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FreakyCheeseMan
2014-07-02, 04:48 PM
Been working on my own system for ever and ever, and I've been wondering how to balance shapeshifting.

One of the basic ideas I have for the system is that levels = CR = ECL. So, in theory, no creatures are more or less powerful for their HD (as best as I can manage, anyway.) Another element is that, for the most part, character advancement will be wider rather than taller - your numbers won't go up so much, particularly HP and damage, but you'll get more versatility, counters, sneaky tricks, etc.

One of the issues I've been working with is trying to make shapeshifting/polymorphic ideas remotely balanced (They're well-known for being overpowered in 3.5, but in general, the idea does seem to have a lot of might to it.)

So, here's my idea:

1: All qualities will be tagged as either Physical, Not Physical, or Both. (Having claws is Physical. Being able to cast a spell is Not Physical.) When you shapeshift, you lose everything that has a tag of either Physical or Both from your base form, and gain everything tagged as Physical from your new form.

2: Any shapeshifter will have to take at least one "Morphic Level" - these are levels that, by default, give them no benefit beyond standard character advancement (feats, basically.) You can only shapeshift into forms which have a maximum level of the sum of your Morphic levels, and you trade your morphic levels for that form. (So, if you had Druid 3/Morphic 1, you could only transform into a 1st level thing - say a dog - becoming effectively Druid 3/Dog 1.)

I think this adds a bit more balance to the concept, and emphasizes the fact that shapeshifting is more powerful than just a spell. (Whereas in 3.5, a Psion 7 can turn into any 7HD creature, effectively getting all of the benefits of 7 levels of something else while keeping all of his psion stuff.)

Anyone have any thoughts on this idea? Ever seen anything similar?

Thealtruistorc
2014-07-02, 11:52 PM
How would this be integrated?

I like the idea, but your description seems vague. How would one gain these morphic levels, and what benefits exactly would they entail?

FreakyCheeseMan
2014-07-03, 12:05 AM
How would this be integrated?

I like the idea, but your description seems vague. How would one gain these morphic levels, and what benefits exactly would they entail?

So, I should have specified - this isn't for 3.5, this is for a system I'm working on from the ground up.

Gaining these levels would be like gaining any other level. Anyone with a shapeshifting ability could take them (though certain abilities might be limited in how high they could go). The level itself wouldn't provide any benefits, beyond what happened as a standard part of rising character level. (But, most levels don't give as much as 3.5 ones do anyway - no BAB, no saves, no new HD).

The only advantage would be increasing the range and power of creatures you could turn into - so, if you want to turn into, say, a wolf or an eagle, a 1-level investment might do. If you want to turn into a dragon, though, you'll be using quite a few levels for the privilege.

jqavins
2014-07-03, 04:03 PM
1: All qualities will be tagged as either Physical, Not Physical, or Both. (Having claws is Physical. Being able to cast a spell is Not Physical.) When you shapeshift, you lose everything that has a tag of either Physical or Both from your base form, and gain everything tagged as Physical from your new form.

2: Any shapeshifter will have to take at least one "Morphic Level" - these are levels that, by default, give them no benefit beyond standard character advancement (feats, basically.) You can only shapeshift into forms which have a maximum level of the sum of your Morphic levels, and you trade your morphic levels for that form. (So, if you had Druid 3/Morphic 1, you could only transform into a 1st level thing - say a dog - becoming effectively Druid 3/Dog 1.)
Seems to me that a lot of things would fall into the "Both" category. Giving them and the physical abilities up while gaining only the physical abilities of the new form seems like a lot, particularly if Morphic is only a fraction of one's total levels. Take the dog example:

A druid's most important ability is his/her casting, which requires mental (i.e. Not Physical) ability, but also requires hands for somatic and material components (assuming you are remaining D&D-like in that regard.) So casting is a Both. So this 3rd level druid gives up spells when transforming, and can only become a 1 HD creature, like a dog. That makes shapeshifting not just limited but crippled, in my opinion.

What about making the max HD of the new form equal to the sum of Morphic levels and 1/2 of all other levels, with a limit of double the Morphic. Then the Druid 3/Morphic 1 character can achieve 2 HD forms. When she advances a bit more and is Druid 4/Morphic 1, she can still only do 2 HD since that is double her Morphic level. But if she then proceeds to Druid 4/Morphic 2 then she could do 4 HD creatures: 2 Morphic plus 4 Druid over 2 gives 2 more. At Druid 6/Morphic 3 she can do 6 HD creatures, etc. If she quits advancing her Morphic level at that point, and one day is Druid 12/Morphic 3 the limit is still 6. When the total of other levels is odd, giving a limit of, let's say, 3.5 HD, that would allow for creatures with 3+1 through 3+3, i.e. more than 3 but less than 4.

Frankly, I think this might still be too weak, but it's better.

The Giant did a bunch of work on this subject. It's the second and third "This Old Rule" articles in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?172910-Articles-Previously-Appearing-on-GiantITP-com) post.

FreakyCheeseMan
2014-07-03, 06:24 PM
I was thinking that "Both" would be a relatively small category, though I suppose there are a set of things that fall into "Humanoid", as well - like, casting with material focuses, or using weapon techniques. Actually, what might be more reasonable (but also more complicated) would be to have some abilities rely on certain body parts (opposable thumbs, legs, wings, vocal chords, etc.)

I might relax that a bit, but my thought right now is that the shapeshifting classes would be built, presumably, to shapeshift - so, it'd just be a matter of not giving them a huge number of class features that don't work in another form. (Which makes sense. If you spend half your time studying to turn into a bear, you probably don't spend your other half trying to figure out stuff you can't do when you're a bear.)