PC change

[blackstaff67]

I'm running a game where everyone's read the books, I've got a W.C.Wizard, Jade Court vampire, and two vanilla mortals.  One of the vanilla players wants run a werewolf now (a la The Alphas).

Shall I have him make such a character RAW?  I've heard some people complain about how the concept is broken; assuming for the sake of argument that is true, what solutions have people come up with to fix this? 

[Sanctaphrax]

What's so broken about werewolves?

I've never felt the need to houserule them, so I'm not quite sure what problem you're looking to solve...

If it has to do with Beast Change skill-swaps, you could change the rules for those. Saying that no skill can change by more than 2 would leave you with a significantly weaker but not worthless Power.

[blackstaff67]

What's so broken about werewolves?

I've never felt the need to houserule them, so I'm not quite sure what problem you're looking to solve...

If it has to do with Beast Change skill-swaps, you could change the rules for those. Saying that no skill can change by more than 2 would leave you with a significantly weaker but not worthless Power.

I think IIRC there were those that felt the radical skill swap was out of balance.

FWIW, I was thinking exactly along the same lines you were.

[Taran]

As long as you are strict with the skill change limitations, it's not a huge thing.  But shapechangers tend to have a social pyramid (which most characters don't take, so it's always good to have a Face) and a combat pyramid, which everyone has anyways.

Why not just let the character turn their pure mortal into a shapechanger?  maybe they get cursed or learn a spell from someone or find a Tome of Magic etc...

Then you don't have to introduce a new character.

[blackstaff67]

As long as you are strict with the skill change limitations, it's not a huge thing.  But shapechangers tend to have a social pyramid (which most characters don't take, so it's always good to have a Face) and a combat pyramid, which everyone has anyways.

Why not just let the character turn their pure mortal into a shapechanger?  maybe they get cursed or learn a spell from someone or find a Tome of Magic etc...

Then you don't have to introduce a new character.

Way ahead of you.

[Mr. Death]

As long as you are strict with the skill change limitations, it's not a huge thing.  But shapechangers tend to have a social pyramid (which most characters don't take, so it's always good to have a Face) and a combat pyramid, which everyone has anyways.

Yeah, that's exactly how my werebear was -- big, bearded friendly dude who got along with everyone who was reasonable, then bear for those who weren't. He ended up preventing nearly as many fights as he finished.

[potestas]

i always thought the skill swap allowed people to focus on mental and social skills and then invert those skills when they became animals so they could participate in combat. I thought they were fine with that view. I never really thought of it as overpowered kind of under powered without additional abilities

[g33k]

I think there is scope for a min-max player to bamboozle some GM's who don't think that way...  But I think it's largely non-broken.

For one thing:  Stunts.

Sure, the skill-swap lets you do a social/mental build, and shapechange lets you do a combat build; bu -- correct me if I;m wrong -- you only get the one suite of points for Stunts to support those.  It's a lot harder to build a Social-Fu Monster if half your stunts are supporting your Combat Monster build (and vice versa).  In both arena's (social & combat) the "pure" build is liable to out-perform the one building 2 skill-pyramids.

[Quantus]

Old DnD proverb: The Focused build always outperforms the Hybrid.