Animal Metamorphisis

[Daniel Stoker]

So I've got a player who is definatly playing a character with the Animal Metamorphisis: All. So I KNOW he's gonna want to turn into things like Wholly Rhinos and dinosaurs. Should I allow this, or limit him to animals that are alive on earth in the present day? I don't think it would be TO overpowering considering some of the other characters, but it's still up in thei air for me.



Daniel Stoker

[acreRake]

One possibility is to limit him to animals he's personally observed... In a Heroes game, of course this doesn't preclude dinosaurs from eventually getting into the mix...

EDIT: Forgot to add: "I'll allow it!" The above was only if you didn't want to...

[Uncle Servo]

I had a similar question in my own campaign, where a player with Animal Metamorphosis: All Animals wanted to include fantasy monsters. I really wasn't sure about what to do until I re-read the following part of the power description:

For even greater depth of information on over 200 specific (as well as general types of) animals, see the Palladium Book of Monsters & Animals. Although this book is designed for the Palladium Fantasy RPG series, the animals are suitable for any S.D.C. setting (modern, ancient or futuristic) and even the monsters, monstrous races, elementals and entities are suitable for use in Heroes Unlimited with some modification (mainly to their background). It is a wonderful sourcebook.

That to me seems like PB is giving the green light for PCs with that power to use monsters as well as regular animals... and if fantasy animals are fair game (no pun intended), then there's no reason I can see that real-life prehistoric animals couldn't be in the mix too.

Also, depending on the animal itself it wouldn't be much of a stretch anyway. Thanks to the La Brea tar pits containing butt-loads of Smilodon (Sabretooth) remains, scientists claim they know more about that species than they do some big cats alive today.

And I'd be most remiss if I didn't point out the Walking With Dinosaurs type shows on Animal Planet lately -- given the fact that those shows do a fair dinkum job of portraying prehistoric beasts as real animals, one could easily make the argument that they're good reference material for those with Animal Metamorphosis.

[Daniel Stoker]

See, I was thinking along those lines to Uncle Servo, I just wasn't to sure what other people had allowed in their campaigns. And it IS a Major power after all so he should be getting some major use out of it.... Now I need to go pull out my Transdimensional TMNT so I can have some dino stats ready.



Daniel Stoker

[Uncle Servo]

See, I was thinking along those lines to Uncle Servo, I just wasn't to sure what other people had allowed in their campaigns. And it IS a Major power after all so he should be getting some major use out of it.... Now I need to go pull out my Transdimensional TMNT so I can have some dino stats ready.

Of course, I should in all fairness add that the only thing she's transformed into so far has been a standard run-of-the-mill Golden Eagle... but she has expressed interest in dinosaurs and fantasy animals.

I'm just waiting for that day when she says "I transform into a Gryphon!"

[Daniel Stoker]

Well the last thing I'll do is ACTIVLY give him the idea... but I'll be ready in case he tries to spring it on me. Just as long as he doesn't try to do the Whale 'Belly-flop' maneuver we should be ok.



Daniel Stoker

[Daejiv]

I think you should let the charcter not just do animals on earth - because it is a major power( you said) so he should get major used out of it. but be sure like not like dinos so just says no animals past the 19th century.

[Daniel Stoker]

Well the last thing I'll do is ACTIVLY give him the idea... but I'll be ready in case he tries to spring it on me. Just as long as he doesn't try to do the Whale 'Belly-flop' maneuver we should be ok.

Hmmm, the Whale Belly Flop is fun. I've actually had to field that one before. In the glossary it comes out to 1d8 damage per 100lbs or something like that. Depending on the whale he can weigh as much as 14 tons at 2000 pounds (or 20d8) per ton that is ummm well... let's not go there. It disgusted me at the time.

>>>----Therumancer--->

Well the one problem that it would ALSO really hurt the character too since a whale can't really take the effects of Gravity well outside the water



Daniel Stoker

[Uncle Servo]

Whale belly flop? I thought there was a weight / size limit on the animals one could turn into? Guess I will have to re-read the power.
Concerning dinosaurs and fantasy animals, I faced this problem once and told the player flat out no. He even tried to convince me to allow his alien character to have to the power just so he could create new "animals" to shape shift into! This player was a total munchkin, though. But, all players from that point on understood only real world modern animals. I just can't conceive of a character being able to turn into a raptor just because he has seen Jurassic Park or some show on t.v or from visiting a museum. It just doesn't make sense...

And if that's your take on things then by all means limit to just modern-day animals within the confines of your campaigns. No harm no foul there.

However, I wholeheartedly agree with you that alien animals should NOT be allowed unless they've been given writeups in one Palladium book or another. Otherwise you'd have a player making things up as they went and if that's not munchkin I don't know what is.

I think you should let the charcter not just do animals on earth - because it is a major power( you said) so he should get major used out of it. but be sure like not like dinos so just says no animals past the 19th century.

Hunh?

Would you care to run that by us once more -- in English, perhaps?

