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[Devastator]

Yeah, I've got too many skillups, IMO.  Maybe I'll just remove the second half reward for dying.  Multiple +4s simply are too much for me.

[Ozarck]

Alright, as long as Spaz doesn't object, the reward for Lathal will be
Mid mission: 20 gold, 3 stat, 9 substat
End mission: 20 gold, 3 stat, 9 substat
Freddie loses 3 stat, 6 substat for dying

Thus, Gak and Vladen would lose 2 stat and 6 substat points each, and Freddie would lose 5 stat, and 12 substat points.

That said, Aylia should have a stat loss for dying as well. I'll let Lenglon comment before I make a final decision, but I think losing 1 stat point and 3 substat points would put her in line with what I think is appropriate. This is in addition to the black mark and becoming a pure Fey creature, which is a lot to bear, but this was a unique situation as well, so I am of two minds about it.

Hm, I figured SuperDino would be out of touch this week. Anyone remember what missions he was on? There was the rescue of Len and Ington - which he was more or less the last Ape standing, Lathal ... that it?

Edit: a brief examination of his forum posts tells me all I need to know:
Len and Ington: 5 coin, 3 substat
Lathal: 40 Coin, 6 Stat, 18 substat, Boon.

[Devastator]

Spoiler: Freddie, linear substats /w/ Death penalty. (click to show/hide)

Name: Frederick
Creature type: Red Dragon
race: Four-limbed Dragon
size class: Large
Magical affinity: Fire

Stats
Body: apprentice
Movement: apprentice
Mind: basic
Spirit: basic

{Special}: Flight.  -2 stat points.
{Special}: Crippled leg.
{Special}: Quadriplegic.
{Special}: Chaos Magic affecting wings.
{Special}: Hyperactive tail, overhealing side-effect.

Substats

Body
Strength: +4
Constitution: +2
Stamina: +2

Movement
Speed: +2
Dex: +0
Agility: +2

Mind
Intelligence: 0
Memory: 0
Intuition: 0

Spirit
Charisma: 0
Will: +1
Magic: +1

Skills
Melee: apprentice
Ranged: basic
Medical: weak
General Knowledge: weak
Specializations: basic

Subskills:
melee
natural weapons: +2
Unnatural Weapons: +0
Magical: -1

ranged
natural weapons: +3
Unnatural Weapons: -1
Magical: +1

Medical
organic: 0
mechanical: 0
Magical: 0

Specializations:

Fire Breathing.
Magic Resistant Scales.
Flight Proficiency.

Equipment: None, 50 coins.

[Ozarck]

knock off one more stat point and you are good to go.

[Lenglon]

Oz, my apologies regarding the number of skill points, will fix. I think I also made that mistake on some of the subskills, and should be down some of those as well unless I change the base sheet to 0/0/0 for all of them. I'll get on it an submit a fixed sheet shortly.

However, I object to your intention to make Aylia's penalty unusually harsh. The way that you arbitrarily mind controlled her by running an action that wasn't the action I submitted makes her removal from play pretty clear-cut your fault, and frankly was abusive gm behavior in the first place. I'm back because I'd like to forgive and move on, but you're making this rather ridiculous by discriminating against her. Either admit that this is personal and you'd prefer for me to not play, in which case I'll just take my leave, or cut it out and just treat me the same as everyone else. If you want to put a standardized death penalty on her, sure, I'd actually prefer it and think it makes sense for her to have to take such a penalty considering the overall situation, but in that case how about not mangling her character sheet, since I don't see any other Black Marks, core mechanics changes, or mandatory race changes showing up.

[Devastator]

That reminds me, I've got to mark down the lingering Chaos Magic affect keyed to Freddie's wings and the over-active tail, due to complications from magical healing use, to go with being paralyzed and having a crippled limb.

[Lenglon]

That reminds me, I've got to mark down the lingering Chaos Magic affect keyed to Freddie's wings and the over-active tail, due to complications from magical healing use, to go with being paralyzed and having a crippled limb.

? You had major character changes as well?
...
Welp.
Oz, please ignore my above objections, I had faulty information.

[Devastator]

That reminds me, I've got to mark down the lingering Chaos Magic affect keyed to Freddie's wings and the over-active tail, due to complications from magical healing use, to go with being paralyzed and having a crippled limb.

? You had major character changes as well?

Well.. yes.  Dying sucks.  You kinda seem to have gotten off lightly, with a mild destructive effect that occurs occasionally around you and your shapeshifter forms reset.  I've got a paralysis, which will eventually heal, a leg with a severe limp, which will not, chaos magic keyed in to wing use, which is kinda important for a four-limbed flying creature, and a hyperactive tail, which will go away with the paralysis when that body part comes under control.  Finally, Freddie will no longer grow as time goes on.

You got some undefined abilities defined.. which doesn't seem like a bad thing, really.  ER had to go at length defining what his 'behemoth' is, and the other characters are stuff that is basically well known, such as a big gorilla or a dragon.  Xan's character is a little more complicated, being an animated statue with a demon animating it, but he's clear about what Gak is.  The point of defining things is so that players know who everyone's characters are, which can only help people roleplay better.

Shoot, we both died similarly, spending powerful abilities in dangerous situations, you trying to steal power from the dragon-god of destruction, and Freddie activating his wing-jets in an enclosed area.  Freddie died from smacking his head into, and through, a six-inch steel wall, and Ayla died by getting her soul eaten by said dragon-god.

[Lenglon]

That wasn't what I was trying to do at the time, but w/e.

