I was noticing that for the power "Bestial Shift", there isn't a lot of scaling with leveling it up. The only real bonuses that i can see with it is starting with more animal forms at character creation and having your emulated powers in hybrid form being more effective if you go for them. Otherwise it seems that someone with 1 rank in Bestial shift can be just as effective than someone with 10 ranks in it.

Am i missing something? Is there some sort of reason to actually level it up that I'm just missing?

Hi there

Sorry I did not respond sooner I have been sick as a dog....

lets get to it

there are two ways to look at Bestial Transformation

1) focusing on animal shapes

2) focusing on your hybrid form

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#1

The advantage you get from more then 1 rank in Bestial Transformation is the ability to take on more then one form... it also makes it harder for someone to shut down your power or steal your power.

but its one of those skills that you only increase when you want to be able to change into a different creatures and when you want to combine with with Growth and Shrinking..

For example: I had someone in my game play a "beast boy" like character and he stopped at rank 6 once he had Wolf, Raven, Cheetah, Dolphin, Hammerhead Shark, Rino, Elephant, Velociraptor, and T-Rex (he did a lot of research on the last two and with the help of the tech hero in the party was able to look at holograms of the things down to 90% accuracy.... which I deemed enough for him.. it also cost him 3 plot die for each)

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#2

when focused on your hybrid form the real advantage is when you learn have emulated powers....

in the same game I had a "Wolvesbayne" like hero.. she had Bestial Transformation of 5 ranks and limited it to Grey Wolf gaining +3 ranks... that's 8 ranks at the start of play, then she took both Enhanced Attribute (Quickness) & Enhanced Attribute (Might) as emulated powers.

after which she picked up Enhances Sense (smell), Enhances Sense (sight), Enhanced Attack (Claws), and Surge (Leap) and tied them all to her Bestial Transformation power as emulated powers (all tied to her werewolf form)

By the time we ended the campaign she had Bestial Transformation up to 12 ranks, thus in werewolf form she would have

Enhanced Attribute (Quickness)
Enhanced Attribute (Might)
Enhances Sense (Smell)
Enhances Sense (Sight)
Enhanced Attack (Claws)
Surge (Run on all 4s)

all at rank 6

nothing to laugh at....

hope that helps