Topic: New Profession: Shapechanger

[Eladan]

I'm looking at trying to convert the Shapechanger profession from the old MERP 2 books into a RMU format. The premise in MERP was that the Shapechanger was someone who embraced their gift/curse and therefore learned how to maximize its effectiveness. This was seen in the Middle-Earth race of the Beornings. Costs are essentially akin to a cross between the Ranger and Monk/Warrior Monk. There are two issues I'm trying to balance in my conversion:

• What's an appropriate cost for Lycanthropy as a talent? Should the purchase of the talent also include a rank in Control Lycanthropy?
• Other characters might have/contract lycanthropy, but they don't have the same measure of control as a Shapechanger, who learns control easier and has access to more advanced forms. The issue is making sure the benefits are balanced.

As for the advanced forms, I've simplified the rules/tables and made up some of my own:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DvIlyOGSGKWmsOEKo8m4shCmrmkTU3_I/view?usp=sharing
I've used the White Wolf: Werewolf concepts as inspiration. The Shapechanger has access to two forms beyond his common animal form: the Ancient Form, which is a prehistoric megafauna version, and the Bestial Form, which is a huge combination of his human and lycan forms. With each form he gets increases to his offensive abilities, but each subsequent form is harder to shift into and harder to control once shifted, so advanced forms can be a true liability if control is lost and the character Frenzies...

At any rate, thoughts? Too unbalancing? Anyone try anything similar? I was always intrigued by the MERP Shapechanger and when we converted it to RM2 it was a lot of fun for my characters to play.

[Hurin]

I never played the MERP Shapechanger, but I have considered the concept in an RMU format. That is mainly because I find players who come from DnD tend to be underwhelmed by the Rolemaster Druid, who is less 'guy who turns into animals' than 'naturalist who at super high levels gets some limited ability to turn into animals'. (That's not a knock on RMU by the way; that's just the way the Druid has always been in Rolemaster).

Have you looked through the history of earlier RM editions? There are some spell lists that produce physical changes, so that is one route to go. Foul Changes I and II in the Rolemaster Companion IV are pretty good, giving some limited changes. But it looks more like you are leaning towards making the Shapechanger class an Arms class (rather than a spell using class) that has skills to help it control its lycanthropy.

As for the cost of Lycanthropy as a talent, Creature Law (the RMU version) does give some guidance. It has Shapechange true (any form) at 50 DP, though it also gives the stipulation that changing into a specific form will require study. That I guess could be handled by a skill, such as Lore: Creatures, combined with Control Lycanthropy. There is also Shapechange (single form) for 40 DP.

Another route would just be to make a custom race like Beornings, with an inherent ability to change shape (the costs of the talents above would be paid by the race). Then the character could be any class (Warrior Monk might be especially good, due to the unarmed attacks and discipline-focus).

[jdale]

Professions don't normally give talents. They would just make lycanthropy control a professional skill, which isn't much of a boost. I would suggest either making it a semi profession so you can make the forms into spell lists, or make it a race so it can have talents. I think either of those should be possible to make workable and balanced, you can decide for yourself which is a better match for what you are trying to do.

An advantage of spell lists is that they inherently scale by character level. If you go with a race and talents, you can have the early talents be prereqs for later ones in order to let them scale.

We have taking an animal or half-animal form at 30 DP. But think about what the stats are going to be....

[Eladan]

As always, you guys impress me.

@Hurin

As for the cost of Lycanthropy as a talent, Creature Law (the RMU version) does give some guidance.

I didn't realize Creature Law had that but will definitely check it out. 40-50 seems a bit steep, especially since access to the form doesn't have any scalable strengths unless the character decides to invest DP in the chosen animal's attacks, and comes with all sorts of situational drawbacks. A 10th level Fighter who can shift into a bear with the corresponding stats will always prefer to remain in human form, no? That's the real advantage of the Shapechanger as it was designed in MERP: his martial art OB's are used for his animal attacks. They are an ARMS profession that has slightly higher combat costs with the tradeoff of advantages in their shifted form.

@Jdale
I wasn't asking about a profession giving a talent, but how much a lycanthropy talent/flaw should cost in making a custom race (like the Beornings) or a custom culture (a "Lycan" tribe if you will). Is the 30 DP cost in Creature Law? Your suggestion of it as a race is the definitely the direction I'm going. Agree that the Warrior Monk/marital artist is the most sensible in terms of overlapping attack styles. As for scalable abilities, I'm trying to emulate that with the charts I made where each lycanthrope form is stronger, but harder to assume. I was thinking of the Greater Were-beasts from creature law and the various powers they wield. How does a lycanthrope get to that level of power? The Shapechanger is an attempt to create a structure to do that.

