Cybernetic Implants

[Asperion]

OK - My wife (new to Hero) is looking for some help. She wishes to design a character which has very accute senses. Her question is how does she accomplish these things with cybernetics? Also what are the advantages and disadvantages of having them internal versus external? If they are internal how would one deal with such things as routine maintaince? One last question - she understands how it would work for sight, hearing, and touch. But what about taste and smell? i.e. such as telling if something has been tampered with.

[RobCRogers]

OK - My wife (new to Hero) is looking for some help. She wishes to design a character which has very accute senses. Her question is how does she accomplish these things with cybernetics? Also what are the advantages and disadvantages of having them internal versus external? If they are internal how would one deal with such things as routine maintaince? One last question - she understands how it would work for sight, hearing, and touch. But what about taste and smell? i.e. such as telling if something has been tampered with.

Here's a pretty cool writeup of how Cybernetics might work (from the www.globalguardians.com house rules):

Cybernetics (-¼): This Limitation represents a system of technological implants and replacements for biological organs within the body of the character. Instead of putting the man into the machine, as with the Battlesuit Limitation, Cybernetics means putting the machine into the man. The powers and abilities purchased with this Limitation have the same system failure chances as with Battlesuit (see above). Cybernetic implants are automatically inobvious and subcutaneous (meaning "hidden beneath the skin") unless the player decides that the character’s implants can be easily seen.

All primary characteristics purchased through this limitation must also take the -½ Limitation Does Not Affect Figured Characteristics. Multipowers, Elemental Controls, and Variable Power Pools count as single powers for the purposes of System Failure. Cybernetics cannot be taken on the same power as Battlesuit, Only In Hero Identity, or Focus.

New Cybernetic Options:

• Components Are Extremely Difficult To Repair or Replace (-¼): The character must undergo a complicated and possibly risky surgical procedure in order to repair or replace his damaged cybernetic systems.
  
• Components Are Impossible To Repair or Replace (-½): These cybernetic components are so difficult to get to inside his body that the character would be killed in the attempt to repair or replace them. The damaged power is permanently gone, and the points spent on it must be used for something else.
  

[bblackmoor]

OK - My wife (new to Hero) is looking for some help. She wishes to design a character which has very accute senses. Her question is how does she accomplish these things with cybernetics?

It depends on how she wants the cybernetics to affect her ability to use the power. At its simplest, the fact that her character's powers are cybernetic is handled like any other special effect, such as it being "magical", or caused by a "mutation": you say it's so, and it's so.

If the cybernetic devices have some kind of limitation due to the way they are implanted, or perhaps simply due to the way they are constructed, then you apply whatever Limitation seems appropriate. For example, if her character has a cybernetic eye which anyone could theoretically unplug and take away from her, that could be an Accessible or Inaccessible Focus, depending on how easy it is to take away. Similarly, if it's a Focus, it could either be Obvious or Inobvious, as she prefers.

But a cybernetic implant does not have to be a Focus. For example, she could buy an enhanced sense with the limitation that it costs Endurance to use, with the special effect that it's her cyberntic implant. Going further with that idea, she could have an Endurance Battery from which all of her cybernetic equipment is powered. And not a Focus in sight.

There's really no one best way -- or even several best ways -- to do it. It depends on how she envisions the character. There are so many different reasonable ways to represent "cybernetics" that the sky is really the limit.

If they are internal how would one deal with such things as routine maintaince?

One doesn't. She's welcome to role-play it, of course, just like a character with magic abilities might role-play researching new spells, or a gun-toting character might role-play cleaning her pistols between missions. But it's purely a role-playing consideration.

But what about taste and smell? i.e. such as telling if something has been tampered with.

Well, she can buy up the character's Perception roll with Enhanced Perception, and simply make a roll when she is trying to make that kind of determination. If she wants to be more exacting in her perceptions, she can buy additional modifiers on the sense, such as Analyze, or even buy a whole new sense entirely if there is something specific she wants to be able to detect. Have her check out the Enhanced Senses power in the book, read the examples given, and see what kind of ideas that sparks.

She can do just about anything she wants to do. Encourage her to be creative and have fun with it.