Two Ideas (Shapeshifting Evocations, Evothaum)

[Hick Jr]

I thought of a way to represent shapeshifting ala Listens-To-Wind as an evocation. It might require a biomancy evothaum thing(check with your gm), but more on that in a second. The amount of shifts generated for the evocation equals Modular Ability Points. You don't have to take Echoes of the Beast or even Beast Change. Narratively, this can be represented as being unfamiliar with your form or simply skimping on the senses in favor of the hurting people. For example, Listens-To-Wind, in deadmanwalking's writeup of him, can do 11 shift defensive evocations. The bus-sized bear form he took might have had Supernatural  strength, Hulking Size, Supernatural Toughness, and Beast Change.


Continuing the earlier-
Would a separate power "add-on" for Evothaum be a good idea? It'd look something like-

Evothaum [-1] Your mastery of whatevermancy has allowed you to use it far faster than most others. Gain the ability to use whatevermancy at Evocation's methods and speeds, as described in the Sponsored Magic sections (YS Page 288).

Personally I would only allow it for Ritual, citing focused practioners as being, well, focused, with full Thaumaturgy being too broad.

Thoughts? I really only posted this because I had the idea and didn't want to forget it.

[Sanctaphrax]

The first idea probably isn't a good one. 1 shift for 1 Refresh isn't really a fair trade.

The second looks okay, though.

[Hick Jr]

It was how i justified Listens-To-Wind being as awesome as he is, but maybe he has a stunt. Or an upgrade.

Would 2-3 shifts be appropriate? Even 3 shifts kind of turns it into a ridiculous prospect usable only as Thaumaturgy or Evothaum, kind of defeating the point.

[Richard_Chilton]

Fred Hicks - writer of the game - made a different suggestion on how to cover that battle.  Note that it was a suggestion because he never makes rulings.

He suggested giving Listens To Wind the Shapeshifter power, explaining it as a series of spells done in downtime or a special "outside the normal rules for magic" power.  He later suggested giving Gate Keeper the World Walker power for the same reason.

Taking an existing power and giving it a slightly different flavour generally works better than than making a new power.

Richard

[Hick Jr]

Good point. I hadn't heard that before. It could be an ongoing ritual effect, like Corpsetaker's body-hop.

[Deadmanwalking]

My take is as per my writeup of him, and as per Fred's suggestion: Just buy the Powers. I generally stick to this for non-spellcasting powers in spellcasters. It can often be used for really cool additions if done properly.

[JDK002]

My take is as per my writeup of him, and as per Fred's suggestion: Just buy the Powers. I generally stick to this for non-spellcasting powers in spellcasters. It can often be used for really cool additions if done properly.

Agreed.  It seems a lot of players to stick themselves in a box when it comes to wizards and other magic users (the irony is not lost on me).  They can sometimes forget that you choose the narrative flavor for ALL your powers, not just magical theme.  Such as above, taking true shapeshifting and saying it's a special magical technique you learned.  All the powers true shapeshifting gives need no further explaination unless you choose to.

I actually prefer it when my players leave some narrative holes in their character.  It gives the GM and player development options down the road.

[narphoenix]

Hell, one of my characters takes biomancy (his specialty) in a different direction entirely: he has ring that grants him Inhuman Recovery (w/ an Item of Power reimbursement) and an enchanted item granting him Armor:3 by physically strengthening his body as opposed to an actual jacket like object.

[Deadmanwalking]

Agreed.  It seems a lot of players to stick themselves in a box when it comes to wizards and other magic users (the irony is not lost on me).  They can sometimes forget that you choose the narrative flavor for ALL your powers, not just magical theme.  Such as above, taking true shapeshifting and saying it's a special magical technique you learned.  All the powers true shapeshifting gives need no further explaination unless you choose to.

