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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 28, 2009 5:43:30 GMT -5
When creating a character that transforms from one form to another, start by determining the specifics of the Transform Self modifier. Characters with Transform Self start with an Involuntary Change. To make this a Voluntary Change costs 5w. Otherwise, determine what the trigger for your character's transformation is (anger, the full moon, etc.) If the character wants to have a Voluntary Change with certain Involuntary Conditions (ie. the character can change at will, but is FORCED to change under certain conditions: a werewolf that can change when it wants to, but must change into a werewolf during a full moon, and must change back to human form when ingesting wolfsbane) would need to purchase the Voluntary Change, and then could take the Involuntary Change(s) as Challenge(s) - worth between 1 and 3w.
Likewise, a character's transformation will take a full panel in which the character can take no other action - not even defend itself. To reduce this to one action will cost 2w. To reduce this to a free action will cost 5w. (At the GM's discretion, the change can be allowed to take longer than 1 panel as a Challenge that awards 1-3w, depending on how long the process takes. This is not recommended.)
It is assumed that the character will have two forms that it changes between. Multiple forms are allowed, but are purchased with the same number of points, so it quickly becomes ineffective, cost-wise. To have an "intermediate form" DOES cost 3w, but there is no more cost to creating the form.
Next, purchase whatever Abilities, Actions, Modifiers, and Challenges that both forms will have. So if both forms will have an Ability, Action, Modifier, or Challenge, purchase it at the level the form with the lowest level will have it at. (ie. if you want Form 1 to have Close Combat at 3, and Form 2 will have Close Combat at 7, purchase Close Combat at 3.) Do not buy anything that both forms will not have.
With your remaining stones, multiply them by 1.5 - these stones are only usable for one form or the other. So you can spend some of the stones on Form 1 and some of the stones on Form 2 - each stone spent will only affect one form or the other, not both. Remember to take into account any ranks already purchased! (So in our previous example of Close Combat, the cost of purchasing Close Combat 7 for Form 2 will be 5w stones. 6w for rank 7 minus 1w for the rank 3 already purchased.) Challenges taken at this time (that only affect one form) will provide stones that can only be used on the form with the Challenge.
A character who purchased an intermediate form will have every Ability, Action, and Modifier at the average of the two forms. (So the character with Close Combat 3 in Form 1 and Close Combat 7 in Form 2 would have Close Combat 5 in the Intermediate Form.) Round down when necessary.
I've got less than an hour until my shift ends, so I'll probably not get a chance to write up a few characters with this system until tomorrow night. The stone cost for the different options may need to be changed, as I haven't tested them, but I think that the core of it works pretty well, and barring a player that constantly changes his mind on what abilities he wants both forms to have, it should be pretty straight forward to make a character this way.
What does everyone think?
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Post by Dionon on Dec 28, 2009 5:48:58 GMT -5
So basically... you pay between 1 and 10 stones to purchase Transform Self
Then Buy the weaker character...
Multiply the remaining stones by 150%
And use those stones to futz around with...
Sounds like something I'd like to try..... If only to see if it's broken or not.
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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 28, 2009 6:19:17 GMT -5
Well, technically, you could spend 0 points into it (but then you'd have a Transform Self that happens by Involuntary means and takes a Full Panel to change). Of course, that would be a pretty major Challenge in and of itself, so I'm inclined to think it's worth the points just for that!
And purchasing the lesser form isn't ALWAYS accurate - for example, you'd buy the Hulk's Intelligence, but Banner's physical attributes. Then, when you've modified the remaining stones by 150%, you'd buy both Banner's Intelligence and the Hulk's physical characteristics with the remaining points.
And yeah, I'm definitely hoping people will give it a go and see if it's horribly broken. In THEORY, it seems like a good way of handling it - but I'm sure we'll need to fiddle with it to get it to work properly...
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Post by Dionon on Dec 28, 2009 17:06:20 GMT -5
OH! So you buy ALL the lower stuff... THEN multiply ok...
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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 29, 2009 4:13:55 GMT -5
Okay, as promised, a few examples. We'll start with someone akin to Colossus (or a 40 stone version of him, anyway):
He's got a straight up Voluntary Change (5w), and we'll make it a Free Action to change (5w). 10w stones for a change with no drawbacks...
I like his attributes in his weaker form, and we'll see how much we can afford in his stronger form. So to start with, we'll purchase Int: 2, Str: 3, Agi: 2, Spd: 2, and Dur: 3 (with En. Pool: 3, and En. Recov.: 3), giving us a total of 6w or a grand total of 16w.
