How Do I...? "False Tracks" Question

[Hugh Neilson]

26 minutes ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I prefer Change Environment because it's a straightforward mechanical build. You want to be harder to track, and penalties to a Tracking roll will accomplish that. Change Environment is the Power that lets you apply penalties to a skill roll.

 

Agreed.  If the target were Transformed, then it would leave the footprints of whatever it was transformed into. -6 penalty to Tracking rolls to identify the target tracked, just like the Locking spell penalized Lockpick rolls to unlock a specific lock.

 

Alternatively, Duke had a great discussion of special effects.  Don't you leave tracks as SFX of your existing movement power?  Variable SFX, any tracks/traces of passage left behind (+1/4), as a naked advantage

[Beast]

43 minutes ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I prefer Change Environment because it's a straightforward mechanical build. You want to be harder to track, and penalties to a Tracking roll will accomplish that. Change Environment is the Power that lets you apply penalties to a skill roll.

also changing you feet does nothing if your walking style stays the same

the change needs to be some distance from the old trail otherwise the tracker will figure out that the feet have changed but the gate and your style have stayed the same

[Christopher R Taylor]

Spoiler

also changing you feet does nothing if your walking style stays the same

 

Shapeshift covers more than just the shape of one part of your body; the special effects and intention of the build define what it does.

[unclevlad]

But you can change your walking style trivially, you just have to think about it.  And, yeah, CRT's right.  You can change your stride length;  Shape Shift allows some height adjustment.  And gate, too.  If you can contemplate disguising your tracks, then it's a given, to me, that you'll think about changing your style.  I agree, tho, that you want to break the trail by some other means, or the swap is a little too easy to distinguish.  But that's also gonna be a GM's call...just how obstinate is this tracker gonna be, about following you?  

 

And as has been pointed out, full-scale prints aren't necessarily the only indicators a tracker uses.  If you really want to break the track, don't step on the ground.  Air walking.  Semi-abusive would be 1" of Teleport with MegaScale...might be a tad tricky to use in heavily overgrown areas but should be manageable.  Wouldn't take too much, I'd say, to combine Shrinking and Leap.  Shrinking doesn't drop your Leap.  In somewhat rocky terrain, the small size would make going from rock to rock, not leaving any tracks, fairly straightforward.  

It's really gonna come down to how important this is gonna be, but in a LOT of cases, the player shouldn't have to bend over backwards.  As long as they're making the effort and putting some points into it, mostly, it should work.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Change Environment to put a penalty on tracking would work too, its just going to be really expensive, so of questionable use for the minor value of the effect.

 

Quote

It's really gonna come down to how important this is gonna be, but in a LOT of cases, the player shouldn't have to bend over backwards.  As long as they're making the effort and putting some points into it, mostly, it should work.

 

And it can be done multiple ways.  Its not really a "rule" of Hero officially, but in my opinion the cost should reflect the value of the effect.  So if you just want to light a match and it costs you 45 points, that's not a good build.

[Hugh Neilson]

One issue never really addressed in Change Environment is the base level of penalties and restrictions on them.  Every characteristic or skill roll costs 3 points for -1.  So -6 to lockpicking, to use that official example, costs 18 points, but -6 to all DEX rolls would cost the same.  I think it's reasonable that the penalty applies to a specific use of a CHAR roll (like remaining standing or picking a lock).  When this is narrowed, should there be a reduced cost or a limitation?  -1 to Tracking would cover all uses. This ability only applies to determining the nature of the entity being tracked.
 

There is a definite pricing issue when one compares the Confusion Spell example to the Locking spell.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Every characteristic or skill roll costs 3 points for -1.  So -6 to lockpicking, to use that official example, costs 18 points, but -6 to all DEX rolls would cost the same. 

 

I interpret that this way:

Penalties to skill levels affect those skills exclusively

Penalties to characteristic rolls affect ONLY characteristic rolls, not any other context.

