Duplication + Shapeshifting

[Plane]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Which is perhaps one of the most egregious ways that the mechanics of Alternate Form can be abused.

Of course you could always just mess up their concentration during the required 10 seconds they try to shift into whatever form is most convenient.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Which is perhaps one of the most egregious ways that the mechanics of Alternate Form can be abused.

True. How would you fix it, though (other than the GM looking at the character and going 'No, this is way to munchkin for my game,' which is always an option with PCs)?

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

True. How would you fix it, though (other than the GM looking at the character and going 'No, this is way to munchkin for my game,' which is always an option with PCs)?

Well the simple short answer is a more extreme version of what you just mentioned: I personally leave powers builds up to the GM, or insist on doing them myself when I am the GM. If the GM handles it they can make sure it's fairly balanced in a way they're comfortable with relative to the way they expect powers to be built, point efficiency, etc. You're never going to make GURPS "balanced" considering that balance has to be relative to a balance point that is a moving target from one game to the next. If the GM makes my abilities and I come off underpowered or an ability doesn't work for practical reasons in a circumstance it was intended to operate in he's more free to adjust things then if the I made them as a player. If I as a GM make them I can provide the same adjusting for ease and balance as I go benefits to my players. Etc, etc, etc. You asked how else I'd do it so I'll stop talking about this.

The second answer is that strictly speaking alternate forms and shapeshifting can only be taken for things that the GM has defined as a racial template* so "human, but with extra benefits" is not a racial template, it's a human with extra benefits. I think RAW you should probably buy Alternate Form (Human) and buy a package of improvements with accessibility (only in alternate form) -10%.

*: As a semantics point I personally think that "Racial Template" should be called "Racial Metatrait" as racial templates have more in common with Elemental "Body of X" metatraits, "Machine", "spirit", etc then they do with other templates. It makes sense that you shouldn't be able to have more than one type of Racial Metatrait, or more than one type of "Body of (element)" template, etc. But defining "Vampire" and "Elf" both as racial templates and then saying you can only have one racial template is just a little messy: I don't know why elves should stop being elves when they become vampires. Defining things this way I think that anything the GM has defined as a metatrait should be acceptable and that this is how Alternate Form and Shapeshifting should work. "Alternate form (wolf)" and "Alternate form (bird)" make sense, as do "Alternate form (Quadruped)", "Alternate form (Ground Vehicle)", "Alternate form (Machine)", or "Alternate form (Body of Ice)". A Car (with ground vehicle) that has alternate form (quadruped) to swap out it's wheels for legs and turn into an ATAT makes sense.

That was a second way of saying the GM should handle it.

The third potential option is an extreme option I'm not really in favor of: buy metatraits as the set of linked switchable advantages with the associated disadvantages as temporary disadvantage limitations. I don't recommend this, I recommend the things I stated above. But it's an idea that a friend floated.

EDIT: as I walked away from posting that I remembered some very relevant ideas and issues I've recently been dealing with. Six years ago I made a character for a PC for a game I was playing with my family. The character was a Dragon who could turn into a human. I built them as a dragon with alternate form human. To let them have some draconic abilities in human form I made their human side an improved human. It seemed a simple, easy, and correct way of doing things... but boy... that game has been going on for 6 years now. We have 5 different GMs who share a cannon and work together to create stories. We each typically run an episode one or two times a year and every single time another GM tries to look at that character sheet to figure out what's going on, or any GM (including me) tries to help the PC spend CP, they get a headache and call me up to re-explain it to them, even after 6 years (yes, I yell at myself about it and then force myself to re-figure it out.) From this I've drawn a few conclusions:
1.) the most human form should always be the base form.
2.) the form the character occupies as a default should always be the base form.
3.) the cheaper form of the character should be the base form except in case of 1 or 2.
4.) alternate form should swap, add, or remove metatraits only. And the traits they alter should never be modified. Any improvements to one form should be bought as advantages with "accessibility: only in one form -10%"

[AlexanderHowl]

Acquired templates stack with innate templates, they explicitly use an elven vampire as an example of that in Basic.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Alternate Form (Vampire) is one of the possible abilities under the Death Talent in Powers. Since vampire templates tend to cost a minimum of 150 CP, this is a substantial savings. Of course, it would only cost a vampire 15 CP to have Alternate Form (Superior Human) with a Superior Human template worth 150 CP.

