Speaking of Shapeshift

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

It's an interesting notion to put SS and Invisibiity together. In concept I agree but I think mechanically it's tricky. I'm still of the feeling that' date=' even with the changes made in 5th and even accepting those, that Shape Shift should be a discrete power.[/quote']

 

You are probably quite right. When I get hold of a train of thought I sometimes can't let go...here's an example

 

I don't have the book with me, but I'd do it this way:

 

Perfect Sense Effecting and Changing Shape Power (catchy, eh?)

 

To effect a sense you pay 10 points for a targetting sense and 5 points for a non targetting sense. You define whether the power works to prevent detection by the sense (invisibility) or prevent it detecting the true nature of the subject (shapeshifting). For a +10 adder you can have both. All the usual adders for both invisibilty and shapeshift apply. You can buy the shape notional sense group which allows you to appear to be a particular shape to every sense that detects shape (but only the part of that sense that detects shape) and (for shapeshhifting only) to your environment ('real' shapeshifting). To not be detected at all by the environment with the sense notional group, buy desolid.

[zornwil]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

You are probably quite right. When I get hold of a train of thought I sometimes can't let go...here's an example

 

I don't have the book with me, but I'd do it this way:

 

Perfect Sense Effecting and Changing Shape Power (catchy, eh?)

 

To effect a sense you pay 10 points for a targetting sense and 5 points for a non targetting sense. You define whether the power works to prevent detection by the sense (invisibility) or prevent it detecting the true nature of the subject (shapeshifting). For a +10 adder you can have both. All the usual adders for both invisibilty and shapeshift apply. You can buy the shape notional sense group which allows you to appear to be a particular shape to every sense that detects shape (but only the part of that sense that detects shape) and (for shapeshhifting only) to your environment ('real' shapeshifting). To not be detected at all by the environment with the sense notional group, buy desolid.

I'm onto other things at the moment, will have to check later how this compares if costed out to Invisibility as it is now. As I think about it, it does make sense that you just buy up the Senses to get to Invisibility.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

There will be situations in which looking like something or someone is more useful than not being seen at all: you want to look like a general persuade the guard to let your buddies into the military base, or like a wall to stop the villains running into the control room, I suppose.

[zornwil]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Invisibility and Shape Shift do share that they are both Body-affecting and Deception in terms of Senses. There is also a nice SFX bleed in that sometimes Invisibility's SFX is looking like something normal among people and/or scenery (which is essentially a Shape Shift). You might be onto something. I'm expecting company so don't want to sit down with the book for what would be a concentrated comparison of costs, but I would well imagine costs could be handled.

 

I think that this still exempts Images because Images are distinct in that they make no material effect on anything (whereas Invisibility actually turns one invisible and Shape Shift actually transforms shape), however, that doesn't mean that it might not work as KS indicated, so will have to think more on that, now that a good link between Invis and SS has been established.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

I'm off to bed anyway: have a good visit.

[zornwil]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Thanks, hope you had a good rest by the time you see this.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Thanks: I am rested somewhat.

 

Invisibility is 20/10 for targetting and non-targetting groups, SS is 10/5, so there's a problem there to start, but I suppose you could buy it at 10/5 to shapeshift, 20/10 to become invisible and then pay either an adder or an advantage to do both: +10 or +1/4, something like that?

 

As you said before, it feels quite reasonable to buy low and pay more for more utility. I don't see it changing any time soon, but it might be something to think about come 6th Ed.?

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Oh I don't know...if you can actually change into a snake' date=' you may have a 6 inch diameter and be able to fit through a pipe, but it also means you're 15 feet long, so you've got stretching from somewhere (albeit in a limited form), which would be a no-no according to the rules.[/quote']

Not necessarily. A snake doesn't precariously balance on the tip of its tail and can grab things and make attacks 15 feet away. It's going to need more than half of its length on the ground for leverage and balance. When a snake strikes farther than this, it is moving, i.e. a move and strike.

[SleepyDrug]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Let's take a simple example to solve this problem.

 

If I use shapeshift to make my wrists massively thicker in an attempt to avoid being cuffed or manacled by the local police.

 

We have two possibilities: either

 

A) My change is just a sense-affecting deception and i'll get cuffed because my wrists are not too big to fit inside the cuffs.

 

or...

 

My change is real and my body actually altered shape; hence, I will not be cuffed because the cuffs cannot fit around my wrists.

