animal mimic

[sjksprocket]

I have a player who had an interesting idea for a supernatural stunt. She want to play an animal mimic. basically she want to be able to morph into various animals. I was thinking of doing a variation of mimic where she tacks a set refresh cost and then she can morph into various animals that would fall into that refresh cost. There was some talk about some drawback, with potential cost reductions, about exhaustion while in animal form and difficult means of getting different animal forms (possible ingestion of bits of that animal). I wanted to throw this up here and see what people thought. any thoughts/suggestions would be cool.

[Crimson Overcoat]

Keep it simple. Beast form for one set of skill shifts, and modular abilities to mimic different animals. One of my players is doing something similar to this, and the group decided that this was the best solution to keep it simple and work with the concept.

[HobbitGuy1420]

If the player wants multiple sets of skill rearrangements, let them take Beast Change more than once, with each instance representing a new skill layout.  That ought to tide anyone over until they're powerful enough to afford True Shapeshifting.

[Becq]

Since True Shapeshifting allows for literally any form including toasters and lampshades for [-4], it might not be unreasonable to allow for a slightly lesser form of it covering only 'living' creatures for [-3].  Given that this does cut down significantly on flexibility ("Oh, noes, the ebil folkses are coming!  I think this time I'll turn into ... a wall socket!"), I think it's not unreasonable.  You'd still need the modular abilities to add on things like wings, claws, or other abilities as appropriate.  It might not be unreasonable to allow for a more limited version of the modular powers that has a total cost of [-2], but allows you to pick from one of, say, three specific powers.  Otherwise it would be more efficient just to buy wings, claws, and aquatic for [-3] than to buy a one-point modular power for [-3] that allows you choose one of them...

And per a discussion earlier on this subject, I suggest that you have the player write up a card for each form they want to be able to take, detailing the abilities of that form.  Don't allow multiple skillsets for a given form (ie, only one 'wolf' form, with one ability set, rather than three different sets tuned for tracking, combat, and rapid movement), and require that any new form be run by you in advance.  This will help the game run a bit more smoothly as the player just sifts through his cards and picks a form, instead of bogging down while the player spends ten minutes creating a new form with just the right set of skills for the current situation.

[Richard_Chilton]

Also you could rule that he has to practice how to do things in each form and require a day or more experimenting before he use a new form well.

Richard

[sjksprocket]

@becq - I like this idea. I'll have to look into this further

I was already planning on making sure it was only one skillset per form. She'll only be able to turn into one specific form of the animal. But I like the idea of index cards.

Does anyone have an idea on what I should give for, reduction wise, for the exhaustion and  limited means of getting different forms? I'm not sure if it should be a +1 each or for both.

[Becq]

I think I'd go a bit easy on penalties.  After all, the character is paying a base of [-3] refresh to basically just rearrange their skills a bit.  To actually gain advantages, he'd have to pay at least [-2] to gain fairly minor abilities, or [-4] or more to have access to things like Inhuman Strength or Speed.  Now you're getting into [-7] or more total refresh, which is the same as a Wizard or White Court Vampire, so the player should reasonably expect to get similar effectiveness out of the powerset.

That said, it might not be unreasonable to bring a custom version of the vampiric Hunger rules into play here.  Basically, you'd give them an additional stress track to reflect the slow buildup of animal instincts on the character if they spend too much time out of their natural form.  Too much use of their powers (much like a vampire's overuse of physical powers) might lead to a consequence or two representing animal traits that have imprinted themselves on the character's psyche.  Heavy over-use (like a character being forced to remain in a shape to avoid discovery) which results in the character being 'taken out' might translate to the character's sentience being totally subsumed by animal instinct for some period of time.

And they'd get a refresh or two back for accepting this weakness, similar to the vampiric hunger powers.

[deathwombat]

Call each shift an endurance hit but maybe takes more than a scene to replenish?

[JustinS]

This is to true shape-shift as nounmancery is to channeling.
I'd go for the full [-4] true shape-shift off of the high concept 'animal shifter' (and however much modular ability you want to pay for). There is no discount off the cost, but, every time you'd want to shift into a hedge or a wall hanging and can't, you get a fate point instead. For that matter, every time you want to shift into another person, or a different colored dog and can't, get a fate point.

I do agree that feeding dependency seems the right thing to build off of. It also means that shifting to an easy form (not using modular abilities) is less of a strain then harder forms (with large, small or wings).

Also, good idea with the index cards.

[sjksprocket]

I think I might of misspoke on my last post a little.  If I calculate it I can get the ability to a -0 refresh cost. -4 for true shape changing . +1 for animal only, +1 for limited forms (4 to start and hard to get more), +1 for exhausting/hunger track, +1 for human form = -0. Am I doing the math right here? I'm considering letting it go for a -0 because of all the modular abilities she would have to buy, and we're probably going to do a lower power game.

I like the idea of the hunger track to simulate staying in animal form for too long, and being stuck if in animal form too long,

[HobbitGuy1420]

Generally, price-discount abilities like a Feeding Dependancy or the Catch can only ever reduce a cost to -1.

[crusher_bob]

The human form bonus should technically apply to any other abilities they have, not the shapeshifting itself.  Also, only being able to turn into animals is probably only worth a 1 point rebate on true shapeshifting, not a two point one.

The 'specific' abilities of true shapeshifting are:

re-arrange your skills however you want; worth about -2 refresh, since beast form, which gives you only one alternate skill set is worth -1.  It's not really worth more than -2 because the alternate skill sets have diminish marginal utility.  

Use shapeshifting to disguise yourself as a generic (anything), worth another 2 points.  I think that copying specific people requires the mimic form ability in addition.  Of course, you could still turn into a generic person of any sex, race, build, etc; just not a specific person.

So, the 'only animals' limit only effects the disguise ability, and not the skill shift ability, and you still get some utility out of being able to turn into any sort of animal, since being a rat or a pidgeon or a cat or whatever gives you a pretty good disguise to go anywhere.

Note you are not paying for the ability to turn into animals, exactly; you are paying for the disguise power.  So, for example, if the character can only turn into pokemon, they lose the disguise ability as well.  Because no would would mistake a pokemon for some sort of mundane animal.

So a character might look like:

-4 True shapeshifting
+1 Limit: Only animals (and not inanimate objects or people)

+1 Limit: human form, covering:
+1 Limit: Feeding dependency, covering:
-5 3 points of modular abilities

Total refresh: -6

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Because of the high base point cost of true shapeshifting, tying the feeding dependency to the shapeshifting as well may make using any short of shapeshifting at all very difficult.  For example, turning into a war from (-2 inhuman strength, -1 claws) and using both would cause a strength 7 feeding hit; most of the vampires would have to really work at it to get take a feeding hit that large.