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Which is perhaps one of the most egregious ways that the mechanics of Alternate Form can be abused.

A high starting race template does allow you to have Alternate Forms that are more powerful without buying up the pool. However your still spending the points and its basically 15 points per form regardless of whether the base form is the highest cost or one of the forms you change into. The difference that comes from the 10% on the single most expensive form (if its more than your base form) really makes it all neglible as a price difference.

[RedMattis]

A most obvious case of going munchkin would be a (high TL) Vampire buying an alternate form of a (likely still cheaper) human-looking biomorph. The vampire would basically be able to ignore some hundred points of weaknesses when it wants to.

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If I did a more granular Shapeshifting trait I'd probably do something like:

Shapeshifting[15 points]
This still needs to be bought once for every alternate form, and each Shapeshifting needs to be tied to a specific form.

If your alternate form has substantial differences you'll have to pay extra for the difference.

-10 points. ...if your form looks fairly different but has very similar stats. Male & Female form ala. Hermaphromorph. Or different stats but recognizable appearance, such as turning very muscular, like "Bane" from Batman when growing due to his drugs.
-5 points. ...if your form look and is different, but not hugely so way. F.ex. An Human to an Elf or Dwarf.
+0 points ...if your form is very different but within certain rules. F.ex. a Human, Giant Troll, Siren, and Hamster. (all biological beings)
+10 points ...if your form is wildly different. F.ex. A Human, Robot, Walking Skeleton, incorporeal spirit and swarm of nanomachines.
The GM may enforce even higher costs than these if the alternate form circumvents specific weaknesses. Comparing the laternate form to using the Mitigator limitation for disadvantages is a good way to get an indication of a ball-park.

Add the cost for each additional form based on how different it is from the most similar form. So Ghost+Zombie+Skeleton would be (10 Ghost-> Zombie. -5 Zombie -> Skeleton).

At minimum you must end up paying at least 3 points for shapeshifting + form. You are not permitted to do something like: shapeshifting (under a blue moon, -80%) [3 points] with a form: (me, but with blue hair) - 10 point refund (for a total of -7 points). Blue-hair-boy will still need to pay a total 3 points for his 'amazing' power.

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Example 1:

Dracula can turn into a bat, wolf, and large dog. All forms retain most of his vampire weaknesses. He buys the Shapeshifting advantage thrice for 45 points.

He pays 0 points for the bat (very different size/shape, but still based an animal like a human)

He pays 0 points for the wolf (very different in size/shape to the bat and his human-like form)

He is refunded 10 points for the large dog (very similar to the wolf)

In total Dracula ends up paying 35 points.

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Example 2:

Carmilla has a monstrous vampire form, but she can turn into a beautiful human. In human form she lacks all vampire weaknesses except the need for blood and an overwhelming desire to turn into her vampiric form and feed. True Faith also still works and forces her to take on her vampiric form.

She would pay 0 points since human->bat-monster is on the 0-point level, but since the human form highly circumvents about 80 points of her vampire-form's many weaknesses beyond just appearance. We're considering her human form a mitigator. Simply being in human form is easy enough, so a mitigator as high as -80% seems reasonable. However failing to control her hunger or facing someone with True Faith would turn her back, so we'll go for -70%.

Carmilla ends up paying 56 (80*0,7) points for her human form.

In total Carmilla ends up paying 71 points (56 + 15).

