Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Label 09-18-06, 03:18 AM	I want to know if it already happened to one of your character that a cursed item changed is/her gender, and what were the reactions? :D One of my character, a human female very feminist, was changed onto a man because of a cursed weapon. she/he searched quickly for a priest to remove this curse, while all the other characters/players were laughing at her/he with many jokes made at her/his depents :P
Mechanic_Ape 09-18-06, 08:17 AM	I think this is a dangerous curse for DMs to use. I would recomend it be used very sparingly by DM's and only if they know the player will be able to handle it and is able to laugh along with the joke. I've seen it used to poor effect in a number of games with the player feeling victimised. Use with EXTREME CAUTION.
Seeker95 09-18-06, 09:20 AM	For pre-3e players, this was a standard item: girdle of masculinity/femininity. Used by DMs with a mean streak and by players with a closet.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 09-18-06, 09:42 AM	I've never used it. None of my DMs have ever used it. Considering the people I play with now, that's rather surprising.
CryoSilver 09-18-06, 10:46 AM	I have only had this happen once, to an elven ranger in one of the first games I played. He was very vain, and the first thing he said (to the party) was: "You guys remember how I said if I was female, I'd sleep with myself...? Well..."
frasmage 09-18-06, 11:06 AM	are you refering to this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0234.html)?
bhu 09-18-06, 11:07 AM	Ive rarely seen the gender curse used where i live. Mostly because the immediate reaction has always been for the player to utter a stream or profanity about the DM constantly messing with him, and then leaving, and then an argument erupting that causes the group to break up. Or theres a fist fight. Or the player simply disappears and is never seen by us again. Or the game devolves into an immediate and very annoying Players vs DM mindset that doesnt allow any roleplaying at all because no one will do anything because they're afraid the DM will use it to nuke their PC. Id avoid it completly if I were you.
Melayl 09-18-06, 11:13 AM	Happened to me in one of the first games I played, way back in 2e. It was a party of 12+ characters. I had twin characters -- elf ranger and elf wizard. My ranger found this belt...I got a bad roll and ended up neuter. It didn't work out too badly -- the ranger was quite upset, of course, but it was kinda fun to roleplay his (its?) reaction. The ranger, overcome with despair, eventually sacrificed him?self by attacking a BBEG we were not prepared to fight, allowing the others to escape. It was rather fun.
zae 09-18-06, 01:06 PM	Never seen it happen in a game, but heard all the horror stories. I'd be way about using it, myself (unless of course a player mentioned that "in hindsight, I wish m character was the other gender", and not because of a situational occasion, where I might ask them if they're serious enough that they want such a curse to befall the character). If it was used on one of my female characters, well, I'd roll with it, make sure that they are turned into a *pretty*, efemenate male, and not change any character art. If it was used on one of my male characters, hey, it's not MY fault that I'm now playing a (physical) female who's atttracted to females! (Needless to say, it wouldn't really affect the game. It's not like any of my characters pursuit the opposite sex that much, so a gender change wouldn't change that.)
Label 09-18-06, 01:10 PM	woah I'm surprised to see that many consider the "reverse gender curse" to be so bad and "dangerous"... I mean... it's only a curse! It can be removed by magic... It's not a reason for players to fight the DM and leaving the table very upset... it's a game! What will those kind of players do if their two-weapon fighter loose an arm in a fight? this too can be cured by magic...
Darkuwa 09-18-06, 01:12 PM	We were fighitng some very powerful evil guys. One of them who was very low on hit points teleported outside with me in tow. I was low on hitpoints too and I knew he had DR so I dropped to my knees and begged to be spared. He told me to put on a belt and he would spare me.
metalmorphosis 09-18-06, 01:18 PM	The change may not have any effect on stats and abilities, but the RP potential is awesome. Consider these questions too.. Does the sex change also include a change in sexual attraction? What type of social changes take place? Is the opposite sex regarded as inferior in any way? What type of effects would this have on NPC reactions? (this isn't by the book, but it seems that a female character would have a better chance of sweet talking her way past the gate guards than just another guy). I know all of this would have to be covered by house rule, but it would be an interesting thing to play out. (and my NastyDM had better not get any ideas):cheer: <-- Desparo in drag
Antioch 09-18-06, 01:53 PM	About...8 or so years ago a DM ran a campaign with only three players (including myself) where we were attempting to find four "keys", which were actually black cubes that were needed to seal a gate to prevent the destruction of the city we were currently in. One of them was found to be leaking magic energy which was pretty much like wild magic. It had minor effects at first (changing eye color, making the cleric hairier) but soon escalated over the course of several days (the cleric got turned into a bugbear, I got some stats shuffled around, the drow thief sprouted a LG high elf twin...whom he promptly killed). Eventually the elven wizard went to study it, and the next day, well...he was a she. The irony is he died a couple sessions later and made a new character (a female elven wizard who was his former character's sister). She went to study the cube and after a few days of exposure the DM randomly rolled up a gender change for her as well. So I've seen it done twice...in a row.