 

No other power is good for creating this effect. Either Shapeshift is a sense-affecting power and does not really occur a la Images or Invisibility. Or Shapeshift is a body-altering power a la Growth, or Extra Limbs and does really occur.

 

Which explanation fits the above

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

The way SS in 5th works leads some to put the emphasis on the senses rather than on the shape shifting. I understand why some do this, but I don't think that was the intent. The actual changing of shape *is* the power. If anything, the additional senses should be considered to be the adders. In the change from 4th to 5th, it was realized that changes that affect other senses add utility to the power - and therefore should add extra cost. If you can change into a lion, that's useful, but if you can change into a lion and make a real lion's roar sound, that's more useful. So 5th allows you to add on the Hearing group to make sounds that you couldn't ordinarily make. Likewise, smelling like a skunk or a rosebush, is more useful than merely being the shape of a skunk or a rosebush, so you can add on the Smell group as well if you want.

 

Perhaps SS should have been structured to have a base cost for changing shape (depending on the number of possible different shapes), and then provided adders to allow you to make the sounds and/or smells of the new shape. This would almost work, except that sometimes, you might want to roar like a lion or smell like a ponderosa pine without changing your shape at all. The 5E version allows you to do this by buying Hearing only or Smell only if you want.

 

After all the discussions about SS on the boards, I'm convinced that the 5e way is fine and that the way to build Plasticman's SS is Sight, Touch, Sound, with a limitation (-1/2? maybe more) "Can't alter color, texture, or voice." And the way to build Beast Boy's SS is Sight, Touch, Sound, Smell, with a limitation (-1/4? or so) "Can't alter color." Both would probably need a VPP as well, or in the case of Beast Boy, maybe no SS and just a VPP of Multiforms.

 

On page 70 of FREd (and I'm sure it must be in 5ER somewhere as well), it says that powers can be used in miscellaneous utility ways for free - without having to add on a VPP for every conceivable use of ones powers. It gives the example of someone with fire powers being able to create enough warmth to prevent his friends from freezing in an otherwise very cold environment, without having to buy CE separately. To me, this is on the same level as allowing a shape changing guy to form a bucket and scoop water, or to ooze out of ropes - without having to buy a separate power to represent this.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Not necessarily. A snake doesn't precariously balance on the tip of its tail and can grab things and make attacks 15 feet away. It's going to need more than half of its length on the ground for leverage and balance. When a snake strikes farther than this' date=' it is moving, i.e. a move and strike.[/quote']

 

 

...which is why I said 'albeit in a limited form'. I fully accept what you say, but you can still use, say non-combat stretching: change into a rope, tie off one end, jump off the building, untie yourself. If you can use it a bit, where do you draw the line. If Plastica decides to change into a form with arms twice as long as usual, even though that probably isn't as useful as full stretching, does she get 1" reach for free?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Let's take a simple example to solve this problem.

 

If I use shapeshift to make my wrists massively thicker in an attempt to avoid being cuffed or manacled by the local police.

 

We have two possibilities: either

 

A) My change is just a sense-affecting deception and i'll get cuffed because my wrists are not too big to fit inside the cuffs.

 

or...

 

My change is real and my body actually altered shape; hence, I will not be cuffed because the cuffs cannot fit around my wrists.

 

No other power is good for creating this effect. Either Shapeshift is a sense-affecting power and does not really occur a la Images or Invisibility. Or Shapeshift is a body-altering power a la Growth, or Extra Limbs and does really occur.

 

Which explanation fits the above

 

...and one of my complaints is that it does both.

 

If you buy touch chsapeshift, you change shape, if you buy anything else you only appear to (see the FAQ). That makes no sense to me: why should touch enable you to actually change shape and not just appear to change shape to the touch sense as it works with every other sense?

 

If you look back you'll see my idea of a 'notional sense group': shape. You buy this and you actually do change shape, and that shape change is real and perceived by every sense that can perceive shape BUT it will not fool ANY sense into thinking you are anything other than what you started out as. You may be the shape of a snake but you look like a human that has been squeezed into that shape, sound human, smell human etc.

 

If you don't buy shape group then you can look and feel like something else but not actually change shape.