 

So if you give someone -3 to DEX, that only applies to Dexterity rolls in specific, not Agility skills or any other context. If you put a penalty on someone STR roll, it makes them worse at making STR Rolls, not skills based on STR or STR vs STR contests, for example.

 

That's the only way the price structure makes sense.

[unclevlad]

13 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Every characteristic or skill roll costs 3 points for -1.  So -6 to lockpicking, to use that official example, costs 18 points, but -6 to all DEX rolls would cost the same. 

 

I interpret that this way:

Penalties to skill levels affect those skills exclusively

Penalties to characteristic rolls affect ONLY characteristic rolls, not any other context.

 

So if you give someone -3 to DEX, that only applies to Dexterity rolls in specific, not Agility skills or any other context. If you put a penalty on someone STR roll, it makes them worse at making STR Rolls, not skills based on STR or STR vs STR contests, for example.

 

That's the only way the price structure makes sense.

 

I was kinda thinking the same, but there's examples where that doesn't work.  For example...CE to lay down a thin layer of black ice.  Penalty to DEX...but wouldn't this also apply to Acrobatics?  If applied to a wall, it might be best expressed as a penalty to Climbing, as that's the obvious roll...but also perhaps a penalty to try to Cling to the wall?  These aren't a dime a dozen, but if we start with a specific effect and situation, then we can likely construct more than one roll that would be impacted.

 

And thinking about this some more...

 

In general, a Characteristic roll is an instantaneous type of check;  spending time doesn't matter.  With many skill checks, you CAN spend time.  This was something that I thought of, in connection with the Lockpicking.  -6 is a major penalty...but some of that can be offset.  Oh, and skill checks can sometimes involve tools that provide +1 or +2.  Characteristic rolls generally can't.  Last, specifically for tracking and sometimes other things...there won't be one check.  This is a case where the GM should require multiple checks, particularly when the track is actively trying to be obscured.  

 

Next:

Single sense is 2 points per;  sense group is 3.

Single skill is like single sense, whereas Characteristic is analogous to sense group.

So single skill makes sense to be 2 points per.

 

Now, the GM can make the call...does it apply to a skill, or is it broader, like coating the vertical wall with ice?  


I think we're overthinking this.  A lot.  

 

Here's another, simpler thought, to go about this in a different way.  Let's consider this as an opposed skill contest.  The tracker obviously uses Tracking;  the pursued party could arguably use Stealth or Tracking.  So the item/spell gives a bonus to him...and then you can resolve it as a straightforward skill vs. skill contest.  HOW this is gonna work becomes SFX.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

It's a wolf.... About six-foot-two...  Bipedal....

 

 

no; I'm kidding, of course.  I understand what you mean. 

 

"redundant" was a poorly-chosen word, and I will accept correcrion to any word more approoriate; I was trying to sum up the idea of it being both unnecessary _and_ something of a hipocracy: it is a special effect that you are required to buy.  The standing argument is "what power would possibly justify me being able to turn into a chair?  Oh-ho!  I've got you now!"  I say standard argument because I have made this point multiple times, and out of those discussions, the chair example has been the counter used the most (three time now, I believe, but I havent actually been tracking), because apparently, it is thought to be the most befuddling possible thing to turn into.

 

The reply will always be "why do you want to be a chair?"

 

Really; why are you becoming a chair?  Whatever it is that you feel being a chair will be the most advantageous way to do it- there is your answer: want to more easily support another character?  It is the SFX of toggling a Reduced END on your STR.  To hide from the villains?  You have the Super Skill of Disguise, modeled by turning into a Chair.

 

Your Beast Boy example is perfect of what I was striving for when I ill-advisedly chose "redundant." There is a write up of this character in Different Worlds magazine (with art by the late Mark Williams, but I know that I am the only person this interests.  For what it's worth, it is some of his best; he appears to have begun to grasp altering proportions slightly to suggest movement or energy) done by Doug McD and Steve Petersen back in the 2e era; the write up doesn't have shape shift (even though Champs 3 had been published at this point).  It has a laundry list of abilities all with the limitation "only in X identity," rebranded in this case as "only in appropriate form."  Today, of course, that laundry list would be even cheaper, built on the Multipower of Every--  err..  Power Pool.  The limitation would be "must assume apporpriate form for abilities in use" or words to that effect.

