Shapeshifting and Skill Levels -- points spent on a skill in each form

[younglorax]

A lot of animal templates include racial Skills -- if the Shapeshifting character has bought points in a skill that the Alternate Form has, do they add together?

My particular example:


Jimbob the human with Shapeshifting puts 8 points in Brawling. He can shapeshift into a grizzly bear. Grizzly Bears have DX 11 and Brawling-13, which means that they have 4 CP in Brawling as part of their racial template.

Question: When Jimbob is in Grizzly Bear form, does he have Brawling-15 or Brawling-13?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by younglorax

A lot of animal templates include racial Skills -- if the Shapeshifting character has bought points in a skill that the Alternate Form has, do they add together?

Yes, just like points spent on attributes add to racial attributes when shapeshifting[1]. The character is paying the point cost, he should get the full benefit from it. If, for some reason, you don't want them to add together then simply remove the racial skill from the template cost when calculating the cost of the Alternate Form.

[1] Note that I always convert the points, not the levels, of attributes. If a Human has ST 13 and shapeshifts into a Wolf, the Wolf form gets 30 points of ST in Wolf form, which is normally ST +5 due to No Fine Manipulators. The exception to that is when shapeshifting into smaller creatures or bestial animals, which effectively have a taboo trait of high ST and IQ (even though most templates don't actually list it). I normally limit ST to 2x the racial average and IQ to +1 (if the animal form is meant to be a bestial animal form; otherwise the character just gets his normal IQ level in animal form).

[younglorax]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

[1] Note that I always convert the points, not the levels, of attributes. If a character has ST 13 and shapeshifts into a Wolf, the Wolf form gets 30 points of ST in Wolf form, which is normally ST +5 due to No Fine Manipulators. The exception to that is when shapeshifting into smaller creatures, which effectively have a taboo trait of high ST.

Using that house rule, would this follow?

The Grizzly Bear template has 45cp in ST (No Fine Manipulators, -40%; SM+1, -10%; ST= 19). Since Jimbob has -10cp in ST (ST = 9), that means that Jimbob the Grizzly Bear has 35cp in ST (No Fine Manipulators, -40%; SM+1, -10%; ST = 17).

[ericbsmith]

Yes, that's exactly how I'd do it. The player paid a total of 35 points for ST; -10 points all the time plus 45 points "Only in Bear form". That adds up to 35 points total in bear form.

By the RAW personal abilities carry over into alternate forms; that includes attributes, skills, advantages, and disadvantages. If you have a weak Human form you also have a weak Bear form (weak for a Bear, anyways; ST 17 is still hella strong).

[younglorax]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Yes, that's exactly how I'd do it. The player paid a total of 35 points for ST; -10 points all the time plus 45 points "Only in Bear form". That adds up to 35 points total in bear form.

That certainly seems fair. I'm pretty sure it's not RAW, though. It's not entirely clear, but I believe that points only really matter in the case of Skills:

Originally Posted by B83, last paragraph

Personal traits (including all attribute levels, advantages, disadvantages, and skills) remain intact, although your skill levels are affected by changes to the controlling attribute scores.

Are there cases where you would say that skills are incompatible? For example, Bubba the human has points in Brawling and can turn into a Rattlesnake, which has Brawling as a racial skill -- are those Brawling skills too different?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by younglorax

That certainly seems fair. I'm pretty sure it's not RAW, though. It's not entirely clear, but I believe that points only really matter in the case of Skills:

RAW is definitely a little unclear as to how it should be handled. Personally I go by the points because that's the most fair to the player; he has paid X points, he gets to use X points.

Originally Posted by younglorax

Are there cases where you would say that skills are incompatible? For example, Bubba the human has points in Brawling and can turn into a Rattlesnake, which has Brawling as a racial skill -- are those Brawling skills too different?

RAW doesn't make any distinctions between Brawling in human form and Brawling in snake form. In fact, if the character had Brawling in the base (Human) form there's nothing to stop him from using that exact same skill in any alternate form he takes, whether or not the alternate form has the skill themselves.

What it comes down to for me is that the character has paid X+Y points for Brawling (X for Brawling all the time, Y for Brawling only in Snake form). There's no reason why he shouldn't get full use out of those X+Y points when the situation permits. There's plenty of other skill points he'll be losing the use of anyway (Many Social skills, Combat Weapon skills, or any other skill requiring the use of tools or interacting with Humans). There's no reason to penalize him further than necessary.

[Not another shrubbery]

I've always assumed that Shapeshifting does not copy any racial skills, unless you're doing a full (i.e., including mental) change. I let natural weapons be used at DX, with a familiarity penalty until the character has had some experience in the form. I treat Brawling as a separate skill for different morphological configurations, though it can make sense to allow Hth skill in one form act in a complementary fashion while in another form, possibly adding a favorable modifier in some instances.