Seeker95 09-18-06, 02:28 PM	woah I'm surprised to see that many consider the "reverse gender curse" to be so bad and "dangerous"...The danger is not necessarily player outrage. It is, rather, the outrageous manner in which so many players will "roleplay" the opposite sex. I do not allow my players to play PCs of the opposite sex. I do not want gender stereotypes to become rampant in my game, and I want to keep the sex jokes as far away from my table as possible. My experience with players over the past 28 years of playing is that, although not every player gets stupid over this, every group of players has at least one that will. And it only takes one to derail a session, if not an entire game.
Orchomenos 09-18-06, 02:32 PM	An interresting twist might be to throw in the Campaign world a powerful intelligent weapon that only want to be used by female humanoids. The players will be looking for that cursed belt...
Shinryouga 09-18-06, 02:35 PM	In my gaming group, when somone DMs, the DM gets a "messability index" from the players. Basically just asks how much he can actually mess with the character. Some players like the challenge, some dont. Also, whether its messing that fuggles with character concept, or just jerking the character around. Me, I have characters who's concepts are as solid as a handful of sand. Other are set in stone. I have a half-ogre who's identity is terribly important to him. A change to his gender would freak him out, and he'd get it fixed as fast as he could. I also have a palladin who willingly became a dragonborn (which I hadn't even thought of when we started the game, it just happened naturally). Finally, my drow bard is a sensate (in nature, no levels of the class yet) and was once turned into a centaur, and a few rounds later into a female centaur, by a smartass copper dragon. His response was "Thats interesting", and when it was finally removed at the end of the dragon's maze, he asked if his reward could be retaining the ability to change his gender, even if only a few times per day. So now he can swap gender 3/day, and it's just natural for him. Summary: If you find out what your players are comfortable with before you start throwing the wacky around, its all good.
TheMeanOne 09-18-06, 03:02 PM	Unless I am remembering this wrong, the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity changes "sex" not "gender." Sex is the physical aspects of being a man or woman, while gender is the mental and emotional aspects of being male or female. This should have no effect on personality, sexual orientation or the gender an individual sees themselves as. A male character who has his sex changed by this item still feels like a man - but he is now in a female body. It's like when an Elf is turned into a troll, he probably still feels like an elf but suddenly the way he is being treated doesnt reflect who he really is. Likely this sort of change would have serious psychological ramifications for a character. Consider how difficult it is for transsexual individuals in our current society. And I can imagine some players feeling like something has been "done" to them by the DM.
Tzor 09-18-06, 03:26 PM	Well all questions of sex or gender aside I've always thought the old fashioned helm of opposite alignment was more of a nasty player killer than the girdle of sex/gender change. Especially when you had to try the item on in 1E to identify the item. One famous campaign had a retired PC wizard turn into the BBEG because of a bad identify. I mean one should always be thankful one wasn't trying on a robe of blending - set to puree. And remember that in the early 1E, a polymorph other did have the effect of making that elf turned troll really feel trollish. It's not covered in the old rules but I think that would apply to the girdle of masculinity/femininity as well.
ArcTan 09-18-06, 03:31 PM	The gender curse is a throwback to older editions of D&D where the game took itself far less seriously and really was meant to be the DM outright pranking and messing with his players (hence the dungeon being nothing but a succession of traps and monsters in ever-increasing power and unbelievability). If you're a new-school player on the extreme roleplaying side of the fence, then the gender curse is kind of dumb -- it's designed as an immature way to mess with you, and the challenge involved in roleplaying a gender shift is pretty high and kind of awkward to pull off in D&D without inducing the kinds of giggles that hardcore roleplayers tend to dislike. If you're a new-school player on the extreme powergaming end of the scale, well, then, the gender curse is dumb because it has no actual mechanical effect whatsoever. It's like the Rod of Wonder curse that turns you bright green.
Bulletproof_Condom 09-18-06, 04:07 PM	I had a character's gender amplified once. There was this summoning circle that was being used to summon the overfiend. Giant anime tentacle monster. Bunch of acolytes were casting spells into it for a week and at the end of the week, the monster would be brought forth. My character broke the circle at about the three day mark. The spell wasn't anywhere near complete but the field was still active and there was a reaction. His, um... :cough: tentacle got, uh... enhanced. Yeah. DM parsed it as a +2 to checks made to seduce someone/-2 to checks made to resist being seduced. We all thought it was funny. But no, I've never had a character in any game I can remember get forcibly inverted.
DarkNick 09-18-06, 04:11 PM	I don't really see it as a curse in itself. The real curse is how the other players start treating you. I've always played both male and female characters so changing sex is not a big deal for me as a player. Apart from that it is up to the character themselves. Most are pretty cool with it. I have a female Paladin at the moment and it is a real pain in the arse having some of the players wanting me to "lay hands on them" all the time...
Zyrusticae 09-18-06, 05:31 PM	Meh. I tend to play rather androgynous characters, both male and female. Plus, I tend to seperate the *physical* differences of sex from the *psychological* differences of gender - stereotypes of either end tend to make me a little wary. Thankfully, the people I hang around happen to be well-adjusted enough that I don't have to suffer such things. I've never actually had this happen to me in a game, but I *did* try it on in Baldur's Gate when it dropped from an ogre. (Yeah, that one). I was young at the time, so I didn't really care for it much, especially since I didn't find any more belts for a good long while... Anyways, yeah, gender changes don't affect my characters much. Their identities tend to focus on things other than their percieved gender, which can get a little wierd for people who are really into gender roles and such...
