How useful is Morph without a (big) pool?

[Terwin]

Generally speaking, I would not expect a character to forget their intent in just a few minutes, even if they change into a less intelligent form(they may forget why, but if you are an experienced morph, you should have no difficulties switching to an IQ 2 snake to get through a crack in the wall and then turn back on the other side)

Basically, if a given animal can be trained to do X I would be surprised if your GM would not let you change to that animal, do X, then change back.

Also, if you have a template worth less than -20, why would you not reduce the IQ penalty until either you have IQ >6 or you have a template cost > -20?

Many of the traits of wild/domestic animal (cannot speak, hide-bound, social stigma, fixed IQ) are not a significant hindrance to a morph unless they cannot change. (need to talk: turn human, then you can talk for example)

Perhaps you need to turn back into a human from time to time to do things like navigate, but I would not expect a morphed Heron to have problems with 'fly this direction until night-fall, then land and turn human again'

[Anthony]

Assuming you buy off all of the racial mental properties (i.e. you remove the racial perception and will bonuses) most smaller animals are cheap enough, particularly if you remember that No Fine Manipulators (-40%) applies to DX.

[Kromm]

The Morph rules explicitly permit you to omit your forms' mental limitations. Thus, you are free to adjust racial IQ just enough to get a 0-point template cost. If your hypothetical beast template is worth -40 points with IQ-6 (racial average IQ 4), you might turn into a borderline-sapient one with IQ-4 (racial average IQ 6) that has a 0-point template. In fact, going from, say, IQ-6 [-120], Will+6 [30], Per+6 [30] (-60 points in all) to IQ-4 [-80], Will+4 [20], Per+4 [20] (-40 points in all) won't add 40 points, but just 20, so you could manage even a -20-point template this way. Such logic is applied in Were-Forms (Horror, p. 61).

Also remember that personal adjustments are retained between forms. If you have IQ 12 [40] as a human, your personal +2 to IQ relative to the norm carries over. This means that even as a baseline racial IQ-6/IQ 4 beast, you have IQ 6, while as an enhanced racial IQ-4/IQ 6 or IQ-2/IQ 8 beast, you have IQ 8 or 10.

Once you're at or above IQ 6, you're sapient. You're canonically allowed to understand technology and language (p. B15). You should be able to carry out basic plans you made while you were at full IQ about as well as a dumb-but-loyal NPC; e.g., using your high-Per, flying beast form to gather information. You can do all the thinking (e.g., making IQ rolls for analysis) in your smarter native form. Having low IQ in beast form mainly hurts you when you need to use IQ-based skills (but note that Observation, Tracking, etc. are Per-based, and Per is often very good for animals . . . and so is DX-based Stealth), and when you have to revise your plans (which often calls for IQ-based skill rolls).

The trickiest part has the least to do with the rules: To what extent does the GM allow smart players have their dumb characters do smart things? This isn't limited to Morph; it arises whenever a bright gamer (say, GURPS IQ 11-12) is playing a dim ogre or troll (IQ 7-8), or even an ordinary Joe (IQ 10). A good fix is to tell the player, "Make an IQ roll. Success means your character was able to come up with your clever idea." This gives even dumb animal forms a chance to respond intelligently to a situation, but keeps them from being tactical geniuses.

[naloth]

The first two things to consider is that most animals have both Wild Animal (-30), Morphology metatrait (usually Quadruped for -30), and get a -40% discount for ST and DX. Often even "big" animals are affordable if you drop a few points off IQ.

You can take a trip to the zoo, pick ~10 animals and people. You'll have a couple of combat forms, any type of movement you want, something good for stealth, and the ability to impersonate a few people as well.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

While I agree that even C.Elegans with 302 neurons has some intelligence, I don't think most animals are that intelligent. They're all below IQ 6. IQ 5 might be able to do something meaningful, IQ 4 probably only if domesticated and trained, I don't expect much at IQ 3 and lower but mostly instinctive behaviour.

Are Players with Morph though likely to be below IQ 6 though given the tendency for players to optimize for their preferred play style? Any attribute bonuses over racial norms for your species effectively carries over to the new form. Even a human with a 0 point racial cost who buys up his personal IQ to 13 will then when transformed have an IQ of 6 to 8 for most species (before buying off the negative intelligence of the animal to bring up its racial costs to 0 points.

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

It doesn't mean a wolf or horse doesn't have a concept of pack or herd and would understand the fellow PCs as such and would stay with them and maybe even protect them. They would not follow commands or allow someone to ride them. I do think that IQ 4 and lower would not be able to understand the danger of (ranged) weapons and many other things. IQ 5 might to some degree.

As a rule of thumb I would probably allow any person with morph who has a normal human range of intelligence normally prior to being morphed to count as being effectively trained for what it can and cannot do at the game table at the very least.

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

I'm just not overjoyed at the possibility of facing a few hundred points of, possibly quite lethal, disadvantages each time I use my ability.