For Actions, both forms have access to all of his actions, so Close Combat: 4, Ranged Combat: 4, Vehicle Operations: 3, and Social Skills: 3. That would cost 6w. (Artist: 4 is a Flavour Action, and most GMs will let him have 2pts worth of Flavour Actions...) That brings our total so far to 22w.
All his Modifiers are in his more burley form, so we'll deal with those later on. The Challenge Mutant, however, will affect both forms (-3w), so that brings our total down to 19w, subtracted from 40w stones, gives us a total of 21w left.
Now to create the alternate form! 21w x 1.5 = 30w, 1r. Improving his Strength to a 8 will cost 8w (9w to get it to 8, but 1w was already paid for when the ability was bought at rank 3 before.) Similarly, Durability raised to 6 will cost 3w (the same goes for Energy Pool and Energy Recovery), bringing our total for his abilities in his second form to 17w.
Hmm...only 13w, 1r stones left to buy Modifiers! Let's skip to Challenges that would only affect this form, so we'll have more points for Modifiers... Let's go with Extreme Elemental Vulnerability (3x damage) from Magnetic attacks. That'll give him 5w back, so 18w, 1r.
Toughness of 6 (with a Material Class 3 [3w]) would cost 18w. Doable, but I want Self Contained Life Form, so better go with Toughness 5 instead (Colossus is, after all, bigger than a 40w build, so our guy isn't going to be as tough!) That brings our cost to 15w, plus 3w for Self Contained Life Form, and we've only got 1r left!
I'm going to go back to his weaker form at this point, and give him a Spd of 3, since the cost would only be 1r. This will let him go just a LITTLE bit faster when he's not weighed down by all that organic steel skin.
And given that he gained 10w in his tougher form, but had to spend 10w for the Transform Self he wanted, he's just about as tough as a if he didn't bother with Transform Self. So why bother? Well, if he's facing Magneto, and being used as an improvised weapon against his friends, he can transform back (as a Free Action) to human form, where he's not vulnerable to magnetic powers. Even if he's facing a few bruisers, he at least has a higher Speed to try to run away!
oh, and for completeness sake, here's what his CAD would look like:
Colossus Jr.
ABILITIES:
Intelligence: 2
Strength: 3 / 9
Agility: 2
Speed: 3 / 2
Durability: 3 / 6
Energy Pool: 3 (15) / 6 (30)
Energy Recovery: 3 / 6
ACTIONS:
Close Combat: 4 (Strength Bonus or Weapon Modifier)
Ranged Combat: 4
Vehicle Operations; 3
Social Skills: 3
Artist: 4
MODIFIERS:
Transform Self (Voluntary, Free Action)
Toughness: 0 / 5 (Material Class 3)
Self Contained Life Form
CHALLENGES:
Mutant (3pts)
Extreme Elemental Vulnerability: Magnetics (5pts)
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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 29, 2009 5:38:31 GMT -5
Okay, so what about someone like Emma Frost, who has a completely different set of abilities in each form? (Again, she's WELL above a 40 stone build, so this will be a scaled down version, but I think that's better to work with anyway.)
To start with, she's going to want a Voluntary Change (5w). She'd also like a Free Action change, but she's going to want to spend her points into her abilities themselves, so we're going to leave it as a Full Panel change.
Next up is abilities. Her Int. will be a 4 in both forms, and I'm going to give her an En. Pool and En. Rec. of 5 in both forms. Her Str., Agi., and Spd. in her telepathic form will all be 2's, though, so we'll use that as a baseline. And lets give her a Dur. 3 in her lower form, too. That brings our cost to 11w, for a total of 16w.
For actions, she has several that are shared by both forms. Close Combat: 4, Ranged Combat: 2, Social Skills: 5, Technology: 2, and Leadership: 2, costing 7w. (I'd use the Flavour Action stones to buy her Business Skills at whatever the GM would allow, preferably rank 5 for 3w, and put the rest of the points into Wealth - which could give her upwards of rank 4.) Our grand total so far is 23w.
Again, all of her Modifiers are form specific, so we can move on to Challenges. Mutant (3w), obviously, and let's give her Psychological: Extreme vanity (2w). Let's also give her Disliked or Shunned by Peers (2w). That gives us 24w to start on individual forms with (40 - 23 + 7 = 24).
