How To Do Metamorphis Creatures

[scc]

OK, I'm talking about things like caterpillars turning into butterfly's or dragons gaining age categories.

And it's actually fairly simple, it's the Potential Limitation likely along with some sort of age Limitation to a Meta-Trait that represents your next stage of growth, if you go through multiple stages their nestled within one another

[Gnomasz]

First, I wouldn't consider dragon age categories to be a metamorphosis. IIRC they only gain size, strength and rise in power, but they don't grow wings or limbs. I'd say it's just growing up, just like a 10 year old human gains strength with age. As for if it should be free points as per improvement through study or bought with character points – I don't seem to recall any official rules. I'd say a character grows up to the norm for free with time (minus his below average traits) – but if she starts above average, she needs to spend points or time training again to stay above average.

So if an average 200 years old dragon has ST 30 and dragon breath 3d, and an average 100 years old dragon has ST 15 and dragon breath 1d+2:
* a weak youngling (ST 13, dragon breath 1d, got disadvantage points for that) grows up to ST 28, dragon breath 3d-2 (disadvantage points stay the same).
* an average young dragon grows up to be an average older dragon with no points expenditure or no exceptional time training: note – some training might be considered the bare minimum to grow healthy, so you don't get all the time in those 100 years to train for growth.
* an above average young dragon also grows up to be an average older dragon unless it spends earned character points or spends extra time training.

Note that human characters aren't told to pay anything upfront if they start very young nor do they get any extra points if they start very old and vulnerable to aging rolls.

Phew. That's about the not-really-the-question part.

As for caterpillars: I'd say it's just a 0-point feature. In Magic and Zombies, zombies turning into skeletons with time have this as a 0-point feature. As much as I like the Potential Advantage rules, I feel it's more appropriate for traits of an individual that the player wishes to obtain. The player pays for being sure he's going to be able to obtain an advantage that's not campaign specific, that might be hard to obtain otherwise. An Unusual Background of sorts. The everyman traits set by the GM could be left hanging as 0-points features before acquiring. No need to pay points for sorta "Totally Usual Background."

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by scc

OK, I'm talking about things like caterpillars turning into butterfly's or dragons gaining age categories.

And it's actually fairly simple, it's the Potential Limitation likely along with some sort of age Limitation to a Meta-Trait that represents your next stage of growth, if you go through multiple stages their nestled within one another

What do you need the point costs for?

For a PC you must know they're going to abuse whatever rule you allow to get into the most powerful form. Either charge them for that form and add 2 points (for Shapechange, less powerful form, -80% for one use) for each additional one they will need to go through, or charge them for the current form and add the metamorphosis as a 0 point feature with the rule you can only change when you've accumulated enough unspent points to pay for the point difference between forms (well OK, it's arguably a perk, specifically Racial Gifts, and not a feature). If there's a time limit and they reach it without the necessary points, just rule they die during the metamorphosis - it's a common enough result for real animals that do this not to survive. You can let them take Terminally Ill for that if they want, though it raises the number of points you'd need to successfully metamorphose by the same amount.

For balance against PCs in a particular encounter, charge for the current form, it's not going to metamorphose during the battle right?. That it may eventually change into something different if the PCs don't kill it is a 0 point feature - *any* opponent could go gain a lot of xps and come back with different abilities if the PCs don't kill it.