 

It works, but unfortunately against my other objecttion which is that shapeshift is too expensive now: this would make it more so.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Perhaps SS should have been structured to have a base cost for changing shape (depending on the number of possible different shapes), and then provided adders to allow you to make the sounds and/or smells of the new shape. This would almost work, except that sometimes, you might want to roar like a lion or smell like a ponderosa pine without changing your shape at all. The 5E version allows you to do this by buying Hearing only or Smell only if you want.

 

...

 

After all the discussions about SS on the boards, I'm convinced that the 5e way is fine and that the way to build Plasticman's SS is Sight, Touch, Sound, with a limitation (-1/2? maybe more) "Can't alter color, texture, or voice." And the way to build Beast Boy's SS is Sight, Touch, Sound, Smell, with a limitation (-1/4? or so) "Can't alter color." Both would probably need a VPP as well, or in the case of Beast Boy, maybe no SS and just a VPP of Multiforms.

 

We'll probably have to agree to differ, but can I say the reason that *some* people put emphasis on senses when reading the 5ed version is because that is the way it is written now.

 

'True shapeshifting' is touch shapeshifting with a limitation? Crazy talk. If you are going to call it shape shift then shouldn't the unmodified power work that way, or at least have the option of working that way?

 

Anyway, you have adders in the system already to limit what you can change into: not being able to alter colour, for example, means that you have a limited group of things you can change into (green things).

 

What is the point of having all these other senses? IMO so that you can fool people into thinking that you are something that you are not. I can see that is a useful structure. The actual changing shape bit has the feel of something tacked on afterwards, trying to put it right in the FAQ when it was realised the power as originally presented didn't actually allow change of shape. I'm right or I'm wrong: who knows, but I'd like to see the power present a way to change shape seperately from the sense deceiving aspects of it all: it makes no more sense to me to say that 'true shape change' is found in the touch group than to say it is found in the sight group; it has a very arbitrary feel to it, and looking at the discussions I am not the only one who feels that way.

 

Of course you can make the power work with limitations and advantages and so on, but frankly I don't have to want to tweak the power to obtain what, to my mind, is the basic effect.

 

Finally, taking out the 'actual' shape shift aspect (which is not really that central to this new interpretation anyway), the power doesn't do anything that images with a high PER roll modifier doesn't do cheaper.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

'True shapeshifting' is touch shapeshifting with a limitation? Crazy talk. If you are going to call it shape shift then shouldn't the unmodified power work that way' date=' or at least have the option of working that way?[/quote']

I'm not sure what you mean by "true shapeshifting." If I can change into something else all the way down to the cellular level, and thereby be perceived differently by all senses, I'd assume you'd call that "true shapeshifting." If I can change my shape, color, texture, and voice, isn't that also "true shapeshifting"? Is Plastic Man's power "true shapeshifting"? I think you mean that all of the above are "true shapeshifting" - they are all actually changing shape, not just projecting a hologram around themselves. But the first is more powerful than the other two, and the last is more limited. Plas can become an elephant, but it's a caucasian-colored elephant with black, human-like hair, red and yellow spandex, and goggles. And he can't make a realistic elephant's trumpet sound. Even though his SS affects both sight and touch, it is limited in that he can't alter his coloration, texture, or voice - is that not worth a limitation? Am I "crazy" for noticing that he isn't gray?

 

Anyway, you have adders in the system already to limit what you can change into: not being able to alter colour, for example, means that you have a limited group of things you can change into (green things).

Beastboy can only change into animal forms. That's the limited group. He then has the limitation that the forms he takes are always green instead of the animal's natural color. The can't turn into a green plant or a green trashcan or a green car, or a green stop sign. What would be the difference, in the way you would build them, between Beastboy (any animal, but green), and Any animal, colored naturally? To me, the best way is that the second simply buys "Any Animal" as the group. Beast boy does the same thing, but applies a limitation "Can't change color (always green)." It's not easy being Beastboy.

 

The actual changing shape bit has the feel of something tacked on afterwards,

I agree, but you don't have to interpret it that way. This is why people (myself included) get so confused and frustrated with the way the power is written/priced.

 

trying to put it right in the FAQ when it was realised the power as originally presented didn't actually allow change of shape.

But it does allow change of shape. It's right there in the first sentence of the power description. IDHMBIFOM, but it says something like, "A character with this power can change his shape as perceived by one or more senses." That one sentence may be the source of all the disagreement. Some put the emphasis on "as perceived by one or more senses." I put the emphasis on "can change his shape." It doesn't say, "the character is perceived differently by one or more senses." It says, "change his shape." This change of shape is peceptible by one or more senses. Particularly, sight and touch. Technically sonar and radar as well, but these can be hand-waved, as Steve Long himself has recommended.