 

Shapeshift is the special effect of Beast Boy (called "Changeling" in the DW write-up; Google tells me they are the same character and apparently he was Beast Boy before and after Changeling?) using his powers, period.

 

Then we had Multiform, presumably this was from two possible pressures: either too many people weren't grasping form as SFX (which continues,to this day) or too many people wanted to do on the cheap (a problem that will only cease with the end of points-buy systems).

 

Today, unless Multiform has been declared a Framework, one could do it on the Mega-cheap, pulling endless alternate forms from the Multipower of Every Power Ever and beating the form slot costs down to infentesimal.

 

So here we have a second way to shapeshift.  No one questions either of these; it is simply understood that the character will shapeshift.  No one questions that he isn't being charged for his ability to shift his shape.  It is completely understood that shape shifting is his special effect, and that we dont pay for special effects.

 

In fact, in one of these two builds, this special effect is modeled as a _liability_ that denies access to certain power while others are in play based on how the character expresses his SFX at the activation of whatever abilities are in play:

 

I turn into a gorilla and use my vast gorilla strength to scoop up the two injured people and carry them to safety!

 

Okay, but the added weight and you pounding your way out to them has set up harmonics in the damaged bridge.  It begins to oscillate and then wobble and now it is crumbling; you might not make it across the ravine before it collapses...

 

Gorillas can't fly, can they?

 

Outside of airplanes, no.

 

Is there a bird that can carry two adult tourists?

 

That kind of thing. Not only does he not pay for his special effect, in his case, the shapeshifting special effect is a liability that reduces the cost of the powers because it will periodically deny him access to them.  This is the exact opposite of paying for the special effect.

 

Shapeshift in 5e is the _third_ way to shapeshift-- which is why I got stuck on the word "redundant"-- and the first time you have to pay for a special effect, ever.  

 

The wierd thing as that it is "doubly redundant." The same book that gives us this newly-codified version of Shapeshift the Power (remember that a power of this same,name,appeared,in Champions III) also gave us....  I _want_ to say Penalty Skill  Levels, but I am not certain that wis right as I have just concluded a thirty-hour bike ride, so I am a bit punchy.  At any rate, I mean a codified mechanic for being able to force penalties onto another character's rolls. This book also reminds us via direct statement that Mulitiform allows the character to change his form without without buying shapeshift.

 

Good thing, too, because between buying shapeshift via sense group and costing it depending on targeting v non targeting senses, one could easily spend ninety points and still not one-hundred-percent be shape shifted under the current rules.  Make you Mind Scan or Spatial Awareness discriminatory and targeting, and hey look!  There he is!

 

I put those same 90 points into forced penalites agains PER rolls to identify me as The Clayminator, and I end up with much better odds of not being found out.

 

The proposed shapeshift build for false tracks needs to appeal to sight, scent, and touch at a minimum.  Problematically, it also needs to apply to something that is not you, which the rules don't allow.  They go further to suggest that usable against others / as attack / what have you not be allowed to use this power (or Multiform) to change the shape /form of anything but yourself.

 

Let me be clear:  anyone wanting to ignore this rule has my full personal support, as I feel it is an objectively bad designed to continue to prop up the "can't T-form yourself" rule.  Well, I find the entirje ShapeShift as a sepaprate power rule to be- not bad, so much as not necessary.  The fact that it goes so far to pin itself as a deception of the sense groups (ie, perception penalties) and then having ladders (after that) to define how your body actually shanges, etc...  You spend a like points before you get to spend the points that make you actually change.   You are paying way too much for forced penalties, then buying your SFX on top of that.  It's a bad set of rules, but it's following proves that it is not objectively bad, so I dont bag on the rules themselves much, just their "necessity."

