[Powers] The Limits of Elastic Skin/Morph

[Jinumon]

Hey again,

So I'm presently in the middle of an Eberron conversion for GURPS (hence all the recent question threads), and I've run into a difficulty regarding Changelings.

For those unfamiliar with the setting, Changelings are capable of changing their appearance, adjusting their features, race, apparent sex, and even height within about six inches in either direction. They possess the ability not only to impersonate others, but to create entirely new forms and appearances, many of which adopt their own personalities and identities. Changelings use this ability for all sorts of things, including social interactions (larger eyes to appear innocent, deeper brows to appear menacing, etc.), impersonation and infiltration, and even what they call "Skin Cant" (symbolic features meant to convey specific meaning; triangular scar to request help, bird tattoo for "all clear," etc.).

The obvious choices for this kind of ability are Elastic Skin (Cosmic, Any humanoid, +50%) [30] and Morph (Cosmetic, -50%; Retain Shape, -20%) [30] which cost the same amount and thus, I feel, can be used largely interchangeably.

My question regarding these is whether or not these advantages include the ability to emulate appearance-based advantages and disadvantages. Elastic Skin states that one can "alter your skin and facial features (but not clothing or makeup) to duplicate those of another member of your race," implying that you can duplicate the appearance of a Attractive or Ugly individual. That said, the ability to stack a large number of appearance based advantages (Very Beautiful + Honest Face + Forgettable Face, etc.) doesn't seem like it should be available for only 30 points.

What advantage, or set of advantages, should I use to emulate this ability?

Thanks again for putting up with all my recent posts, and thanks for the input,

Jinumon

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

My question regarding these is whether or not these advantages include the ability to emulate appearance-based advantages and disadvantages. Elastic Skin states that one can "alter your skin and facial features (but not clothing or makeup) to duplicate those of another member of your race," implying that you can duplicate the appearance of a Attractive or Ugly individual. That said, the ability to stack a large number of appearance based advantages (Very Beautiful + Honest Face + Forgettable Face, etc.) doesn't seem like it should be available for only 30 points.

What advantage, or set of advantages, should I use to emulate this ability?

Thanks again for putting up with all my recent posts, and thanks for the input,

Jinumon

This is simplest with Morph. Just buy a Morph Pool with enough points to cover the advantages you want. Remember the pool gets a 10% Discount (costs 90% of desired abilities) but gets none of the limitations applied to the basic 100 point ability.

With either Morph or Elastic Skin you can buy advantages on an Accessibility (or other) limitations that you want. If you have advantages that cant be used together buy them as alternative abilities for 1/5 cost.
Morph will be cheaper and easier in most casts buy just buying a pool.

[Celjabba]

Elastic Skin [20] = Morph (Cosmetic, -50%; No Mimicry, -10%; Retains Shape, -20%) [20]

For game-balance purposes, elastic skin or morph(cosmetic) never give/remove attribute levels, advantages, disadvantages, etc.

Yes, logically, being able to look exactly like a beautiful person should give you the appearance bonus ...
But in game, it doesn't work for *reasons*.

If you want the additional abilities you can
-buy full morph
-add some points in Modular Abilities
-buy wildcard elastic skin/cosmetic morph
(Wildcard abilities, from Gurps: Super)

[Jinumon]

Originally Posted by Refplace

This is simplest with Morph. Just buy a Morph Pool with enough points to cover the advantages you want.

Would the "Cosmetic, -50%" limitation still apply, as you are changing only your appearance, or would it require something like "Appearance Only, -40%" since there are certain mechanical changes?

Additionally, would the "Improvised Forms, +100%" be necessary, or does the limit of Appearance only negate the necessity as you can't adopt Claws, Wings, etc?

Jinumon

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Elastic Skin [20] = Morph (Cosmetic, -50%; No Mimicry, -10%; Retains Shape, -20%) [20]

What you're calling No Mimicry seems to be analogous to what the RAW call Flawed, if it could be combined with Cosmetic. My suggestion in Templates Toolkit 2 was that Flawed could be overcome with a Disguise roll. It might not be unreasonable to say that a Disguise roll could add levels of appearance, on the assumption that the reason you don't ordinarily look Attractive (or whatever) is that your assumed appearance has subtle flaws—perhaps at a significant penalty for adding multiple levels of Appearance.