Shapeshifter Question

[Bandii]

What advantages, enhancements or limitations would be required to create a character who could turn into and mimic anyone they could touch including duplicating clothing? I already have Cosmetic Only as a limitation but was wondering how other folks would do this?

Thanks,

M

[Bandii]

What advantages, enhancements or limitations would be required to create a character who could turn into and mimic anyone they could touch including duplicating clothing? I already have Cosmetic Only as a limitation but was wondering how other folks would do this?

Thanks,

M

[Mr_Sandman]

I've always treated that as a 0% feature for morph. You can duplicate someone with their clothes, but you have to duplicate what they are wearing as they are wearing it. You can't remove or change the clothes. Whenever you take their form, you always have to be dressed exactly the way they were dressed when you memorized the form. It makes quick impersonation easier, but long-term impersonation harder, so I think it evens out.

Of course you can add real clothes to the form, so you could put on a coat or a hat, etc. over the clothes you copied. If you want to duplicate someone's body without their clothes, you would have to strip them first. Then you could wear whatever you want in that form.

I just looked at my copy of Shapeshifters (for 3e), and it lists Cannot Duplicate Clothing as a -5% limitation for Morph. So I think allowing clothing to be duplicated can be argued as a basic function of Morph.

[Bruno]

I'd encourage No Encumbrance (+5%) - as in you take up to No Encumbrance of gear with you. Otherwise you have to strip naked before impersonating someone with clothes, and if shocked out of your Shapeshift somehow, you're suddenly naked in public. Which is just Awkward.

I'm not comfortable with throwing the (appearance of the) target's clothing in for free, but I wouldn't price it more than +5% (paralleling No Encumbrance carrying capacity, and suggesting that it shouldn't be heavy or specialized clothing). There's a big difference between impersonating a human, and impersonating someone in full arctic skiing equipment or a hard-hat diver's suit, as an extreme example... or one of those inflatable sumo suits, really. It's significant enough that I think it should be an enhancement.

I wouldn't use 3e as a rules reference. The rules for shape-shifting changed many many times in 3e, and changed again in 4e.

[Nereidalbel]

Morph: Absorptive Change, (+5%), Cannot Memorize Forms, (-50%), Cosmetic, (-50%), Needs Sample, (-5%), Reduced Time, (+80%) [80]

This allows you to morph into any person you physically touch, clothing included as part of Cosmetic. Transformation takes 1 second, and you cannot turn into a dead guy. Remember: impersonate the bodyguard, THEN kill him!

[Flyndaran]

Clothing gives a few minor advantages that may need to be explicitly included or forbidden for this advantage.
Minor temperature tolerance, though for some reason humans are assumed to wear appropriate clothing for the environment, but not other animals.
Slight protection against contact agents.
I was attacked by a group of honey bees, but I brushed them off my shirt before they had a chance to sting. I ran away and they gave up. Without that basic clothing, I would have gotten near a dozen envenomations.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Minor temperature tolerance, though for some reason humans are assumed to wear appropriate clothing for the environment, but not other animals.

Aside from poodles and hairless dogs/cats, most other animals don't wear clothing at all, appropriate for the environment or not.

More seriously, if it's -10C here most days of the winter, but we get a bad wind in from the arctic circle and it drops to -40C, I can put more sweaters and pants on under my coat, and even another coat on top of it, and a pair of gloves under two pairs of mits, etc etc etc.

My cat can't grow the fur in time to save her. She may not be able to grow a -40C suitable coat of fur at all, very few animals outside of the arctic circle and mountain tops can, and they're probably mostly mutants bred to be fluffy by humans. An unshaved sheep after a few years gets freaky wooly, and might be able to cope, but the other 360-odd days of the year they'd be miserable.

Similarly, when it shoots up to +30C here, I can strip down to a bathing suit.

My cat is left with long fluffy fur on, and really quite miserable.

Animals can't adjust their Temperature Tolerance, which in most cases is not Tolerance but a comfort zone that might slide up and down from season to season as a 0 point feature, or possibly a perk when combined with seasonal shifts in colouring for good camouflage.

[Flyndaran]

Physically, we are very equatorial adapted. Our temperature of least stress when still is 84 degrees F. We need clothing over the majority of earth.

Should we assume all creatures need clothing the moment they become intelligent? If not, why not?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

...
Animals can't adjust their Temperature Tolerance, which in most cases is not Tolerance but a comfort zone that might slide up and down from season to season as a 0 point feature, or possibly a perk when combined with seasonal shifts in colouring for good camouflage.

Of course they can. They can put on a coat, or shave just as easily as humans. The fact that they don't know how to has nothing to do with their bodies, but their lack of technology.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Minor temperature tolerance, though for some reason humans are assumed to wear appropriate clothing for the environment, but not other animals.

I've thought about this a lot, and I think that this is handled by the Fur Perk. Essentially, Fur is Accessory (clothing).

... I think ...

Luke