Yeah. One of the cooler vaguely biomancy-related tricks I like on Wizards or other spellcasters so inclined is Inhuman Speed with a Feeding Dependency (Magical Energy), as they gain the ability to jazz up their body's responses with raw magical energy. Physical Immunity to something thematically appropriate is also cool as a permanent Ward of some sort (an Iron Can't Bite rune tattooed onto your flesh granting immunity to metal, or the best counterspell ever granting immunity to magic, for example, though the latter might be a little overpowered in PC hands, I suppose), as are a number of other interesting tricks (Glamours for a real master of veils, Beast Change plus Demonic Copilot for a demonic spirit bound into your flesh that handles physical combat for you, Human Form [+2] plus Inhuman Strength and Toughness for the ability to reliably jazz yourself up with magic via a five minute ritual, etc. etc.).

[Locnil]

Agreed.  It seems a lot of players to stick themselves in a box when it comes to wizards and other magic users (the irony is not lost on me).  They can sometimes forget that you choose the narrative flavor for ALL your powers, not just magical theme.  Such as above, taking true shapeshifting and saying it's a special magical technique you learned.  All the powers true shapeshifting gives need no further explaination unless you choose to.

I actually prefer it when my players leave some narrative holes in their character.  It gives the GM and player development options down the road.

To be fair, sometimes they simply don't want a suboptimal build.

Evothaum [-1] Your mastery of whatevermancy has allowed you to use it far faster than most others. Gain the ability to use whatevermancy at Evocation's methods and speeds, as described in the Sponsored Magic sections (YS Page 288).

Personally I would only allow it for Ritual, citing focused practioners as being, well, focused, with full Thaumaturgy being too broad.

Thoughts? I really only posted this because I had the idea and didn't want to forget it.

Can you explain what you mean by only for Ritual? As in, Evothaum must be taken again for each aspect of thaumaturgy you wish to be doable as evocation? Once for conjuration, once for warding, etcetera?

[Hick Jr]

I meant that you can't take the power with full Thaumaturgy. It's a sub-power of Ritual, like Lasting Emotion is a sub-power of Incite Emotion.

[JDK002]

To be fair, sometimes they simply don't want a suboptimal build.

Can you explain what you mean by only for Ritual? As in, Evothaum must be taken again for each aspect of thaumaturgy you wish to be doable as evocation? Once for conjuration, once for warding, etcetera?

True on the suboptimal point.  I was tempted to point out giving a magic user something like inhuman strength is usually less effective than 2 points of refinement.  Though (and I'm aware this is strictly personal taste) I personally prefer interesting but flawed characters over hyper-optimized characters that can sometimes end up feeling kind of flat or "one-trick ponies".  Not to say it's impossible to have the best of both worlds, but sometimes a really cool idea runs contrary to optimization.  I'll typically take the former in that case.

[Deadmanwalking]

I'd argue that most concepts can be optimized pretty well if you do them right. Not on-par with the 10 shift Evocation Specialist at Submerged or crazy concepts like that, but seriously good nonetheless, and more than optimized enough for most groups.

[Locnil]

I'd argue that most concepts can be optimized pretty well if you do them right. Not on-par with the 10 shift Evocation Specialist at Submerged or crazy concepts like that, but seriously good nonetheless, and more than optimized enough for most groups.

True - if you do them right. Simply tacking on powers probably isn't doing it right, at least without something like Santaphrax's Magical Self-Enhancement.

Though this is probably the part where I point out a great many out there don't care much about optimisation anyway.

I meant that you can't take the power with full Thaumaturgy. It's a sub-power of Ritual, like Lasting Emotion is a sub-power of Incite Emotion.

If you like, but I should note your given rationale doesn't fit the setting. People with Thaumaturgy aren't jacks of all trades, master of none; they're masters of all trades. If it were me I'd let people with full Thaumaturgy take it, simply requiring them to do so again for every field of magic.

Then again I'll probably never use this power. Honestly, evothaum, as it's presented in the rules, seems kinda worthless to me.

[Hick Jr]

That makes sense. I'll change it. And evothaum can get kind of insanely good for certain fields. Wards is basically useless unless you can do it without a threshold and even then it's iffy, but Summoning can get ridiculous because most things in Our World have a Conviction of zero, and can be summoned and bound with about ten shifts. Biomancy lets you directly remove stress and consequences very fast, psychomancy is the legal way to target the mental stress track with evocations, and Necromancy is a mook-maker.