Illithid_Tentacles 09-18-06, 06:18 PM	Unless I am remembering this wrong, the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity changes "sex" not "gender." Sex is the physical aspects of being a man or woman, while gender is the mental and emotional aspects of being male or female. That's pretty much what I was going to say. Random pedantry FTW.
Manshoon13 09-18-06, 06:33 PM	Yes i think your right, I think it would still be a pain trying to find a priest who could fix it. And the humiliation!:embarrass
Seeker95 09-18-06, 07:09 PM	This should have no effect on personality, sexual orientation or the gender an individual sees themselves as.Should being the key word. You've played D&D long enough, I assume, to realize that should not does not equal does not.
DarkNick 09-18-06, 07:16 PM	Yes i think your right, I think it would still be a pain trying to find a priest who could fix it. And the humiliation!:embarrass What humiliation? :thinks: Who wouldn't want to change from a horrible hairy boy to a lovely sleek, curvy woman? :rolleye2:
Wyrmul 09-18-06, 07:16 PM	I have only used it once but I knew that the particular player would be fine with it and played it well. But there is a danger that the player, especially if they are in any way insecure in their gender, could react negatively. Especially if the other players beging making fun of him/her because of it. In a game I was playing in a DM used this curse and it literaly drove the player from the group. Granted this was in high school and he wasn't the most stable emotionally, but who was then.
DarkNick 09-18-06, 07:18 PM	I have only used it once but I knew that the particular player would be fine with it and played it well. But there is a danger that the player, especially if they are in any way insecure in their gender, could react negatively. Especially if the other players beging making fun of him/her because of it. In a game I was playing in a DM used this curse and it literaly drove the player from the group. Granted this was in high school and he wasn't the most stable emotionally, but who was then. I think that is the rub. Its not so much the player, its how the other players treats them after the 'change'.
feartheinvinceblehamster 09-18-06, 09:33 PM	Eh. I always thought the trap that teleported you one place and your gear to another was better. But yeah, in the original post, was this person "normal feminist"-thinks woman should be equal, or "Red Ajah Feminist"-Thinks men should be beaten with rocks for being insolent. Because personally, I think if we're talking the latter she deserved that.
vardock 09-18-06, 09:36 PM	that could be a dibilitation curse. some races have a favored class based on gender, and some prestige classes require you to be a female.
feartheinvinceblehamster 09-18-06, 09:40 PM	Yeah, but those prestige classes are a load of bull and aren't allowed in my campaign at least. Sorry guys, but if Wizards made a prestige class that you HAD to be male to enter, it would be decried as "discrimanatory" and you guys know it.
Ashok_Lal 09-18-06, 09:58 PM	I had it done to me when i was young. My charicter was pure tostesterone "THE MAN". So my DM gave me the belt. Thinking that it was belt of strength donned it quickly. (before any other players could have it.) When i was turned into a woman i was less then pleased.... There was a lot of tention between us for the next few games & some near deaths for other PC's who took the **** out of me. The rest of the party insisted to the DM that he had had is fun with me. The belt was removed & we played on. If it happened to me today it would be a fun role-playing experiance but back then, not fun
Iddig Ap Nil 09-18-06, 10:01 PM	What humiliation? :thinks: Who wouldn't want to change from a horrible hairy boy to a lovely sleek, curvy woman? :rolleye2:No one that I can think of.:cool:
Norsesmithy 09-18-06, 11:11 PM	^^^Especially like what happened to my buddy, Str 18 at lvl 1 human male, 230 lbs (hairy), turned into a 230 lbs Str 18 female (hairy). No issue with the party hittling on the now depressed barbarian. No rule says you get to lose 100 lbs becoming female, if you are a hulking brute of a male. Especially if you are still supposed to have the musculature to lift 300 lbs over your head. Would you rather be the man beast, admired by bar patrons and the tavern girls, or the Woman beast, looked on with revulsion by all but the most twisted of fetishists?
DarkNick 09-18-06, 11:18 PM	^^^Especially like what happened to my buddy, Str 18 at lvl 1 human male, 230 lbs (hairy), turned into a 230 lbs Str 18 female (hairy). No issue with the party hittling on the now depressed barbarian. No rule says you get to lose 100 lbs becoming female, if you are a hulking brute of a male. Especially if you are still supposed to have the musculature to lift 300 lbs over your head. Would you rather be the man beast, admired by bar patrons and the tavern girls, or the Woman beast, looked on with revulsion by all but the most twisted of fetishists? True, never thought of it that way. Also your armour would be a terrible fit afterwards... Though your charisma does not change so you should be equaly as impressive - maybe he ended up looking like those female sprinters. I think your total mass would decrease in keeping with usual male/female proportions. But if you were ugly to start with that barbarian might have ended up looking like a female olympic weight lifter (or a male weight lifter - none of them are particularly impressive, and some of those women do have a suspicious amount of 'packing' in their tights), in which case they would not have been that impressive or admired at the pub anyway. More likely they were feared and viewed as monstrous. Damned either way. Only thing you can really do in is look on the bright side and 'cop a feel'. Do you think your hair cut would change?
