Each turn a shapeshifter heals ALL DAMAGE taken and, if suffering a deadly one, has 1 chance out of 6 not to die (else he just regenerate it fully)?

Did I misread that in SR Compagnion or is it truly that.


That's TOTALLY overpowered, no?

Has someone allowed shapeshifter and houseruled them.

There are different rules for NPC and PC shapeshifters in SR3.
What are you referring to?

no, that's pretty much it . .
only with allergic stuff weapons (silver usually) or with magical weapons (weapon focus) the regeneration does not work.
and yes, they regenerate all damage. even stun. even stun taken from drain from magic.
no, it's not overpowered in any way or shape, shifting as it may be, why do you ask?

Bear in mind though, shifters can't use adept powers, can't use weapons, can't wear armor, and by default cause (STR)L stun damage. And I don't believe they heal stun damage at all. They are basically useless against most astral threats, and a ward across an elevator shaft can kil them dead. Oh yeah, and you have to buy all your physical attributes twice, which means you're basically going to be a total wimp.

I played a shifter under the SR2 rules, which are better, but similarly powerful. However, because of those limitations, I still tended to die (or nearly die) a LOT. The bonus is if you're playing basically a mundane character, you can heal off that damage 'between scenes' (depending on how generous your GM is on removing and re-wearing all of your clothing). However, you're also spending a TON of points for the privilege.

I still use the SR2 rules, which are a little more balanced, plus I let shifters use adept powers and have the default damage codes for the animal (and no stupid buying attributes twice rules).

Alternate Character creation in SR 3 companion.

What?

A spellcaster that could (or even should) go beyond [Magic] to cast spells and heal everything back in a glympse sounds pretty much overpowered to me.

They heal stun boxes somewhat slower (1 box per turn).

In this case: No, not overpowered.
For one thing, you have to buy up 9 attributes instead of the usual 6.
No free connections and less free points for knowledge and language skills aren't really that bad a limitation, but still noteworthy.
You can't just use karma for the regeneration test (which also fails on a 1 or 2 in cases of fire and massive tissue damage or physical drain) and you're vulnerable to magical attacks and silver.
You're also dual-natured, which is a big disadvantage right there.

Oh, and they only regenerate physical damage, not stun.
There's a one box per minute clause for physical drain damage, but I don't get where the one box stun damage per turn comes from.

Why? he can stay in human form. Why not?



The dual nature is a moderate problem, IMO.



That one, I needed to answer. Where the hell would a GM EVER kill a character that way?? If I was killed that way, I'll probably throw my heaviest dice in the face, slap him and leave the table I exagerate but still




I'll halve my attributes any day for an instant heal. If I'm not street sam ofc.




mmmm from what I read, you consider that the shapeshifter has to be in animal form to regenerate. I have'nt see that in the book. May I be wrong?

Gonna recheck the drain. I may have mistaken the physical drain with stun drain.


Idk, I find it quite OP if I'm minmaxing though.

If he's in human form, he doesn't get regeneration, so not really an advantage.



1) If a building has warded off a floor, I expect as a player that means they warded off the whole floor. And since warded floors are pretty common, it's a serious concern.
2) It doesn't have to be an elevator. Ward off a street Or hell, just a doorway. Sure, the doorway ward won't kill you, but it's a serious barrier that shifters can't discreetly get past.




2 Body + 0 armor means you're going to be rolling that 1d6 to avoid death very frequently.



That's the only book I don't have immediately on hand, but yes, I believe that is the rule. If they can regenerate in human form, yeah, that's pretty crazy.

Not true in SR3

As others have said, that's it.


No. Shifters are, in general, pretty weak—there are a few builds you can put together for one, but they have to be very specific. More a bit further on.


A GM deliberately and specifically killing a character that way would be a dick move. A GM putting a ward across an elevator is entirely reasonable, as Nezumi notes; it just happens to quite possibly kill the Shifter as a side effect.

Note that the shifter can break through the ward, but that alerts the ward's creator.


Well, you can't be a streetsam, because you can't use 'ware. Halving your attributes is much more serious than you suggest, but in general you wouldn't do that, instead minimizing your Animal-form stats and pumping your Human-form stats.

So what can you do? Assuming point-build, you're paying 25 BP for the privilege. If you can't project you're basically helpless against Astral attackers; you could potentially make a Sorcerer and defend yourself with spells or either an Adept or an Aspected Mage and rely on making a break for Masking, so that's at least 25 BP more. Assuming 128BP starting, which is a little high for many groups, you've got 78 BP left; after spending 6BP to get all of your Animal Physical attributes to minimum and 24BP for QCK 6 and INT 6 (before mods), you've got 48 points left. Even if you aren't a mage you probably want WIL 6 because of Astral Stunbolts/Manabolts, so that's 36 points left. Buying the obligatory first point of Human Strength, Human Body, and Charisma leaves you at 30, and you still have no skills and no Edges.

