Confused about shapeshifting

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Ottriman

If you took a huge limitation on your alternate form to only be able to use it once in a blue moon, you still have to pay 1000 points for powers you only have very limited access to.

Only nonsensical if you build it incorrectly.

Rather than put Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon) on the Shapeshifting, put it on every power in the form.

Human:
Shapeshift (Blue Moon Werewolf), Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)

Blue Moon Werewolf:
DR, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)
ST, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)
Regeneration, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)
Supernatural Durability,, Accessibility (Only During Blue Moon)

Then the price drops as you desire.

You can leave off the Accessibility if you want to be able to freely shift into the form not during blue moons, only the form is much weaker. Note that this is also a valid concept (if not particularly appealing to a munchkin point of view; then, you might as well eke out a few more points for not being able to shift into a form you weren't going to use anyway, because it was weak).

You want to use a modifier on Shapeshift as shorthand for dropping that modifier on every ability. That would be a convenient notation. But it's not the way the RAW is written, precisely so that you have the ability to modify both the shifting and the form itself, rather than only the form.

[Bruno]

If you put it on your form, you also end up applying things like the trigger to the disadvantages too - often illegally or at least nonsensically.

A form is a metatrait. You do not modify a metatrait with enhancements and limitations because it's made of individual parts with their own rules on what enhancements and limitations are valid.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Ottriman

As to other comments on shapeshifting: These make sense for the most part. But I think people misunderstood me when I was asking about limitations.

For example if your alternate form costs 1000 points and then +15 for the advantage.

If you took a huge limitation on your alternate form to only be able to use it once in a blue moon, you still have to pay 1000 points for powers you only have very limited access to.

But wouldn't have to pay nearly as much if you always had them and applied a similar once in a blue moon thing to all the powers individually.

Which is nonsensical.

This argument seems to be reaching for it to me.

Let's assume you max out the limitation on your alternate form to -80%, giving it a cost of 3 points. Let's say the racial template for your alternate form costs a net 997 points. That costs a total of 1,000 points which, in a 500-1,000 point campaign maxes out your point costs.

If you presented me as GM with that build, I'd send you back for a re-think. Your other form evidently has base attributes, advantages, disadvantages and skills netting 0 points. At the least, I'd expect you to come back with a revised base character that makes use of the fact that it can have up to 997 points in abilities as well, which should either carry over or vanish when the alternate form is adopted. If you came back with your original build, I'd want you to drop the alternate form's abilities by at least 15 points (give or take) and write up at least one more alternate form with less restrictive limitations and making use of the ability to make that alternate form up to 997 points at no extra charge. If you still came back with your original build, I'd send you off for another re-think, this time about whether you really want to take part in a 500-1,000 point campaign.

[Ottriman]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

This argument seems to be reaching for it to me.

Let's assume you max out the limitation on your alternate form to -80%, giving it a cost of 3 points. Let's say the racial template for your alternate form costs a net 997 points. That costs a total of 1,000 points which, in a 500-1,000 point campaign maxes out your point costs.

If you presented me as GM with that build, I'd send you back for a re-think. Your other form evidently has base attributes, advantages, disadvantages and skills netting 0 points. At the least, I'd expect you to come back with a revised base character that makes use of the fact that it can have up to 997 points in abilities as well, which should either carry over or vanish when the alternate form is adopted. If you came back with your original build, I'd want you to drop the alternate form's abilities by at least 15 points (give or take) and write up at least one more alternate form with less restrictive limitations and making use of the ability to make that alternate form up to 997 points at no extra charge. If you still came back with your original build, I'd send you off for another re-think, this time about whether you really want to take part in a 500-1,000 point campaign.

?

Of course I wouldn't use a build like this in a 500-1000 point game, I know about balancing a character. I was using this as an illustration (and have seen the way to make things work out by limiting everything, thank you friends).

Obviously I'd only actually use something like this in the 2000+ points games I sometimes run.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Let's assume you max out the limitation on your alternate form to -80%, giving it a cost of 3 points. Let's say the racial template for your alternate form costs a net 997 points. That costs a total of 1,000 points which, in a 500-1,000 point campaign maxes out your point costs.

The template would be 10% off in that case, so you can use a 1107 point template. But that extra 107 points is not going to make a huge difference to your points.

I always see players just get a good base form in these sorts of situations.

I can see the argument for making a form with a bigger than 10% discount. Actually, given that I never see players take the 10%, the base price is likely off from its optimum location