New feat idea: Equipment Form

Rules Discussion House Rules
1

Feat: EQUIPMENT FORM
Cost: 3 points

Prerequisites: Able to invoke Shapeshift on yourself at PL6 (or equivalent effect / racial ability).

As a major action, you can transform yourself into a piece of equipment and equip yourself onto a willing target. Your initiative changes to match theirs at the start of the next round. Choose whether you become a weapon or a piece of armor. (If becoming a piece of equipment that can serve either purpose, pick which one to function of when you transform.)

Tier 1 - You can only perform minor actions on your turn while being wielded/worn. Actions you perform (as in, not actions the wielder/wearer is performing using you) still utilize your own stats.
WEAPON FORM: You grant Advantage 1 to your wielder on any attacks per 3 points you have in the stat they are using for that attack.
ARMOR FORM: Damage is split evenly between you and your wearer (rounded up). If a hit would reduce you to 0 hp while you are being worn, you are instead reduced to 1 hp and revert to your normal form, appearing in a random square adjacent to your wearer.

Tier 2 - You can also take a move action during your turn while being wielded/worn. (If you are being worn as armor, you can move your wearer if they are willing.)
WEAPON FORM: You grant +1 to the wielder’s attack stat per 3 points of Alteration. (This can allow the wielder to inflict a Bane of a higher power level.)
ARMOR FORM: You grant +1 to all of wielder’s defenses per 3 points of Alteration.

Tier 3 - You still get your major action during your turn while being wielded/worn. (You can now take Focus Actions as normal.)

VARIANT OPTION: Symbiote Armor - Instead of splitting the damage, you and your wearer combine your HP pools. When your combined HP would be reduced to 0, instead both of you are reduced to 1 and you are split back to your original form as per the original mechanic. You and your wearer are treated as one entity for the purposes of targeting, using the higher defenses among the two of you. You may also remove yourself at any time, taking up to your maximum HP with you and leaving the rest of the pool for your wielder/wearer.

Shapeshifting is cool and all, but a creative enough person can very easily exceed the bounds of the system with it. In our case, one of our party members had been considering doing this himself, but the idea for the actual feat came about as we were creating an NPC in a completely different campaign - where it was going to be someone’s Companion. (We haven’t playtested it yet to see if it’s busted…) The Symbiote Armor version was designed for the initial party member I mentioned, who is effectively playing a sentient ooze masquerading as a humanoid.

Please let me know if you have any feedback on this, especially in regards to balance.

2

It seems interesting, but on first glance a few things jumped out at me.

Tier 1:

  • Weapon Form: So you need to have Might 3 to grant Advantage on a Might Attack? I would instead say the effect is equivalent to the Bolster Boon, on both Might and Agility Attacks perhaps.
  • Armor Form: HP sharing is fairly ok in exchange for the Shapeshifter’s Turn, but I’d not include the free Diehard effect, especially because it can simply be repeated.

Tier 2:

  • Weapon Form: A strong no to this from me. Instead I would use the Martial Focus effect in which the dice are increased, but not access to Banes. I would also only increase it by 1.
  • Armor Form: This one seems fine to me. I’d perhaps even increase it to half Alteration (round up), given the loss of Major Actions for the Shapeshifter.

Tier 3:

  • Major Actions: I would not fully allow them like this. Instead, consider granting the wielder an additional Attack as a Minor Action while in Weapon Form and the Shapeshifter the ability to use their Major Action to Defend while in Armor Form, but nothing else.

Some other notes are that effects like Haste shouldn’t circumvent the Action restrictions and that Banes Targeting the wielder or Shapeshifter should affect both.

3

On the tier 1 weapon form, we were going for being used for things like Energy attacks, not just Might/Agility. The mage NPC we’re building has a Companion salamander who turns into a ritual dagger that aids him in casting spells. Fair call on the Diehard effect, yeah. I’ll remove that and just make it eject you at 0 hp.

I’d forgotten about Martial Focus, that’s definitely a better parallel.

For the Major Actions in Tier 3, I was probably tunnel-visioned into what I was expecting to do with it. I had been thinking you would either attack, defend, aid your wielder, or invoke a boon most of the time. Are those last two bad too, or should I go ahead and change it to allowing you a Major Action from that list? (Using your Major to give the wielder a Free Action attack seems like a good way to handle the attacking bit.)