 

At any rate, even if you ignore the self only, ever aspect of shapeshift so that you cast it on your tracks as opposed to your feet and scent and whatever bits of you affect your mass, gait, and number of legs, for this build, you going to do better- I think; obviously, this isn't objective, either- to use anything else.

 

If you cant ignore shapeshift's self-only mandate, then you _have_ to use something else.  Since the ultimate goal is to make the use of a particular skill more difficult to use, I stand by forced penalties.  Since CE has an area effect built in, can be used at range (allowing the caster to move away from the affected are while maintaining the effect) _and_ allows for forcing penalties, it seems like a natural choice.

 

With T-form, we have to add range and an AoE.

 

With SS, we have to build it, add range, add an AoE, and ignore a very specific rule.

 

 

Sorry for the delayed reply, but it was _perfect_ motorcycle weather this weekend; I cancelled _everything_ and hit the road: warm sun, cool air, and enough wind to fly an iron kite.  Love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I was kinda thinking the same, but there's examples where that doesn't work.  For example...CE to lay down a thin layer of black ice.  Penalty to DEX...but wouldn't this also apply to Acrobatics?

 

Well if you wanted to be a completist about it, yes.  But if you only had (make a DEX Roll or fall down) and not a penalty to Acrobatics, then its ice that an acrobat can stay up on easily.  Change Environment isn't a drain, it applies penalties to simulate effects usually.  You don't suddenly become clumsy when you get onto the ice, you are prone to falling.

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Your Beast Boy example is perfect of what I was striving for when I ill-advisedly chose "redundant." There is a write up of this character in Different Worlds magazine (with art by the late Mark Williams, but I know that I am the only person this interests.  For what it's worth, it is some of his best; he appears to have begun to grasp altering proportions slightly to suggest movement or energy) done by Doug McD and Steve Petersen back in the 2e era; the write up doesn't have shape shift (even though Champs 3 had been published at this point).  It has a laundry list of abilities all with the limitation "only in X identity," rebranded in this case as "only in appropriate form."  Today, of course, that laundry list would be even cheaper, built on the Multipower of Every--  err..  Power Pool.  The limitation would be "must assume apporpriate form for abilities in use" or words to that effect.

 

Shapeshift is the special effect of Beast Boy (called "Changeling" in the DW write-up; Google tells me they are the same character and apparently he was Beast Boy before and after Changeling?) using his powers, period.

 

That DW didn't come out that long after the X-Men writeups in issue 27, which featured a creator discussion on changes between 1e and 2e, so I am not sure Shape Shift/Champions III would have been considered in the writeups. But Shape Shift was really intended for characters like The Chameleon, Mystique, etc. whose schtick is to Disguise what Invisibility is to Stealth. Multiform was also in Champs III.

 

Beast Boy first appeared, as a youngster, in Doom Patrol. He was older and ditched the name for Changeling in Teen Titans. Various reboots later, the original name returned.

 

Swapping a Multipower for a VPP would not harm the character concept.

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Today, unless Multiform has been declared a Framework, one could do it on the Mega-cheap, pulling endless alternate forms from the Multipower of Every Power Ever and beating the form slot costs down to infentesimal.

 

VPP, Only Multiforms  if the +5 for every doubling of forms became too expensive

 

10 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Well if you wanted to be a completist about it, yes.  But if you only had (make a DEX Roll or fall down) and not a penalty to Acrobatics, then its ice that an acrobat can stay up on easily.  Change Environment isn't a drain, it applies penalties to simulate effects usually.  You don't suddenly become clumsy when you get onto the ice, you are prone to falling.

 

Viewing the base as "a CHAR-based roll related to these purposes" creates a much better baseline. Sure, it's hard to be Acrobatic on ice, but it doesn't mean it's harder to pick locks. 