Iddig Ap Nil 09-19-06, 11:50 PM	True, never thought of it that way. Also your armour would be a terrible fit afterwards... Though your charisma does not change so you should be equaly as impressive - maybe he ended up looking like those female sprinters. I think your total mass would decrease in keeping with usual male/female proportions. But if you were ugly to start with that barbarian might have ended up looking like a female olympic weight lifter (or a male weight lifter - none of them are particularly impressive, and some of those women do have a suspicious amount of 'packing' in their tights), in which case they would not have been that impressive or admired at the pub anyway. More likely they were feared and viewed as monstrous. Damned either way. Only thing you can really do in is look on the bright side and 'cop a feel'. Do you think your hair cut would change?No, the style would stay the same, the only difference is that it would become finer and softer, not as course if going from male to female, it would start to grow a bit quicker as well.
bhu 09-20-06, 05:01 PM	woah I'm surprised to see that many consider the "reverse gender curse" to be so bad and "dangerous"... I mean... it's only a curse! It can be removed by magic... It's not a reason for players to fight the DM and leaving the table very upset... it's a game! What will those kind of players do if their two-weapon fighter loose an arm in a fight? this too can be cured by magic... A lot of it depends on the DM. In second edition DM's tended to do it to :censored: you off. And then when the other players realized it was open season on you, they started to do their best to :censored: you off. Then someone gets a chair in the face and the group suddenly realizes that instead of "having a lil fun with their buddy" they've indulged in a longterm campaign of harassment and hes out for blood. And a lot of DM's then didnt remove curses easy. One of the local DM's was fond of never having any NPC cleric higher than 5th level in his campaigns. So there was no real way to remove a curse other than deities intervening, selling your soul to Asmodeus, or something major which would hideously backfire on you in some other way meant to screw with you. 2nd edition DnD was very much a player vs DM mindset. And more than a few times it devolved into something personal. A long remembered example in my older group being a player playing a monk who was cursed so that he could not hold or use weapons, and did double damage with all barehanded attacks. But he took an amount of damage equal to what he did to his opponents if he used a barehanded attack. So his character was completely useless. Because in 2E he didnt have much else at his level. Many of us always assumed the gender and alignment changing items were just included as jokes as no one would ever be stupid enough to use them unless they really hated you. And when they were used it was automatically assumed the DM DID hate you, and everyone else could feel free to do with you as they pleased without fear of repercussion. At least until you kicked their teeth in, destroyed a few minis, and stole the pizza on your way out.
vardock 09-20-06, 08:13 PM	gender change should be only used in a group of VERY MATUREplayers. the first time I saw gender change the Choatic Neutral Enchanter PC decided he wanted to rape the Newly female Gnome PC and It ended with the players getting into a real-life fist fight.
Norsesmithy 09-20-06, 11:15 PM	True, never thought of it that way. Also your armour would be a terrible fit afterwards... Though your charisma does not change so you should be equaly as impressive - maybe he ended up looking like those female sprinters. I think your total mass would decrease in keeping with usual male/female proportions. Only thing you can really do in is look on the bright side and 'cop a feel'. Do you think your hair cut would change? Well he had Charisma as his dump stat, But our group didn't feel that charisma had anything to do with beauty, but rather it was soley force of personality (The tavern girls liked him because he was stupid and had lots of money, and the other guys liked him because they would win money betting on him in arm wrestling contests and drinking contests). So if hes charisma had been high, he would have retained his skill for negotiation and oratory, but that doesn't make a 230 lb woman with arms bigger than the average man's waist necessarily sexually attractive. He got it fixed, but he always was a little politer to women in general and a lot nicer to less attractive women after that, he had been a bit of a pig. As for a man losing weight but retaining strength after a change like that, it wouldn't make any sense. The muscles of a man and of a woman are the same strength-wise pound per pound, but a man generally has more muscle mass per pound of total body weight than a woman, because women have more heavier entrails. So if a man requires, say 120 lbs of muscle to lift 300 lbs, he has to weigh at least 120 lbs + the weight of his bones (say 55 lbs) + the weight of his nonmuscular flesh, like guts and brains and skin (say another 55 lbs) he has to weigh around 230 lbs. (numbers totally fabricated, just used for the sake of conjecture) Now if a man needs 120 lbs of mucle mass to accomplish a task, it follows that a woman needs that same amount. Then remember that a woman generally has a slighter frame, so lets say she only has 50 lbs of bone (totally conjecture). Also remember that per a certain body weight, women tend to have more guts and other nonmuscle soft tissue (like brains) so lets say she has 60 lbs of entrails. Shock! the new STR 18 creature weighs the same, 230 lbs. His haircut didn't change, but he had it long anyways.
