Confused about shapeshifting

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Ottriman

If you took a huge limitation on your alternate form to only be able to use it once in a blue moon, you still have to pay 1000 points for powers you only have very limited access to.

Only nonsensical if you build it incorrectly.

Rather than put Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon) on the Shapeshifting, put it on every power in the form.

Human:
Shapeshift (Blue Moon Werewolf), Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)

Blue Moon Werewolf:
DR, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)
ST, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)
Regeneration, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)
Supernatural Durability,, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)

Then the price drops as you desire.

You can leave off the Accessibility if you want to be able to freely shift into the form not during blue moons, only the form is much weaker. Note that this is also a valid concept (if not particularly appealing to a munchkin point of view; then, you might as well eke out a few more points for not being able to shift into a form you weren't going to use anyway, because it was weak).

You want to use a modifier on Shapeshift as shorthand for dropping that modifier on every ability. That would be a convenient notation. But it's not the way the RAW is written, precisely so that you have the ability to modify both the shifting and the form itself, rather than only the form.