What to do when Stress Boxes Change, Help....

[The Codex]

I am have just confused myself.

I am a were form with Inhuman Toughness and due to my skill shuffle now has a Endurance of Great or Good from Average, and hulking size, meaning my character now has 5 !!! additional stress boxes (all clear so far)

Then due to some reason, spell, compell etc I revert to a human form,

What happens to me? do I all of a sudden take consequences for the additional Stress boxes and any stress in them or do they just disappear?

What happens to the Stress, its Stressing me out 

[Saedar]

I also would like a ruling on this. I have a werebear that I am going to run and I am concerned about this.

[srl51676]

An official ruling would be good but if you look at the examples from the novels the Alphas can be easily sidelined by wounds that would not stop them in wolf form and all their wounds remain after they revert. you might not want to shape-shift until you heal up a bit.

[Deadmanwalking]

The Alphas are a bad example as we have their basic stats, and they don't get Inhuman Toughness and thus have at most a single extra Stress Box.

And an official answer was given a while back, though I can't for the life of me find where. It was more or less as follows:

If reducing your Stress Track would take your stress over the new rating, you must take Consequences immediately or be taken out as per usual.

[iago]

This is the official ruling, which has been worked into the marginalia in what will be the final text:

It's much like boxes that you don't get access to when someone attacks you with something that satisfies The Catch. The boxes are still there, still numbered as they're numbered, still marked; you just don't have access to them when you're in the other form.

So, say you shapeshift into a form that gives you a 5th and 6th stress box, and you get hit several times, and hard.  One gives you a Mild Consequence and another gives you a mark on your 5th stress box.

Then you shapeshift back.  You can only access stress boxes 1 through 4, but there's still a X mark on your 5th box that'll be there when you shapeshift back (or will clear out once you get to clear out all your stress boxes normally).

The mild consequence would still hang around too (and this is where you see the Alphas still carrying over their wounds from their wolf forms).

"Hey, what if my form has an extra mild consequence slot?"

Similar logic. It's still there, and still occupied (and still taggable!), you just don't get to access it for its benefits.

[Biff Dyskolos]

This is the official ruling, which has been worked into the marginalia in what will be the final text:

If there an official ruling on how you order your stress boxes?

For example, with Good Endurance (4 stress), Inhuman Toughness (2 stress), Hulking Size (2 stress)

• You could have your Hulking boxes at 5 and 6, and Toughness at 7 and 8
• or you could have your Toughness at 5 and 6, and Hulking at 7 and 8

If you take a big (7 or 8 stress) hit that satisfies your Catch it will make a huge difference if those 7th and 8th boxes belong to Toughness (can't use them) of Hulking.

[luminos]

I'd say that the powers that are most frequently available occupy the lowest boxes.  So if you had inhuman toughness no matter what form you were in, but only had hulking size when you shape changed, then put inhuman toughness boxes at 5 and 6, but if you have only have inhuman toughness at the same times when you have hulking size, then put hulking size boxes at 5 and 6, since they are there even when you get hit by the catch. 

[Biff Dyskolos]

I'd say that the powers that are most frequently available occupy the lowest boxes.  So if you had inhuman toughness no matter what form you were in, but only had hulking size when you shape changed, then put inhuman toughness boxes at 5 and 6, but if you have only have inhuman toughness at the same times when you have hulking size, then put hulking size boxes at 5 and 6, since they are there even when you get hit by the catch. 

In the above example, the character need not be a shifter. Both powers may be always there. The issue of ordering remains. Also, with Modular Abilities powers could be added and subtracted as needed. Does that mean then order in which you shift determines the order of the boxes?

[luminos]

Just go with whatever makes sense.  My suggestion is to order the stress boxes so that the least likely circumstance to occur is that you lose access to some of you middle stress boxes, but still have your higher stress boxes. 

[Biff Dyskolos]

Just go with whatever makes sense.  My suggestion is to order the stress boxes so that the least likely circumstance to occur is that you lose access to some of you middle stress boxes, but still have your higher stress boxes. 

Doing what makes sense makes sense in most circumstances; but I am not sure that would help with modular abilities. You could put Hulking at 5 & 6 and Toughness at 7 & 8 because it makes sense that your opponent will be satisfying your Catch. But then you realize, in this scene Hulking size is just making me easier to hit so you change so you make a shift and replace Hulking with Inhuman strength. Now Toughness slides from 7&8 to 5&6? If 7&8 were checked does that mean that 5&6 are now checked?

The whole issue of shifting and stress affecting powers seems to be a tangled web!

[iago]

Boxes are counted left to right, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 etc. The ones on the right are notated in parentheses when they're conditional. So something like: OOOO (OOOO) would indicate that boxes 1-4 are always there, and 5-8 are conditional.

I always consider powers to add on the highest numbered boxes, because I consider them to be numbered in order of their introduction, with powers coming after the core. So, first box is #1, second box is #2, and so on; if you have a power add 2 more boxes, that adds later in the order, etc.