Subj

When a Player Character suffers their permanent death and becomes a Transformed Creature, they become a Non Player Character, controlled by the Chapter of Origination, and expected to act within the constraints of NPC's. When a Member travels to another Chapter to play, the Home Chapter expects and places an amount of trust in the neighbor chapter to treat them in a fair and reasonable manner - that is not to let them get run roughshod over by the local players or non player characters and have a bad time. There are few things worse than hearing from a member that they had a terrible time at another chapter because of x, y, or z, when they traveled.

Absolutely no 'skills or effects' should be given with any transform IF They are given out though it makes other players feel like they aren't in the 'IN' Crowd.

There is no 'right' time for a Transform to become active, since that 'right' time occurs about 100 times per event. i.e. I have Undead Hunter Transform, the wave battle at Avendale is always Undead, and Ba bam! it should go off.. I have Time Elemental Transform and the Wave Battle is Fire Elementals so My Transform should go off."

Transforms were meant to add cool role-play to characters who worked hard to achieve their goals, not be handed out as common treasure by superpower creature whom requested a 'favor' be done by the adventurers.

Transforms should be focused around the role-play aspect of it, and the 'power' behind it comes from having respect from earned Allies and in the Unrestricted Transfer Treasure that adversaries of your allies bring with them when they come seeking retribution for your infiltrating and raiding there keep last month (at the request of your allies of course!).

Transforms, for me, have caused nothing but headaches; from players coming into the game saying "I have a transform on my spirit" to "does my Transform go off on this adventure?" and expecting us to let it go off on modules. We have had players 'turn on their own transforms in field battles' , multiple times, and each time we asked them 'who said it went off' they would say "one of your staff said they activated at the start of the adventure.

We have made an attempt to use the Transforms the way they were written now, but it just hasn't really worked out that well. The headaches that are caused do not seem to be worth the 'super hero' status that players feel when they become uber-powered, unstoppable killing machines when they become active.

Things like Poison Immunity, No Metabolism, and Transforms on all of the time, are High Fantasy but WERE NEVER Meant to be given to a player at a NERO Event. These skills and effects given with them are Monster Abilities and are in the game to provide Immunities, Disadvantages, and Advantages to the Monster creatures that Storywriters use to pit the event attendees against adversaries that must be overcome.

The Trouble;
Transforms can be turned on once per day
Transforms are 'always on', or not 'temporary'.
Transforms are 'given' by a Plot Person only to people of the "IN" crowd.
Transforms that grant Race X the Racial Ability of Race Y. i.e. Humans get Resist Sleep 2 / day.

Transforms, and Magic Items, that grant one or more characters "immunity" to other NPC's or Effects break our Game System. These types of 'Powers' granted to PC's cause Combat safety challenges and generates complaints by other PC's and NPC's alike. Immune characters often 'jump' in front of the attacks of those whom cannot affect them, causing frustration in the NPC that he cannot do anything to the PC - almost like its a real waste of time to NPC, and sometimes it caused more dangerous maneuvers to be taken by the NPC in their effort to hit a PC that they can affect.

The effect of "No Metabolism" or "Immune to Normal Weapons" when Transforms become active make characters too powerful to be on the same level playing field as players without Transforms. Further, the expectation that they have no or little impact on 'town' zoned monsters is false as is demonstrated by the 'no effect' call form the character killing the 'big bad nasty' that came to scare the town people.

Expectations of our players that 'Plot' will 'Give' them the Transform rather than them having to earn and save the Formal Magic Components, acquire a Formal Magic Scroll (rent or borrow), find a Formal Magic Caster (friend, ally, guild, etc), and have the Transform Cast. Let us not break our system by 'gifting' the Transformations - lets use the Formal Magic System.

Do the skills & effects that come with a Transform in their current rendition keep our members on a generally level playing field? I think Not. They seem to put the recipients on a higher level playing field than that of the the other attendees. Lets let their own actions make them look cool, not the 'GIFT' from the Plot Committee.

The best Transform System that I have seen thus far is what PRO moved too when Ken and I worked on the System he wanted to implement at his game. We worked together and came up with this; Players Cast Formals to put TOTEM like Transforms on themselves, of animals, not magical creatures. Since PRO is a very 'honor system' oriented, he wanted to allow the Transforms to go off 1 time per event day, for a maximum of 2 hours only, and the players would get minor 'gifts' from the Totem they represented, of which was dependant upon the number of formal components they used in the transform and equivalent too the number of effects an individual would get if they created a magic item. The bonus was minimal, and could have been considered to be represented by a suit of Armor (+20 body and 2 cure mortal wounds spells) and the Effects All remained Within the NERO Game System Formal Magic System or Monster Ability, to give players.

Players can't buy 'no metabolism' in the rules.
Players can't buy immunity to poisons (you can by the resist skill, per day, if scavenger or dwarf).
Players cant by 'immunity to x NPC' but (they can Cast a Cantrip to be immune to one NPC's Carrier attack).
Players can't buy threshold or 'immunity to Normal, Silver, or Magic.

In most cases, If players can't buy it with Build, they shouldn't be 'Granted It' by PLOT.

Player Characters use PC Skills and weren't meant to fight against Players with Monster Skills & Abilities.

More Importantly, Monsters weren't created to Fight Against PC's with Monster Skills and Abilities.

Lets try to keep our players on a level playing field so that Local and Traveling players feel like they are always "In" the "In" Crowd.

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