24 x 1.5 = 36 points to play with, but we've got TWO forms that are vying for these points! Let's start with Challenges, to boost this up. Her diamond form is easy: Looking Non-human (3w). (It could be argued that this is worth 4w, but she's already gained 7w for both forms, so the most she can get for individual forms is 3w more.) For her Telepathic Form, let's give her Vulnerable Ward(s): the students under her command (3w). Why doesn't she have this in both forms? because she doesn't have to hear the thoughts of her students in her Diamond Form, and can "think of the greater good, not just their wellbeing" (she's a cold one in either form, but especially in her Diamond Form...) This gives her 36w that can be spent into either from, and 3w for her Telepathic Form, and 3w in her Diamond Form (these cannot be spent into the other form!)
On to her Telepathic Form, since that's all we're trying to add to this one. We'll give her Telepathy, with Intelligence Bonus (+2CL), Project Thoughts (+1CL), Create Links (+1CL), and Mental Bolts (+1CL). We'd rather spend less, but I don't think we'll get away with spending less that 20w, given all the options, so that'll give her a rank of 6 (lower than we'd like, and with fewer options, but unless we steal all the stones available to both forms, we really can't go much higher...) 3w comes from Challenges specific to this form, so we're left with 17 from 36 = 19. Might as well give her Mental Defense at 3 to even up the points.
So 18 + 3 = 21w to use toward her Diamond Form. In this form, she should have Immunity to Mental Actions, but that would cost 20w, and we've got better things to spend the points on. We could've given her Mental Defense to both forms before working on individual forms, but I like the idea that she's vulnerable to the physical in Telepathic Form, and vulnerable to the Mental in Diamond Form... So let's start with her Toughness, as that'll eat up most of her points. Diamonds SHOULD be Material Class 4, but I doubt we'll afford 5w - so let's stick with 3. Let's max her Toughness out at 12w, so with a Material Class, that'll give us Toughness 5, Material Class 3 for 15w. 6 left. Getting her Str up to 7 costs 5w, 1r. Too much. Let's go with Str. 6, for 3w, 1r instead. Boost her Dur. in this form to 5 for 2w, and we've got 2r left. Energy Defense of 2 finishes that off. We didn't get Self Contained Life Form like we would've liked, but there are only so many points to go around...
So, let's see what we've come up with:
Emma Frost Lite
ABILITIES:
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 2 / 6
Agility: 2
Speed: 2
Durability: 3 / 5
Energy Pool: 5 (25)
Energy Recovery: 5
ACTIONS:
Close Combat: 4 (Strength Bonus or Weapon Modifier)
Ranged Combat: 2
Social Skills; 5
Technology: 2
Leadership: 2
Business Skills: 5
Telepathy: 6 / 0 (Intelligence Bonus, Project Thoughts, Create Links, and Mental Bolts)
MODIFIERS:
Transform Self (Voluntary, Full Panel)
Wealth: 4
Toughness: 0 / 5 (Material Class 3)
Energy Defense: 0 / 2
Mental Defense: 3 / 0
CHALLENGES:
Mutant (3w)
Extreme Vanity (2w)
Diskliked or Shunned by Peers (2w)
Vulnerable Ward: Students (3w)
Looks Non-human (3w)
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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 29, 2009 19:00:59 GMT -5
Well, I've received one critique of my idea so far (via PM): TOO MUCH MATH!! lol It definitely does involve quite a bit of math. Just curious of the general opinion: is it not worth keeping because it's too cumbersome?
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 29, 2009 21:57:12 GMT -5
Transform Self is always going to require a lot of math, but the good thing is that you only have to do it once! As long as it isn't needlessly complicated, I'm quite alright with some math.
I'll have to take a close look at all of this, arch. It looks promising so far, but I'll do my best to break it. ^__^
EDIT: Just made a "normal" character, just to get a feel for how the system works, and it actually turned out beautifully. Now I'm going to try to break it!
So far, the one area that seems to be a little weak is the flat rate for the initial cost of the transformation (choosing the transformation trigger, and speed). It makes it a little tricky for low stone count characters, and incredibly profitable for high stone count characters. But it isn't a terribly big deal, and I've always encountered the same problem when working with my own rule attempts.