[unclevlad]

1 minute ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Viewing the base as "a CHAR-based roll related to these purposes" creates a much better baseline. Sure, it's hard to be Acrobatic on ice, but it doesn't mean it's harder to pick locks. 

 

Yeah, that's a better way to explain it.  Focus on what's being done.  If it's VERY narrow, so it only affects a single skill, like jamming the lock?  2 points.  If it's broader, 3 points.  The exact boundary is at GM discretion.

[Grailknight]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:04 PM, Duke Bushido said:

It's a wolf.... About six-foot-two...  Bipedal....

 

 

no; I'm kidding, of course.  I understand what you mean. 

 

"redundant" was a poorly-chosen word, and I will accept correcrion to any word more approoriate; I was trying to sum up the idea of it being both unnecessary _and_ something of a hipocracy: it is a special effect that you are required to buy.  The standing argument is "what power would possibly justify me being able to turn into a chair?  Oh-ho!  I've got you now!"  I say standard argument because I have made this point multiple times, and out of those discussions, the chair example has been the counter used the most (three time now, I believe, but I havent actually been tracking), because apparently, it is thought to be the most befuddling possible thing to turn into.

 

The reply will always be "why do you want to be a chair?"

 

Really; why are you becoming a chair?  Whatever it is that you feel being a chair will be the most advantageous way to do it- there is your answer: want to more easily support another character?  It is the SFX of toggling a Reduced END on your STR.  To hide from the villains?  You have the Super Skill of Disguise, modeled by turning into a Chair.

 

Your Beast Boy example is perfect of what I was striving for when I ill-advisedly chose "redundant." There is a write up of this character in Different Worlds magazine (with art by the late Mark Williams, but I know that I am the only person this interests.  For what it's worth, it is some of his best; he appears to have begun to grasp altering proportions slightly to suggest movement or energy) done by Doug McD and Steve Petersen back in the 2e era; the write up doesn't have shape shift (even though Champs 3 had been published at this point).  It has a laundry list of abilities all with the limitation "only in X identity," rebranded in this case as "only in appropriate form."  Today, of course, that laundry list would be even cheaper, built on the Multipower of Every--  err..  Power Pool.  The limitation would be "must assume apporpriate form for abilities in use" or words to that effect.

 

Shapeshift is the special effect of Beast Boy (called "Changeling" in the DW write-up; Google tells me they are the same character and apparently he was Beast Boy before and after Changeling?) using his powers, period.

 

Then we had Multiform, presumably this was from two possible pressures: either too many people weren't grasping form as SFX (which continues,to this day) or too many people wanted to do on the cheap (a problem that will only cease with the end of points-buy systems).

 

Today, unless Multiform has been declared a Framework, one could do it on the Mega-cheap, pulling endless alternate forms from the Multipower of Every Power Ever and beating the form slot costs down to infentesimal.

 

So here we have a second way to shapeshift.  No one questions either of these; it is simply understood that the character will shapeshift.  No one questions that he isn't being charged for his ability to shift his shape.  It is completely understood that shape shifting is his special effect, and that we dont pay for special effects.

 

In fact, in one of these two builds, this special effect is modeled as a _liability_ that denies access to certain power while others are in play based on how the character expresses his SFX at the activation of whatever abilities are in play:

 

I turn into a gorilla and use my vast gorilla strength to scoop up the two injured people and carry them to safety!

 

Okay, but the added weight and you pounding your way out to them has set up harmonics in the damaged bridge.  It begins to oscillate and then wobble and now it is crumbling; you might not make it across the ravine before it collapses...

 

Gorillas can't fly, can they?

 

Outside of airplanes, no.

 

Is there a bird that can carry two adult tourists?

 

That kind of thing. Not only does he not pay for his special effect, in his case, the shapeshifting special effect is a liability that reduces the cost of the powers because it will periodically deny him access to them.  This is the exact opposite of paying for the special effect.

 

Shapeshift in 5e is the _third_ way to shapeshift-- which is why I got stuck on the word "redundant"-- and the first time you have to pay for a special effect, ever.  