 

I'm right or I'm wrong: who knows, but I'd like to see the power present a way to change shape seperately from the sense deceiving aspects of it all: it makes no more sense to me to say that 'true shape change' is found in the touch group than to say it is found in the sight group; it has a very arbitrary feel to it, and looking at the discussions I am not the only one who feels that way.

And I agree with you there, a base SS power could just say, "You change shape. Changing shape is obviously perceiveable by sight and touch. If you also want to change your smell or the sounds you make, you can buy these adders." However, someone might want to change their coloration or texture (sight or touch) without changing the other. Buying the two sense groups individually allows for greater flexibility, though it may be a little klunky, and more like Images than Shape Shift.

 

Of course you can make the power work with limitations and advantages and so on, but frankly I don't have to want to tweak the power to obtain what, to my mind, is the basic effect.

That depends on what you consider to be the basic effect. Is changing shape only, like Plasticman, the basic effect? Then you need an Adder or an Advantage to allow changing color and texture as well. That would be just as much tweaking as applying a limitation to prevent changes in color and texture.

 

This goes back to my original complaint about the power. Because HERO already has the Sense Group concept in it, they decided to base SS off of it. They could have (and quite possibly should have) constructed SS like this: X points to change shape only, +Y to change color, +Z to change Texture, etc. (+W to change smell, +V to change voice, imitation, cellular, etc.)

 

One problem is the whole sense group constuct itself. Talking about "the five senses" is in some ways almost as much of an oversimplification of reality as "the four elements." Touch consists of many different aspects: pressure, temperature, moisture, texture, pain, kinesthetics, etc. Likewise with sight: light, color, focus, depth, motion, reflectivity. Balance and the kinesthetic sense (which occurs independent of touch) are not even mentioned among the senses in HERO.

 

Finally, taking out the 'actual' shape shift aspect (which is not really that central to this new interpretation anyway), the power doesn't do anything that images with a high PER roll modifier doesn't do cheaper.

On this, we agree.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

D'y'know, Phil, I think we probably agree on a lot!

 

'True shapeshifting', at least as I meant it it the ability to change shape as far as your environment is concerned, i.e. fit through the pipe you couldn't fit through before you shape shifted. Everything else is fooling senses, albeit perfectly.

 

Let me give you an example of what really confuses me, based on the 'change into a snake' thing in the FAQ.

 

There's this pipe. It has a six inch diameter (that'll be 15 cms, not 12 metres..) and I have shapeshift applied to every sense you can think of. So long as you have thought of touch, then the shape you appear to be is the shape you are, and if you've shapeshifted into a 20 foot long snake with a 5.5 inch diameter you can fit through the pipe and if an attack is launched against any part of you then you will feel it: your appearance and actual 'environmental' shape do not differ.

 

Now, same thing every sense, but this time not touch, you 'are' shapeshifted by the definition of the power, buy only as far as the perception of others goes. That could be enormously useful, however...

 

I've shapeshifted into a snake that could fit through the pipe if I'd had the touch sense group included, but I didn't. I can't fit through the pipe, but I appear to every sense but touch as if I can, so I must have some part of me outside apparent snake shape and it must be invisible to every sense but touch. The snake is about 20 feet long, and is stretched out in a straight line. Two nasty men stamp on the snake, one on the head, one on the end of the tail. Do I actually take damage from both attacks? I'm not 'really' 20 feet long, I'm just perceived that way - not to touch though. To touch I'm still 6 feet long, and not thin enough to fit through a pipe.

 

I really can not reconcile how this works in game. It is fine to say 'base it on sfx' but what should they be and how would they work?

 

If you say well you are the shape you appear to be, so both attacks damage you, then it makes no sense that you can not fit through the pipe. If you say that you retain your human shape, this is a huge combat advantage: pick a shape that you don't occupy and half the attacks launched at you will automatically miss.

 

To me, seperating the 'environmental' shapeshift (or notional shape sense group as I have previously called it) makes it easier to understand what is happening, but I'd have to rule that without that you can only shift into something that is basically the same shape as you, otherwise you run into the problems I mentioned above. If you wanted to be a shape that did not conform to your 'real' shape and you were not 'environmentally' shape shifting, yo'd need to buy invisiblility and images.