Then don't change into a form that would be lethal to you in your current environment. Even an IQ 10 human can 10 prepped forms to chose from. Balance it out with a nice variety of memorized forms. If none of your forms are a good fit for your environment/need don't change yet.

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

Now either those -270 disadvantages aren't worth their points, or the GM will use them against me. I don't expect to live long, if I regularly change into creatures like that.

With an open ended advantage like Morph you somewhat have to assume that the players will be prone to choices that more optimal than not when selecting forms. A lot of times your forms are going to effectively be pure positives for you because of the situation that you are using them in.

Your basic exotic movement forms (fish, birds) don't need their strength or hit points much because they are for getting from point A to point B or bypassing specific terrain and not fighting.

Your basic melee combat forms are their just for that mauling someone with your improved raw strength or exotic damage types (constriction or poisons typically)

Your transport form is their to make another PC travel faster (enhanced ground move)

While various assassination or infiltration forms takes heavy advantage of simply being able to look like someone or something else to create an intelligence or massive combat advantage (looking like the targets dependent and getting a free surprise attack round on them).

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

I think Morph puts quite a limit on that. You have to see or touch what you want to turn into, unless you've memorized it.

If you need to turn into a mouse to crawl into the walls, but haven't memorized the shape and can't spot one, then you can't. The whole system functions a bit like Vancian magic, in that you have to "prepare" the "spells" you want to be able to use.

There are enhancements that remove those elements, of course, and yes, it's pretty powerful, so it has some limitations. But we weren't discussing the limitations inherent in the Morph advantage, but whether a morph pool of 0 is worthwhile. My argument is yes it is.

Is it more worthwhile if you apply a bunch of enhancements that remove the limitations you mention? Sure. Is it less worthwhile if you apply a bunch of limitations (like Limited Use, Once per Day, or Corrupting (Animal Traits), etc)? Of course. That's what Enhancements and Limitations do. But that's an entirely different topic.

[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by Terwin

Generally speaking, I would not expect a character to forget their intent in just a few minutes, even if they change into a less intelligent form(they may forget why, but if you are an experienced morph, you should have no difficulties switching to an IQ 2 snake to get through a crack in the wall and then turn back on the other side)

Basically, if a given animal can be trained to do X I would be surprised if your GM would not let you change to that animal, do X, then change back.

Also, if you have a template worth less than -20, why would you not reduce the IQ penalty until either you have IQ >6 or you have a template cost > -20?

Many of the traits of wild/domestic animal (cannot speak, hide-bound, social stigma, fixed IQ) are not a significant hindrance to a morph unless they cannot change. (need to talk: turn human, then you can talk for example)

Perhaps you need to turn back into a human from time to time to do things like navigate, but I would not expect a morphed Heron to have problems with 'fly this direction until night-fall, then land and turn human again'

I find your arguments compelling.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Assuming you buy off all of the racial mental properties (i.e. you remove the racial perception and will bonuses) most smaller animals are cheap enough, particularly if you remember that No Fine Manipulators (-40%) applies to DX.

I've been mostly looking at these: http://panoptesv.com/RPGs/animalia/animalia.html and http://gurpswiki.wikidot.com/dnd:monsters and http://gurpswiki.wikidot.com/dnd:racial-templates. I don't know what my GM uses (Xmas break). I currently only have access to the two basic books (borrowed, just ordered my own at the FLGS today (www.wirwarspellen.nl)) and they have very little material on this (p.455-57).

Originally Posted by Kromm

The Morph rules explicitly permit you to omit your forms' mental limitations. Thus, you are free to adjust racial IQ just enough to get a 0-point template cost. If your hypothetical beast template is worth -40 points with IQ-6 (racial average IQ 4), you might turn into a borderline-sapient one with IQ-4 (racial average IQ 6) that has a 0-point template. In fact, going from, say, IQ-6 [-120], Will+6 [30], Per+6 [30] (-60 points in all) to IQ-4 [-80], Will+4 [20], Per+4 [20] (-40 points in all) won't add 40 points, but just 20, so you could manage even a -20-point template this way. Such logic is applied in Were-Forms (Horror, p. 61).

That changes the math a lot. A lot. In the templates I was just looking at the modifier on IQ, and (dis)advantages like Bestial, Hidebound, Low Emphathy, Combat Reflexes? That's what the Shapechange(Morph) description mentions as I read it. The link with Per and Will and the option to adjust those was not clear to me from the text. Thank you for pointing this out and taking your time to answer here.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Also remember that personal adjustments are retained between forms. If you have IQ 12 [40] as a human, your personal +2 to IQ relative to the norm carries over. This means that even as a baseline racial IQ-6/IQ 4 beast, you have IQ 6, while as an enhanced racial IQ-4/IQ 6 or IQ-2/IQ 8 beast, you have IQ 8 or 10.

