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Old 06-05-2022, 04:19 AM   #1
FireGamer500
 
Join Date: Nov 2021
Default Alternate Form and Transforms

Hi. I was wondering how does the GCA work with alternate form and the transforms screen? I've got two forms with different point totals, but if I change the point total of the one with the less points, it just adds to the total. Is the right way to handle alternate forms in GCA still just creating a separate character sheet?
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Old 06-05-2022, 11:46 AM   #2
Armin
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Portland, OR
Default Re: Alternate Form and Transforms

Possibly, yes, but maybe not.

The Transforms dialog allows you to effectively create, or assign, ad-hoc racial templates, so that you can effectively switch between them on a single character sheet, affecting all related traits, without having to duplicate the things that do not change otherwise.

Unfortunately, it does not directly interact with specific other traits such as Alternate Form or Morph, because working out the mechanics of that were more than I was able to accomplish at the time.

That also means it doesn't apply any cost adjustments to the Transforms that you create, so if you create a Transform that is fewer points than your normal racial template, it won't force it to cost 15 points, or try to figure out the 15 + 90% for more expensive forms. (Nor does it give you "free" templates that are within your points budget for Morph.)

What you could do, however, is create an Alternate Form advantage for each form you have, adjusting the cost of that advantage appropriately. Then make a Transform for each of the racial templates for each Alternate Form, and create a new Disadvantage for each Alternate Form that cancels the cost of the racial template since you're paying for it in the Alternate Form (and include that disadvantage in the Transform if you like). That will mess up GCA's tracking of any Disadvantage Limit, but should keep your Total Points correct for the character. (ETA: you could mark these disads to NOT count against the disad limit, though.)

Or, maybe better, create each Transform for each racial template. Then adjust the cost of Alternate Form for that template to compensate for the difference in cost. (That is, if you are human and the racial template costs 20 points, Alternate Form should cost 33 (15 + 90% of 20), but your character sheet currently has full cost for the template (20), so change the cost of Alternate Form to 13 (33 - 20).

Does that make sense? If not, definitely make separate character sheets, or your brain will break!

I do hope to be able to upgrade Transforms in the future to be able to integrate with Alternate Form or Morph, but it's too much work for too esoteric a feature for it to happen any time soon.
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Last edited by Armin; 06-05-2022 at 12:05 PM. Reason: added a comment
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Old 06-05-2022, 12:16 PM   #3
FireGamer500
 
Join Date: Nov 2021
Default Re: Alternate Form and Transforms

Copy that. Separate character sheets are where it's at! :)
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