In Houses of Hermes - Mystery cults, there is a part about shapeshifters taking animal forms, and the way to calculate their stats and abilities.
Is there a book or a ruling about animals taking humans forms ? If a magical animal is transforming itself into a human, what are his physical characteristics and his abilities ?
One easy ruling would be to consider a human as a clawed beast with brawl, athletics, survival and awareness 3, but I think it is rather inelegant...
Do you have opinions or house rules about the subject ?
There are rules for determining the stats for a human taking an animal shape on page 23 of HoH: Mystery Cults, I suggest trying to flip those around using the stats for the animal as kind of equivalent to a stat 0 human.
One way to do it is to suppose that you are changing into a creature to 0 in all its stats and apply the rules (basically halve all the scores). This way a transformed ox would be a particularly strong human while a transformed hawk would be quicker than average. I would deduct the effect of size in strength and quickness before doing this operation.
Other way is to suppose that the average animal scores are equivalent to a human with all 0 in his characteristics. Then, consider only the points over the average or under the average to calculate stats. If the average bear has strength +6, a +7 strenght berar would be a +1 strenght human and so on.
The first method seems to be more fun. I would apply the Rule of Fun.
And then decide whether I wanted to take away the Abilities it gets for being an animal (Brawl, Athletics, etc). Consistency would say that I should: A human's Brawl, etc do not translate into other forms! But that would leave the animal with no scores at all. (Should some animals have Area Lore? /10)
In the Ars 3 supplement Mistridge one of the 5 magi, Vulcris, at the covenant is a animal that have been turned into a human. There are some sparse info about it and how it affected here in here backstory. Might be of interest for you to atleast take a peek at it. =)
