Stressed Out About Beast Change

[Aubri]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it on a search of the archive, so...
First of all, if your Endurance increases when you shift, you get more stress boxes, right? I'm going to assume this is so.

So, what do you do with that stress if you shift back and forth during the same battle? For instance, taking Georgia's stats (OW p.115), she has Endurance at Fair in human form (3 stress boxes) but increases it to Good (4 stress boxes) when she wolfs out. Suppose she takes a single 4-stress hit, then switches back to human form. Does that 4th box just stay floating out there, leaving her "human" stress boxes empty?

For a more extreme example, suppose she were able to push her Endurance all the way up to Superb, gaining an extra mild physical consequence. She takes a 6-stress hit and uses her 4-stress box and that consequence to soak it. The consequence still sticks with her in human form even though the consequence slot is technically unavailable, right?

The other stress tracks have the same issue in reverse -- for instance, if she took a 4-stress social hit, then wolfed out and knocked her Presence down to Fair.


I have a second question about beast change that'll probably be a little easier. Do you completely re-buy your skills for beast form, or do you need to keep the same skills on the page and just shuffle them? That is, can you drop a skill to Mediocre when you wolf out?

[Haru]

The stress does not roll down. Once a stress box is filled, it is only relevant again, if you want to try to fill it again. The stress box remains filled as it is, you just don't have access to it as long as you don't change again.

So let's look at Georgia:

She is in Wolf form and has stress boxes that look like this:
OOO (O OO)
I space them out like this to make it clear which box corresponds to which power or skill. The boxes in brackets are added in wolf form, the first one is from endurance, the other 2 from inhuman toughness.

Now lets say we're in the middle of a fight, she already took a 4 shift hit and now has to take another 4 stress hit. Since the 4th box is already filled, it rolls up to the 5th box. Her stress looks like this now:
OOO (X XO)
She shifts back into human form to call for help, but she is hit again with 4 shifts. She is no longer in wolf form, so she can't access the stress boxes inside the bracket. She takes a mild consequence and takes 2 shifts of stress:
OXO (X XO) + 1 mild physical

If she had still been in wolf form, she could have taken the hit without a consequence:
OOO (X XX)

You can make an entirely new skill set for your beast form. The only thing that is prohibited, I believe, is that knowledge skills are higher than in your human form.

[Aubri]

Okay, that's how I figured it would work. By the book, Georgia doesn't have Inhuman Toughness, by the way.

On the skill-buying issue, it's knowledge and social skills. But that's what I was looking for, so thanks!

One more thought. Should I require my player to reconfigure beast-form skills at the same rate as normal ones? i.e., each minor milestone allows her to make one skill swap in her human skill list AND one skill swap in her beast skill list.

[EdgeOfDreams]

One more thought. Should I require my player to reconfigure beast-form skills at the same rate as normal ones? i.e., each minor milestone allows her to make one skill swap in her human skill list AND one skill swap in her beast skill list.

There's no official word on this one, as far as I know. Really, though, skill swaps and rearrangement are pretty hard to abuse if you're worried about game balance. Allowing a swap for both forms at each milestone is probably fine. You should NOT allow a complete re-write of their beast form skill list unless there's major justification, though - that's what True Shapeshifting is for.

[Sanctaphrax]

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,26779.msg1140929.html#msg1140929

Also, I agree with EdgeOfDreams.

[Aubri]

Thanks! I figured someone would have asked this before. Sounds like it's all pretty much "use your common sense", I just wanted to make sure.

Edge, I was actually wondering whether each milestone should allow one skill swap in EACH list, or one skill swap on EITHER list. The latter seemed a bit harsh to me since a werewolf has twice as many skills to deal with, but I didn't know if there was a previous ruling on the matter.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Thanks! I figured someone would have asked this before. Sounds like it's all pretty much "use your common sense", I just wanted to make sure.

Edge, I was actually wondering whether each milestone should allow one skill swap in EACH list, or one skill swap on EITHER list. The latter seemed a bit harsh to me since a werewolf has twice as many skills to deal with, but I didn't know if there was a previous ruling on the matter.

One swap on EACH is how I run it, and how I would expect most people to run it.