It depends on what the shapechanging is supposed to represent, but if "wolfman" is half-way between human and wolf, and it gets stat modifiers, then to me it makes sense that transforming the whole way into a wolf should also grant stat modifiers.

From a design perspective, I also think it's more elegant to use a single consistent approach, and I don't see drawbacks from allowing Conan to remain incredibly strong if he's shapechanged into a frog (assuming he's only "incredibly strong" compared to other frogs).

And as I mentioned before, I do this in some places for appearance as well. If a blonde-haired human shapechanges into a wolf, they'll have white fur. If a black-skinned human shapechanges into a red dragon, they'll have dark red scales.


I'm talking about the stat replacement approach. Perhaps an example will explain my point better. D&D character creation using 30-point stat-buy:

Wizard 1: Wanting to be a war-wizard, he puts 14 into strength, dexterity and constitution, along with 16 intelligence, 10 wisdom and 8 charisma.

Wizard 2: Lowers his strength, dexterity and constitution to 3, leaving him enough points to raise intelligence and wisdom to 18 and charisma to 17.

Both wizards polymorph into war trolls, replacing their physical stats with those of the war troll. Both wizards now have strength 31, dexterity 16 and constitution 29. However wizard 2 also has far superior mental stats, granting him more spells and skills, better saving throws, etc.


Lowering the costs won't help, because the werewolf doesn't need to buy up the stats for forms he doesn't use. Most likely it'll just make him even stronger in his chosen form.

Switching between a smart/puny state and a dumb/strong state might be a more interesting contrast than switching between a dumb/strong state and an even dumber/even stronger state. (See Banner/Hulk again).

Well you'd achieve that by giving Hulk a hefty strength bonus and intelligence penalty. Banner's Hulk might be a little weaker and smarter than a "normal" Hulk…but with no other Hulks for comparison, that doesn't really mean anything.

Or are you proposing swapping the mental and physical stats around while shapechanged into certain forms, so that Banner's intelligence determines the Hulk's strength, while his strength determines the Hulk's intelligence, etc?

If I remember correctly, the old Lima LP mudlib accomplished shapeshifting by seperating things into 3 parts. The connection object tracked your login/password/admin privs, the player object tracked your character's experience, stats, skills, and the body object tracked your physical stats (hit points, etc), and could add to or override various stats/skills from your player object.

So, a polymorph spell would simply give you a new body object and your player object would keep a reference to your original one. If you were polymorphed again, you'd do the same but hang onto your original reference (unless you really want to have stacked polymorphs?).

If you morph into a dragon, you'd expect to keep many of your spells and skills, and also get some new ones like breath weapons, but you'd also lose access to things like shield-bash (how do you plan to hold a shield?), or pick-lock (unless it's an awfully big lock).

I don't think this divide between mind and body is entirely logical: how about the fact that all of your mental attributes really have to do with the physicality of your brain? After all, everything you know and all of your reflexes that aren't in specific muscles are in physical, identifiable locations in your brain - since we're dealing with magic, it makes some sense that everything in your original brain can be somehow stored for later retrieval just as the exact configuration of your original body is being stored. But if you're shapeshifting into, say, an ogre, whose brain isn't capable of entirely human-level intelligence, it makes sense that excess smarts/skills would be lost.

I think, for those who are arguing that a shapeshifted body should have set stats that are unrelated to your character's original body, it makes perfect sense for that to apply to any mental stats (and even learned skills). I personally prefer the notion that your base stats affect your shapeshifted stats, both mental and physical.

You're assuming that there's no benefit for a wizard to stay a wizard. If a wizard polymorphed is always going to be superior to a non-polymorphed wizard, then sure it's only going to make sense to pump your mental stats. If you're going to use a system like I'm talking about, you would have to make sure that such situations are not the case. For example, maybe wizard 2 polymorphed as a war troll can't wear attribute-boosting equipment, and thus, wizard 1 is able to make up the difference this way.


You're assuming that a werewolf can maintain his chosen form indefinitely. Again, this is a design issue that would have to be taken into account. Perhaps the player doesn't control this (which I would assume to be the case if you're modeling lycanthropy off traditional sources), and would therefor be very vulnerable out of his wolf form because he never buys up stats for it.

I disagree, exactly because we're talking about a magic-filled fantasy world. If you accept the idea of self, a change of physical makeup doesn't change that self. Indeed, how do you explain ghosts and phantasms, if you rely on a physical brain to provide any or all thought?

It's perfectly logical to assume that knowledge and non-physical powers might stay with the "soul", where physical abilities are obviously tied to the body.

