baseline (human) template at 0 points. It's glossed over because it would be more hassle than it's worth. If you want to say "I want all things to cost points" in your RPM game, cool! Awesome! Spectacular! That's a way to do it. You're the GM and your word is final, but for RAW, we have a example and that's usually what it is. :-)

Put another way, you would be charging the caster more effort/energy that you would if you did it by RAW. Turning someone into a frog via powers is just Affliction + Alternate Form. Which is what Transmogrification simulates. FWIW that is one of the spells I submitted and it was changed from submission to final draft by PK himself.

So you can curse someone with the loss of a limb, or terrible luck, and so on.

Luke is fantastic, he really is. But I have to strip out a lot of stuff when I use Animalia because he goes (in my opinion) to deep into trying to simulate the animals. There is nothing wrong with this! But when creating things for a game you got to brush over some aspects for it or you're going to go crazy. In my experience at least.

No, you'd actually need to add Altered Traits, Increased IQ for that. Now, turning a man into a dog fully, where he thinks he's a dog probably wouldn't cost anything extra if you use the full stock template. Except a Greater effect of course. You could rule otherwise if you wish. Again, this all goes back to how you do it with Powers (see above).

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Okay, I thought you'd need to add Altered Traits (IQ+X),and agreed to that in the other thread, but to be clear: Turning a man into a dog (or a sheep into a fox!) Adding Greater Transform Mind to Transmogrify would work?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Yes. Magical "uplifts" would require a Greater Create Mind effect with Altered Traits of IQ+X. Making a man a dog or a sheep into a fox in body and mind would be Greater Transform Body + Lesser Transform Mind.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Nope. The point of a Transform turning a person into, let's say, an animal is that it turns them into a baseline version of that animal. They get whatever the stats for that animal are. You'd only need to use Altered Traits if you wanted to add additional advantages, disadvantages, or attribute modifiers to that template (e.g., a "winged cheetah" would need another 30 points worth of Altered Traits, unless winged cheetahs were something that already existed in your game).

For spells that cause blindness, hemophilia, etc.

Presumably, the "frog" spell is a straightforward curse, while the "dog" spell is the kind of thing you might cast on yourself or an ally in some situations, a foe in other situations. But they're still doing the same basic thing -- "turning the subject into this specific animal" -- so they have the same energy cost and difficulty.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

OK, I understand that; it's based on Alternate Form, but there's no 15 point cost because turning back isn't under the victim's control. A spell that allowed someone to turn back and forth from frog to human for the duration would have an additional 45 point cost (15*3 for there being a Greater Effect).



Sure, but the exact value of the template was irrelevant; if I'd had a point cost for a frog template handy I'd have used that. Since there's a bit in Harry Potter where an annoying student gets turned into a weasel as punishment, I used that one.



You'd need to add a Transform Mind effect too, right?
Why is it Create rather than Transform of Strengthen? There's already a mind there, you're just upgrading it.


To take it back to the effect that started the discussion, from the evolve spell thread, I read from this:
that to take a random animal and make them into a sapient humanoid animal you'd need:
Although the Altered Traits might be simplified to No Animal Metatrait (30), No Quadruped Metatrait(35) for a total cost of 1155(231*5)?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

What if you dont want a baseline dog, you want say a DF (is it 5?) Hound?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

AFAICT that's still basic Transmogrification as long as big hounds like that are a thing in your world. If they aren't, I think you'd add energy equal to the difference in point value between one of them and the biggest, meanest dog that is a thing in that world.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Yes. You'd give "Altered Traits, Alternate Form (Frog)," but there is usually no reason to do that unless the caster isn't going to be around. A great fictional example of this sort of spellcasting is from Kim Harrison's Hollows series. In it, the protagonist makes a potion to turn herself her pixie companion into a "human-sized" pixie. Said pixie essentially becomes a human for the duration and has no control over his size for it. It lasts as long as the protagonist wants it too or it's duration (a week I think).


You could've...but again, that's dull point accounting with no real returns. I'm all for checking the numbers...if there is a) a good reason and b) something will be gained in the end. This is, in my opinion and experience, not one of those times. YMMV of course.