Yes, but Morph is really expensive. I think that's why Beast Boy isn't the sharpest tool in the box.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Once you're at or above IQ 6, you're sapient. You're canonically allowed to understand technology and language (p. B15). You should be able to carry out basic plans you made while you were at full IQ about as well as a dumb-but-loyal NPC; e.g., using your high-Per, flying beast form to gather information. You can do all the thinking (e.g., making IQ rolls for analysis) in your smarter native form. Having low IQ in beast form mainly hurts you when you need to use IQ-based skills (but note that Observation, Tracking, etc. are Per-based, and Per is often very good for animals . . . and so is DX-based Stealth), and when you have to revise your plans (which often calls for IQ-based skill rolls).

Good point about the Per skills.

Originally Posted by Kromm

The trickiest part has the least to do with the rules: To what extent does the GM allow smart players have their dumb characters do smart things? This isn't limited to Morph; it arises whenever a bright gamer (say, GURPS IQ 11-12) is playing a dim ogre or troll (IQ 7-8), or even an ordinary Joe (IQ 10). A good fix is to tell the player, "Make an IQ roll. Success means your character was able to come up with your clever idea." This gives even dumb animal forms a chance to respond intelligently to a situation, but keeps them from being tactical geniuses.

When playing a not so smart character, I often roll or just coin flip between "clever idea" and "stupid idea". Once made a GM very annoyed by solving a maze he spent a lot of time making that way. I'm not sure what the odds where, but well over one in thousand as I did more than 10 coin flips.

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Are Players with Morph though likely to be below IQ 6 though given the tendency for players to optimize for their preferred play style? Any attribute bonuses over racial norms for your species effectively carries over to the new form. Even a human with a 0 point racial cost who buys up his personal IQ to 13 will then when transformed have an IQ of 6 to 8 for most species (before buying off the negative intelligence of the animal to bring up its racial costs to 0 points.

As a rule of thumb I would probably allow any person with morph who has a normal human range of intelligence normally prior to being morphed to count as being effectively trained for what it can and cannot do at the game table at the very least.

Why? Would that not be represented by (non racial) skill levels?

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Your basic exotic movement forms (fish, birds) don't need their strength or hit points much because they are for getting from point A to point B or bypassing specific terrain and not fighting.

I would expect regular encounters with predators unless you're at the top of the food chain*, then only hunters can be a danger.

*) In some settings things can be interesting at the top of the food chain. There's always a bigger fish - Qui-Gon Jinn

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Is it more worthwhile if you apply a bunch of enhancements that remove the limitations you mention? Sure. Is it less worthwhile if you apply a bunch of limitations (like Limited Use, Once per Day, or Corrupting (Animal Traits), etc)? Of course. That's what Enhancements and Limitations do. But that's an entirely different topic.

What's Corrupting (Animal Traits)?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

What's Corrupting (Animal Traits)?

There's a limitation in Horror called "Corrupting." In essence, the more you use the trait with the limitation, the more you're slowly "corrupted" until (if you don't find a way to get rid of the corruption), this manifests as a loss of points. There's all sorts of ways you can model that loss of points: You could slowly go mad, your body could be hollowed out or, in this case, I'm suggesting that you take traits that manifest your increasingly bestial nature. You might start off with unnatural features, and then move on towards atavism or even lost IQ (though that would take awhile).

I just tossed it out there as an example of what sorts of limitations one might apply to Morph. Another might be "Magical -10%", or... I'm sure we could find a limitation that gives you a "tell." That's a classic shapeshifter problem.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

I would expect regular encounters with predators unless you're at the top of the food chain*, then only hunters can be a danger.

Are we talking about crossing a river or ravine, or are we talking travelling for a few weeks in animal form? Because if it's the former, a GM who says "You change into fish form and jump into the river? HA! Barracuda!" is a jerk, unless you took the disadvantage "Cursed" or something. If you're talking about travelling for quite a while in your animal form, then you should expect to meet a predator, yes, which is no different than when you're a human (humans aren't the top of the food chain either), but animals are actually pretty well equipped to deal with predators.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

Yes, but Morph is really expensive. I think that's why Beast Boy isn't the sharpest tool in the box.

Besides Beast Boy being from fictional works notorious for having insanely high point total characters, he specifically has Morph with numerous Enhancements, a few Limitations and with a lot of points set aside for paying for his new forms (Morph pool? I forget what this is called and didn't see it when I re-read the advantage yet again >_<).

He also has demonstrated several probably Mental Disadvantages that would make even a high IQ character come across as "dumb". Also could depend on the version. Of course the Teen Titans Go version does a lot of stupid things because it is a silly show. The regular Teen Titans animation had plenty of cartoony moments that also would make Beast Boy appear far duller than he would in a serious take on the character. Genre/medium conventions can be hard to filter out when trying to replicate a character.

I wouldn't use him as a "baseline" for characters with Morph.