aelryinth 09-21-06, 12:02 AM	Builds of a man and woman are completely different, entrials aren't the key thing. Men simply have more muscle in their upper bodies and are genetically predisposed to be taller. Transforming into a woman should net anywhere from a 10-20% loss in weight and at least a couple inches in height. A masculine male will look like a masculine woman. An effeminate man will look like a feminine woman. In all actuality, overall strength WOULD drop. Because of gameplay balance, it doesn't in 3.5...women are as strong as men, despite the fact that this really isn't realistic. But balance is balance. Women have legs as strong as men of their relative size if developed...but they simply don't have the upper bodies. Anyhoos, here's a magic item for you. The Girdle of the Erhiar (Valkyrie) One of the enchanted girdles worn by the Choosers of the Slain of (Fill in your war god), this girdle entered the world after being claimed by the body of the Erhiar Trasynia by the barbarian warrior Horstag, who refused to allow his brother to be taken from him by the Chooser and battled and defeated the divine servant to win back his life. The Girdle seems to come with a curse, as those who wear it seem doomed to replace the dead Chooser of the Slain. Note this item is a Chastity style Girdle, appearing as a marvelously wrought chain item of surpassing manufacture. Effects: This powerful near artifact confers a base Str, Dex, Cha and COn of 20, replacing their base scores (original ability scores, before adjustments for advancement, age, magic, and so forth, as if they were starting stats.). It provides all the effects of a Ring of Sustenance, and renders the wearer immune to extremes of natural temperature and Cold Resistance/30. The wearer is immune to and may not use any sort of magic or other powers that changes appearence or form. It may only be worn by women. Ergo, if donned by a man...the change in appearence is often marked enough, since the Cha adjustment is so radical, so as to be unrecognizable as a former man, although the belt does nothing for knowing proper gender roles. The belt cannot be removed once donned without killing the one wearing it. The magic of the Girdle allows easy use of bodily functions, changing clothing, and the like, but reproductive acts are impossible. Other then death, the direct intervention of (War God) is the only way to remove the Girdle...which does not restore any transformed male who set it on. (War God) finds the constant battle to claim the Girdle and the fate of those who win it to be extremely entertaining and satisfying, and has allowed the Girdle of his slain Chooser to remain in the mortal world. ===Aelryinth
Norsesmithy 09-21-06, 12:25 AM	I am not talking build, I am talking body disposition. If you are subject to the curse that changes your gender, it doesn't change your stats, so why would you lose any weight? IF you retain your original strength, you NEED to retain your original muscle mass. For this to happen, you will not lose any body mass, if anything, you will gain a little weight going from male to female, because they do have a larger proportion of non-muscular soft tissue to body mass than a male does. Remember, you are not changing the afflicted into an average woman, you are changing him to an equivalent woman. That is what I tried to say, It may have been a little convoluted, but it is essentially what I was saying. Also, based on the descriptions of the Valkyries in the sagas, I wouldn't make your magical item/cursed girdle be a "Chastity belt". Finally, as Odin was also a god of poetry, you could often barter for a friend's life with a (absolutely fantastic, bordering on orgasmic) poem, or the lives of several enemy warriors, you didn't have to be forced to fight the Valkyrie.
yrogerg 09-21-06, 12:55 AM	Also, based on the descriptions of the Valkyries in the sagas, I wouldn't make your magical item/cursed girdle be a "Chastity belt". You, sir, win this thread. :tiphat: Also, for the other stuff you mentioned, but seriously: this alone would win.
ArcTan 09-21-06, 03:52 AM	Builds of a man and woman are completely different, entrials aren't the key thing. Men simply have more muscle in their upper bodies and are genetically predisposed to be taller. Transforming into a woman should net anywhere from a 10-20% loss in weight and at least a couple inches in height. A masculine male will look like a masculine woman. An effeminate man will look like a feminine woman. In all actuality, overall strength WOULD drop. Because of gameplay balance, it doesn't in 3.5...women are as strong as men, despite the fact that this really isn't realistic. But balance is balance. Women have legs as strong as men of their relative size if developed...but they simply don't have the upper bodies. That's like saying that because I went to an all-boys boarding school for high school, and I wouldn't have been able to go to it if I had been a girl instead of a boy, this curse makes me forget everything I know about physics, chemistry, history and rugby. Or it's like saying that because I learned swordplay because I'm a guy and guys tend to like the martial arts, while women are less likely to like the martial arts, turning female automatically makes me lose all my knowledge of fencing and any desire to reclaim it. All bunk, because, as people have pointed out, this turns you from a man to a woman, not from you into an equivalent average woman somewhere in the world. You stay you in *all respects* other than the fundamental ones that relate to your sex. Yes, you'd probably look unusual. You'd look, in fact, like the average M-to-F transsexual, who does tend to sport various telltale signs that she wasn't born female (such as almost always having a larger upper-body bone structure). But that's the point -- it's a belt of gender change, not a belt of randomly-switch-you-and-all-your-genetics-and-abilities-with-a-completely-average-female. While I do acknowledge that in real life there's a big statistical difference between the average man and the average woman, PCs aren't an average anything -- the point of PCs is that they're built to be exceptional prodigies at whatever it is they do. Their stats