 

The wierd thing as that it is "doubly redundant." The same book that gives us this newly-codified version of Shapeshift the Power (remember that a power of this same,name,appeared,in Champions III) also gave us....  I _want_ to say Penalty Skill  Levels, but I am not certain that wis right as I have just concluded a thirty-hour bike ride, so I am a bit punchy.  At any rate, I mean a codified mechanic for being able to force penalties onto another character's rolls. This book also reminds us via direct statement that Mulitiform allows the character to change his form without without buying shapeshift.

 

Good thing, too, because between buying shapeshift via sense group and costing it depending on targeting v non targeting senses, one could easily spend ninety points and still not one-hundred-percent be shape shifted under the current rules.  Make you Mind Scan or Spatial Awareness discriminatory and targeting, and hey look!  There he is!

 

I put those same 90 points into forced penalites agains PER rolls to identify me as The Clayminator, and I end up with much better odds of not being found out.

 

The proposed shapeshift build for false tracks needs to appeal to sight, scent, and touch at a minimum.  Problematically, it also needs to apply to something that is not you, which the rules don't allow.  They go further to suggest that usable against others / as attack / what have you not be allowed to use this power (or Multiform) to change the shape /form of anything but yourself.

 

Let me be clear:  anyone wanting to ignore this rule has my full personal support, as I feel it is an objectively bad designed to continue to prop up the "can't T-form yourself" rule.  Well, I find the entirje ShapeShift as a sepaprate power rule to be- not bad, so much as not necessary.  The fact that it goes so far to pin itself as a deception of the sense groups (ie, perception penalties) and then having ladders (after that) to define how your body actually shanges, etc...  You spend a like points before you get to spend the points that make you actually change.   You are paying way too much for forced penalties, then buying your SFX on top of that.  It's a bad set of rules, but it's following proves that it is not objectively bad, so I dont bag on the rules themselves much, just their "necessity."

 

At any rate, even if you ignore the self only, ever aspect of shapeshift so that you cast it on your tracks as opposed to your feet and scent and whatever bits of you affect your mass, gait, and number of legs, for this build, you going to do better- I think; obviously, this isn't objective, either- to use anything else.

 

If you cant ignore shapeshift's self-only mandate, then you _have_ to use something else.  Since the ultimate goal is to make the use of a particular skill more difficult to use, I stand by forced penalties.  Since CE has an area effect built in, can be used at range (allowing the caster to move away from the affected are while maintaining the effect) _and_ allows for forcing penalties, it seems like a natural choice.

 

With T-form, we have to add range and an AoE.

 

With SS, we have to build it, add range, add an AoE, and ignore a very specific rule.

 

 

Sorry for the delayed reply, but it was _perfect_ motorcycle weather this weekend; I cancelled _everything_ and hit the road: warm sun, cool air, and enough wind to fly an iron kite.  Love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duke, I agree with you on most of this but you are slightly in error about one aspect of Shape Shift.

 

Perception penalties do not figure into Shape Shift in any way. If you buy the power to turn into a horse across all Sense Groups (might want to add some Density Increase in case someone tries to pick you up), there's no roll that can be made besides Telepathy that can say you are not a horse. There is a chance of being detected if you are trying to copy a specific horse (an opposed Disguise roll) but even that would only reveal that you are not that specific horse. It wouldn't let anyone know you are Metamorph Man, just that you're not the horse in question. Shape Shift is absolute in the general case, but detectable in the specific.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Grailknight

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

 

Duke, I agree with you on most of this but you are slightly in error about one aspect of Shape Shift.

 

Perception penalties do not figure into Shape Shift in any way.

 

 

Quite right.

 

The point that I poorly made was I can use those same points to out you at a half of a percent chance to percieve me as something other than what I am even if you had a +30 modifier to your roll.

 

For significantly less points, I can assign a -10 to your Tracking roll via CE without having to build Shape Shift versus what are we up to now?  Eight sense groups?  And a few random detects (wouldnt want "detect: quarry's trail" or something like that giving us away).

