Multiform purchases

[Christopher R Taylor]

You know...

 

why does Multiform require you to buy the change back?  I mean you have to buy "multiform, original form" in the alternate form you get, or you cannot change back.

 

Now, think about this a moment.  What is it called if you change into another form and stay that way forever?  That's just an origin story, you aren't a multiform, you're just that guy now.  Forever.

 

All this mechanic looks like is "because we always did it that way" combined with "that way your form is less powerful because you spent meaningless points"

 

Oh, you say "what if the character has multiple different forms he can shift between?"  That's not the same as becoming your original person again.  That's having lots of forms you can move between without going back to your default shape again.  It makes sense to have to buy the power to become another shape but not to go back to being yourself.

 

Just... an oddity to me.

[Rhodri]

To me the point of Multiform is that both (all) forms have distinct advantages and disadvantages with respect to each other, such as different power or skill sets.  You seem to be thinking of the more Shazam! type Multiform, which I think of as a Shape Shift plus a bunch of Only In Heroic ID limitations.

[LoneWolf]

Not sure where you are getting this from.  When I look up multiform in the book It says you have to pay for all alternative forms.  The example it gives is an alien who has 4 animal forms he can turn into.  The most expensive is 400 pts so the base cost is 80 pts.  He pays +10 for 4 forms.   The rules also state that a character with two or more alternate forms can change directly from one form to another without having to resume the true form.   So, the example from the book has 5 forms.  The first is the alien form, the second is a tyrannosaur, the third is a cheetah, the fourth is an eagle, and the fifth and final form is a fish.  He only paid for 4 forms not 5.

[dmjalund]

7 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

Not sure where you are getting this from.  When I look up multiform in the book It says you have to pay for all alternative forms.  The example it gives is an alien who has 4 animal forms he can turn into.  The most expensive is 400 pts so the base cost is 80 pts.  He pays +10 for 4 forms.   The rules also state that a character with two or more alternate forms can change directly from one form to another without having to resume the true form.   So, the example from the book has 5 forms.  The first is the alien form, the second is a tyrannosaur, the third is a cheetah, the fourth is an eagle, and the fifth and final form is a fish.  He only paid for 4 forms not 5.

i think he's talking about paying for the original form on the multiform;s character sheet

[LoneWolf]

Again the “True” form does not have to pay for itself.   Only the true form pays for the multiform, the other forms do not have to purchase multiform.  The example in the book was perfectly clear.  Only the “Strange Alien” paid for the multiform.   There is no mention of the other forms needing to purchase the ability to change back to the “Strange Alien”.   The first sentence of the second paragraph states “The Cost of the multiform, which only the true form pays for is 1 Character Point for every 5 Character Points the most expensive Alternate form is built with.”  Under Changing Forms it specifically states, “A characters alternate forms do not also have to buy multiform so he can change back”.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

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 Only the true form pays for the multiform, the other forms do not have to purchase multiform.

 

Good, it looks like you are right from my read as well.  I guess I was thinking of previous editions which absolutely did require you to buy multiform to get back into your original form.

[Simon]

I don't think any edition has required that.

 

5ER has similarly explicit statements to what Lonewolf posted from 6th....and IIRC, that didn't change much from 4th and earlier.

[Simon]

OK...bit more research on this:

Multiform was introduced in 4E. While it doesn't have the explicit statements about only the base form paying for Multiform, that rule is still in place.

 

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Base character pays 1 Character Point for every 5 total points possessed by second form, minimum cost 20 Character Points.

 

Couple this with repeated statements throughout the writeup for Multiform that additional forms can have a maximum number of total points equal to the total points in the base form minus the cost of Multiform.  

 

For clarity: the above is 4E rules, which do differ from 5E and 6E, but are the same in that Multiform is only paid for once by the base/true form.