What do you get with "Turn into element"?

[Neros]

Ive always wondered what you get when you choose the "Turn into element" option... Immunity? Resistance? Automatical damage? What?...
Also, ive never really understood the reason for it, since they all ready made a transform self modifier.

[malice]

Just a few situational options. They'll vary depending on the element of course. There are some cases such as fire, where turning into the element lets you do additional damage in close combat by combining stones (pg 83 of the Main Game Guide).

It will most often work as a justification and potential discount for other abilities, actions, and modifiers. In the case of a hard element like ice or earth, you could justify toughness in the alternate form and be eligible for the "works only with other action/modifier" disadvantage on your toughness.

Take a mastery of air for example. You buy the mastery with the "transform into" advantage. You also want flight. You're already eligible for a -1 to cost level on your flight because of your mastery. Take the second -1 to cost level that flight comes equipped with if it "fits with your main power", normally I wouldn't let a player stack these advantages, but I think air is certainly a flight inclined mastery. Finally take "only works when transformed into wind" and you have a heavily discounted flight action, AN -1. You could also plausibly buy physical invulnerability at a discount in your wind form because things go right through you.

So you see it's got potential, but it's going to be different for every element. Some masteries are best bought without the advantage because turning into the element doesn't help that much. Others are suited well for it.

[Neros]

So when making a character who can transform into something, i should do it with a master of element cause you can gain allot of discounts that way. I mean instead of paying for 2 Abilities/Actions/Modifiers, you just say you get -1 to the power cause its only active when transformed.

And in the case of fire, how can i only be +1? A free attack when touched which equal AN (or so im guessing)... So what should other elements get? Energy Elements: Free Attack... Hard Elements: .... Formless Elements: Immune to normal attacks...

Every single element can get discounts on toughness/"Appropriat named power", so as i see it, the hard elements dont really get anything for that +1... So its as you said, with some masteries it dosent do anything turning into element, so they would gain nothing for it... So lets remove the option

[Kaimontfendo]

Immunity? No.
Resistance? No.
Automatic Damage? Only if you can talk your GM into it.

The reason for "Elemental" Transformation is that these characters don't really change all that much. They keep the same actions, more or less. Their abilities don't usually change, and if they do, it's probably only one ability. So why should they have to spend a bunch of extra stones to transform into an only slightly more powerful version of themself?

I seem to recall a character a friend of mine made who could transform into stone. I think it gave him something like a watered down version of Manipulate Body Density that he could only use to increase his toughness. On one hand, that's probably too powerful for a +1 cost most of the time. On the other hand, Masteries get expensive rather quickly, so maybe it balances out.

As for energy Elements getting free attack stones... That seems rather game-breaking. I'd say they have to buy Electrification (or something similar) to do that, and Human Torch should totally have something like that. All my master of Electricity gets is the ability to deal energy damage with his close combat action, (which isn't all that useful considering he can place more stones into his electrical blasts which are ranged and also deal double damage) and the ability to teleport by sending himself through electrical wires (which he bought separate, but at a discount).

What does the option itself get you? Apparently not much. But it allows you to get other things at a discount. However, one could allow an Elemental Master to buy those things at a discount anyway, with the understanding that they are linked to the Mastery. However, I think that may be too cheap, and so +1 to the cost of the mastery was added to balance it out.

[Neros]

Hmm... To give a discount on other things when in a alternate form could seem fair enough since it can become so expensivel... But still, you should get something for a +1 option which might cost you 5w stones...... Or not...

[malice]

Most sincerely-bought decent masteries are paying 5 stones for their options towards the end. I think someone averaged them out and figured out like 3.8 or 4.5 for each +1.

As for burning people while in fire form, I wouldn't let the character do damage = to AN unless they had a low AN. It's just fire after all. What I was actually referring to was the ability to combine stones with close combat. You can't do it every attack, but Johnny Storm could go "flame on" when he was grappling someone and get extra damage from his mastery = stones spent to transform.

Finally I wouldn't disallow an option if it were underpowered, I'd just warn players about its limited uses.

[minotaursrage]

My take on the whole "mastery of ____" factor is that, originally it was all element stuff...then they added mastery of necromancy, which is a totally non-element feature. Hence, my thought is that, Mastery can be of ANYTHING. Similar to (excuse this reference) Silver Age Sentinels power of "Dynamic Powers", it allows you to choose what type of Dynamic power you want control over. So Mastery of Animals, specific animals, wood, plants, all are viable choices. Bringing up the idea...

If you have mastery of bears. And you have "transform into element" Then obviously you turn into a bear, or at least your shape does. Then if you take "combines with close combat" and "free force field" you could describe it as the bears improved toughness, and bite attacks, etc.

[Brainstem]

minotaursrage said:

My take on the whole "mastery of ____" factor is that, originally it was all element stuff...then they added mastery of necromancy, which is a totally non-element feature. Hence, my thought is that, Mastery can be of ANYTHING. Similar to (excuse this reference) Silver Age Sentinels power of "Dynamic Powers", it allows you to choose what type of Dynamic power you want control over. So Mastery of Animals, specific animals, wood, plants, all are viable choices. Bringing up the idea...

