Lord Ben
Elder Member
When you spend 8+ motes and are forced back into your true shapes does Hybrid Body Rearrangement remain active? Â IE, can you go iconic while being a T-Rex (true shape) with wings (HBR) and not plummet to your death?
Hybrid Body Rearrangement
- Thread starter Lord Ben
- Start date
Haku1
Ze Hamster of Lurkdom
Yes... the true-shape lock DOES NOT apply to partial changes. So you can have wings and other mutations/effects via knacks and charms even at iconic.
Lord Ben
Elder Member
Is that backed up somewhere in the rules?
Dracogryff
One Thousand Club
It's not specifically disallowed by the rules...I don't recall anywhere it says that it's allowed...but I usually take a lack of saying it is so to mean that it isn't, or vice versa. So, simply put, since they don't say that partial changing is disallowed by anima flare, I don't see any reason why it would be not allowed...though that is an interesting question, considering I have a PC in one game who's using that to get their wings for their raven DBT, and always goes iconic. o_o I think I may go back and read through the Knacks and shapeshifting sections of the Lunar book.
Dracogryff
One Thousand Club
The trick here is the player has two raven forms, their true form, and a raven. They used most of the mutation points from Hybrid Body Rearrangement to allow them to grow wings if they so chose from their non-true form raven form. Or at least, that's how they defined it to me. Not that they needed to.
It's a hard call, after rereading the anima banner section on page 121. It states, "When the anima banner reaches the 8 to 10 mote level (or higher), the Lunar is forced into one of her true forms. Lunars whose anima banners lock them into their true froms may still shift between those shapes as normal. Although the Lunar loses access to any Knacks that do not explicitly provide a true form, a Lunar locked into her true forms can still use Charms that allow limited shapeshifting, such as growing armor, claws or tentacles."
The bold is my own emphasis. Reading that, it seems to imply that you can no longer use Knacks of any sort once you're locked into true forms. Even though it's a benefit gained from a true form via mutation, looking at the wording, Hybrid Body Rearrangement does not explicitly provide a true form, and so it looks like they'd lose it nonetheless...as would anyone else who wished to use the charm to get wings or something.
I guess that would mean the Rex is doomed in the first example...
It's a hard call, after rereading the anima banner section on page 121. It states, "When the anima banner reaches the 8 to 10 mote level (or higher), the Lunar is forced into one of her true forms. Lunars whose anima banners lock them into their true froms may still shift between those shapes as normal. Although the Lunar loses access to any Knacks that do not explicitly provide a true form, a Lunar locked into her true forms can still use Charms that allow limited shapeshifting, such as growing armor, claws or tentacles."
The bold is my own emphasis. Reading that, it seems to imply that you can no longer use Knacks of any sort once you're locked into true forms. Even though it's a benefit gained from a true form via mutation, looking at the wording, Hybrid Body Rearrangement does not explicitly provide a true form, and so it looks like they'd lose it nonetheless...as would anyone else who wished to use the charm to get wings or something.
I guess that would mean the Rex is doomed in the first example...
Moonsilver
Member
I don't even use the forced back to true form rule. I cannot see what it is for; game balance, style, theme?
Anima’s give the game away for Lunar's as it is, I just cant see what this is for.
Anima’s give the game away for Lunar's as it is, I just cant see what this is for.
Haku1
Ze Hamster of Lurkdom
Maybe it's to prevent lunars from running around in twinked out bodies? Â 8)
Dracogryff
One Thousand Club
I also think that it's there to emphasise the importance of the true forms to a Lunar. The true forms are something that are so a part of their soul that they aren't considered a disguise. That would be the reason for the losing of the others, I think, in addition to making someone think before just running around in T-Rex (if that's not their spirit shape) form 24/7. Non-true forms are disguises, and Anima flares make disguises and stealth impossible.
Nothing is stopping someone from making a Knack that allows a Lunar to ignore that aspect of their Anima Flux, though. It's been an idea in the back of my mind for some time. I've also debated the merits of making the Waning Moon's power such that it allows them to ignore that rule if they spend extra motes (like a Night Caste does to not flare) to remain in a non-true form. I'm not really fond of the imbalance among anima powers, personally.