Hurin, I agree with your assessments of RM's Druids. I have considered the Foul Change lists and even revamping the Druid to be something decidedly different than, as you accurately put it, a high-level magic user that can change into some animals. My vision of a Druid would be a semi-spell user whose spell lists allow varying degrees of shape-changing, with more types of animals and variations of forms at higher levels, and appropriate combat enhancements and animal kinship. I even think the Druidstaff could be integrated by powering it down a bit and having it as a weapon that changes form with the Druid. That might be a direction I develop in the future...

[jdale]

30 DP is in the current draft of Creature Law.

One way to calculate the value might be to add up the total talent value of the form (stat mods, AT, attacks, etc), then apply the 50% "restricted talent" modifier for talents that are only applicable under certain circumstances. That will better handle different forms of different strengths. Also, it gives some room to boost that talent later on by buying up the form.

You could scale those even further, maybe the talent is only 25% cost if it's in the very-hard-to-achieve greater form. That's not in the rules but could be reasonable.

[Hurin]

One other thing to consider: How does RMU handle the physical change? I mean, when you change form, do you take on all the stats of an average individual of that creature (including level), or do you stay your current level and just take on the new physical features (stats, claws, Armor Type, etc.)?

E.g. A level 1 Beorning or Shapechanger changes into a bear. A medium bear is level 8, a Big Bear is level 12. Do you get the stats of a level 8 bear, or a level 1 bear?

I think you could do it either way. If you take on the level of the bear, then you'd need to balance the class by having it turn into a weak bear first, then a medium bear, then a big bear.

If you keep your own level and just take on the physical characteristics of the bear, then that is inherently balanced, but you'd have to build up skill in things like unarmed attack, bite, etc.

[Eladan]

Hurin -

If you keep your own level and just take on the physical characteristics of the bear, then that is inherently balanced, but you'd have to build up skill in things like unarmed attack, bite, etc.

That's the system I think fits the profession the best. It also fits well with other professions that can adopt forms though other means (i.e. the possible semi-arms Druid profession). As I have it written, non-shapechanger classes would use the default stats of a common bear (medium?).

Jdale -

30 DP is in the current draft of Creature Law.

Found it. Wow... lots of info and possibilities there. I'm trying to address the different forms through the difficulty of the lycanthropy maneuver rather than as a talent(s). I suppose upgrades to the forms could be bought with DPs upon advancing a level... hmmm...

[jdale]

I think you could do it either way. If you take on the level of the bear, then you'd need to balance the class by having it turn into a weak bear first, then a medium bear, then a big bear.

Essentially at that point you're just creating bears at a variety of different levels. I agree with Eladan it's best to keep your own level and skills, and just layer the package of talents (stat mods, RR mods, hit mods, size, etc) on top of that.

Eladan: We did a lot of revision to the talent list in Creature Law since the beta version that is available, if you have questions about the cost or effect of a particular talent (or what talent to use), feel free to ask and I can tell you our current thinking on it. Making the talent scalable through difficulty levels is an option of course, just maybe a little harder to quantify.


Unrelated to that, personally I wouldn't reduce Gymnastic or Ambush for cat, wolf, or rat. Especially ambush for cat, they are often ambush predators. Might make those per form rather than universal. You could vary the number of bonus skills to balance that out.

[Hurin]

I think you could do it either way. If you take on the level of the bear, then you'd need to balance the class by having it turn into a weak bear first, then a medium bear, then a big bear.

Essentially at that point you're just creating bears at a variety of different levels. I agree with Eladan it's best to keep your own level and skills, and just layer the package of talents (stat mods, RR mods, hit mods, size, etc) on top of that.

Ok, sounds good. RM2 I think offered the option of doing it that way.

One potential downside of doing it that way, though, is that the stats for a black bear (Bear, medium) are pretty underwhelming. You'd get the better senses and natural weaponry (not sure if you'd automatically get the attack sequence?) and a bit of an Agility boost, but other stats would go down. A medium bear is still just a medium creature, and its Con bonus is only +1; so many races would see no change in hits, or even get fewer hits in bear form. Your RR vs. Essence and probably Mentalism would in all likelihood go down.

