Syntax: assume {target}

With great concentration, the shape shifter is able to assume the form of an arbitrary animal. To the untrained eye, he or she will be indistinguishable from any other such creature.

Mechanics:

1. Mob must consider below "perfect match".

2. Only works on mobs flagged as "animals".

3. Can't be used whenever the mage would be prevented from quitting due to recent PK engagement.

4. When the mage has assumed a mob's form he remains in the "who" list but doesn't show up on "where" unless the person using the "where" command is a shapeshifter or ranger or has "detect magic" or "piercing gaze" up.

5. Reverting from or shifting out of an assumed form has some additional lag, roughly equivalent to coming out of duo-dimension.

6. Being attacked while in an assumed form causes the mage to immediately revert and incur the additional lag.

This would mainly be a stealth skill shifters would use to sneak up on people.

If deemed too powerful there could be some movement lag added while in an assumed form.

Just make -age gear work in form and they'll be ideal.
And also please remove the immxp requirement to emote in form. It's ridiculous to have such a high entry barrier to merely being able to enhance your roleplay while in form.

Stock form socials SUCK.

Pretty, pretty please?

As far as I know, only like two players have ever heroed a shifter with no forms.

That being said, I'd love if there was a super expensive edge that would allow you to pick your form at the expense of losing your final minor focus form.

As in, say I go Offense Major. I get Dire Wolf but really had my heart set on Silverback because trip is for lames. So, I take the edge and get Silverback instead of Dire Wolf, but then I will not recieve a final minor form.

I would rather see shifter be able to force learn a new form. Risks come with a sliding scale depending on the form you are trying to force to learn. If you have already force learned one form then the penalty for a subsequent form increases too.


It could be locked out to only above 44th level and you can force shift into any form that you do not have (that is non-special).

If it fails it costs you one con.
You only need to succeed once to unlock the form but if you succeed but die in that form it costs you 1 con until you are confident then it will cost you 2/3 con per death in that form. Learning rates of that form are reduced compared to normal.

When trying to force learn a new shape your chances of failure is quite high and it increases if you are under 150 hours or if you are learning a form outwith your two foci. Imms could reduce the % chance of failure as a reward instead of a special form that often imbalances things quickly.

Hellllloooo Pachy/Diamondback/Porc/Cheetah/Wildcat!

I'd sacrifice 10 trains on a gnome to try and secure all those

Very much like the idea, but agree it would need to have some pretty steep risks or limitations involved though.

Could just give every shifter 2 "free" (i.e. no edge point cost) uses of "roll the bones" and "spin the wheel". Keeps some amount of randomness, but reduces the likelihood of you getting stuck w/ something you didn't want.

If the forms are balanced then there should be no strong preference for one over the other.

Giving *every* shifter two free uses of each would also generate a lot more data that the staff could use to gauge which forms the players seem to "dislike".

After a couple months you could mini-nerf the forms that people are disproportionately *unlikely* to roll/spin and mini-boost those that people are disproportionately *likely* to roll/spin.

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That is really powerful.

To balance that out you would need a major drawback. Like that you do show up on where and your hp is set to 10.

Or that you can only revert, not shapeshift out of the form and get lag like coming out of duo dimension, and you have very little hp while in that form.

I think the bigger point is that shapeshifters do not really need this... A lot of utility forms have a "blend" like ability, which essentially does this. Having something like this would more or less undermine the usefulness of those forms.

That's pretty powerful.

It means the shifter can approach to within a room then give the target almost no time to spot them on where. With the shifter giving nothing up in return for this boost.

When I proposed a similar but weaker racial trait I nerfed their stats significantly in return.

I mean, stealth silverback? It would be carnage!

Well, a decent number of people could see him on "where". Any mage, since they all get detect magic. Non-mages could keep detect magic on tap via preps if they know there's an enemy shifter online, but I agree that's irritating.

Could also make it more dangerous for the shifter. Maybe he takes a large amount of initial damage if someone attacks him while he's in an assumed form.

Another idea would be to make it a fixed duration. That is, the shifter can't control when he comes out of the assumed form. He assumes it and then has to live in that form for N hours until it wears off, at which point he automatically reverts and suffers whatever lag we've attached to reverting-from-assumed-form.

But we all know getting the jump on someone can drastically change how ghe fight goes. Shifters alreay get forms that can hide and camo. And some even sneak. I just don't think it can be balanced right.

Ok, detect magic could balance it. I must have missed that.

However, it does mean that there's no one more prep to worry about for those who don't have it inherently.

Perhaps a drawback could be that if you are in an insignificant animal form, your hp are halved until you revert, and hp don't increase on reversion unless you are in full health.

That could work. My main goal with this wasn't necessarily to introduce a specific mechanic. It just always seemed dumb to me that shifters are limited to only specific forms. Seems like they should be able to turn into all kinds of things, albeit with all the attendant limitations and weakness.

So if you take the form of a common pigeon (as opposed to a giant magical falcon) then while in that form you're approximately as weak and vulnerable as any other common pigeon. But you're also indistinguishable from any other common pigeon to someone without the expertise needed to tell the difference.