Alternate Form Innate Attack (or AFIA) aka Shapeshifting Innate Attack (or SIA) is the concept of using Alternate Form to make Innate Attack cheaper. Essentially making a racial template that is purely just the IA skill.
Due to 90% of point difference, adding an IA can save 10% of the cost of the Innate Attack. This is AFTER applying a possible -80% in limitations.
That is part of the attraction compared to while conscious which doesn't exactly mesh with Innate Attack anyway, since it creates instant transient attacks.
Basically "is the user holding a visible weapon" might either be assumed by default (hey, a flaming whip is in his hand!) or added by Visible (the attack itself is always visible without No Signature, this refers to the CAPACITY to attack) or a Gadget representing something making the attacks. Regardless, that's going to lead to always-off or always-on visibility of the weapon, leading to a desire for switchability (example: you must summon your flame sword before you attack with it)
This is different than Takes Extra Time which is a cost paid before EVERY attack. Although Rapid Fire on a Melee Attack (though it can't give multiple hits) might be used to represent different "prep per salvo" rates.
Due to the base cost of 15 points, AF is only attractive to high-cost Innate Attacks. Even with -80% limitations (1/5) the lowest it could go is 3 points, which only offsets 10% of the cost of Innate Attacks costing 30 points or more.
Rather than limitations, many users might actually want to enhance Shapeshifting to make it faster: this would normally take 10 seconds to summon or unsummon a weapon, with Reduced Time needed to shorten that to 5, 3, 2, 1, or 0 seconds for +100% (30 points!)
The "must specify a single, reasonably common external influence that can force you to return to your native form against your will" requirement is one that could probably use some examples. Once On Stays On gets rid of that, but it also changes 90% to 100%. You could take while conscious to restore reversion on knockouts but keep the immunity to the RCEI.
That is still appealing to an alternate approach: paying with disadvantages. Rather than -10%, you explore the 'pay for the difference' concept.
Normally to lower the cost of an advantage via a disadvantage which applies while using it, you use Temporary Disadvantages. The drawbacks of this are:
- they can't be taken on "free action" abilities, so you could not for example do a Power Dodge with an ability that had temporary disadvantages
- the discount is always just a % of the advantage, it can't lower it past -80%
- the discount can never save more points than 80% of it's worth. This basically comes into effect only on advantages which are worth more than 81 points.
Here, disadvantages can be used to nullify theoretically any advantage's cost (0 difference) meaning it just costs the 15 base w/ modifiers in respect to just the shapeshifting itself.
Temporary Disadvantages could of course be used on Shapeshifting's 15 points itself. This would prohibit 'free action' shapeshifts, but 1-second shapeshifts should allow it.
Example: Reduced Time 5 +100% TD: Decreased Time Rate -100%.
If this only applied during the 1 second, you've effectively gotten "activated in 2 seconds instead of 10" for free!
- Except: cumulative penalties for defenses are going to add up faster (like -4 per extra parry, max 1 block or -5 per block, possibly -1 per dodge) as well as limits like 1 retreat per turn! Also you get 1 step with your concentrate instead of 2. That matters slightly... but probably not enough to effectively give a free +80% enhancement!
Probably applying a mitigator to these disadvantages could make sense: the longer you need to have them, the more they're worth.
Consider:
- Decreased Time Rate [-100]
- Not Decreased Time Rate [100]
If you apply "Maximum Duration: less than 30 seconds -75%" to NDTR, that reduces the value to 25 points.
This effectively makes the net value of sum meta-trait [-75] reflecting that every 5 minutes you can enjoy a 29-second full-speed period.
The '5 minutes downtime' is longer than Shapeshifting will usually take, so it could be appropriate to only apply 75% of the usual disadvantage value when determining what % to discount as a temporary disadvantage.