Another assumption being made here is that the act of shapeshifting is voluntary, desired, and beneficial to the target. It may not be. I might choose to polymorph other and reduce an annoying warrior to being a sheep or frog. Transforming a wizard into a toad might not keep them from thinking, but with hands and the mouth of a frog, all but the simplest spells would be impossible.

Many people agree with you and many people disagree with you. This is a very active topic in current (and not-so-current) philosophical debate. If it makes you feel better, thinkers far smarter than any of us have devoted far more time to this question than we ever will on MB, and still haven't come to agreement. :tongue:

That said: Quix makes an interesting point, namely that if you accept the existence of incorporeal entities in your fantasy world that nonetheless have thought processes, or ghosts that replicate their former selves to some extent, then you have already, somewhat necessarily, admitted the existence of at least some separation of mind and brain. For the ghost with no brain could not otherwise "think", let alone think like its former self.

But what factor are you going to base that on? The only difference between wizard 1 and wizard 2 is their stats, and if their physical stats have been replaced then that only leaves their mental stats - in my example, intelligence, wisdom and charisma. Unless you're proposing that only people with low mental stats are able to wear attribute-boosting equipment while polymorphed, or place a cap on the combined stat total, I don't see how you're going to distinguish between the two. And both of those approaches would just encourage a different sort of min-maxing.


There are many different myths about lycanthropy, but I'm generally not too fond of balancing classes based on time - e.g., a werewolf who is super-strong during the full moon but weak the rest of the month, a vampire who is super-strong at night but weak during the day, a human who is energetic during the day but slow and tired at night, etc. In my experience this tends to become frustrating for the players, and I don't consider it a good solution from a playability perspective - it's a workaround for an unnecessary problem, and one which restricts the design.

I've spent quite a bit of time designing and developing shapechanging abilities, and my early attempts were pretty epic failures, so I'm always very analytical about (and wary of) mechanics like this; I consider shapechanging to be one of the more difficult things to balance.

I wasn't proposing that; but now that you mention it, that would be quite interesting. :smile:

It may be worth saying (again!) that even asking this question may be inherently dangerous. The order of events for incorporating a new game feature should ALWAYS be:

1) Decide what impact you want to have on gameplay and game balance.

2) Come up with a feature and a set of mechanics which (so far as one can tell) will achieve your stated goal.

3) Tweak your thematic background to provide the necessary thematic justification for your new feature working as it does.

Now, of course, it is perfectly valid to discuss any of those steps, and highly desirable to ask questions along the lines of "I want to achieve gameplay impact X; if I add gameplay feature Y, will it have this effect?" But it is NEVER correct to try and reverse the process. If you start by saying "Right, I want to add feature Y; according to thematic considerations, how should that feature work?" and only afterwards worry about the impact on game balance, the result will be a disaster of biblical proportions!
:smile:

So, never start by saying "I'm going to add shape-changing" or "I'm going to add potions". Instead, think about what you're trying to achieve, and then ask "is adding shape-changing (or potions) an effective way to achieve that?" And accept that the answer may very well be "no".

No, I would probably base it on the concept of "war troll is too big to wear normal equipment," or some other logical justification. My point is that even if you bring physical attributes along with the soul, you would have the same problem - what benefit is there for a wizard to remain unpolymorphed? If there's no benefit, then regardless of what the wizard's strengths are relative to each other - you still have a gaping balance issue. And if you solve this issue by giving unpolymorphed wizards benefits that polymorphed wizards don't get, then you've indirectly made it possible to balance the system I'm talking about.


That's a good point, but even if you don't base it on time, you have to base it on something. You can't just have a werewolf be able to maintain werewolf form 100% of the time, or there's no point to having the human form (assuming it's inferior to the wolf form), because nobody would ever use it.

But then you're back to the same problem as before - both wizards have the same lack of equipment, but wizard 2 has better stats than wizard 1.


That's a separate issue, but my preferred solution is to balance the different forms against each other. This is the sort of area where the equipment restrictions could come in.

But the point is that if you apply the physical stats to the shapechanged forms as well, then although wizard 2 will be a smarter, wiser and more charming (!) war troll, wizard 1 will be a stronger, tougher and faster war troll. If you balance the different stats against each other, there's no reason why both wizards couldn't be equally playable in both human and war troll form.


Right, so you make sure that human form isn't inferior to wolf form. You make them different in functionality, not in raw power.

If you recognize that the forms could be balanced against each other, why are you arguing that such a system would have issues? If player A plans on playing a polymorphing wizard, it behooves him to pump his mental stats. If he plans on playing a non-polymorphing wizard, he could pump either. This isn't a balance issue; it's player choice. This kind of a system already exists in just about every game I can think of. In the stereotypical RPG, which is superior, the warrior who pumps his strength, or the warrior who pumps intelligence?


