Shadowrun: Playing a Shapeshifter

[throtecutter]

I'm rolling a new character for Shadowrun, and was thinking about playing a cat (fox stats) shapeshifter.
(Obviously, This has nothing to do with the necomimi headset I just got...)

For people who aren't familiar with Shadowrun, a shapeshifter is an animal
who has the power to masquerade as a person. So it really is an animal, thus having different mannerisms/ outlook on life than humanity.

I looking for a few particular traits that would be worth playing up with a character like this.
The one's I've come up with are:
1. toying around with the prey - should work no problem
2. loner - this wouldn't work as well
3. not being good/understanding money - should work
4. strong flight or fight response, especially when cornered

But I don't own a cat, so I was hoping other people would have ideas.

Thanks for the help

Also, I understand that this isn't an optimal build, that's not what I'm looking for.

[kardar233]

I'd advise looking at aspects of cat behaviour. For example: for cats, staring directly at something is usually a threat; if they aren't feeling threatened or wanting to threaten they'll glance directly at the thing once and then look at it through the corner of their eye after. Play up the strangeness of your reactions like this.

[TheOOB]

First, I assume you're playing SR4A

This isn't what you want to hear, but I STRONGLY advise against playing a shapeshifter in SR unless you are your whole party(especially the GM) are strongly versed in the rules, and don't mind that your character will be useless in half of the runs.

Shapeshifters have a huge, insurmountable, crippling disadvantage. They are dual-natural, all the time, 24/7. This mean every ward you find(and wards are common, any magician can make them and keep them up a long time), may as well be a solid wall to you. You *might* be able to press through it, but the creator of the ward will know instantly if you even try(masking can kind of get around that, but only if you've assessed the creator of the ward.) So anytime your team needs to sneak into a secure place guarded by a ward(something I imagine might happen from time to time), you can't go with.

Further, you can never turn your astral form off, which means any astral magician can hover 20 feet above you and fling manabolts at you until you die, and there is nothing you can do about it, and magicians will do this to you, why would they not, it's no risk.

If you still want to play a shapeshifter, make sure to take an awakened archetype, adept is always good. You're going to want to raise your magic to improve your inherent abilities, you may as well get spells and/or power points along with it.

As an aside, Drake characters, from the Runners Companion, are shapeshifters who get around this whole dual natured thing. You could also play a changeling with a shapeshift inherent spell.

[Anderlith]

When happy, purr & rub yourself against other characters, brushing your cheek or body against them

When the orc pulls out the sniper rifle, fling yourself towards the laser sight & chase after it

Eat catfood while in metahuman form

Playfully bat at other characters faces

Fear water, & act like a cat when wet

[Andrewmoreton]

The Permanent Dual natured thing is a potential death trap , unless your GM is very kind to you.
Regeneration is great, and as otherwise suggested take a mage or adept character , I recommend Adept as designing a Mage on the points left over after being a shape-shifter can be difficult, although being a mage does help with some of the Dual natured problems.

Do not make the animal side of the personality to extreme you have to get on with the other characters after all. I had a lot of trouble in a previous campaign with a Cat type shapeshifter playing with its food and torturing people which lead to interparty combat.

[TheOOB]

The Permanent Dual natured thing is a potential death trap , unless your GM is very kind to you.
Regeneration is great, and as otherwise suggested take a mage or adept character , I recommend Adept as designing a Mage on the points left over after being a shape-shifter can be difficult, although being a mage does help with some of the Dual natured problems.

Do not make the animal side of the personality to extreme you have to get on with the other characters after all. I had a lot of trouble in a previous campaign with a Cat type shapeshifter playing with its food and torturing people which lead to interparty combat.

I did make a reverse projection metamagic years ago that allowed dual natured beings to become single natured for a brief period of time, and a GM may allow something like that. Adept is usually the way to go for paracritters, for 5 BP you're basically getting free PP for something you'd buy up anyways.

While a shapeshifter is an animal who turns into a human(not a human who turns into an animal), I do agree it would be best to downplay the feline aspect of the character. Your character is a professional runner first, a shapeshifter second. Shapeshifters have a way of ruining campaigns(I've seen it happen several times), so your biggest job is avoiding that at all costs.

[throtecutter]

Well that's not the responses I hoped to hear...
But thanks for the heads up/warnings. Looks like I'll make a few changes.
He's already rolled up so he will be around for at least a session, but we'll see how it goes.

[Kid Jake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q54lVO7elt0