Nothing is stopping someone from making a Knack that allows a Lunar to ignore that aspect of their Anima Flux, though. It's been an idea in the back of my mind for some time. I've also debated the merits of making the Waning Moon's power such that it allows them to ignore that rule if they spend extra motes (like a Night Caste does to not flare) to remain in a non-true form. I'm not really fond of the imbalance among anima powers, personally.
Lord Ben
Elder Member
Well, that's one huge difference between Hybrid Body and that knack right after DBT.
If you want to have a T-rex totem, gills, and wings in high mote spending combat you'd better make it a really freaky chimera which has that social effect.
If you want to have a T-rex totem, gills, and wings in high mote spending combat you'd better make it a really freaky chimera which has that social effect.
xenopsyllus
New Member
I think you're putting the emphasis on the wrong part of that description. It's the second part of that sentence that applies to Hybrid Body Rearrangement.Dracogryff said:
Hybrid Body Rearrangement causes "limited shapeshifting, such as growing armor, claws, or tentacles," should be allowed when the anima banner is flared.
Lord Ben
Elder Member
I think the distinction is between knacks and charms.
Dracogryff
One Thousand Club
It is indeed. You will note the section you're saying I'm ignoring specifies Charms that allow such. Like Claws of the Silver Moon, and Armor Forming Technique. The section I emphasised specifies Knacks, the other section Charms...this is where I reached this conclusion.
Ledaal Kajiri
Two Thousand Club
It does seem to specifically state that Charms that allow partial shapechanging are allowed, and that the only still usable Knacks are those which grant True Forms. Now, an ST might choose to allow it in their own game, but as worded it seems to be disallowed.
As for splattering when the wings go away...well, you're still a Lunar in T-Rex form. Hopefully you can manage not to die from the falling damage. Soak charms can be pretty useful, as can having huge numbers of health levels from Lunar Ox-body.
As for splattering when the wings go away...well, you're still a Lunar in T-Rex form. Hopefully you can manage not to die from the falling damage. Soak charms can be pretty useful, as can having huge numbers of health levels from Lunar Ox-body.
I'm curious how Storytellers reconcile the letter of the rule with some of the existing Knacks? For example:
Mountainous Spirit Expression: This doesn't explicitly provide a true form...it modifies a true form. In that way its no different from Hybrid Body Rearrangement.
Flickering Star Infusion: According to the letter of the rule this shuts down when you hit anima banner 8+. The person is now logged in as dead by the Pattern Spiders. Oops. No going back now...you can only kill that person once.
Lunar Blood Shaping Technique and Insidious Lunar Transformation: While not a direct threat to the Lunar I'm sure this could be a major pain that you can't transform others during an emergency. Or that they suddenly pop out of the transformation because the Lunar lights off five miles away.
Internal Form Mastery: It doesn't explicitly provide a true form so this shuts down when the snapping turtle totem Lunar transforms to his turtle shape but expects to keep his true human form Dex.
Subtle Silver Declaration: Its kind of nice to be able to hide your Tell when your anima banner pops off...too bad your flaring anima banner also shuts down this Knack. So which is wrong? The Knack or the rule?
Twin-Faced Hero: Try to plan on spending any time in a woman's shape so you can have children. Then your anima banner lights up and you explosively miscarriage as you turn back into a man. Kinda gross but also kinda unavoidable if your cuaght by a Wyld Hunt.
Devastating Ogre Enhancement: Another modification Charm. Since it doesn't explicitly state that it provides a true form (as per the rule) it shuts down at 8+ motes too.
Not to mention that some combat-oriented Knacks like Monkey Arm Style are turned from so-so into "not worth my time to even look at".
Anyway the point of this is to show that the interaction between Knacks and anima banners is more complex than a literal reading of the rule on page 121 would indicate. There obvously are Knacks that will continue to function just fine no matter how high your anima banner goes. A literal reading also creates rules conflicts all through the Knack section.
Which brings me back to the rule in question. The phrase "...Lunars locked into their true forms can still use Charms that allow limited shapeshifting, such as growing armor, claws or tentacles." is in fact ripped, word for word, right out of the first edition Exalted: the Lunars, page 111.
Why should this matter? Because in 1st edition Lunars there was no distinction between Knacks and Charms...they were all Charms. So while you got shapelocked into true forms you were still able to use shape modifications (claws, armor, tentacles, gender changes, extended arms,etc) freely no matter how high your banner flared.