are higher than any NPCs, they get access to abilities (class levels) NPCs simply don't, and, unlike NPCs, their players get some degree of control (anything from rerolling to point-buy) over their stats, meaning that their stats are "optimized" for whatever their character class is in a way that NPCs with standard arrays simply aren't. PCs are the heroes of the world, and in a squad of handpicked heroes, statistical averages don't apply. It doesn't matter whether the *average* woman has a Str 18 -- the average man doesn't have a Str 18 either. There may be more men than women in the entire world who have Str 18, but that's immaterial to you -- all that matters is that there *are* women in the world who have Str 18, and one of them happens to be your character. (In other words -- gender stat mods suck.) Anyhoos, here's a magic item for you. The Girdle of the Erhiar (Valkyrie) You mean "einheriar". One of the enchanted girdles worn by the Choosers of the Slain of (Fill in your war god), this girdle entered the world after being claimed by the body of the Erhiar Trasynia by the barbarian warrior Horstag, who refused to allow his brother to be taken from him by the Chooser and battled and defeated the divine servant to win back his life. The Girdle seems to come with a curse, as those who wear it seem doomed to replace the dead Chooser of the Slain. Note this item is a Chastity style Girdle, appearing as a marvelously wrought chain item of surpassing manufacture. Effects: This powerful near artifact confers a base Str, Dex, Cha and COn of 20, replacing their base scores (original ability scores, before adjustments for advancement, age, magic, and so forth, as if they were starting stats.). It provides all the effects of a Ring of Sustenance, and renders the wearer immune to extremes of natural temperature and Cold Resistance/30. The wearer is immune to and may not use any sort of magic or other powers that changes appearence or form. It may only be worn by women. Ergo, if donned by a man...the change in appearence is often marked enough, since the Cha adjustment is so radical, so as to be unrecognizable as a former man, although the belt does nothing for knowing proper gender roles. The belt cannot be removed once donned without killing the one wearing it. The magic of the Girdle allows easy use of bodily functions, changing clothing, and the like, but reproductive acts are impossible. Other then death, the direct intervention of (War God) is the only way to remove the Girdle...which does not restore any transformed male who set it on. (War God) finds the constant battle to claim the Girdle and the fate of those who win it to be extremely entertaining and satisfying, and has allowed the Girdle of his slain Chooser to remain in the mortal world. ===Aelryinth Cute idea, but Cha isn't supposed to have anything to do with appearance. (You're not one of those people who proposes a -Str +Cha mod for female characters, are you? The whole idea that women are "higher Cha" than men is totally the sort of thing only a straight guy would think of.) If someone's Cha was boosted to 20 you'd notice a difference, but not of them becoming "prettier", just that they were far more confident, their speech far more commanding, something about the look in their eyes, etc. Though, you know, I think turning-into-a-hot-girl is already a fairly hackneyed idea in fantasy, as is the idea that the War God (or whatever god) is a big powerful man and has lots of female retainers and servants. Why not mix it up a bit? Have a goddess whose cursed item turns you into a strapping-but-stupid male consort for her, and have a female character find it and put it on.
ArcTan 09-21-06, 03:54 AM	gender change should be only used in a group of VERY MATUREplayers. the first time I saw gender change the Choatic Neutral Enchanter PC decided he wanted to rape the Newly female Gnome PC and It ended with the players getting into a real-life fist fight. I can't believe you think that you have to be VERY MATURE to avoid this situation, as opposed to being, say, something halfway close to a decent human being. Seriously, I continue to shake my head at each new revelation that there are D&D players out there who seem to see female characters as things to be raped.
DarkNick 09-21-06, 03:55 PM	I am not talking build, I am talking body disposition. If you are subject to the curse that changes your gender, it doesn't change your stats, so why would you lose any weight? IF you retain your original strength, you NEED to retain your original muscle mass. For this to happen, you will not lose any body mass, if anything, you will gain a little weight going from male to female, because they do have a larger proportion of non-muscular soft tissue to body mass than a male does. Remember, you are not changing the afflicted into an average woman, you are changing him to an equivalent woman. That is what I tried to say, It may have been a little convoluted, but it is essentially what I was saying. You don't have to be a certain weight to get a certain strength in Dnd. In the game a 5 foot tall 150lb man could be just as strong as a 7 foot 400lb man. So I disagree that you NEED to retain the same mass. I don't think the item specifies that it changes you into an equivalent woman or man does it? You do keep your stats though. Some people might argue that in order for the character to retain the same charisma when going from MTF they would need to reduce mass as big muscles look better on men. (not that I am, there are too many holes in that argument). Some might also argue that STR reflects your ability to apply strength rather than raw physical power. It probably does make sense that the character ends up roughly the same size, but then in a magical world anything is possible. I guess it all comes down to the group and how they want to play it.
ArcTan 09-21-06, 04:18 PM	Cha can't be an "appearance" stat, since Cha is a mental ability score and you keep mental ability scores while Polymorphed or Mind Switched. Unless you think that if a beautiful female Telepath Mind Switches with me, her mind's presence in my body causes my body to lose weight, clear up my complexion and grow a mane of dazzling red hair.
