Hi all,

One of my players just aquired the Transformation of Kadon spell last night (rank 5, epic, amber order).

So the main question now is; can the character shapechange into everything?

How do you interpret "choose a creature with the beast type with which you are familiar." Is it enough to have read about the creature? Seen a sketch? Heard folk-tales about it? Or do you have to see one for yourself? Study it?

Dragons, wyverns, manticores, harpies and griffons all have the beast trait (as well as Wild boars, wolves etc.).

Sure, the spell is difficult to cast (3 purple + 2 challenges as difficulty) and it costs a lot of power (7) and it. is epic but transforming into a dragon seems super-powerful (St7,To8, Ag5, Dmg8, Soak3, Def2 and flight + terror 3).

Further, would the character aquire any action Cards? For example when turning into a dragon, can the character use flame breath, or does the player have to purchase flame breath for xp (can he?)?

Lastly, does the character gain any wounds? Or does he keep the same wound threshold as when in human shape?

No one?

The main question is how to interpret "choose a creature with the beast type with which you are familiar " (my emphasis). Anyone?

If you look at the other transformation cards you get the creatures Str, Agi and Tou. If it can fly, you can fly.

You also get skills changed but not sure how you implement those, the grey wolf/ white wolf transformation came on its own cards, with only 8 skills shown.

You must be familiar with the creature, that means you need to have seen it, touched, it observed it in action, I think.

I doubt you could change into a creature that you looked at in pictures or seen far off.

Amber wizards are the most likely to interact with beasts. I see interacting with a dragon to learn its form to be a hard job. They are rare.

It might be quite fun to allow a wizard to change into a beast that they have seen pictures of. But only allow them to look like the beast, they have never actually seen the beast therefore they do not know what it is capable of, how powerful it is, the actual size of it, any special abilities it has.

So a Wizard could change into a dragon he has seen a picture of but it will only look like the picture and that would be where the transformation ends. He might change into a 6 foot dragon rather than a 60 foot one. He probably couldn't fly because he hasn't seen how a dragon flies. He couldn't use a breath weapon because the picture didn't tell him it had one. And his Strength, Agility and Toughness are not increased to those of a real dragon, because the picture doesn't describe how strong and powerful the dragon is. It may increase a little though, because they look muscly.

Gazery

My apologies for the thread necromancy, but I something relevant just occurred to me:

One of my players just aquired the Transformation of Kadon spell last night (rank 5, epic, amber order).
So the main question now is; can the character shapechange into everything?

How do you interpret "choose a creature with the beast type with which you are familiar." Is it enough to have read about the creature? Seen a sketch? Heard folk-tales about it? Or do you have to see one for yourself? Study it?

Dragons, wyverns, manticores, harpies and griffons all have the beast trait (as well as Wild boars, wolves etc.).

Sure, the spell is difficult to cast (3 purple + 2 challenges as difficulty) and it costs a lot of power (7) and it. is epic but transforming into a dragon seems super-powerful (St7,To8, Ag5, Dmg8, Soak3, Def2 and flight + terror 3).

The spell in question was published in Winds of Magic.

Dragons weren't given stats until the release of the Creature Guide / Creature Vault, some time later. I think that's where the balance issue crept in.

In fact, at the time the spell card was published, I think the only Beasts that had been written up anywhere official were Boars, Giant Wolves and Giant Spiders in Tome of Adventure and then the Wolf/Corvid/Bear animal forms on cards in Winds of Magic (but I might be overlooking something from an adventure somewhere). Turning into a creature with Swift or Poison could be useful, but its nowhere near as potent as turning into a fire-breathing, flying, terror-causing dragon -- or a petrifying cockatrice.

The "Beast" category at that time basically meant "animals you can find in the real world, or their giant-sized fantasy counterparts".

When the Creature Guide came out, suddenly "Beast" was extended to mean "catch-all category for any creature that doesn't fit into other categories". Sometime after the spell went to press, Beasts became a completely random and meaningless category.

Here's the description of Fenbeasts from page 16 of the Creature Guide:

"Fenbeasts are not a species native to any part of the Old World. Rather they are sorcerous constructs magically assembled by powerful sorcerors from rotting vegetations, swamp mud, and the bones of men who drowned in marshes."

That's the same category as ...a boar? It's hard to wrap one's head around a spell that lets you turn into a fenbeast or a wolf, but not into an orc or a zombie.

I don't think the authors of the Creature Guide had Transformation of Kadon in mind when they wrote the beast section. As a GM, I wouldn't feel particularly compelled to allow everything listed there. Magical creatures and those with physics-defying special attacks (Dragons, Cockatrice, etc) would probably be off the table... or at least be subject to a very narrow interpretation of the "with which you are familiar" clause.

I would DEFINITELY allow the transformation into a dragon. It's rank 5. If the character hasn't died thus far, that's the closest they're going to get to being Patriarch. I would however stipulate that being familiar with a creature means spending a certain amount of time observing a member of said species.

@r_b_bergstrom: Thanks for the necro, good thoughts.

The spell in question was published in Winds of Magic.

Actually, Transformation of Kadon was published in Hero's Call, significantly after the Creature Vault/Guide was published. One could argue that the authors of Hero's Call did not intend for ToK to be used with dragons, but it is a Rank 5 spell. I'd allow it as long as the character was familiar with dragons, most likely by engaging one in the past.

Appreciate all the thoughts and insights you've shared on the topic. Has been a great help.

The spell in question was published in Winds of Magic.

Actually, Transformation of Kadon was published in Hero's Call, significantly after the Creature Vault/Guide was published. One could argue that the authors of Hero's Call did not intend for ToK to be used with dragons, but it is a Rank 5 spell. I'd allow it as long as the character was familiar with dragons, most likely by engaging one in the past.

Oh, somehow I missed that. It seems like they probably did intend for you to become a Dragon then. Wow. That's a heck of a spell. Dragons are mighty powerful.