I am going to apologize in advance to the Imms. Sorry.

Balance-wise shifter forms are fine.

But looking at the actual forms they are horrible. Why are barnyard and zoo animals being used at all in a fantasy game? It is unimaginative and a detriment to the RP atmosphere. Conjurer familars are better fantasy creatures than shifter forms. And all that's really needed is to throw the word 'phase' in front of wasp and you've got something interesting.

Look at the low lever forms...you've got squirrels, toads, ferrets, swans. Lame. Good work on coding of the forms. Bad work on the creature names.

A quick search can find plenty of inspiration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_monsters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythical_creature
But I should not be able to turn on the National Geo channel to see any creature that a shifter can assume.

In summary, I give you the third tier utility form, Cat:

An orange and white tabby meows plaintively at you like it
wants some food. It purrs contentedly when you reach down
and pet it, but then you make a quick movement, and it yelps
and leaps away. You hear a hissing from it somewhere around
you but can't see the cat wherever it went and hid itself.

Str : 17 Int : 15 Wis : 15
Dex : 21 Con : 18 Chr : 18
Hitroll : 38 Damroll : 23
AC pierce : -280 Divinely armored AC bash : -280 Divinely armored
AC slash : -280 Divinely armored AC magic : -280 Divinely armored
AC element: -280 Divinely armored

Physical effect: 'form bonus' modifies dexterity by 2 for -1 hours.

Skills
Bite : Bite your opponent
Hide : Hide
Nap : Go to sleep anytime

Automatic Abilities
Sneak : Always sneaking
Dodge : Excellent Dodge Ability


This fearsome creature has been known to slay red dragons, nap on sunny windowsills, and devour copious amounts of lasagna.

Is this seriously a shifter form?

>Look at the low lever forms...you've got squirrels, toads, ferrets, >swans. Lame. Good work on coding of the forms. Bad work on the creature >names.

Disagree here. It's a classic in tons of famous fantasy books and series, comics, cartoons, and movies, from Eliot's Sword in the Stone to Butcher's Dresden Files to McKilip's Riddlemaster to Robert Jordan to Terry Goodkind, to name a few, not to mention mythologies such as Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Greek, Bablyonian, Native American, British, German, Norse, that mages can easily transform themselves into natural creatures but not magical ones without extreme measures, being the son of a god, etc.

I think it's well done. It's also possible that a magical form is different than the actual animal ("no NATURAL animal would have claws that long and sharp" is a classic trope).

Um. There are mundane animals in most fantasy worlds. Shapeshifters typically turn into a variety of shapes, some mundane and some not. One example would be Prof. McGonnagal from the Harry Potter books, who turns into...a cat. Among other things.

True. But the cat form as described in CF seems to have some fighting ability and is a 3rd tier form. This is where the design loses me. If you want to have a cat it should be 1st or 2nd tier and have no fighting abilities. As soon as it can do more it should be described as being more.

Mundane in CF is not the same as mundane in our world. Shifter forms are common in our world but not really fitting for CF. They do more to break RP atmosphere than reinforce it.

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/cleveland/news/article_3f8b7022-782a-11e0-b12d-001cc4c002e0.html

They will rip your face off. I'd rather fight a dog than a cat any day.

Especially if the other guy is a scary rager. You can sneak in and manacle the rager when he attacks your guild and not autoassist and let the guards beat the rager if the can. I used this tactic against Arrazn as Agantas, except that I forgot the not autoassist part and got waxed.

1) I don't mind generic animals for non-quest forms. You now at least have 'some' idea on what you can expect. And what would be special about a quest form if it doesn't stand out at all (other than through the stats)?

2) I personally think Shifters have been given WAY too much attention already, compared to other things.

Agree with your second.

The shifter forms are rather lame and they do not always match what I would expect from them. Ram is a good example. It get's multiple attacks bit have you ever watched rams fight?

I couldn't agree more than I do with the original poster. I don't like shifters and I think they are terrible for RP. Both in a Practical sense (For other reasons he didn't mention.) and because of the level of randomness involved.

Other than that I find them extremely boring because they inhibit interaction and are just a pretty flavorless class.

They also have some advantages because of OOC game mechanics, something I personally don't think is a good idea.

That if Ice Drake and Displacer Beast were standard shifter forms that they might be even more popular than they are currently?

Do you think these forms are some kind of win button? They belong in a fantasy realm far more than a fox or a cougar. The strength of the forms depends on the coding. I'm not worried about that. IMHO, something fantasy should be given as third and fourth tier forms. If common animals are in the game they should be limited to the first and second tier. For example a lion, with some modification to damage output, should be second tier.

Part of designing balance is to make sure that each class has enough incentives AND drawbacks to make it popular, but not overwhelmingly so.

If you make Red Dragon a fourth tier form (even if it's not any more powerful than current forms of that tier) you'll see even more shifters around.

I'm inclined to think that this wouldn't be a good thing.

sdvad

And I think I've explained it enough.

My stance is that shifters are popular enough without making them "cooler."

I understand completely what you're saying, but I think your idea will result in more shifters, which I would not like to see.

More shifters = more mages = more targets for villagers.

How is that a bad thing! :)

Bring on the Ewok and Wyvern forms, please.

if that is the actual description. You try to pet it every time you look at it? That goes against the basic description advice.

What you see as a design flaw was something Cador did on purpose.

Shifters have changed a bit since then. How many forms existed back then? I suggest they change a bit more and are given a little more style. What was the original reason?

Speaking just for myself, the odds of me sinking that kind of time into the shifter class before 2020 when almost every other class in the game has seen attention less recently is zero.

Beyond that, I like the idea of the "normal forms are mostly real animals, quest forms are fantastical creatures." divide, although obviously I blurred it a bit with edge forms.

Gnome Air/offense.

Unshifted form is not the same as the animal form. For example, pachyderm is much larger than a gnome, yet it would be vulnerable to blunt due to it's small stature? Also, arial water shifter in form. A fish vulnerable to drowning attacks because it can't swim well due to it's wings? Doesn't make sense.

And I am tired of Gnome Air/off.

Stack I say.

In CF a cavefisher is a real animal. It's not fantastic like an unholy nightmare which should be a quest form. Normal in CF is not like normal in the real world. The edge forms are a great idea and I wouldn't play a shifter without one.