DarkNick 09-21-06, 05:18 PM	Cha can't be an "appearance" stat, since Cha is a mental ability score and you keep mental ability scores while Polymorphed or Mind Switched. Unless you think that if a beautiful female Telepath Mind Switches with me, her mind's presence in my body causes my body to lose weight, clear up my complexion and grow a mane of dazzling red hair. Cha could be an appearance stat. All depends on how you want to play it. You can play it how you like. I'm a bit two minded about how charisma works. On one hand people can be butt ugly yet very chrismatic, or beautiful and uncharismatic. On another I think looks can compliment charisma. A beautiful charismatic women might be more be more influencial than an ugly charismatic women. But I also think a persons uglyness can be part of their charisma and charm - like Bill Clintons horrible nose.
ArcTan 09-21-06, 05:39 PM	Cha could be an appearance stat. All depends on how you want to play it. You can play it how you like. I'm a bit two minded about how charisma works. On one hand people can be butt ugly yet very chrismatic, or beautiful and uncharismatic. On another I think looks can compliment charisma. A beautiful charismatic women might be more be more influencial than an ugly charismatic women. But I also think a persons uglyness can be part of their charisma and charm - like Bill Clintons horrible nose. In real life "charisma" is our word for the way a bunch of unrelated things -- bearing, appearance, demeanor, speech, etc. -- affect you unconsciously to make you think a person is "likeable" or "unlikeable". It really doesn't make sense in reality to lump them all into one stat if you take a reductionistic view of things -- "Charisma drain" could mean anything from giving you a speech impediment to scarring your face to making you twitch and stumble when you walk or whatever -- but people have historically believed that all of these things that make you like someone are really under the control of some kind of mystic, spiritual force certain people have. That's why the word "charisma" exists in the first place. And D&D subscribes to this -- D&D says that the reason you're drawn to some people and want to be around them and find them likable despite the fact that they're butt-ugly and obviously bad people and aren't any good for you (and, sadly, this happens a lot in life -- just look at half the people my friends date -- is because of an intangible spiritual *force* they have. And Charisma, the base stat, represents this force, not just superficial appearance. Appearance has nothing to do with whether you can cast magic spells by sheer force of will as a Sorcerer. It has nothing to do with whether you can coax magic out of an unintelligent magic item when using UMD. It has nothing to do with imposing your will on an alien being like an Elemental when casting Planar Binding. It's not what's being drained from you when you get hit with Ego Whip. And it's what a Sorcerer Demilich still has a ton of despite the fact that he's a disembodied floating head. There are things that can compliment Charisma, sure. If you're sexually attractive and talking to someone who's sexually attracted to you, that's a circumstance bonus to Charisma. It's circumstantial, though, because it can change. A really beautiful female gets a lot more of a bonus for that when dealing with a straight guy than with a straight girl. She might even be penalized for it if she's dealing with one of those straight women who see all women prettier than they are as a rival or a threat (you know the type), or with a man who resents beautiful women and blames his attraction to them for all his problems in life (you know the type). She might visit another culture where it's the norm to be overweight and being too thin is considered sickly and off-putting, and then all of a sudden she's not beautiful anymore -- even though *nothing has changed about her except where she lives*, especially not one of her core mental stats. Cha as Appearance simply doesn't really make sense. It imposes the idea that a good appearance is something universal and basic to a person -- that a pretty girl will be seen as pretty everywhere she goes by everyone she meets, and that this is essential to who she is. I dislike that idea strongly and think it really fails to make sense on a logical level. You can *play* a high-Cha character as looking beautiful if you like, if that helps you get into the mindset of how a high-Cha character works -- but it should by no means be a requirement. (And I really think Cha and Appearance are two entirely separate things. You know the whole idea of a "bimbo" -- someone who looks immensely appealing and yet, because of that, is someone you have no respect for and think you can walk all over. It's true for men as well as for women -- if you're a big musclebound beefcake guy, you have to deal with people thinking you're dumb or shallow. On the other hand, there are beautiful people whose beauty seems to make them *more* respectable -- where when they look at you you don't just want to jump their bones, you want to follow them and do what they say and hang on their every word. And that's a quality that's not easy to attach to any particular way people look -- it's all in the way they act. Just as you can come across someone who doesn't look like much but somehow gets you fascinated with them -- sexually or otherwise -- just by the magnetism of their personality.)
Norsesmithy 09-21-06, 09:28 PM	You don't have to be a certain weight to get a certain strength in Dnd. In the game a 5 foot tall 150lb man could be just as strong as a 7 foot 400lb man. So I disagree that you NEED to retain the same mass. It probably does make sense that the character ends up roughly the same size, but then in a magical world anything is possible. I guess it all comes down to the group and how they want to play it. Though that is Raw true, it is my biggest pet peeve with the current RAW. It is the biggest challenge to my suspension of disbelief in the game. My group doesn't allow characters who are 130 and str 18 unless they have some sort of magical enhancement. This means that the Female rogue with str 16 was portrayed as a 160 lb woman with around 17% body fat. She was still a beautiful girl, but I bet that many of us would have been mildly frightened of such a person in real life. We don't have a hard and fast rule, but I don't think we have seen and str 18 characters, whether PC or NPC that weighed less than 200 lbs, regardless of gender or race. In our home-brew campaign setting, elves traded their con penalty for a strength one, but your STR 16 lvl one elf isn't going to be the 131 lb waif the PHB caps elves at for random generation. Generally, the strongest of the light characters end up having max loads of less than 150% of their body-weight. My second greatest Pet Peeve is how the PHB says that charisma has anything to do with physical appearance. My group is of like mind. Just cause the sucker is ugly doesn't mean they cant captivate millions with their oratory. I mean look at Hitler's queer little mustache, He was the sort of guy you would expect to laugh out of town, but his speeches still have power, despite the fact that I knew that what he was saying was wrong, and german isn't even my first language.