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Example 3:

Bane can inject himself with drugs to grow a bit larger and a lot stronger, but both uglier and a bit more clumsy. His shapeshifting advantage has Active Change (+20%) for a cost of 18. (In this case we'll assume he always has his drugs available for simplicity's sake)

His slightly-larger form is still recognizably Bane, so he is refunded 10 points. The form itself costs 50 points more than Bane's "human" form, so he ends up paying 90% of that. Summed up to 35 (45-10)

In total Bane pays 53 points (35 + 18)

[AlexanderHowl]

Would Bane have Alternate Form or would he just have limited abilities? Since he has Batman level mental and physical abilities without the Venom, I think that his Venom-related abilities would probably have the following limitations: Bane Gear (Backlash, DX-4, Resisted by HT, -40%; Breakable, SM-4, DR 10, Complex, -30%; Can Be Stolen, Forcible Removal, -10%), -80%. Given his physical abilities, I would give a ST 20 without his gear and give him Lifting ST+100 (Bane Gear, -80%) [60], Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction /10; Bane Gear, -80%) [50], Regeneration (Very Fast; Bane Gear, -80%) [20], and Striking ST+100 (Bane Gear, -80%) [100], for a total of 230 CP. Conversely, making it into an Alternate Form would end up costing over 1000 CP.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Would Bane have Alternate Form or would he just have limited abilities? Since he has Batman level mental and physical abilities without the Venom, I think that his Venom-related abilities would probably have the following limitations: Bane Gear (Backlash, Agony, Resisted by HT, -50%; Breakable, SM-4, DR 10, Complex, -30%), -80%. Given his physical abilities, I would give a ST 20 without his gear and give him Lifting ST+100 (Bane Gear, -80%) [60], Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction /10; Bane Gear, -80%) [50], Regeneration (Very Fast; Bane Gear, -80%) [20], and Striking ST+100 (Bane Gear, -80%) [100], for a total of 230 CP. Conversely, making it into an Alternate Form would end up costing over 1000 CP.

I think you're right in that he'd be best handled in another way. I just needed an example of a not-very-alternate shapeshift form. And yeah, I gave him very low-tier stats in my example.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Acquired templates stack with innate templates, they explicitly use an elven vampire as an example of that in Basic.

So it does. That's embarrassing. Not that I got something wrong, that happens, but that they used the exact same example. =|

But my point was just that it's a little semantically messy and that it seems like racial templates should be called racial metatraits instead of templates as they are closer to metatraits then templates, that things like "were-wolf" and "vampire" should be referred to as a different type of metatrait then things like "human" or "rat", etc. And I still think that's basically right. Not that it's important. It's as important as a semantic nitpick ever is.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

A most obvious case of going munchkin would be a (high TL) Vampire buying an alternate form of a (likely still cheaper) human-looking biomorph. The vampire would basically be able to ignore some hundred points of weaknesses when it wants to.

Yeah. Exactly. Ignore hundreds of points in weaknesses while still getting those points for powers. And it gets worse when you've got multiple high cp templates.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

If I did a more granular Shapeshifting trait I'd probably do something like:

I'll have to think about this. There are clear benefits and balances. It's interesting and valuable enough to consider making a house rule.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Would Bane have Alternate Form or would he just have limited abilities? Since he has Batman level mental and physical abilities without the Venom, I think that his Venom-related abilities would probably have the following limitations: Bane Gear (Backlash, DX-4, Resisted by HT, -40%; Breakable, SM-4, DR 10, Complex, -30%; Can Be Stolen, Forcible Removal, -10%), -80%. Given his physical abilities, I would give a ST 20 without his gear and give him Lifting ST+100 (Bane Gear, -80%) [60], Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction /10; Bane Gear, -80%) [50], Regeneration (Very Fast; Bane Gear, -80%) [20], and Striking ST+100 (Bane Gear, -80%) [100], for a total of 230 CP. Conversely, making it into an Alternate Form would end up costing over 1000 CP.

Just a thought btw. I'm pretty sure Backlash DX-4 wouldn't work since it would end giving you more points back than just taking Reduced Dexterity 4 [-80 points], which is not rules legal. (I think GURPS Powers is the book which mentions this). He'd probably have to take Reduced Dexterity 4 with some some sort of 'mitigator: not using bane-gear and failing HT roll', or some other slightly awkward setup.

That aside the write-up looks pretty legit for Bane. Basically everyone will try to wreck his gear, since he is trivial to shut down for anyone who can pull the gear it off him or hit it with a strong attack, but that is also how he usually loses, iirc.