~TWF
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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 30, 2009 0:33:49 GMT -5
Transform Self is always going to require a lot of math, but the good thing is that you only have to do it once! As long as it isn't needlessly complicated, I'm quite alright with some math. Good to know. I helped create a Transform Self character with an Intermediate form, so I've seen how that works, but it's someone else's character, so I'll probably just recreate Wolfsbane as an example for this thread, now that I've been reassured that it's not OVERLY complicated. I'll have to take a close look at all of this, arch. It looks promising so far, but I'll do my best to break it. ^__^ EDIT: Just made a "normal" character, just to get a feel for how the system works, and it actually turned out beautifully. Now I'm going to try to break it! Please do! That's the point of posting it - the only way to see if we want to make this the 2.0 Transform Self is to try to break it and see what players might do to it... So far, the one area that seems to be a little weak is the flat rate for the initial cost of the transformation (choosing the transformation trigger, and speed). It makes it a little tricky for low stone count characters, and incredibly profitable for high stone count characters. But it isn't a terribly big deal, and I've always encountered the same problem when working with my own rule attempts. That's a really good point. Of course, in a lower point game, you could easily just play an Involuntary Change (or a Voluntary Change with inconvenient Involuntary Conditions giving 3w back, so it'd only cost 2w) with a Full Panel change... In a lower stone game, you expect to have to have more disadvantages with the more powerful abilities/actions/modifiers, after all... I WAS considering adding another challenge where you have to spend stones to change. That could be used to mitigate some of the costs to bring it down from a Full Panel change... Maybe say that you get 1w per stone it takes to change forms, to a maximum of 3w? |
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 30, 2009 1:08:40 GMT -5
Perhaps there could also be some rule about what can force you to change back into your other form. Seems like a reasonable challenge as well.
~TWF
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Post by arch2ngel on Dec 30, 2009 2:17:39 GMT -5
I'd just included that in with the normal Involuntary Change (in my werewolf example, I listed the full moon forcing a change into a werewolf, and wolfsbane - the plant, not the girl - forcing a change back to human form.)
but I have to agree - a forced change into your more powerful form isn't THAT great a challenge. maybe inconvenient, but not a catastrophe. So what if we make 1-2w Challenge for an Involuntary Change into your more powerful form, with a 1-4w Challenge for an Involuntary Change into your less powerful form - with a limit that you cannot gain more than 4w from Involuntary Change challenges (since it costs 5w to have a Voluntary Change.)
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Post by arch2ngel on Jan 1, 2010 0:38:40 GMT -5
Okay, one last example for how this transform self modifier would work: Wolfsbane (and she's got one of the most complicated changes for this, so I think it'll be a great example!) So grab out your X-men Guide, and follow along.  To start with, we want a Voluntary Change (5w) with no Involuntary Conditions. She does have an Intermediate Form (3w), and we'll set her change as taking One Action (2w), though to help with the cost, we'll take a Challenge so it'll cost 1w to change (-1w), giving us a total of 9w. The lowest abilities that she'll have are an interesting mix, since her Agility goes down in her more powerful form! So we'll buy most of her attributes at her weaker form, except Agility - because we're buying the lowest attribute, no matter the form. That gives us a 2 in Int, Str, Agi, and Spd, and a 3 in Dur, En Pool, and En Rec, costing 5w, 2r. The only action all her forms share is Close Combat, with the lowest ranked from having a 3, so that's 1w. And the only Modifiers all the forms share are Wealth 2 (2r), and Reflexive Dodge - again, with the lowest form having a 1, so that costs 2w for right now, bringing her total to 9w, 1r, and her grand total to 18w, 1r. The only Challenge Wolfsbane has in the book is Mutant, so we'll give her that Challenge (-3w), bringing our grand total to 15w, 1r. 35w - 15w, 1r = 19w, 2r x 1.5 = 29w, 1r (which is what her individual forms have to work with.) Note: I started her with 35w to reflect her student nature. Let's start with her normal form. The only ability we need to buy up is Agi (to 3), which will cost us 1r. She also has Social Skills at 3 (1w) and Ranged Combat at 3 (1w), with no extra Modifiers or Challenges. So the cost for her weakest form is 2w, 1r, giving us a total of 27w to play with in the other two forms. We need to do the powerful form before we can work on the intermediate form, so that's what's next. Abilities change a LOT here, with Str and Spd going up to 4 (costing 1w, 1r ea.), and Dur, En Pool, and En Rec also going up to 4 (costing 1w ea.) for a total of 5w, 2r. For Actions, her Close Combat needs to be improved to 5 (costing 2w), and she gains Hunting/Tracking at 4 (2w). She gains a whole slew of Modifiers - Everything from Reflexive Dodge increased to +2 (1w), to Animal Senses 4 (2w), to Generic Modifier: Claws +1 (2w) and Fangs +2 (3w), to Enhanced Vision (UV and Infrared) +4 (2w, 2r). Total cost for this form is 20w, 1r - which gives us 6w, 2r to play with in the intermediate form. The Intermediate Form cost us 3w, and for that, we get to average any stat that has a difference between the two other forms (rounding down). This means that Str and Spd are taken care of (the average of 2 and 4 is 3, which is what we want them to be at). However, Agi (average 2 and 3 = 2.5, rounded down to 2) is not where we want it to be, so we'll pay 1r to get it to a 3. Same with Dur, En Pool, and En Rec. We'll spend 1w ea. to get them to a 4. Total abilities costs 3w, 1r. ALL of Wolfsbane's Actions are already where we want them to be (with the exception of Ranged Combat, which should be at rank 1, but the player felt it fit better to have Range Combat 0 - this doesn't award any points, but the player prefers it, so the Ranged Combat is reduced to 0). Modifiers sees only Reflexive Dodge (1w for a +2) and Generic Modifier: Claws (2w for a +1) needing to be adjusted. Total for this form's adjustments is 6w, 1r, leaving us with 1r and (except for the "Psychic Link to Moonstar) EXACTLY what's in the X-men Guide. Not too shabby. |
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Post by Kaimontfendo on Jan 1, 2010 3:24:41 GMT -5
Typed up the rest of this a while ago. Didn't get around to posting it until now.
