1) Shape Change: Can you use shape change to copy someone appearance? Are meta-humans critters, by the logic that humans are animals? Is there an IC or RAW delineation between those categories?

2) Fashion: Does the Force of this spell actually do anything by RAW? If not how would you house rule it in?

3) Heal and Fix: How would you handle repairing installed 'ware and possessed machines?

1) i would personally rule yes. i would probably allow you to assume the shape of anything living (within the appropriate size/body range) but you would of course only gain nonmagical abilities which are purely physical in nature, so my ruling may or may not reflect the correct rules accurately (it is worth noting that there is an earlier edition reference to someone quickening a shapechange spell to be the opposite gender for a year, iirc)

2) mechanically, no. the hits reflect how awesome your tailoring job is, but there is no in-game mechanical reflection necessarily associated with that. i would probably rule you get to make an artisan(tailor) skill check when you use the spell, with the hits from the spell limiting the hits from your tailor skill, if i was going to do anything like that. also, i suppose it allows you to overcome OR of the materials you are tailoring (which if it happens to be a biohazard suit, for example, might not be just 1)

3) both require fix, heal has no effect. in the case of 'ware, remember that it has to be visible first.

For fashion, appropriate dress provides dice pool bonuses for social checks and blending in. The force of the spell could determine how appropriate it is, if you let the spell pick freely from its aetheric wardrobe.

Alternatively, with addtional points of force the clothes can go further beyond impossible tailoring.
1 Force is normal clothing, boring clothing
2 Force it can be moving patterns, fluttering in no wind and other effects associated with magical clothing
3 and it can feature dual natured design, free floating elements held up by astral barriers, illusionary depths and is illusionarily slimming.
4 and higher are masterpieces of non-euclidian costume design.

EDIT; Bonuses are merely numbered for the sake of ordering as low, mid, high and extreme force variants, as such I shouldn't have a ttached numbers. The effects are mostly manipulation, since your essentially engineering the interaction between astral and dual natured materials to affect the visual input given on the material plane. This means that you can have standing effects that appear to break the observed rules of material physics, it can also feature moving parts based of the same manipulation of such forces. I'll admit that one or 2 of effects are poor for a maniplation spell, but Istream of consciounesses the post.

Don't you still need enough hits to overcome the OR of the clothes you are trying to Fashion?

You can't have more hits on your spellcasting test than the Force of the spell.

So, for really great clothes, you need high Force Fashion spell or your hits will be limited.

That said, I think Leofski's progression is a little too friendly with the bonuses.

Good call on needing to beat the OR of the cloths. Doesn't say it anywhere in the spell descriptions, but I think it's still relevant. Also if I had to guess I'd bet leofski is thinking that Fashion is an illusions rather than manipulation spell.

Also would you be able to Heal bio-ware? Can you fix/heal bio and cyber that you spot with Thermal vision?

I would veto this application of the spell, not only because it goes out of the parameters of the spell, but also because that would make it too powerful - don't forget that the spell raises the base physical stats of the new form by the number of successes. And it removes two of the main limitations of the spell, namely that armor/gear/clothing usually have to be ditched in order to transform, and that the character can't usually communicate by speech.



It says the number of hits determines the degree of style, and the number of hits are limited by Force. I would generally keep it at Threshold: 1 and count the successes towards how "cool" the clothing is, but I might raise the Threshold for more specific/difficult uses of the spell, such as trying to create a hot new look, or duplicate a fancy name brand.



I wouldn't let Heal work on cyberware, or let fix work on a possessed machine. I believe that while mages can find creative applications for spells, the spells themselves are not intelligent, and cannot work outside of their set parameters. I would probably let Heal work on bioware in the sense of healing it along with the rest of the body, but if the bioware has taken specific damage or stress, then I would say that a surgeon needs to fix it.

If a cyber-sammie has torso, arms and legs all cyber and takes a spray of bullets, its highly likely that some of the damage is to his cyberlimbs.

However, he has paid Essence for those, and as long as we are talking normal abstracted damage that is simply reduced boxes on the physical track, then Heal should work fine on him. Fix would NOT work on him.

However, as mentioned above for Bioware, specific stress or damage to an implant would need Fix.

Cyborg body would also need Fix, since its more like rigging than an Essence paid body.

Drones need Fix, posessed or not.

An Inhabited thing though... Hmm, I'd go with whatever makes the most sense for the material. If its a corpse, then Heal, if its a Drone, Fix.

Fashion specifically bypasses OR by not mentioning it. But I suppose it could make sense.

How would you handle full body armor affected by Fashion, could it be made to look like a swimsuit?

A suit?

Any other kind of full body armor?

Shapechange + Fashion.

Battlecat FTW.

Metahumans are Awakened Humans. Their Phenotypes are dependant on Mana Levels. Shapechange allows you to take the form of any Phenotype that is not influenced by Mana. Technically you should be able to take Human form and I can't see any reason why you couldn't cosmetically alter a Meta-type you already belong to.

Shapechange has a number of holes sufficiently large to fly a Zeppelin through. What happens to Cyberware? What if I alter my Body stat with health spells first? Where does all the mass come from or go to? How does damage of Natural Weapons scale with increased Strength? What about Critter powers? Does a severed limb revert? If so, presumably a snakes venom shouldn't work?

You would think a core spell that has seen nearly twenty years of in game use would have had some of these kinks properly addressed by now.

Becomes part of the new form, does not lose its effects, since you have paid Essence for it, its part of your pattern even if you twist it.



You are still limited in the forms you can select, but the buff remains after the shape has changed, effectively, the two spells just ignore each other.




Its magic, you channel metaplanar material, ectoplasm or spirit soup to fill in the gaps.




Easy, calculate backwards, STR/2-Listed DV, the difference is the natural bonus. If STR increases add it to base STR, divide by 2 and add the bonus you determined in the beginning.



Its a normal, non-paranormal critter. I would vote that you get whatever powers such a critter might have.



A severed limb is impossible to get using the normal combat rules. But, if it leaves the area of the sustained spell, it should logically revert to the piece it came from. However, if matter was conjured to bulk up, it might be just plain magic and very little flesh.

Especially if its from a limb the wizard don't normally have, say a squids arm fx.

If its chopped off for flavor, and simply reduces boxes of damage, it was obviously non-vital. If its grittier and is actual limbs going this way and that, I'd say GM fiat. Remember you cannot chop off someones arms or legs unless they are helpless.



Why not? - Its harmless in most cases, much less harmfull than some of the stuff you can buy anyway. But, I digress, its a magical effect and once it leaves the body the sustained spell will fail on that part and it'll just become snake spit.

All of the above is, naturally, just my opinion so you can do with it what you want. Except if you somehow make money with it, then I want a cut.

Which is the problem, of course. Unfortunately DS is full of opinions. What I would like is well considered official rulings. As opposed to off the cuff, ill-considered prognosticating by Dev's who ought to know to do some play-testing before sticking both feet in their mouths...