 

The best part of modern shape shift?  You dont shift shape.  You are percieved as something else.  There are a couple of meticulous pages od this.  Even the Cellular adder means that your cells appear to be...  Wait?  Does my refrigerator have cells?  That whole section mentions that the change occurs on a Cellular  level, which leaves me flummoxed on just how the other side answers the Chair Question.

 

Any way, change doesn't happen until you start buying the assets.  You smell like a chair, you feel and taste like a chair, but oops- you are clearly a person because you still look and sound like one. You are simply negating perception rolls one sense or sense group at a time until you start throwinf in adders.  All those points to buy a special effect: something that shouldn't happen in the first place, ever.

 

And while I make no secret that I will always try every single power before falling back on T-form, a lot of this shapeshift debacle could be completely avoided if we just started ignoring the 'can't T-form self" rules.

 

That is, if you feel that Shapeshift is something that you should have to pay for.  I don't, so the "no Self T-form" rule works for me, but as a general topic, it doesnt seem,to offer much as a safeguard:  the Multipower of Everything is always going to be cheaper than "T-form me into me with this other ability," so that's a non-starter as a defense.

 

I was always puzzled by this rule, but once VPP got mainstreamed, any other build seems pointless.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The best part of modern shape shift?  You dont shift shape.  You are percieved as something else.

 

Actually you do, its just what you shift is based on what sense it effects.  You can "shapeshift" so that you smell like a wet dog.  Or you become the form of a nailhead motor.  Or you sound like a Scotsman.  Or you feel like you have wool.  You change shape, its just structured so you can pick out what sense you are affecting instead of taking shapeshift with a ton of limitations.

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Quite right.

 

The point that I poorly made was I can use those same points to out you at a half of a percent chance to percieve me as something other than what I am even if you had a +30 modifier to your roll.

 

For significantly less points, I can assign a -10 to your Tracking roll via CE without having to build Shape Shift versus what are we up to now?  Eight sense groups?  And a few random detects (wouldnt want "detect: quarry's trail" or something like that giving us away).

 

The best part of modern shape shift?  You dont shift shape.  You are percieved as something else.  There are a couple of meticulous pages od this.  Even the Cellular adder means that your cells appear to be...  Wait?  Does my refrigerator have cells?  That whole section mentions that the change occurs on a Cellular  level, which leaves me flummoxed on just how the other side answers the Chair Question.

 

Any way, change doesn't happen until you start buying the assets.  You smell like a chair, you feel and taste like a chair, but oops- you are clearly a person because you still look and sound like one. You are simply negating perception rolls one sense or sense group at a time until you start throwinf in adders.  All those points to buy a special effect: something that shouldn't happen in the first place, ever.

 

And while I make no secret that I will always try every single power before falling back on T-form, a lot of this shapeshift debacle could be completely avoided if we just started ignoring the 'can't T-form self" rules.

 

That is, if you feel that Shapeshift is something that you should have to pay for.  I don't, so the "no Self T-form" rule works for me, but as a general topic, it doesnt seem,to offer much as a safeguard:  the Multipower of Everything is always going to be cheaper than "T-form me into me with this other ability," so that's a non-starter as a defense.

 

I was always puzzled by this rule, but once VPP got mainstreamed, any other build seems pointless.

 

 

 

As stated above by CRT, you do actually change shape. The wording of Shape Shift is terrible, and I understand your incredulity there though. It's overly descriptive without any clarity. In the case given by the OP, you'd use the touch and Smell/Taste Groups but only change the soles of your feet and maybe the length of your legs.

 

It's expensive because if you do buy it with all the bells and whistles then its noncombat utility is extremely good.

 

Cellular and Imitation means only Telepathy (if you have reasonable suspicion) and/or Danger Sense give you any chance to catch the Shapeshifter right off. The pricing is similar to Desolidification and it has similar game utility. It won't make you a combat monster, but you can do so many things with it.