So you have a really, really narrow niche. You can take damage, but you can't tank much—1/6 is not nearly as small as one might like, and several kinds of damage push that to 1/3. Non-Physical Drain doesn't regenerate, Physical Drain regenerates slowly, and you can't use a Trauma Damper. Until you get Masking you stand out like a beacon on the Astral. You also still have to check for Magic Loss on Deadly damage, even if it's regenerated. Finally, if you take damage, you do still have to put up with the TN mods for the rest of the Combat Turn—and unless you're an Adept investing heavily in Improved Reflexes, you're probably packing noticeably less in Reaction/Initiative mods than the rest of the group and thus substantially more likely to have an opponent acting before you.

I really think you're giving far too much weight to regeneration. It's nice, but not enough to clearly outweigh the huge price you pay for it.

Edit: I do admit I haven't carefully examined the possibilities involved in casting spells at Force greater than Magic, then regenerating the Drain, but the returns in Force above 6 tend to be negligible—and because you can't use 'ware, you'd only suffer Physical Drain on spells if you suffer magic loss. There might be some approach based on astral spellcasting or making a PhysMage and casting above your Magical Power, but it's hard to imagine this getting past "viable character" and on into "overpowered".

~J

first:
right, my mistake, i mistook overcasting physical drain damage regenerating for stun damage regenerating as well.

second:
*points at Kagetenshi*
and that's why it's not overpowered.
you are, quite literally, better off with playing anything else compared to a shifter, in 99% of all cases.
it is THAT SMALL a niche.

Keep in mind that overcasting works far differently in SR3. Spells are bought at a specific Force (limited to 6 at the start of play), and can be cast at that Force or lower, so no overcharging every spell in your arsenal. And you have both limited (fetish or exclusive) spells and power foci, both of which are better options for casting high Force spells. Shapeshifters are a very niche role in SR3. And don't even get me started on ghouls...

This is interesting (outside shapeshifting). I do consider that dual natured creatures are active in the astral space so a nearby mage CAN be attacked by the shapeshifter. he could though elevate a bit and sling spells on him, but drain is physical though.

It remains a weakness. But well... As would be a sniper for a mage (when the shifter would survive 5/6 chances).

The cost thing is interesting. My PC have around 60-80 karma atm and non-mages start to wonder were to spend them.

I guess a shapeshifting adept (or mage) would have caught up while beeing (IMO) stronger.


ofc, you'd need to be willing to minmax.


Additionnally, gamestyle has to be taken in account too. It's not usually that some characters remains crippled by a light/moderate wound that affect them with a +1/+2 which reduce them severely. Strategically and consider the game rolls, I also rather have 4 opponents at moderate wound than 3 healthy and one dead.



And another rule interpretation: You're deadly hit, you roll 1 so you don't regenerate. You're just ready for a trip to an hospital. No?



How many of you guys had shapeshifters at your table?

IIRC, there's also a feature of magic in SR3 called anchoring (might have the wrong name here), where a magician in the astral can cause a spell to erupt into the physical through a dual natured object or critter (like a ghoul, shifter, or focus). Pretty bad if an astral magician goes unnoticed by a shifter, and all of a sudden said shifter is now the center of an unforeseen fireball spell.

Fortunately this doesn't exist in SR4.

Grounding.
And no, that does not work in SR3.

Funny, that's kinda how it was explained to me by a guy who prefers SR3 over SR4 (and who's played the game since SR1). Oh well.

Various points:

1. yes, regeneration works at the beginning of each combat turn
2. regeneration of stun damage: going by RAW it's inconclusive whether or not stun damage is regenerated. From personal gaming experience I would suggest to explicitly exclude stun damage from regeneration (be it drain or other forms of stun)
3. regeneration in human form: regeneration works perfectly normal in human form under SR3 ruleset
4. adept powers vs. spellcasting in animal form: usage and effects of adept powers is forbidden by RAW whereas un-geased spellcasting is perfectly legal => a common house rule removed that restriction ... and imho rightfully.
5. the need of building a shapeshifter based on 9 attributes balanced (some might even say "gimped") them
6. dual nature: their status of dual being makes them highly suspectible to attacks from the astral and any astral barrier becomes a serious threat (forced movement through barriers sucks big time)

Side note: Grounding was last seen in SR2 and all it actually did was screwing with the other players and not the mage / dual being. Additionally the original grounding rules only included channeling physical spells through foci (the physical part being the reason as to why it doesn't work in SR3: no casting of physical spells on the astral). Using it through dual natured entities like spirits or shifters was a house rule to begin with.



