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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 2970198" data-attributes="member: 7883">Those are some interesting ideas...but veering more back towards Polymorph/Shapechange rather than Slay.Fantasy is full of incidences of the transformation of beings from one form to another......changes of sex, race, individuality, kingdom (ie. pillar of salt, tree), and species (ie. toad, dragon <Voyage of the Dawntreader>, spider, cattle, dolphin, pig, wolf), etc......and that's just looking at pre-D&D fantasy such as Ovid's Metamorphosis......since more modern fantasy has arrived, there's been other stuff, like svirfneblin being turned into hook horrors, villagers being turned into ogres that rampage through their old towns, etc.I understand that the lack of that ability is partly a result of perceived (and in some cases, real) balance problems, but unfortunately, it's become a bit of a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" scenario.Interestingly, the source material behind the shapechange talent in the True Sorcery book was the Black Company novels.....and in those novels, the Lady threatened to turn another character (unwilling) into a toad....and she herself turned herself into a woman with a different appearance when she was on the Plain of Fear so the inhabitants wouldn't recognize her....and she made reference to the fact that the transformation was permanent until she reversed it.  Yet, taken as written, the system written for the BCCS, which became True Sorcery, wouldn't permit this...In all honesty, I understand that this is a truly minor point....the True Sorcery system is really flexible, and I really like it because of all the *other* stuff it allows....I just find this lack almost like a minor flaw in the system....like having a pebble stuck in your sandal.I like the idea of victims of the spell gradually losing their minds....and there's plenty of reference in fantasy literature to that kind of thing.....from the woman who was turned into the creature Scylaa (Sp?) who ended up spending her life pulling sailors out of passing ships and devouring them, to a short story from the Dragonlance Tales novelas about Raistlin and Caramon battling a wizard who turned his opponents into animals, including a cougar, a wren, and others.  Victims of his spell gradually lost their minds and became Int (2) animals unless they were reminded of their true nature by having one of their "human" belongings in contact with their bodies at all times.  That in turn became the plot hook for an entire story.I think maybe part of the answer is to restore the original "losing your mind" characteristic from Polymorph Other....Maybe permanent transformations are possible with the Shapechange talent, but if it's a form that is more powerful than one's originating form, the victim must make a successful Will save ever day or begin to assume the personality/characteristics of their new form.....when they go "all the way", they become an NPC.  Turning a person into a different person, or into a weaker being....ie. turning a dragon into a human boy might not have the same effect.  Maybe the victim gets a bonus, or doesn't lose their mind, though they do lose their old abilities...ie. breathweapon, spellcasting, etc......or, theoretically, that dragon would lose all his special abilities, but if he used to cast spells as a lvl 13 sorcerer, he's now a human sorcerer 13, with no other special abilities.There was a spell in 2nd Ed. called "Change Shape" that caused a victim to gradually morph over a series of days into the new form.  I think the chance of 100% assuming the personality of the new form was dependent upon whether the new form was weaker or more powerful than the original shape.Just some thoughts to consider....Banshee</blockquote>

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