Changeling reworks- What is to be done?
Created by: icantthinkofanameritenow
So since my first round as a Changeling after the anti-monkeyman PR I made I've learned that the Changeling's main flaw is simple- it has very little in the way of advantages in a straight-up fight. Sure, its stings are dangerous and if it's caught you alone in maint you're done for. But if the ling can't reliably lure people away via RPing (assuming you can ever get someone to play along with that) or somehow abduct them while there's nobody watching (i.e. rarely if ever between the AI, security cameras, and the inevitable bystanders who will immediately call for Security even if the guy you're dragging off is incapable of it). it's still reduced to pseudo-extended due to the fact that its one main advantage (regenerative stasis) will be rendered irrelevant since the second someone knows you're a ling they'll destroy your body right away.
Thus, I would like to either port more aggressive powers from other servers or make some of my own. The arm blade from TG is the most obvious of these, since it's robust and solves the problem of "how am I going to kill these people when I don't have enough evolution points for death sting and lack good opportunities to kill stealthily?"
Other things we could consider is having the Extend Range power actually make the stings act like projectiles, or a bio-gun akin to the Hivehand capable of dealing toxin damage at the expense of not being able to use that limb and requiring chemicals to maintain it. The important thing is that they should have direct-killing functions along the lines of a Traitor's esword and revolver, and make Changeling be more like the Thing as opposed to a parapen-toting maint stalker that rarely does much genuine antagonizing.
Some people have suggested making it a team mode where each changeling can convert others into changelings, but I feel that this would make them go from boring to impossible to deal with. But if someone can explain how the lings created in this manner wouldn't be undefeatable and could be viably stopped, they are free to do so.