Hello. So, I was reading through the spells and, coming across MuCo “Eye of the Cat”, wondered why that wasn’t given a target of Part, given that it was only changing a part of the target. It occurred to me that it was likely because the eyes part is cosmetic, and it was actually giving the person the supernatural ability to see in the dark. I saw that interpretation confirmed by another poster later on.”
However! What if for some reason I wanted to actually change a human’s eyes into that of a cat? If Magi can change people into whole ass cats, it certainly seems within the realm of possibility. Such a spell would afaik use a target of Part. But then that brings up the question: if it’s harder to affect a part of a person than it is to affect an entire person, surely it’s also harder to change part of a person into only part of an animal, rather than a whole animal.
I feel like it should be able to be done under RAW, by extension, but RAW Muto guidelines don’t mention it. If someone wanted to give someone, for example, the head of a deer, I’m leaning toward making it a MuCo spell with an An prerequisite, and a target of Part, but also with a +1 magnitude for complexity because it’s changing part of them into only part of that deer.
If it is giving a virtue, flaw, trait than it does not have to be Part. Eye of the Cat gives a Trait, with a cosmetic appearance change.
Actually changing only part of something into something else requires Part. It does not require any extra Complexity, the Target Part already covers that.
Giving someone claws, even if you call it giving them cat claws, is giving them the Claws Trait (with a Cosmetic). Doesn’t require Part. But changing an arm into a cat leg or their head into a deer one does require Part.
There are a couple of official examples of spells that change part of a human into part of an animal:
Gift of the Minotaur
MuCo(An) 30
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Part
Req: Animal
The target of this spell gains the head of a bull. The target’s
capacity to speak is not affected by the spell, but his voice is. The
target may use his horns as a weapon, using the Brawl Ability and
the following weapon statistics: Init +2, Attack +3, Defense +2,
Damage +3.
(Base 10, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +1 Part)
(From Magi of Hermes, p85)
Shape of the Siren
MuCo(An) 40
R: Per, D: Sun, T: Part
Req: Animal
The caster’s body from the hips down is transformed into the
tail of a large fish, keeping the same approximate size. The caster
also develops gills on his throat allowing him to breathe water but
inhibiting his ability to speak, imposing a –3 modifier on all rolls
to communicate verbally and a –5 to spell casting totals, as if the
character were speaking quietly. While in this form, the caster can
move at full speed underwater and does not suffer any penalties
due to pressure.
(Base 20, +2 Sun, +1 Part, +1 complexity, requisite free)
(From Legends of Hermes, p105)
SotS has +1 for complexity, as I posited, but GotM does not. They don’t seem substantially different in how complex they actually are (both give mechanical advantages). I’ve heard generally that Magi of Hermes can be a bit more suspect in its application of guidelines, so I think I’ll stick with the other as a baseline.
I appreciate your answer too, Troy, and I can see going either way without it being a big deal. I lean toward following the logic built into the rules that affecting part of something is more complicated than affecting the whole thing… and changing someone’s head into that of a deer requires integration with a human body in a way that changing them into a deer full stop does not. To reason through it, I was trying to think of times when changing only part of a person into an entire animal would make sense (which brought up a goofy image of someone with an entire cat in an eye socket), and though more rare, an example would be changing an arm into an entire snake. If that’s a possible thing, (and keeping the whole easier than part idea), it seems possible that it’s harder to change part of a thing into part of a thing.
Shape of the Siren has the +1 Complexity probably because it not only changes the target to be able to swim underwater a t full speed, but it also gives him the ability to breathe underwater.
Since it basically gives two abilities instead of one, it adds +1 Complexity.