A definite strength of the official rule for transform self is that it doesn't involve complicated math. However, as we all know, it also makes transformations expensive. And of course, that makes them weaker than other characters, so most people don't want to buy a transformation.
Of course, the main reason that transformation was so expensive was having to buy everything twice, and not getting any discount on most of it. Yeah, your weaker form's abilities cost half, but all your actions and modifiers still cost full in both forms. And since most people would like to have several actions and modifiers in both forms, it just isn't cost-effective.
I guess the real challenge of pricing a transformation is "How much should you pay for a form you don't get to use all the time?" But of course, that depends on what triggers your transformation, and just what your other form can do.
The main potential problem I'm seeing is that, I think someone could build a really weak form, saving their stones for the more powerful one. I mean, after you buy everything that both forms will have, you multiply your remaining stones times 1.5. So if you still have most of them left, couldn't you build a stronger character than one at the same cost but who doesn't transform?
I mean, if I build a character who has all 1s for abilities in both forms, a little close combat, maybe vehicle operation, and that's it. It will only cost, say, 4 white. For a voluntary transformation costs another 5white. So while everyone else has 40 stones to spend, I've got 46 stones I can still spend on the stronger form, (well, 46.5, but let's just round down), and I've already bought some stuff. And while it takes this character a full panel to transform, there's no reason for them to ever use the weaker form. As if that's not broken enough, it gets worse at higher stone counts. You start with 70 stones, build a weak human form, and then 20 more stones just show up outta nowhere!
And yeah, I am min-maxing there. A GM could easily look at that and say, "I know it's within the rules, but I'm not gonna allow it." And that's exactly how several things in MURPG should work. It's not really possible to plan for every possible combination of powers or every potential loophole, but once you find them, it is a GM's job to refuse that kind of cheeze.
Another idea that's been suggested is buying a stone pool for a weaker form, something like the sidekick modifier, but I don't think that's really gained much steam. I suppose that's because it doesn't let you make two powerful forms (like Emma Frost) very well.
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Post by arch2ngel on Jan 1, 2010 3:53:43 GMT -5
The one problem with your suggested min-max situation is that there will be times the character could be FORCED to change forms. His powers negated, he's now weak as a kitten and unable to do ANYTHING. Naturally, other characters can have their abilities taken away too, but usually not so dramatically...
Of course, one of the points to every character in comics with Transform Self is a reason for each of the forms. Maybe that should be written into the creation of it? Maybe you can only spend so much time in either form? Maybe your more powerful form looks monsterous, and you want to be able to catch a movie on occasion? Maybe staying in one form or another causes some negative effect (like Monster Girl from Invincible, who de-ages when she's in her monsterous form? She'd be a perfect example of this - one weak, child-statted form, and another POWERFUL form, but tries VERY hard to stay in the weaker form, because she's afraid of what happens when she regresses below that of a baby...)
I actually like the idea that it's the player's responsibility to come up with WHY the character changes back and forth, and to include it in the rules that they have to. This could be strictly RP reasons (like Wolfsbane, who barely has any reason to change back, except for her origin), or because of a Challenge related to the Transform Self (like Monster Girl)...
Thanks for the feedback, Kaimontfendo!
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Post by Kaimontfendo on Jan 2, 2010 3:20:39 GMT -5
Okay. Point. When you lose your powers, you'd get stuck in a really, really weak state. But that's not going to happen very often.
Making the player decide limits on their transformation may sound good, but to me it sounds like a lot of work. I suppose you could set up something that allows you to buy a duration for your stronger form or something, but I don't want to see even more math involved in transformation.
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