I'm not disagreeing with this. I think either system can be balanced and make for an interesting game.


I'm going to discontinue this tangent, since it's exactly the same situation as the polymorphed wizard example and it feels redundant to be making the same arguments twice :tongue:

Because partial stat transfer breaks that balance.

Different forms can be balanced against each other.

Different stats can be balanced against each other.

But when some of your stats are transferred and some are replaced, then shapechanging allows you to have more (or fewer) stats than you would normally have.

Here's a simple example. Imagine we have a game with only two stats, Mind and Body, both of which are of equal value, and which add up to 6. You've balanced these stats against each other so that any combination of Mind and Body will be equally effective, and you've balanced the different races against each other so that 'human' and 'troll' are also equally effective.

But let's assume that polymorphing into the 'troll' form keeps your Mind stat, but replaces your Body stat with a value of 3.

War wizard: Mind 2, Body 4->3. Troll form stat total = 5.
Balanced wizard: Mind 3, Body 3->3. Troll form stat total = 6.
Academic wizard: Mind 4, Body 2->3. Troll form stat total = 7.

While the races may have been balanced against each other, and the stats may have been balanced against each other, the two systems aren't work together - the academic wizard polymorphed into troll form has a clear numeric advantage over the other setups (and over regular human form). You have a "best" character build, and most of the skilled players will end up playing academic wizards in troll form.

But lets instead say that the 'troll' form gives you +1 Body and -1 Mind. We now have:

War wizard: Mind 2->1, Body 4->5. Troll form stat total = 6.
Balanced wizard: Mind 3->2, Body 3->4. Troll form stat total = 6.
Academic wizard: Mind 4->3, Body 2->3. Troll form stat total = 6.

Now, your stats will always total 6, regardless of how you've distributed them or which form you're in. You no longer have a "best" character build, and therefore you're likely to see more variety among the players.

In that situation, we're talking about an entirely different kind of being who is defined as having their mental attributes stored magically. This is not the case for regular, corporeal races such as human and ogres (unless we're all like Transformers and have our own pocket dimensions to keep extra brain-things in). Again, I'm applying what I see as a logical process to a system that inherently messes with logic (magical shapeshifting), but I maintain that if your shapeshifting system gives alternate forms specific, constant physical attributes (a goblin always has a strength of 12, regardless of what yours may be), it would be realistic to do the same with their mental attributes; that would handily eliminate the problem of having the super-smart wizard who polymorphs into a rock troll and has the best in every stat all the time.

Again, I wouldn't choose (and haven't chosen) to write my shapeshifting powers on this principle, I just wanted to make the point to those in this thread who advocate complete separation of the mind and body attributes.

I'm a little surprised by that: I'd have thought it would make for some rather exciting high-speed PvP pursuits and chases. Vampire films are often structured like this: the good guys have to chase down and destroy the vampire before sunset, otherwise the vampire will turn the tables on them; watching the sun as it inches closer to the horizon ratchets up the tension very effectively. I can imagine a series of thrilling chases with a vampire frantically trying to elude his pursuers by day, but knowing that if he can just somehow survive a few more minutes till nightfall, then all of a sudden the rules will change and the hunter will become the hunted!

I suspect this would probably work better on a MUD with a rapid day/night cycle - maybe the Diku convention of 1 MUD hour = 1 real-life minute, so that periods of light and darkness are only about 12 minutes long.

It sounds like it'd just be a headache for me (and others fighting me) as a player regardless of how long the cycle is.

You're completely ignoring my point, though. Where's the +Body equipment that the troll can't wear? For example, a +1 Body magical ring would then make the unpolymorphed wizards:

War wizard: Mind 2, Body 4->5. No troll form stat total = 7.
Balanced wizard: Mind 3, Body 3->4. No troll form stat total = 7.
Academic wizard: Mind 4, Body 2->3. No troll form stat total = 7.

And now they're all balanced with the most powerful polymorphed wizard. If you intent on being a polymorphing wizard, there's no logical reason to pump your Body stat, because it won't make any difference, and that makes "War wizard" and "Balanced wizard" paths that suit non-polymorphing playing styles. There's no reason the game has to account for this and try to balance it, just as a typical RPG doesn't try to balance warriors pumping intelligence against warriors pumping strength. I'm not saying that it's bad if they do, but it's certainly not a requirement to make a fun and balanced game.

Well, for starters, you've made it completely uninteresting to polymorph as an "academic wizard" because nothing changes. By 'balancing' one thing you've eliminated the interest of something else.