Prosthetic Armor

[Kilmore]

I'm working on my first hero character, a villianess to give the party plenty of trouble. She's a fighter who has been through a world of hurt already. In fact, she does not have any arms or legs. Fortunately for her, her patron thinks that she is still valuable, and indeed may be improved upon. So he fixed her up with two suits that not only act as fully functional arms and legs, but has given her some additional abilities. One suit is a dark leather suit with worked in armor plating (5/5) that she can wear other clothes over, and the other is a heavy battle armor of about (12/12) or so.

Aside from the other benefits her armors give her, which I'm still working out, I just wanted to float this idea and see if it held water. According to the basic book, No Arms and Cannot Walk come to 45 points total. The suit is an Inobvious Inaccessable Focus for her "arms and legs" (and boosted strength , armor, and other powers), and the battle armor is an Obvious Inaccessable Focus. The suit is not "Independent" since it only works for her (and presumably any other female of similar build without arms or legs).

So I guess that offsetting the "No arms and legs" disadvantage is worth 45 points flat, adjusted by the focus costs, right? The suits are removable, and she may not be wearing either one during sleep, maintenence, baths, etc. and she may well be caught helpless by canny PC's.

[Captain Obvious]

If she has 45 points worth of Physical Disadvantage related to lack of limbs, then the cost to restore her to full functionality with the armor would cost 45 points less any Limitations, such as Focus, etc.

As far as Independent goes, it really doesn't matter if anyone else could use it. The Independent Limitation says that if it's lost or broken, she can't replace it without spending those points again. If her patron has the resources to provide her with another suit of prosthetic armor relatively quickly, then she shouldn't take Independent. If she'll be out of the picture for a while after getting up close and personal with the party's Longsword of Limb-Lopping, she should take Independent.

[Chris Goodwin]

So I guess that offsetting the "No arms and legs" disadvantage is worth 45 points flat, adjusted by the focus costs, right? The suits are removable, and she may not be wearing either one during sleep, maintenence, baths, etc. and she may well be caught helpless by canny PC's.

One school of thought would do it this way.

The other school of thought says that the frequency of the Disadvantages should be reduced by the armor. Technically they would be "No Arms Without Armor" and "No Legs Without Armor" for Infrequent and Fully Limiting, respectively.

[philnicau]

I wouldn't allow seperate disadvantages for No Arms and No Legs, this strikes me as simply milking extra points, also if the disadvantage is negated somewhat by prostetics then it should be reduced to only slightly limiting,
and remember if you take the inderpendant limitation you're basically saying to your GM, take these away from me, i won't mind loosing the points i have invested in them.

[Zed-F]

My vote would be "Quadraplegic without armour", Infrequent, Fully, for a total of 15 points of disadvantages. I hate having to spend points on powers to offset disadvantages; reducing the value of the disad seems much cleaner. I don't agree that it's slightly limiting, however; if she does lose the armour (or the use of it) for whatever reason, she really is a quadraplegic.

[Old Man]

I'd agree, you have to ask yourself how often your Disad is really a Disad. How often or how willing is she to be without her arms and legs?

For kicks throw in DNPC Squire/Lackey. Somebody has to help her into and out of the suit.

Overall it doesn't REALLY matter because she is an NPC herself.

[Kilmore]

I know the referee doesn't have to keep track of NPC points, but I'm getting in practice for making Hero characters. She certainly has lackeys. I'm settling for "Quadrapalegic without armor, infrequent, fully limiting: 15 points."