I've always read it as being the needed effect to upgrade a mind from sentience to sapience. Strengthen is more about reinforcement of the mind, though I suppose you could argue for a increase in IQ up to 6 for sentient minds. That said, I'm sure you could use Create, Transform, or Strengthen - I'd just use Create as a GM.


Again, bean-counting for a standard "magical spell" - you're free to do it that way...but my players would revolt and I probably would as well.

This, Kalzazz.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

So how would you do a spell like that?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Well, if you're turning someone into a baseline template of whatever animal...as Transmogrification. If you're turning them into something with Human-like IQ (like Fin Raziel from Willow) I'd use a Greater Transform Mind effect. If you can make a man think he is a hawk, then you can allow the mind of a human being to remain as it is even if the body shifts. Actually uplifting is a straight on application of Altered Traits to remove whatever undesirable traits you want. So if you want to give a Dog a human like intellect add IQ till he gets to 10 and go from there. I hope that helps.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

I'm not sure I see how this is different from the spell I posted above, which uses altered traits to get rid of things like Quadruped and Wild Animal mentality, plus a boost in IQ, to uplift a randomly chosen animal into a humanoid TMNT-style creature, and you described as too complicated...

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

I'm not saying it is. I thought the question was "Why not use Altered Traits to apply the animal's template" the answer is that's more expensive than it should be. If your question is "How do I uplift a animal to be more human-like" then the answer is "Apply Altered Traits." As long as you are using the baseline template you're good to go, you don't need Altered Traits. Step away from that and you need to price it out.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

That's what I thought, and was clarifying that point. The confusion in the original thread arose from the use of Transmogrification as a template for an uplift spell, and I thought the uplift spell needed to be more complicated/expensive, and also didn't understand the Transmogrification spell's pricing (which this thread has clarified). So the upshot is that you would indeed need Altered Traits for an uplift spell, and could get a cheaper spell by doing less uplift (e.g. not buying off Bestial would get you a final discount of 50 energy).

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Yep. You got it. Also, as a odd aside: you could also enhance a animal's pedigree with a Lesser Transform Body effect. So turning a mutt into a pure-bred Chow-Chow (as long as he had some Chow in him) would be a Lesser Transform Body effect.


BTW, I love your Gunther Hoodie on your Etsy page. I'm a huge Adventure Time fan and I also dig penguins (one of my favorite animals). Nice work on it. :-)

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

You'd have a heck of a time convincing the AKC of that, though.
It's my partner's design, actually, but thank you. We also have a stuffed Gunther and a Gunther/Ice King scarf. :)

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Yes. Yes, you would.

Well he, she, or whomever - has awesome design instincts. Kudos to them.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Related to the previous one, if you want to, say, turn a cat into a human (who has the same basic personality as the cat and retains the cat's acquired phisical characteristics, like One Eye), would that be Transmogrification with an added Strengthen Mind effect to give him the minimal boost in IQ to get to 'capable of using language(poorly)', or something more like the Uplift spell?

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Depends, does the cat gain human like IQ? If so use "Uplift." If you're just turning a cat into a human, I'd stick with using just Transmogrification. He's still got a cat's mind and a human's body. See the Stardust movie for a example of this with the Billy Goat becoming Billy the Innkeeper.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

I was actually specifically thinking of an incident from Discworld, in which some witches in need of a coachman turn one witch's cat into a human. As a human, he's able to speak after a fashion (he can string 3-4 situationally appropriate words together), but otherwise has the same mentality he had as a cat. All told, I don't think he got any IQ upgrade from the transformation, but he might be ruled to have needed a +1-2 to get to the point of being able to use language even to that degree.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

Yeah, he'd need at least IQ 6 to get to speak unless it's a single unchangeable phrase (which is a quirk). Otherwise, just use Transmogrification with the oddity that you're changing a animal into a man, rather than the reverse.

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

IIRC he says "Yerrss Naannyy" "Millk Naoww?" and "Okaaay".

Re: Transmogrification (RPM)
 

I'd say that's IQ 6, yeah. Enough to speak, but not much.