ArcTan 09-21-06, 09:40 PM	Though that is Raw true, it is my biggest pet peeve with the current RAW. It is the biggest challenge to my suspension of disbelief in the game. My group doesn't allow characters who are 130 and str 18 unless they have some sort of magical enhancement. The reason there isn't any hard-and-fast rule connecting Str to muscle mass is that not everyone has the same kind of muscles. The core explanation for why dragons can fly is that they are "magical" in the sense that their muscles work in a far more efficient, almost supernatural fashion enabling them to generate enough lift to fly despite their unwieldy ratio of mass to wingspan. But this isn't truly "magic", since it's not linked to any spell effect, can't be dispelled and works in an AMF. *shrug* It is, ultimately, a fantasy game. People with "supernatural" levels of strength are a staple of kung fu movies, action movies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you name it. If a wisp of a 110-pound actress hurling two-hundred-pound weights across a room and snap-kicking men twice her size in the face and whatnot is good enough for TV, it's good enough for a D&D campaign.
Norsesmithy 09-21-06, 09:48 PM	The reason there isn't any hard-and-fast rule connecting Str to muscle mass is that not everyone has the same kind of muscles. The core explanation for why dragons can fly is that they are "magical" in the sense that their muscles work in a far more efficient, almost supernatural fashion enabling them to generate enough lift to fly despite their unwieldy ratio of mass to wingspan. But this isn't truly "magic", since it's not linked to any spell effect, can't be dispelled and works in an AMF. *shrug* It is, ultimately, a fantasy game. People with "supernatural" levels of strength are a staple of kung fu movies, action movies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you name it. If a wisp of a 110-pound actress hurling two-hundred-pound weights across a room and snap-kicking men twice her size in the face and whatnot is good enough for TV, it's good enough for a D&D campaign. Obviously nonhumanoid creatures are not human enough that I don't mind their strength being off, I mean a 140 lb chimp is generally stonger than a 200 lb human, I just don't like the demihumans being so dissimilar in physics. I never really liked Buffy.:zzz:
PiedmonSama 09-22-06, 02:43 AM	I used a "Helmet of Gender Bender" one time on one of my friends during a one-off game.... I wouldn't use anything like that in a serious campaign, to a character someone was really attached to. But if we're all in a mood to laugh, it can be a great, ehrm, spur....
bhu 09-22-06, 07:22 PM	Obviously nonhumanoid creatures are not human enough that I don't mind their strength being off, I mean a 140 lb chimp is generally stonger than a 200 lb human, I just don't like the demihumans being so dissimilar in physics. I never really liked Buffy.:zzz: Apes are built a little differently than people in terms of muscle mass and density. I think I remember a statistic saying soemthing like human beings need at least 8% body fat to be healthy, but the average gorilla has 2% or so. Mechanically they work differently, and are put together differently because they need the Str to survive. We dont. A full grown chimp would turn an adult human into ground meat with little trouble. A gorilla....well I'd prefer to never meet a :censored: off gorilla. Or mandrill for that matter.....
Norsesmithy 09-23-06, 01:57 AM	It isn't so much body fat percentages with apes, rather it is the construction and placement of their muscles, tendons, bones, and joints. Also their metabolic processes are different, a human can work at a much higher percentage of his maximum output for far longer than any ape, whereas a great ape (or most any other animal) can exert far more work in a short period of time and cannot maintain the exertion like a person. They tried to train gorillas and chimpanzees for menial physical tasks, and they found that a human puts out roughly double the mechanical work per calorie than a ape, but puts out that effort over a much longer duration. Gorillas, for instance, sleep 18 hours a day and eat five of the others, and are absolutely exhausted if required to physically exert themselves for more than two hours a day, even with such low impact tasks as walking around a ring or bicycling. try to make them do something strenuous, like stack 100 lb pallets, and they can die of metabolic stress in as little as 90 minutes. (This was learned by a circus in the 1920s that tried to train the apes, gorillas, chimpanzees and a orangutan, to replace teamsters in the unloading and set up of the circus and the big tent) Humans are the greatest endurance animals on land. After roughly 20 miles of racing, humans pass up even the best distance racing horses. We can out distance any great cat after less than a half day of jogging. The only species that can give a run for our money on extreme distance races, other than some fishes and birds, are wolves and several breeds of dog. Even they can't keep the pace of human tribes on the move for much more than two or three weeks. So if I were to challenge a gorilla to a best 2001 out of 4001 in an arm wrestling contest, I would be confident of victory assuming he didn't injure me in the first 1500 or so matches that he wins with ease (and I could keep him to a vigorous pace, and no breaks). Heck it might even kill him. This is what I mean by them not being humanoid enough to count when it comes to comparisons of demi-human strength and constitution.