A question for the veteran masters. I have a player playing a Dog Warrior on my campaign and he's asked me if he can self wound himself to transform into DogWarrior, as he instantly recovers all it's vigour. I know lore-wise Devil Dogs do this, but I'm struggling on how to play this into my games. People usually aren't too fond of selfmaiming. Have you come across this situation on your groups?
I've yet to run the game, but I expect someone to play a Dog Face at some point. If it's something that gets done in the lore then the character should feel no problems with it, it's natural for his people. If it's players that would feel uncomfortable with it happening (which I would totally understand) you could devise a subtle way for the Devil-Dog to pull it off. Like maybe a ring with a tiny blade on it that he can just slip around, cause the necessary wound and transform. Once it's established that he has the item, it could just be glossed over so the self-harm doesn't have to be mentioned. It's just understood. Or maybe I'm not understanding of what you mean by people usually aren't too fond of self-maiming and your struggle? I would need more detail in that case.
A physical trauma must be a really severe wound, but severe stress might easily be caused by some drug with a medical injector pistol... (In combat, I think both things come together: the pain from the wound while being in a fight-or-flight situation causes the transformation.)
Ah so a serious wound, not just anything that hurts. Still, the DM can do whatever they want. If it's better for the table that the wounding glossed over, that's the right course. Better than just not allowing something outright.
Looks like your player doesn't really realize what a wound is. It's not only about a small cut or something, it is severe harm. I don't stop the one Dogwarrior player in my campaign from using the wound thing as a last resort effort. It only happened once, though, as the player instantly recognized that the negative effects of a wound by far outdo the positive effects of full vigour.
Severe stress, like jumping out of an airplane, also triggers the transformation. See Margot and Duroc, Mirage-5.
Well, it happened, almost. My first player to get his character squared away almost went with a dog warrior, but decided on a Wulver in the end. A Wulver, with the Aleph faction, and might be the most educated (education and science at 3 and 2) shock trooper around. Go figure. Won't have to worry about transformations, just blood fury, but I already decided it'll be called nerd rage.