If you have mastery of bears. And you have "transform into element" Then obviously you turn into a bear, or at least your shape does. Then if you take "combines with close combat" and "free force field" you could describe it as the bears improved toughness, and bite attacks, etc.

People on the boards have used this kind of thinking to work characters like the Hulk into 40w. Mastery of Gamma Rays along with benefits that are tied to transform. Granted, this wasn't in the hopes of getting a game through, but rather as a kind of puzzle to be cracked.

[malice]

minotaursrage said:

My take on the whole "mastery of ____" factor is that, originally it was all element stuff...then they added mastery of necromancy, which is a totally non-element feature. Hence, my thought is that, Mastery can be of ANYTHING. Similar to (excuse this reference) Silver Age Sentinels power of "Dynamic Powers", it allows you to choose what type of Dynamic power you want control over. So Mastery of Animals, specific animals, wood, plants, all are viable choices. Bringing up the idea...

If you have mastery of bears. And you have "transform into element" Then obviously you turn into a bear, or at least your shape does. Then if you take "combines with close combat" and "free force field" you could describe it as the bears improved toughness, and bite attacks, etc.

When I recommend a mastery for a character it's because the powers the player wants are very flexible. I don't think "Mastery of Bears" would be the best way to do that. I think Animal Training and either Metamorphosis or Transform self would work best there. I think some "elements" should be excluded from definition as elements. I've seen "Mastery of Psi-Weapons" and "Mastery of Forcefields" suggested and all I saw was an effort to get cool mastery options to create broken and wierd actions. I don't think "Mastery of Bears" would be broken, but it'd certainly be extemely akward when all you're wanting to do is have a druidic character.

Also I'd like to say that I understand you were just using "Mastery of Bears" as an example, in case it seems like I'm just attacking something you mentioned in passing. I was just recycling the example.

Btw am I the only one that thinks Metamorphosis works WAY better than Transform self for most things? Your amount of stat-change is restricted by AN but still, I find Transform Self very innefective and difficult to use on most occasions.

[Neros]

Metamorhosis has unlimited shapes (unless the option is taken where theres only 1 alternate shape), but i dont understand why they added that... I mean, use a Action to be able to change into ONE form (and spend 1r per panel or wait 1 hour for it to pass) just seems wrong when there allready was a rule for turning into another form.

And there are thing that just don't fit as a mastery... Like Mastery of Bears...

[minotaursrage]

Mastery of bears actually works completely fine.

As stated before, if you take the "create working devices" option for +5 you actually are able to create active, living bears, as if summoned.

If you take the force blast option, you might shoot a beam that looks like the front half of a bear.

Manipulate, would mean if you ever came across a bear, you could control it, tell it what to do, etc.

Forcefield, represents the "toughness" a bear has.

Flight...probably not...

Can be combined with close combat. Heck YEAH, you develop bear claws and a bear head and totally wreck the opposition.

So...Mastery of ____ can really be applied to nearly any idea. You just have to get creative with it.

[Kaimontfendo]

Mastery of Bears works... sort of. Although it is in many ways similar to Swarm's Mastery of Bees, I think his works better somehow.

I'd say transformation into a bear would be Transform Self, or perhaps a watered down version of Metamorphosis. Not that I particularly like either of those options, but I'd prefer either of them to a mastery.

The ability to control bears would be Summon & Control Animals from the Unofficial Spidey Guide.

The force blast shaped like a bear's head is really reaching, and I think just about everyone would agree. Besides, Force Blast is cheap enough by itself.

Some of the other mastery options also don't work so well with "Bears" as the element. For example, Immunity and Absorb like attacks. Regenerate when in element also would be rather weird. However, I do understand that not all options make sense for all Elements.

Although Death may not seem like an element, I'd say it is. It's just more abstract than most. Arguably, you could have a Master of Fear, or emotions in general. Better yet, you could have Mastery of Information!

I am debating making a similar but different action, called "Mastery of Animals" which could work. Not really a standard Mastery, but more like Summon & Control Animals combined with that watered-down Metamorphosis...

Now, Getting back to the original topic, sometimes I feel like Transformation should do something by itself, without having to pay for another action or modifier. For one, transformation into an element should have advantages by itself. I'm not saying that a Master of Water should get to use his Mastery AN as Stretching just because he bought a +1 option, but an ability to seep through cracks and such could perhaps be included without being too game-breaking? I dunno. Thoughts?

[Pope Mega Force]

Mastery of Allergies. Heh. Sorry, I just thought of that as I was reading the Mastery of Bears thing.

[minotaursrage]

You are just saying things that you don't LIKE about it, a force blast can be anything you want it to be.

The fact of the matter is, anything can be a mastery.

Mastery is an all in one package. Instead of having to buy transform self, force blast, flight, creation, healing factor, etc, it allows you to thematically do all those things.

I'm not sure why you argue the point, I was simply explaining that it can be done, and not to let anyone's imagination be dampened just because some people don't understand.