In my opinion the rule in 2nd edition is more a classic case of sloppy WW editting and porting from 1e than a serious ban on using Knacks while at the 8+ level. Traditionally the ban has been on false forms and true forms, not shape modification powers. Saying otherwise doesn't make much sense with the 2e Knacks as they are written up and creates problems that weren't there before.
Just my two cents.
Mountainous Spirit Expression: This doesn't explicitly provide a true form...it modifies a true form. In that way its no different from Hybrid Body Rearrangement.
Flickering Star Infusion: According to the letter of the rule this shuts down when you hit anima banner 8+. The person is now logged in as dead by the Pattern Spiders. Oops. No going back now...you can only kill that person once.
Lunar Blood Shaping Technique and Insidious Lunar Transformation: While not a direct threat to the Lunar I'm sure this could be a major pain that you can't transform others during an emergency. Or that they suddenly pop out of the transformation because the Lunar lights off five miles away.
Internal Form Mastery: It doesn't explicitly provide a true form so this shuts down when the snapping turtle totem Lunar transforms to his turtle shape but expects to keep his true human form Dex.
Subtle Silver Declaration: Its kind of nice to be able to hide your Tell when your anima banner pops off...too bad your flaring anima banner also shuts down this Knack. So which is wrong? The Knack or the rule?
Twin-Faced Hero: Try to plan on spending any time in a woman's shape so you can have children. Then your anima banner lights up and you explosively miscarriage as you turn back into a man. Kinda gross but also kinda unavoidable if your cuaght by a Wyld Hunt.
Devastating Ogre Enhancement: Another modification Charm. Since it doesn't explicitly state that it provides a true form (as per the rule) it shuts down at 8+ motes too.
Not to mention that some combat-oriented Knacks like Monkey Arm Style are turned from so-so into "not worth my time to even look at".
Anyway the point of this is to show that the interaction between Knacks and anima banners is more complex than a literal reading of the rule on page 121 would indicate. There obvously are Knacks that will continue to function just fine no matter how high your anima banner goes. A literal reading also creates rules conflicts all through the Knack section.
Which brings me back to the rule in question. The phrase "...Lunars locked into their true forms can still use Charms that allow limited shapeshifting, such as growing armor, claws or tentacles." is in fact ripped, word for word, right out of the first edition Exalted: the Lunars, page 111.
Why should this matter? Because in 1st edition Lunars there was no distinction between Knacks and Charms...they were all Charms. So while you got shapelocked into true forms you were still able to use shape modifications (claws, armor, tentacles, gender changes, extended arms,etc) freely no matter how high your banner flared.
In my opinion the rule in 2nd edition is more a classic case of sloppy WW editting and porting from 1e than a serious ban on using Knacks while at the 8+ level. Traditionally the ban has been on false forms and true forms, not shape modification powers. Saying otherwise doesn't make much sense with the 2e Knacks as they are written up and creates problems that weren't there before.
Just my two cents.
Dracogryff
One Thousand Club
I take the knack rule with a grain of salt, like I do most things. *shrugs* I never said that it was holy writ, just that it was there, and so should be taken into account. I noted the flaws in it right off, and thus decided that while I wasn't going to just flat out ignore it, I also was going to take into account that Knacks are more than just changing shape.
Personally, my ruling is that anything that comes from a true form can be used at the 8+ mote level, or anything that modifies a true form without really adding something foreign to it (like the speed Knacks, Internal Form Mastery, or the sex change Knack and so forth) or specifically modifies a true form (the two upgrades to DBT). Anything else is not. This includes not being able to use Hybrid Body Rearrangement to get wings on a cat totem Lunar, or gills on a bird totem. However, the bird totem can still use HBR to get wings in human form if at 8+ motes, or the cat totem claws or fur.
I also rule that you can't swap genders for any reason if you get pregnant. Simple enough. Of course, getting into a fight and badly injured by it could cause you to miscarry anyway, so it's probably in your best interests to try to avoid any attention at all while pregnant, really.
Subtle Silver Declaration? Use the rules in the knack. Done. Don't really see it mattering a huge amount, since you're in a true form, and so people would need an MDV of only 6 at this point to see it and now are going 'LUNAR ANATHEMA!' which then drops it another 2 points to a 4...but yes, since it has rules for such, I'd just use them if someone wanted to know. Not had it used in a game, so haven't tried to figure out the details of what it means by 'not immediately obvious.' It could mean that your tell simply isn't made obvious (which means its still trying to hide behind its MDV attack), but I could also see potentially that it makes it so that those who haven't yet seen the tell still don't recognize it...but it's hard to tell what the writers intended. The first seems the more likely intent, since it never makes the tell invisible otherwise, but still. If it ever comes up, I'll figure out how I and the players want to handle it then.