[LoneWolf]

With the shapeshift you are not altering the tracks, you are altering yourself, so you leave different tracks.  If I have shapeshift vs sight and someone takes a picture of me in a different form the picture shows the altered form not my true form.   In this case there is not picture but the tracks I am leaving are not those of my true form they are the tracks of the altered form.   If I change my feet to that of wolf to both touch and scent the footprints and scent, I leave are those of a wolf not a man.   The shapeshift does not need to include sight looking like a wolf does not affect tracks.  

 

What the OP wanted was something that lets him leave tracks of something else.  Shapeshift seems the best way to build this.  The way I would build this would be shapeshift to touch and smell groups, Any shape for 17 points.  You could reduce it to a limited group if you were only able to leave tracks of a certain type of creature.  I would say if the person tracking you made his roll high enough, they might realize that there is something wrong with the tracks. 

[LoneWolf]

The big problem with shapeshift is that the name they chose does not actually do what it says.  It would have been better to call it something else and call multiform shapeshift.  If you really want to change into something else, you don’t use shapeshift you use multiform.  Alter Appearance would have been a much better description than shapeshift.  It is counter intuitive that if you want to be a shapeshifter you don’t use the power called shapeshift.

[unclevlad]

It's SHAPE shift.  I can shape shift into a dog if I want.  I get fur and floppy ears and a tail.  I have to be a BIG dog...I have only small size/mass variation.  But I've got the shape of a dog.  I don't have a dog's hearing or sense of smell.

 

The name's fine.  It does exactly what it says.  Multiform goes far, far beyond shifting shape alone.  "Alter appearance" doesn't seem like you can change into the shape of a dog, so it's far less descriptive.

 

Shape Shift allows the notion of a pure, impenetrable illusion, yes...but also a physical change.  6E1 277, bold mine:

 

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Examples of Shape Shift include a character who can change his shape to copy other peoples’ features, a powerful illusion-spell that can change a person’s appearance, or a character who can transform himself into many different inanimate objects.

 

Duke wrote:

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Even the Cellular adder means that your cells appear to be...  Wait?  Does my refrigerator have cells?  That whole section mentions that the change occurs on a Cellular  level, which leaves me flummoxed on just how the other side answers the Chair Question.

 

Cellular isn't for when you change into a chair.  The simplest use case for cellular is so that you don't leave *your* fingerprints or blood type or DNA around...you leave something no one can connect to you.  The more elaborate is when you have Imitation as well.  That thumbprint scanner?  Not a problem.  Cellular is an exotic, specialized aspect of shifting, IMO.  CRT pointed it out...you build up the shifting to get what you need.  It's a constructive power...not a deconstructive one.  Which is good, because building a major, ugly, complex do-all power then trimming it with limitations is a VERY bad approach in Hero...because piling on limitations has diminishing returns.  I rather LIKE Shape Shift to Normal Sight, Affects Body Only, just to change hair and skin color, and facial structure.  No, it doesn't change my voice...but I can practice modulating that.  

 

Shape shifting, touch only...yeah, in principle it still allows scent tracking.  But that's a lot harder to pull off;  the tracker has to have your scent to begin with.  In many cases, that won't be the case.

 

Besides, it's 5 points for Touch and 2 for Smell.  7 points.  What other senses do I need to deflect?  My tracks don't leave a mental or sonic imprint.  Some oddball Detect?  I wouldn't let the CE stop a special Detect that has Tracking.  That's just unreasonable.  And that's also just being a bit paranoid, to me...what's the justification for the weird Detect?  WHY is this Detect Tracking?  Why Tracking instead of, say, +10 Telescopic?  Honestly, while I'll grant that Tracking is likely less useful than Targeting, Tracking is MUCH harder to justify, to me.  We're also not looking for a Perfect solution.  We're not trying to stop Mind Scan, for example, or a Detect with +20 Telescopic that happens to coincide with something about us, or something we carry, or the like.