[Yukon]

i think it should be any and all real animals that he has personal knowledge of, has studied or at least seen.
otherwise, you could have alien animals that look just like a chair in case he needs to blend in with office furniture. or some animal that happens to be able to shoot lasers and look like a cannon. there's limitless possibilities of alien and other-dimensional animals. or he reasons that a dinosaur was a real animal so i'll turn into a smilodon or for that matter, enough people think lochness is real, so i'll turn into that. or the mothman, or a vampire!

the line should be drawn at animals the character has personally experienced visually, tactiley (sp?), aurally, and/or olfactirally (is that even a word?). which also keeps out viruses or bactirium, amoebas, etc...

[Talon Starblade]

Well, I had a simular problem working with a character I got into an X-Men varient game. They reasoned that since all mammals evolved from the same relative ancestor, they limited me to creatures dating back to the Ice Age... My character was kind of liek Mother Nature's living son, with an affinity with any and all manor of plant and beast. But back to the topic at hand...

Personally, I'd try to work the limit like this... How do they say their animal metamorphasis works, even if the character doesn't have a clue how?

Is it purely Genetic, where they're carrying the remnants of the genetic material with them, to reorganize into the shape...

Is it a gift of the world spirit or a "god" that allows the transformation...

Maybe they need to sample the DNA, or just touch the physical form in order to assume that form...

Maybe they CAN assume all animal forms, but must practice and/or study them in order to make use of them (the time consuming way to earn them... maybe let them start with a few he already knows, like 5+ 1 or 2D6). Establish an amount of trainint time needed to learn a new form. Maybe those ancient and long dead species require even more time, or are harder to learn.

On learning, one method I might use, is to establish a saving throw test for actively trying to learn... 14 vs. new Earth animal, 17 vs. Ice age, 19 vs. late to mid Dinosaurs, 20 vs the earliest age of dinosuars and predinosaur life (it's possible), as well as alien animals (as long as they've been informed or learned of it first hand). This is all provided that the character had SOME idea that the creature exists (saw a show somewhere). The M.E. PSI save bonus applies. For these new forms, the transformation time takes as many attacks as equal to the save value. Each successfully saved transformation, reduces the target save value by one for that one creature (keep track of each individual animal's save value). When the save value reaches 0, the change to that animal becaomes at will as usual.

Returning to normal happens in a single attack round. Whether they remain shifted or return to normal, they must then make a save vs. pain, bonus to PSI save or Magic save applies (which ever is better)... Success, they wait an hour to recover from the strain, fail, and they're done for the day, and are -2 (-10%) to everything for the next hour.

At the GM's option, having the Zoology and/or Palentology skills (which ever is pertenent and higher) can apply to toward the save... 1/10th of the skill applied as a bonus instead of psi save.


Well, them's my 2 cents. Use them as you will my friends.

[RockJock]

Depending on your game setting I would allow different things. Is there something like The Savage Land, or a Dino Island in your world? If there is, and the character is familar with the fossil record of the animal that is living on the dino island, even though he hasn't seen it himself, I would allow it.

In one of my games a few years back something similar came up. We developed what we called the Snowbird rule. When you creat a character with Animal Meta, they need to make a choice at the beginning of the game. For example, they can take the power as is, and be any living animal. Other options are animals of a certain geographical region. Like a native Russian being able to transform into any animal native to that country including some mystical, or ancient animals like a Wolly Mammoth, Musk Ox, or Bird of Light. The third option would allow a character to be able to change into any animal from a time period like the Pliestocene, or even early Holocene megafauna, but not into common modern animals which would allow him to be a Dire Wolf, but not a Timber Wolf. The last option is for the player to pick a catagory of animals like felines. This would allow the player to become a house cat, a tiger, a smiledon, or a sphinx, but not a dog, or bird. For us it just added easy variation to a character.

On a side note, I would go along with the character's background going a long way toward determining the abilities. If a character was empowered by the Greek gods he should be able to become a Chimera, a geologist a short nosed bear, and a Native American warrior any modern native animal and so on.

[Mr Scorpio]

Animal Metamorphosis is one of my favorite powers so I've been thinking about this one. In order to put some kind of limit on it I'd have to rule that the character had to see the animal with his own eyes before he could take it's shape. Because the power alters the characters stats and gives him all of the animals "inherent abilities and defenses" then it should function similar to Mimic in that the animal should at least be scanned before it's shape can be assumed. I might even go so far as to give it the same range as Mimic (60 feet).

I don't think I'd allow the character to take the shape of mythological creatures because of their magical nature. However, I think I'd allow the character to take the form of alien animals and dinos as long as he got the chance to get close enough to scan them.

Once I considered rolling up an Alien NPC with Animal Metamorphosis and his animal shapes would have been more like alien equivalents of earth animals than something completely new. For example he would have been able to take the shape of a Reloian Stink Bug (Relo being the home planet of the Relogians: AU, page 121) which would just be their insect version of a skunk. I never got around to writing him up though.