As for the ones that alter other people....well the LUNAR is the one locked into true forms and unable to use most of their Knacks. My ruling there is that the Knack has already been used, and so unless they're trying to use it while locked into true forms (in which case it'll fail), anyone so changed remains so even if the Lunar later goes peripheral, since only the Lunar is locked into true forms at their 8+ motes. However, I would also rule that any Exalt transformed by such would revert if they went into the same range, as 8+ motes breaks all disguises. However, it would matter if they did it, not if the Lunar who changed them did.
And as to Monkey Arm Style, it looks more useful outside of combat than in it to me. I find it a fairly useless and dumb knack anyway. It seems to be mostly useful for managing to reach the box of cookies at the back of the top shelf in the cupboard without having to climb on the counters than in combat. Has anyone ever actually bought it, let alone used it in combat? Just curious. I haven't. If a Lunar ever bothers to get it in a game I'm running, I'll worry about whether it should be usable at the totemic level or not if anyone ever wants to get it. Thus far, other than pointing it out as a potential flaw in the rule, the players in my game have admitted that they thought it not all that useful in combat either, and wouldn't likely be getting it on their Lunars. *shrugs*
Personally, my ruling is that anything that comes from a true form can be used at the 8+ mote level, or anything that modifies a true form without really adding something foreign to it (like the speed Knacks, Internal Form Mastery, or the sex change Knack and so forth) or specifically modifies a true form (the two upgrades to DBT). Anything else is not. This includes not being able to use Hybrid Body Rearrangement to get wings on a cat totem Lunar, or gills on a bird totem. However, the bird totem can still use HBR to get wings in human form if at 8+ motes, or the cat totem claws or fur.
I also rule that you can't swap genders for any reason if you get pregnant. Simple enough. Of course, getting into a fight and badly injured by it could cause you to miscarry anyway, so it's probably in your best interests to try to avoid any attention at all while pregnant, really.
Subtle Silver Declaration? Use the rules in the knack. Done. Don't really see it mattering a huge amount, since you're in a true form, and so people would need an MDV of only 6 at this point to see it and now are going 'LUNAR ANATHEMA!' which then drops it another 2 points to a 4...but yes, since it has rules for such, I'd just use them if someone wanted to know. Not had it used in a game, so haven't tried to figure out the details of what it means by 'not immediately obvious.' It could mean that your tell simply isn't made obvious (which means its still trying to hide behind its MDV attack), but I could also see potentially that it makes it so that those who haven't yet seen the tell still don't recognize it...but it's hard to tell what the writers intended. The first seems the more likely intent, since it never makes the tell invisible otherwise, but still. If it ever comes up, I'll figure out how I and the players want to handle it then.
As for the ones that alter other people....well the LUNAR is the one locked into true forms and unable to use most of their Knacks. My ruling there is that the Knack has already been used, and so unless they're trying to use it while locked into true forms (in which case it'll fail), anyone so changed remains so even if the Lunar later goes peripheral, since only the Lunar is locked into true forms at their 8+ motes. However, I would also rule that any Exalt transformed by such would revert if they went into the same range, as 8+ motes breaks all disguises. However, it would matter if they did it, not if the Lunar who changed them did.
And as to Monkey Arm Style, it looks more useful outside of combat than in it to me. I find it a fairly useless and dumb knack anyway. It seems to be mostly useful for managing to reach the box of cookies at the back of the top shelf in the cupboard without having to climb on the counters than in combat. Has anyone ever actually bought it, let alone used it in combat? Just curious. I haven't. If a Lunar ever bothers to get it in a game I'm running, I'll worry about whether it should be usable at the totemic level or not if anyone ever wants to get it. Thus far, other than pointing it out as a potential flaw in the rule, the players in my game have admitted that they thought it not all that useful in combat either, and wouldn't likely be getting it on their Lunars. *shrugs*
Moonsilver
Member
I think knacks exist separately form Charms for more than just ease of reference. Firstly they cannot be put into combos, secondly they stop sneaky Eclipses from nicking shape changing powers, though I guess spirits have some.