I’d been considering something along the lines of the banes bit, but couldn’t figure out how to word it without being confusing. The more I tried to think of how to deal with specific banes and boons, the wordier it got. x_x

4

Ah, yeah, Tier 1 Weapon Form could just be a copy of Bolster then. It’s a little steep since you can access Bolster with Alteration without it taking your Turn though. The only real upside is that it benefits from Boon Focus (Shapeshift).
Another option would be playing around with adding an Extraordinary Item Property to the Weapon Form, though that gets complicated quickly.

As for Tier 3, Assisting seems ok, but it’s a bad deal compared to the other options. Invoking Boons would a bit much I think, but the Shapeshifter can do it starting at Tier 1 if they have Boon Focus II for it.

I think keeping it simple has value to it, so having one possibility for each Form (granting a Minor Action Attack and taking Defend Actions respectively) would be plenty.

5

So rather than accessing higher level Banes via Alteration score, what if Tier 2 lets you-as-a-weapon have a preferred Bane (as normal weapons do) for any you have Bane Focus for? (I would think these would replace the normal preferred Banes for the weapon type you’re becoming, but also lets you become unlisted weapons.)

Also, the big reason my player wanted to be able to still have his own Attack action was so that he could become an armor, get worn, and then go full porcupine and attack nearby enemies with needles. I’m not sure if that’s something we’d want to allow, or…? It totally makes sense from a story perspective. Maybe put that on a fourth tier or something? x_x

6

Okay, I’ve updated it a bit with your feedback. Here’s the new version:

Feat: EQUIPMENT FORM

Cost: 3 points

Prerequisites: Able to invoke Shapeshift on yourself at PL6 (or equivalent effect / racial ability).

As a major action, you can transform yourself into a piece of equipment and equip yourself onto a willing target. Your initiative changes to match theirs at the start of the next round. Choose whether you become a weapon or a piece of armor. (If becoming a piece of equipment that can serve either purpose, pick which one to function as when you transform.)

Effects like Haste that grant extra actions do not circumvent the restrictions on the types of actions you can take while in weapon or armor form. Boons and banes that target you or your wielder/wearer target both (at no penalty for multitargeting).

Tier 1 - You can only perform minor actions on your turn while being wielded/worn. Actions you perform (as in, not actions the wielder/wearer is performing using you) still utilize your own stats.

  • WEAPON FORM: You grant Advantage 1 to your wielder on any attacks per 3 points you have in the stat they are using for that attack.
  • ARMOR FORM: Damage is split evenly between you and your wearer (rounded up). If you are reduced to 0 hp while you are being worn, you revert to your normal form, appearing in a random square adjacent to your wearer.

Tier 2 - You can also take a move action during your turn while being wielded/worn. (If you are being worn as armor, you can move your wearer if they are willing.)

  • WEAPON FORM: While attacking with you, your wielder’s attribute is considered 1 greater per 3 points of Alteration for the purposes of determining attribute dice. (Their attributes are not changed for purposes of feats, banes, boons, or similar items.)
  • ARMOR FORM: You grant a bonus to all of your wearer’s defenses equal to half of your Alteration score, rounded down.

Tier 3 - You can take certain specific major actions during your turn. You can now Assist or Defend in either form, as well as the following options:

  • WEAPON FORM: As a major action, you can allow your wielder to make a single attack as a free action.
  • ARMOR FORM: As a major action, you can allow your wearer to make a resist roll as a free action.

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I figure allowing the Defend action in either form works flavor-wise because, as a weapon, you can parry. Assisting is indeed still a bad deal, but I want to allow the option anyway - specifically for when the dice just aren’t going your way (Assist has no roll on your part).

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E: I’ve turned Symbiotic Armor into its own feat, and added a few other supplemental feats too (bane weapon, boon ‘weapon’, and extraordinary armor), each requiring Equipment Form. It’s a proper tree now! …And each of those are probably going to need balancing at some point. x_x https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/SJDennIDWTS

7

The Weapon Form of Tier II is still way too strong. What I meant is just the effect of Martial Focus, increase Attribute dice by 1 and no more, regardless of Alteration Score.
Also I would restrict still Defend Actions to Armour, simply because otherwise the versatility the Weapon Form grants is nearly unbeatable.

8

Fixed in the Homebrewery version, thanks for the clarification. Also, I made sure to mention that you can’t take immediate actions or make opportunity attacks at tier 1, and only Weapon Form T3 gives Opportunity while Armor Form T3 gives Defend as an immediate.

(Of note, this might mean you can’t Improvise as an immediate action either. That’s probably fine, since your range of motion is vastly limited… though perhaps I should add it specifically to T3?)