 

It is perfectly possible I am being dim about this (more than possible) and any light you could shed would be much appreciated.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

Ok, let's take a counterexample and see if it is any clearer.

 

I'm have a power whereby I can punch people at range. This is defined as Energy Blast because that's how I bought it. People who watch me use my power describe me as my arm stretches out and hits people and then snaps back, because that's the special effect.

 

I see a pipe, looking down the pipe, I see a villian and try to hit him with my superpunch. I miss him and instead hit the button that instantly turns the value in the middle of the pipe. What happens?

 

If special effect-wise, I really used stretching, then my unarmored arm really was in the pipe and is now severed and I should pull back a bloody stump (going completely by defined special effect). This is worth a feedback limitation on my punch (and a nasty glare at the GM). But if I want to be able to grab something over there and bring it back to my hand, then I need another power. It quickly looks like Stretching is the other power that I should have. Even though, I can punch people much farther away than I can grab something and yank it to me.

 

If I'm allowed to say, it just looks like my arm, but really it's a manifestation of my pyschological need to hit people at range with my fist. (Hey, why not?) Then I might believe that my arm was severed and react as if my arm was severed, but it's not really since it is only perceived as my fist and special effect-wise, it's just manifestion unconnected to the thing attached to my shoulder. I obviously can't reach across the room and grab the remote, since it is my pyschological need for the remote won't help me. However, I might buy Telekinesis and Fine Manipulation and say, "My manifestation is now quasi-real. I can now use it to pick up the remote, or just push buttons from here".

[Sean Waters]

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

 

You can of course build anything you like any way you like, but if you are defining your EB as your arm stretching, I'd make you take advantages: it would appear that the attack can be blocked with a normal HTH manoeuvre, whereas you'd need missile deflect, so opponents are potentially wasting defensive actions; and a feedback type limitation. I think 'but I've got a really good concept...' masks a lot of actually quite bad ideas. Mind you, if it 'really' was your arm stretching I'd want you to buy it with stretching (limited 'only to punch and direct only', so it would be quite cheap). If you reckon your 'arm' can stretch 250", I'd be asking you to look for another sfx...

 

Are you changing shape? Well, you are if your arm is actually stretching, but you wouldn't use shapeshift, you'd use stretching.

 

I've been thinking about that, and I've becoming convinced that the 'environmental shapeshift' should be taken from shape shift entirely and put into stretching.

 

Think about it. Most of the examples I can think of from comics are either shapeshifters that basically retain their overall form but the details change (like Mystique form the X Men), or who 'become' another creature with different powers, which is best modeled with multiform (Beast Boy was mentioned earlier in the thread: I'm sure he's a multiform).

 

Actual shape shifters are rare. Plastic Man has been mentioned, but can I suggest Mr Fantastic?

 

He can squeeze through gaps, change his apparent size, change the shape of his body. I've never seen him mimic anyone, but then I don't read FF that often.

 

IMO he's doing all that with stretching, not SS. Stretching already allows for de facto re-distribution of body mass, it could cover the snake situation I mentioned above (the solution would be that with SS you couldn't look like a 20 foot long 5.5 inch diameter snake at all: you could look like a snake of human dimention, but to stretch out you'd need...ta-da...stretching.

 

Give stretching a 5 point adder: mass re-distribution, which allows you to, in effect, change your shape up to the limits of your stretching power, so that you could , for instance, fit through a narrow gap (but you couldn't look like a snake: you could stretch out so you were long and thin, but no one would ever be fooled unless you took shapeshift), and another 5 point adder: density change - you have to retain your mass, but you can increase your proportional size by 10% per inch of stretching, or reduce it by 5% per inch of stretching (or maybe less if you reduce the cost as I suggest below). Neither gives you any changed abilities, but you can look bigger or fit into a smaller space.

 

To be honest I'd get rid of velocity damage for stretching: it is just an easter egg there to justify the high cost of the power, and should be built with linked HtH damage, if you want it at all. I'd also make stretching cheaper per inch. Any stretching at all gives you a reach advantage, and after that it only really helps if you beat your opponent's half move. If you just want to get to your opponent, it is far cheaper and generally far more useful to add inches of movement. I'm thinking 2 points for 1", like movement powers.