Once you start doing the math you'll notice that even at 60-80 karma a shifter will be far from having caught up.



The fun fact here being that you have to minmax from the start just to have a somewhat decent shifter even in comparision to a moderately well built non-shifter.



PC shifters that fail their regeneration roll will (unlike NPC shifters) from that point on follow standard rules for deadly damage and excess damage. So if they take exactly 10 boxes of damage and fail their roll => they'll be unconcious but stable. If they take more than 10 boxes and fail their roll => they're in coma, but will take additional damage per standard rules up to the point of ultimate death (10+body+1 damage boxs) unless someone successfully stabelized them.



Over the course of now 24 years of SR I had about 8 shifters characters at my table (as GM) and 1 as my own player character. My own character was retired after just one gaming session, because it was more a proof of concept than actual attempt of playing such a character. The shifters I witnessed as GM weren't played that long either. The first one even died the very first evening it came into play, simply because the player had similar thoughts of "imbaness" due to the regeneration power and thus thought it to be a clever move to constantly get up again after being hit ... up to the point where the opposing forced in sheer panic unleashed all their firepower right into him => he took 20+ boxes of damage in one round and failed his regen roll => instant death

The issue is twofold: first, there's vulnerability to Astral spirit mobbing (including the Watcher Attack Pack where not houseruled away). Second, the shifter entirely loses the ability to control the engagement; the Astral attacker can move into and out of combat at will, while the shifter can only do likewise if he or she happens to be standing next to a friendly Ward. If the fight turns against the astral attacker, they can bail and do something else, while the shifter needs to deal with the astral attacker for as long as the astral attacker wants—their only ability to control the situation is their ability to win the fight, and even that's limited unless they can reliably disrupt their opponent in a single massive attack.

Add to that the fact that one of the few ways to improve Astral combat is via weapon foci, which force an additional test to allow even the usual 1/6 chance of regeneration from Deadly damage.


The sniper needs far better circumstances, is easier to avoid barring well-laid ambushes (move into cover), can be spotted or engaged by the whole party, can't show up from across the city via Fast Astral Movement, and can be given mods to attack by Invisibility or Camouflage.



Really? I've GMed for characters (including non-Mages, including mundanes) who had upwards of 200 karma and had clear plans for where they were going to spend their next 100 or so.


That works better for PCs vs. NPCs than vice versa; admittedly it's hard to judge exactly how tactically adept a guard needs to be to make use of things implied by the mechanics, but since PCs usually pack large Combat Pools as a major part of their damage-avoidance plan, it's usually better to keep attacking the person who has already taken damage than start trying to burn through the Dodge/Soak ability of someone new.


Actually, I think a strict reading of Canon is that damage is only recovered after accumulating Deadly or more damage, but that's dumb so we'll put it aside. Apart from that, the only references to Regeneration removing damage refer explicitly to Physical damage, so I dispute the claim that it's inconclusive. Vague, perhaps.


Huh. You're right, I'd never noticed that—I'd been laboring under the impression that exactly 10 boxes had the same stabilization requirements as >10. I'll have to think about that.


You almost certainly guess wrong. The shift from constant to linear marginal cost for attribute/skill improvement means that unless the Shifter can fit all of the high-rating skills and attributes (well, Strength, Body, and Animal Form attributes) they want into those 30 remaining BP, they're stuck not just behind to start but paying a substantially increased price to catch up. Even just one skill at 6 that the Shifter wasn't able to fit into starting BP will cost 30 of those 60-80 Earned Karma.


I'm pretty sure I've had a couple, but only two come to mind; they were both played by the same player, who was the least-optimizing player at our table which on the one hand obscures the potential power of the Shifter but on the other hand is somewhat revealing in and of itself. I would characterize both characters as weak by the standards of the group, but we were so heavy with Riggers and Deckers that they provided substantial additional value just by being a reasonable character that actually went in on runs (there are definite sacrifices made when half the team sits in the van).

~J

That particular interpretation (and the possibility to refute it) is part of why I said it's inconclusive:

Whenever a shapeshifter takes deadly physical damage in one shot or its cumulative damage reaches Deadly on the condition monitor, roll 1 D6[..]

