Druids

[magnon]

Has anyone ever created a character that mimics the shapeshifting ability of a Druid?  The Multiform power seems the most likely way to go. Hopefully won't chew up too much of the PC's character points.  Anyone have ideas for a better method?

[Lord Liaden]

Multiform is definitely one of the two classic methods by which official shape-shifting characters have been built in Hero System. For characters with a large number of alternate forms, published examples favor a Variable Power Pool, Only For Multiform; although for speed and efficiency you should still specify the alternate forms' abilities, or draw them from a source with many game-statted examples, such as the Bestiary.

 

The other classic is to give the character Shape Shift, and a variety of Powers that are Linked to the appropriate shape, e.g. Flight for a shape that has wings. The Powers can be in a Multipower for a few forms, or a VPP representing many forms. Again, having a pre-written Powers list will speed up play.

Edited February 1 by Lord Liaden

[LoneWolf]

It depends on what you want your shapeshifting to do.  One thing that will reduces the cost is that you can buy extra forms for fairly cheap.  Each +5 doubles the number of forms.  So, and extra 5 points gets you two forms, an extra 10 gets your 4 forms, 15 will get you 8 forms and so on.  

The thing to remember is that each form only has what the form pays for.  That includes skills, including knowledge skills.   Assuming your mental stats are the same you will have the general memories of your main form but may not have everything.  If one form had knowledge of magic and you don’t buy that in all forms you cannot make checks to recognize or identify magic effects.   

If you want to be able to shift into various humanoid forms you can probably just use the power shapeshift.  If could also link some powers to shapeshift to allow you to shift into forms to gain those powers when you shift.  For example, you could buy some enhanced senses linked to shapeshift to gain those senses when you shift into an appropriate form.  

 

You could also combine the two and purchase shapeshift in the multiform to allow you to alter the specific form.   Create a form for each broad type of animal you want to change into, like canine, feline avian, reptile etc.  have each form buy shapeshift for sight, touch, hearing and smell to a limited group.  Now when you change into the feline form you can be a lion, a tiger a panther or any other similarly sized feline.  
 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Multiform is how I would build it, yeah

[Gauntlet]

Many times I have seen it as a Multipower linked to shape shift. This is the way I have found it the easiest and most effective to utilize. Problem with multiform is you have to purchase all of the skills the character has which I have seen forgotten a lot.

Edited February 1 by Gauntlet

[LoneWolf]

Many Fantasy Hero games do not allow frameworks, so a multipower might not be an option.  If the character has to purchase all the powers individually that will get very expensive. 

 

You only have to purchase the skills you want the other form to have.  I can see a character that becomes an animal losing some of his human skills because he becomes more animal than man.  That actually seems kind of fitting for a Fantasy Hero game.  If the character is actually becoming an animal instead of just assuming an animal shape losing the human skills and gaining those the animal would have seems to be more of how a druid would change shapes. 

[magnon]

22 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

If the character is actually becoming an animal instead of just assuming an animal shape losing the human skills and gaining those the animal would have seems to be more of how a druid would change shapes. 

True.  In many books the longer a person is in animal form the more they start thinking like the animal and can actually lose themselves.

[DentArthurDent]

I ran a Multiform character for about a year. When I created it, it seemed overpowered, but it was the only way to realize the character concept. It worked wonderfully. Each form had a distinct personality and motivations (with a specific common goal). But …

 

It was greatly overpowered. One form was a smooth-talking conman, another was a tracker, then a martial artist, and lastly a killing tank. Being able to switch forms, even requiring a full turn, made it much too easy to fine tune the character to most situations.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the role-playing. But the power imbalance became a real problem. 

[LoneWolf]

Multiform has a high potential for abuse, but if done reasonably it does not have to create problems.  Turning into multiple highly specialized fully different characters is probably the most abusive thing in the game.  Turning into multiple limited forms is a lot less problematic. If all the forms are animals that should not really create a lot of problem.  Different animals may have their own specialties, but there is only so much they can do, especially if they don’t have a lot of skills.  

