Since I am still not sure how to implement proper shapeshifting into the game, I whipped up a spell that doubles as the classical druid shapeshift and also a mage's polymorph (turning enemies into animals). I know that these are (barely) covered by Augment and Curse respectively, but I wanted something more concrete.

I don't know whether I'll use this or some kinds of talents instead in the end, but I thought I'll share it here in case somebody's interested. Additionally, there's a fitting magic implement in there.

Constructive feedback would be much appreciated.

Change Shape.pdf

Neat, I like the way you designed the base power.

I like the basics, particularly on the casters targetting themselves, but I do have one big concern: when can a hostile target attempt to resist the effect? If it's at the end of a target's turn, you can effectively lock down a rival for their turn with a difficulty 2 check (poof! you're a sloth) and the big bad with a difficulty 3. Likewise they're extremely vulnerable as a sloth...

If they fail one resist check, do they get another each turn? If not, you can lock them down for the entire battle just by concentrating.

Don't forget that the base power only works on silhouette 0 targets, so unless your rival or nemesis is rather small, you'll have to add the Increase Silhouette additional effect at least once, which puts you at at 3 purples for rivals and 4 purples for nemeses at engaged range. If you want to transform a nemesis, short range puts you at 5 already, so any longer range becomes impossible. As another example, a silhouette 3 dragon nemesis would always be an impossible check.

Resisting is a normal check, so it takes up the action of the enemy during their round, and I don't see why it couldn't be tried again and again. If it was one try only, then I agree, it'd be too powerful.

Oops, I didn't see that the default target was silhouette 0. Just to be clear, using the ability as "Shapeshift" allows the caster to target themself for only one additional difficulty regardless of their size, correct? Bypassing having to spend 1 for the silhouette increase if they are sil 1. Otherwise a dragon can't shapeshift!

Hmm...okay, so two storm giants decide to get into a polymorph fight... Should the silhouette restriction be relative rather than absolute? Defaulting to Sil - 1.

The way I intended it, you still have to use Increase Silhouette to become a valid target for Shapeshift (unless you're a gnome or something similar), but you want to pile on silhouette anyway for the brawn bonus. If you are dedicated to shapeshifting, you can use the magic implement, or the ingenious "Signature Spell" from Genesys Talents Expanded, to counteract the difficulty.

Regarding storm giants and dragons... I haven't really thought about that. But if I were to stat a dragon, it'd just have shapeshift as an innate ability instead of a spell.

This is elegant and something I'm likely to use in my home game. I might add some sort of...."Tank" version on (since you have predator) just because.

I think that's kind of rolled into the brawn increase, since that also increases soak. If I had to add an extra tank effect, It'd be probably something like: Thick Hide: Increase wound threshold of the target by ranks in knowledge. (+1 difficulty).

Or maybe defense instead of wounds with +2 difficulty, to be in line with the defense effect from Barrer.

Or maybe just this:

Could be an option for:

+DD Tank: Increase ranks in Durable by ranks in Knowledge. If a Critical is reduced to 0 then ignore it.

I was not able to view the pdf