Aylia's abilities weren't defined, they were demolished. she lost access to every tool she has for both combat and non-combat tasks, can't even talk anymore, has a set of compulsions and damage multipliers applied, and quite frankly will have a tough time not dragging down whatever team she gets assigned to despite her veteran status simply from all the non-statistical changes shes suffering. Her shifting is now uncontrolled, her forms roster is gone, she doesn't even have thumbs anymore! Stats dont matter compared to losing her ability to return to normal or ever go go home. And all of her losses are permanant. Well, she can probably get thumbs again, but being unable to return to her own body is really shitty.

Defining her abilites was knocked out back when she was first made, just like everyone else. Then things got thrown for a loop when I had her try something that I was sure wouldn't work (acquireing forms with innate magic and copying their magic) and somehow it did anyway. After that figuring out how they worked became a thing she had to do on the fly, so she kept pushing her limits to find out what they really were.
And then she was mind-controlled and killed for attempting to acquire Noir, and the silly bit is Noir's dragon half wasn't the interesting part, it was her ability to heal people (which came from her human half) that Aylia wanted.
edit:
to explain what I mean about Aylia being useless, the thing about regular frostcat form is although Aylia likes it, it's not actually useful.
It can't talk, can't use tools, and is a clearly unusual and distinctive blue color that makes it unable to blend in or be all that stealthy. Can't fly, can't heal, can't... well, can't do much of value compared to just having her normal body back.

Aylia for combat purposes previously was best in giant frostcat (which she doesn't have anymore) for meele or her default form (which she also doesn't have anymore) so she could use her bow.
For non-combat her most useful form was definitively star sprite, followed probably by default just being a normal elf/fey halfbreed and then floaty. all of which, again, are lost forms.
if the max size of her forms roster weren't being cut down by 7/8ths or more, then most of this would be recoverable, but the way it's being setup Aylia can only have whatever form she's in at the time and a single other form available to her at any moment. and she can't even pick two forms she likes and keep those two, she can only actually preserve one of them, because Oz is going to force her to shift against her will periodically. because being fully fey means her fey abilities are much weaker now, apparently.

[randomgenericusername]

_{I was also in Leng and Inton and I'm still pissed at those that let the mission die. I  was one of the most active there, but then I was killed while everyone else abandoned the mission due to inactivity except for Kongor. RIP Thaumas.}

[Ozarck]

I'll eliminate the random transformation one.

The only other characters that have come back from death that I can recall are ATH's Reggie - at the expense of a whole other player's character (Egan's Ssslavina), the cursed zombies from the guest GM thing, thanks to an unfortunate wish,
And spaz's current character who is now an obligate ghoul with a weird healing nechanism and an Omega Gaes.

I think, after chargen, I will allow additional forms on the condition that they either take spec slots, or count as {special} attributes.
Forms acquired will not grant their magical abilities, however.

Do the two of you have any other suggestions? Would anyone else like to offer an opinion?

Lenglon, you are a skillful player and an asset to a roleplaying game, and a fighter at heart. I want you in the game. You were there at the start. And you've seen me make many mistakes as GM and still have supported me and the game. I have to push a little harder than I like because it's easy for me to be too accommodating, and I know you will push back. I can't say that I don't take things too far at times: Dev, Egan, Sy, MiloChristiansen, spaz, and yourself can attest to that. I forget where I was going with this. Probably an attempt to reassure or something. Who knows?

_{I was also in Leng and Inton and I'm still pissed at those that let the mission die. I  was one of the most active there, but then I was killed while everyone else abandoned the mission due to inactivity except for Kongor. RIP Thaumas.}

Yeah, that was an unfortunate mission.

[Lenglon]

I believe the half of mission one that I wasn't a part of had a death and revival occur. I don't remember the details though.

[Devastator]

Ultimately, Lenglon, this is a game with a shared universe, and not a freeform roleplay.  That means people are allowed to interact with each other, which means there are certain restrictions placed upon them.  For instance, there may be more than one valid interpretation when something happens.  Things that happen may affect other characters involuntarily, and not everyone is capable of doing everything at all moments.

These restrictions can be challenging, but part of that is the point.  Challenging bits, such as not having the specific ability you want, or facing a challenge you can't deal with on autopilot, are opportunities for you, as a player, to matter.  These are the moments where you can demonstrate your abilities by dealing with them in some sort of creative or intelligent manner.  If you are really stumped by a problem you can't solve, there are others around who will happily offer advice or help you through them, and if the worst happens, you are free to make a new character and start anew.

For example, you could buy a translator for your meows, and then you should be able to communicate normally again.

A better way of looking at this may be to do things in reverse.  Instead of saying that you've lost ability X, which you need to do Y, look at it from the other way around, that you'd like to be able to deal with Y, how can I do that?

One example may be that you'd like to fight better while in frostcat form.  Some things that come to mind are that you could reshuffle some stats a bit and buy a weapon suitable for that form.  I'm sure you could get something like a taser modified for your cat, which would give you a good weapon for attacking creatures larger than yourself.  You could also take a magic type as a specialization which would have offensive abilities, and attack through magic.

I would recommend reframing your desires, not as demands for a specific ability or item, but as a list of problems you would like to be able to solve, and then seeing which ones you can fulfill.  It's okay if you don't get the complete list, there's no need for every character to do everything, and the game would be boring if it was that way--everyone else could just quit because there would be nothing for them to do.

You said that Aylia is fine with just the catform.  So.. be fine with that too.  It is only as harsh a restriction as you decide it to be for yourself.

(Also, no thumbs and unable to talk?  That doesn't describe my character at all.  It doesn't have to stop you either.)

[Lenglon]

-Lenglon goes full stupid here, redacted because I'm ashamed of myself for this-

[Ozarck]

Good bye, Lenglon. I'm sorry we couldn't work this out satisfactorily. Blame me all you like.
Aylia is now officially off the table.