I was looking through my old character sheets and came upon an old character of mine. Thinking of putting him into a game as the teams magician should we lack players, I came upon a spell my old GM came up with.

I present it for your preusual and comments to make better. I was originally for Second Edition and now converting it to 4th edition. I have an idea what I want to do but I would like some input.

The Ancient Kodiak
This is a special critter form spell that transforms only bear shamen into an extinct bear known as the Anicent Kodiak. it stood only 5 meters tall and weighted in about 2,000 kg. It's claws were roughly 20 cm long and it had a pair of 60 cm fangs. This formula also tells of the messafe of the Kodiak 'Only you can protect the Forest.'

Type: Physical Range: Limited Target: Self Duration: Sustained Drain: F5

B: 13 A: 3 R: 3 S: 15 C: - I: - W: -
Reach: +2 Qualities: High Pain Tolerance R3

[hr]

What you see is what I have been tinkering with already. Input on improves are sought and welcome.

Contrary to SR1-3 in SR4(A) you learn spells only once and cast it at any Force up to 2*MAG. Drain is based on the Force of the casting, usually Force/2 +/- spell-specific modifiers.

You could do this something similar with the Shapechange or [Critter] Form spells and the grizzly bear already. Unfortunately the target of the spell would have to have a BOD of 7-11 to change into a grizzly bear (Running Wild p. 92). Depending on the caster's hits, this may generate a more powerful creature than the one you suggested. With 4 hits BOD and STR are equal but AGI and REA are a lot better(8 each). No reach or high pain tolerance though.

Using the Rules from Street magic to create new spells you could make a highly restricted version of the shapechange spell:

Type:
P +1
Range:
Touch -2
Very Restricted Target (caster only) -2
Duration:
Sustained +0
Effect:
Restricted Effect (Grizzly Bear only) -1
Manipulation Spells:
Physical Manipulation +0
Major Change +2

Total drain Modifier: -2

The spell as is still has to be cast by a caster of BOD 7-11. If your GM allows it, add a custom drain modifier to reduce the minimum BOD needed to change into the bear, maybe +1 per point of BOD. To make sure that any human bear shaman can cast it, add +6. So in the end we would have a drain of Force/2 +4. Yes that is very draining but a very powerful effect as well.

The ancient kodiak stats in Foxx's post give the Body rating at 13, which means the recipient of the spell must have Body of 11 to 15.

I was going for the Grizzly Bear of Running Wild with standard BOD of 9. Hits on the spellcasting test increase all physical attributes. So a skilled caster will get quite an awesome bear.

Were do the numbers for the Ancient Kodiak come from?

Edited my above post for clarity.

stats for the bear come from the nether not from any serious source. The idea was to change into something not seen in the world since the prehistoric days. Hence the ancient part.