[Scott Ruggels]

Nultiform has been nerfed since it's origin in Fantasy Hero, It didn't used to need a power framework to be affordable, just points.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The key with Multiform is to make sure that the characters are to design, not just "I wanna do a lot of different stuff".  In other words, use multiform to build a character with a theme and a concept, not just to have lots of characters.

 

I did make a guy who could turn into like 20 different superheroes, each a different build, but... they were random. He never knew what was going to activate when he turned on his superpower, and the GM chose them at random for me.  The concept was kind of like Miracleman's body suit thing, where they were all in this stasis and he could tap into them, but had no control over who.  It was kind of fun, but sadly the campaign didn't last long enough to really explore how it would play out.  So it was a tight concept, and controlled.  The GM could at any time just say "you get to be aqua boy this time" at will instead of rolling a random character, even if we were in the desert.

[Lord Liaden]

  

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The key with Multiform is to make sure that the characters are to design, not just "I wanna do a lot of different stuff".  In other words, use multiform to build a character with a theme and a concept, not just to have lots of characters.

 

I did make a guy who could turn into like 20 different superheroes, each a different build, but... they were random. He never knew what was going to activate when he turned on his superpower, and the GM chose them at random for me.  The concept was kind of like Miracleman's body suit thing, where they were all in this stasis and he could tap into them, but had no control over who.  It was kind of fun, but sadly the campaign didn't last long enough to really explore how it would play out.  So it was a tight concept, and controlled.  The GM could at any time just say "you get to be aqua boy this time" at will instead of rolling a random character, even if we were in the desert.

 

 

Dial H for Hero

 

After all these decades of comics, it's really tough to come up with an original super concept. Nearly everything has been done by someone at some time.

Edited February 18 by Lord Liaden

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah it was a lot like that, but less Hanna Barberra.  And I never mind cribbing some existing idea for a character

[Gauntlet]

7 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Nultiform has been nerfed since it's origin in Fantasy Hero, It didn't used to need a power framework to be affordable, just points.

 

Problem I have found with multiform is skill, knowledge, and even disadvantage wise have a tendency to not be the same. Now if you were like the Hulk or a Werewolf who are completely different people when changing multiform is the best way. But when someone has the ability to take another shape with some abilities but still has all of the exact same personality and skills then shapeshift with linked powers may work much better (and require less work from the G.M.). 

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Problem I have found with multiform is skill, knowledge, and even disadvantage wise have a tendency to not be the same. Now if you were like the Hulk or a Werewolf who are completely different people when changing multiform is the best way. But when someone has the ability to take another shape with some abilities but still has all of the exact same personality and skills then shapeshift with linked powers may work much better (and require less work from the G.M.). 

That's a fair point especially with the first character I built with it. But one could construct it so the skills, abilities and some of the disads cross over, though adding new ones would probably be necessary due to the new form. But it ads to the flexibility of a build, so one can build to their concept either way. Just be firm with the concept and don't succumb to feature creep?

[pawsplay]

The big issue I see with Multiform is that you don't really become someone new. Especially if you retain spellcasting or other abilities, you end up having to buy a lot of your abilities twice. And how does that work with adjustment powers?

I think Shapeshifting with a Multipower is the correct approach. I see the "no multipowers" rule cited above, but that has to do with putting unrelated spells in a Multipower. I don't think it applies to a standalone supernatural power, and certainly, I've never seen issues with creating a multipower for a spell that does multiple things.

The D&D 3e version of a druid, which involves paging through a half dozen books to pick out the most advantageous "animals" and casting in animal form is probably more like a VPP, but I don't think that was the intention. Assuming a druid has a number of forms related to local species, I think you could get away with a Multipower that lets you slip in Growth and Shrinking, natural weapons, movement changes, special senses, boosted STR, and a little ED and PD. If all you do is turn into a wolf or a bird, all the easier.