[Kallatari]

To those who were stating the method I previously mentioned was too complicated, I wholeheartedly agree. That was the main reason I dropped that method without even doing a full analysis of the cost implications. I was just throwing it out there for others to consider in their brainstorming (in case it led to different ideas than it did for me), and not recommending it.

Of note, the reason I started looking into repricing Alternate Form way back when in my games was because, as the exact opposite to the original post, I personally thought Alternate Form was not expensive enough for what it potentially gave and had lots of potential for abuse.

I had started with what someone else also suggested in that you must buy your most expensive form at full price (regardless of the "special effect" as to which form was your native form), and then all less expensive forms were 15 points per form. That actually fits within the RAW and merely mandates which one is at full price.

However, for 15 points, I could in theory move around hundreds of points from one trait to another so long as there was no net increase in total cost (of the racial template). The same 15 points into a Modular Abilities that was limited to certain traits might let you move maybe up to 10 points around at most (depending on exact limitations). So no fairness in price comparison there, and why I thought it needed to increase in cost.

It also became obvious that, if your most expensive racial template was, say 500 points, then every 15 CP gave you potentially up to another 500 points in different advantages. That's just over a a 1:30 ratio. And even if a player wasn't trying to abuse that (there are these nasty things called GM to prevent that), it didn't seem fair that he would pay 15 points for a 0-point template, and 15 points for a 100-point template, and 15 points for a 500-point template. Why were two different abilities of extremely different power potential worth exactly the same?

The issue that led me to how I ultimately decided to price Alternate Form was actually a problem from a different advantage. I had a lot of trouble pricing Alternate Form so that it could be put into an Affliction for my powers-based magic system. My "turn the target into a rabbit" power (i.e., Affliction (Alternate Form, Rabbit)) was based on a 15-point Alternate Form with the assumption that the rabbit was 0-points or less... but it wouldn't work on any creature whose normal racial template was worth less than the rabbit's template because you weren't paying for the "increase" in point value. Throw in the fact that most monsters don't have full-fledged racial templates, you end up not knowing if it should apply or not other than by a guesstimate.

As another example: Affliction (Alternate Form: Orc) and pricing the Alternate Form at its base 15 points for the Affliction. If Orc is a 20-point racial template, it would work on the 300-point dragon to turn it into an orc, but wouldn't work on the 0-point human.

So anyone using a powers-based framework had a difficult time correctly pricing an Alternate Form Affliction by the rules as written, and I didn't like that when designing my powers-based magic system.

The conclusion I ultimately came to for my games was that Alternate Form was worth 15 points plus 90% of the racial template (minimum 0). It didn't matter what the cost of your original template was, or whether it was higher or lower cost. A rabbit was less than 0, so Alternate Form rabbit is 15 points, and works on everyone. If an orc is 20 points, then Alternate Form orc is worth (15 + (20 x 0.9) =) 33 points, and it works on everyone.

I've had no issues running my games with that pricing for Alternate Forms and it definitely simplified building abilities for powers. Although I did increase the costs somewhat (my original goal), it still wasn't a fair price comparison to Modular Abilities, but that doesn't bother me anymore. It likewise still has potential for abuse to access a bunch of different traits... you can still get some pretty crazy 0-point racial templates, so GM oversight is still required.

But at least I could Afflict them on anyone.