Turning into a Big Bear (I'm assuming Grizzly or Polar) would be worth it for the far greater hits you'd get, but turning into a Medium bear would be rather marginal (especially since it prevents you from wearing armor). So if you go that route, I would recommend choosing Big Bear for your transformation.

[Eladan]

Appreciate it Jdale... I'm going to tweak the shapechange->animal form talent to 20 and then see how it balances overall. I would like to see lycanthropy played with its limits and drawbacks more prevalent. I'm eager to see how the costs have changed; that list in Creature Law is exhaustive and covers pretty much everything. I also agree that Gymnastics and some other skills should be unaffected or increased rather than decreased. That was a holdover from the old MERP model that I just copied. I'm eventually planning to tweak all the skills by species (bear, rat, wolf, even bird...) to make them more accurate, but the enormity of that making that table is still a ways off.

Hurin, I agree that the forms of most common animals, even larger predators like bears, are underwhelming to say the least. You could tie them to match the relative level of the character, so higher level characters would have access to Big Bears, "Dire Bears", or even greater Lycanthropes eventually as they raise in level. That would have a balancing effect for non-Shapechangers with lycanthropy.

Im the universe I'm imagining, not every member of a Lycan tribe is a Shapechager profession (in fact the profession itself would be far rarer). In a "cat tribe" there might be a Thief whose form is a cheetah or a panther, and for whom the benefits of the alternate form are primarily stealth based. I see the Shapechanger profession as the tribal chieftains and warlords, much more akin to Beorn.

[jdale]

What we currently have as racial stats for bears would be:

Ag +2 Co +4 Em -3 In +1 Me -2 Pre -2 Re -4 SD +1 ST +6  (I don't know whether the mental stats would be relevant here)
Base hits 40 Fatigue +10 AT 2
Attacks sequence I (grapple --> bite, this means there is a free 0 AP bite attack with no penalty for 0 AP in the round after a successful grapple)
Unrelenting grip (can't break free of a grapple via brute strength)
Additional Critical (Grapple --> additional Crush critical, same severity up to E)
Animalistic etc animal type limitations
Prodigy (V or X depending on which size bear) Tracking
Sight, nearsighted
Acute Smell VI
And possibly size.

Those grapple bonuses are pretty significant and the stats aren't bad, especially if you only get the physical ones. Also +15 hits doesn't hurt.

[Hurin]

Those stats for bear form are definitely better than the ones I was looking at, and the attack sequence and increased critical are very attractive. So it is definitely better than it looked at first sight.

[Tommi]

Hi,
I've been away for a while...

There is already a "shapechanger" profession in RM2: Dobbelgänger from RMC 7. Spell lists are very very powerful - to the level of being unbalanced. However a bit of tinkering might be enough to turn it to a valid player profession. Gives ability play magial beasts, demos, undeads, golems...

[Hurin]

Hi,
I've been away for a while...

There is already a "shapechanger" profession in RM2: Dobbelgänger from RMC 7. Spell lists are very very powerful - to the level of being unbalanced. However a bit of tinkering might be enough to turn it to a valid player profession. Gives ability play magial beasts, demos, undeads, golems...

Welcome back!

I had never really looked at the RM2 Shapeshifter from Companion VII before. Those lists do look very powerful, not just because they allow you to transform into anything from a Demon to Golem, but also because the transformations come at a relatively low level (compared for example to the transformations on the Druid lists).

[markc]

There are  shape changer spell training package lists in RMSS MC.


In general I have done what you have done in the past with RMSS and the difficult part is balancing DP cost of abilities. IIRC at various times I had the base abilities around 80-100 DP (RMSS) and then you bought abilities with DP after that.


A lot of the typical shape change abilities are very powerful in terms of most RM rules so you have to look at balance and balancing factors. ie absorbing equipment vs destroying equipment, using weapons vs just natural claws. Social penalties often associated with being part animal part intelligent race (or the reverse if it is seen as a benefit).


MDC 

[jdale]

Body Shifting in the Mentalism Companion will get you a terrestrial animal at level 10 and a flying or aquatic animal at 11, a different race at 12, and magical or mythical beasts at 15. You don't get all the abilities until higher levels though. You have to study the form but you can memorize many (based on your memory stat, not stat bonus).

Dopplegangers require a profession and multiple base lists, and their number of stored forms is very low (one per five levels). They do get racial abilities as early as 6th level, and "100%" of the "natural abilities" of a golem at level 7. Abilities of magical creatures normally grade in gradually.

In RMU, I might look at the level of the creature instead of the mass, since level is a better predictor of its power level.