M&M 3E Character Creation - How does Altered Form work now?

[Taggerung85]

My friends and I are starting our first game in a month or so and we are roughing out our characters now. My concept is a mutant version of Groot, someone a bit less powerful and somewhat human instead of being a full blown tree. I plan on having him switch back and forth between a normal human form and a Tree Form based of the Solid type of Altered Form. We had read 2E until our GM decided he wanted to play 3E instead. With that upgrade the build of my character has changed dramatically. So instead of distributing points to abilities/skills now you pick traits and somehow that determines the cost. I get the idea of the rank costing the # of effects for that form then either -1 or -2 depending on activation. Where I'm lost is how it actually works. Do you assume those effects when you become that form or do you have to purchase them separate? Does each effect raise in rank the same as the power's rank or do you divvy the ranks between the effects? Any clarification would be helpful.

Also, I'm wondering if there would be benefit to custom making a form with different effects than the examples given. This comes to mind out of the concept I created of him having a human form and the Tree Form. In human form he has abilities like immunity to starvation (photosynthesis), plant control, create wood objects and such. In Tree Form, however, he would not only have hardwood skin but also Growth and Elongation, increasing his strength and reach. So assuming a sustained activation and using the same skills as the Solid form (Enhanced Strength and Stamina, Immunity, Protection) plus Growth and Elongation the cost would be about 4 right? (Let me know if my math is off too, I'm struggling with this one a bit.)

[Cazero]

Altered Form isn't an Effect. It is a power composed of Effects, all gated behind the same Activation flaw so that you can activate them all in a single action. You can put whatever Effects strike your fancy in there, pay for them all separately as if you always had access to them, then reduce the overall cost by 1 or 2 depending on the rank of the Activation flaw you chose.

Since it's not made of a single effect, the Altered Form power itself doesn't have ranks, only the various Effects composing it do, and they can have different ranks and different modifiers.

If your alternate form disable some of the abilities of your regular form, you may want to take a look at the Morph effect and its Metamorph modifier. It basicaly allows you to make an array of your various forms and all abilities associated with them.

[DeanH]

You want to take a level of Morph with a level of the Metamorph extra. Each form pays 6 points for this, but they can otherwise be completely different (subject to GM approval).