Cumulative damage in this case (unfortunately) includes stun damage as stun can overflow and thus stage into physical "Deadly". And to worsen things the second part of the sentence doesn't explicitly refer to physical damage either but just "Deadly" ... the stun monitor also labels unconciousness as "Deadly" ... so you can only go by context here already.

The next sentence is what usually creates the "regen kicks in at deadly damage only" interpretation:

For any other result, the character suffers the standard damage penalties for the Combat Turn in which the damage was inflicted, but the damage vanishes at the beginning of the next combat turn.

Since this sentence directly follows the one about the outcome of die rolls of 1 (2 depending on conditions) it can be interpreted as only refering to other die roll results. However a "clever" rules lawyer will point out that this sentence can also refer to any other result of damage that the shifter suffers without creating any inconsistancies and then he will directly point you to this little gem in the section about Silver Allergy / Vulnerability:

Shapeshifters only suffer the effects of wounds caused by silver until the beginning of the next Combat Turn (see Regneration, p.36).

This particular sentence strengthens the interpretation that "any other result" does not refer to the die roll mentioned earlier but rather the result of taking damage in general.

Regardless of either interpretation on when regeneration will kick in, the part about "the damage vanishes ..." does include the situation where deadly physical was reached due to staging and overflow of stun damage into the physical region. Since the sentence doesn't explicitly mention stun as not being affected one can (and some will) make a case for stun being regenerated right there ...

Personally I always played it so that stun wasn't regenerated in any case and physical damage being regenerated even at levels below deadly physical, but there simply is no way of making a final call based on RAW.



The examples for failure are based on physical damage, the problem remains that there's no exlcusion of stun ... which opens up the room for the debate in the first place.

part of me wants to say that not being able to regenerate stun damage away would be kinda stupid . .
"so, i take a shot from a PAC to the Face . . and i roll on the 1d6 and lookie here, i do get the regeneration! i get up next round, anybody want something from the kitchen? i am done till then!"
and then 5 minutes later
"so, the troll hits me, pretty hard, deadly stun damage and . . wait, what? i get up faster from having been blown to bits and pieces than from being punched?"

And I could point out that regeneration is a magical trait that by its own virtue can do some "crazy" stuff as well as following rather "stupid" rules ... And to me it was never a problem that a shifter could get stunned through melee or drugs and not regenerating that, while getting up right after taking a shotgun slug right to the head.

I believe that's also kosher by previous canon. Striper was put down by deadly overdamage and by getting knocked out.

To play it contrary would also imply they never have to sleep.

I don't think so. Admittedly I can't find any rules for sleep deprivation (though I haven't checked Target:Wastelands, which is a candidate for containing some), but the sleep-related effects I can find are all TN mods, not Stun damage.

Mind you, depending on interpretation of the Encumbrance rules (they go back and forth as to whether they deal "virtual" Stun or actual Stun damage) Stun-regenerating shifters could be nearly immune to Encumbrance, suffering TN mods from Stun every Body turns and then regenerating it the next turn.

The whole discussion about whether regenerating Stun would make sense isn't helped by two major sources of vagueness: first, it's unclear whether Shifters have at least a two-in-three chance of regenerating a severely damaged brain (in which case the same mechanism should also be able to repair, say, concussion) or whether the die roll instead answers the question "in the course of taking this damage, was the brain itself damaged" (in which case there's no reason concussing should be repaired). Second, stun damage itself is poorly-defined, with the rules taking an action-movie-style "blunt weapons don't cause lasting injury" attitude—even heavy, bone-crushing maces deal Stun. I really think the abstraction level we're working at doesn't permit this angle of argument.

~J

Not having to sleep as a result of potentially regenerating stun damage is a stretch, simply because "stun" (with the inclusion of unconciousness) as form of damage is not equivalent to natural "sleep" (or its requirement) ... and there are few rules on sleep in the first place and the only partially use stun damage as reference.

For me such an assumption is an even further stretch than the assumption that a being with the regeneration power should be immortal in terms of age (despite the fact that immunity to age is a totally different power in SR).

Yeah, this is important. Learning a high force spell required a Sorcery Test with a Target Number equal to twice the Force you were learning. I had a player who dreamed of learning a Force 12 Manabolt as a "Last Resort, Frag You!" spell. But he never tried for it, because the 24 TN was daunting, and it takes Force in Days for every attempt to learn the spell. Plus it cost Karma equal to the Force of the spell.

It was incredibly rare for mages to overcast spells back in SR2/3, unless they had lost essence (and thus magic rating), simply because it was so difficult and so expensive.

Mages today, bah. they have it easy.

Bull

deleted due to being answered, but I missed as it was not quoted.

Hey Cochise, long time no see.