Only Breathe's Through Skin

[mayapuppies]

I have a race that breathes through their skin. They do not have lungs and thus cannot hold their breathe.

I'm looking for any talents or disadvantages that would come about because of this, as it stands, I'm having them not be able to swim and not wear clothing or armor.

I'm also wondering if this would be a single disadvantage or should I write each issue up as a separate one.

[Bloodstone]

This would not necessarily prevent them from swimming. Eels, amphibians and various worms breath through their skin. Frogs have simple lungs in addition to using their skin though.

They may need to live in a moist environment. Permeable skin means they will loose water and dehydrate quickly in a warm, dry environments.

They would be largely immune to choke holds and highly resistant to constriction. They may or may not be immune to strangle holds, as those holds works on a different biomechanical principles. They could still be smothered. HERO tends not to differentiate these sort of things though, treating most forms of choking attacks as pretty much equal.

Regardless, they would have a limited sort of Self-Contained breathing to stop various NND type attacks of the appropriate SFX.

Of course, if they can't control their breathing, they would have an extreme vulnerability to many gas attacks. Permeable skin will mean a similar vulnerability to various types of contact poisons and they can likely be cut easy.

With all that in mind, you probably have at least two or three disadvantages.

What exactly is this race supposed to be? Presumably they aren't warriors...

[mayapuppies]

They are a humanoid insect race that resemble Yellow Ants
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[Bloodstone]

...okay, but ant's don't actually breath directly through their exoskeletons.

Insects have breathing holes called spiracles.

[mayapuppies]

Yeah, but I'm not basing them that closely to real ants.

[Bloodstone]

That's cool, but depending on which way you went with it, some of my previous suggestions wouldn't necessarily be true...

[Ninja-Bear]

Star Frontiers had an alien that was a playable race-Vrusk I believe. And they only breathed through their abdomens, so they could swim, but it was difficult for them. They had to keep their butts in the air.

[Ternaugh]

One of the reasons that land animals tend to have lungs is that they provide a greater surface area for the exchange of gasses than breathing though skin would. Unless the world has an increased oxygen level, it might mean that the race of creatures that breathe through their skin would have difficulty with any strenuous activity. Perhaps, this means in game terms that they would have a lower REC and/or END, or couldn't use Pushing.

JoeG

[dmjalund]

either that or they hav an unsmooth skin with a very large surface area

[Ockham's Spoon]

I would buy them the Automaton power No Hit Locations, Only for choke holds (-2) for 3pts and give them a Physical Complication: Skin must be uncovered to breathe (Infrequent, Affects Greatly, 15pts).

[Bloodstone]

I would buy them the Automaton power No Hit Locations, Only for choke holds (-2) for 3pts

That's an interesting idea, though like I said, HERO doesn't actually differentiate between choke holds and strangles, so that may not work since those two types of holds both affect the same general hit location (the head/neck).

Unless mayapuppies wants to make them immune to strangles too (which would make things easier mechanically, but may not actually make sense).

[Ockham's Spoon]

Well that is an interesting point. I wrote "choke hold" but really meant any attack intended to cut off the air supply by restricting the windpipe. I don't know if strangle holds are mechanically different enough to warrant an exception. Sure they might impede the blood flow, but in the short term that is primarily important because the brain needs oxygen which they might be able to absorb through the skin on their heads (although I guess brains tend to be pretty oxygen-hungry organs so that might not be enough).

[Bloodstone]

Well that is an interesting point. I wrote "choke hold" but really meant any attack intended to cut off the air supply by restricting the windpipe. I don't know if strangle holds are mechanically different enough to warrant an exception. Sure they might impede the blood flow, but in the short term that is primarily important because the brain needs oxygen which they might be able to absorb through the skin on their heads (although I guess brains tend to be pretty oxygen-hungry organs so that might not be enough).

Well, lets break down how to choke someone out:

- smothering, which is covering the mouth and nose. This will almost certainly not work against someone that breathes through their skin (do they even have a conventional nose?), though they might have issues with being smothered if their body were adequately covered (for example, being pinned to the ground or partly buried in sand). The Limited No Hit Location build would probably work fine here. .

- choking is restricting the trachea with some sort of external or internal obstruction. This would have virtually no effect on someone that breathes through their skin. Lacking lungs they also presumably lack a windpipe (has it been established how the race speaks, since they lack lungs and thus cannot conventionally vocalize?) The Limited No Hit Location build would work here as well.

- strangles, AKA blood chokes, don't quite work the way people think they do, but ultimately have little to do with how a characters respiratory system works. Attacking the neck in this instance should still produce unconsciousness assuming the race has a similar circulatory/nervous systems as humans (and perhaps they do not). The Limited No Hit Location build would probably not be appropriate in this instance. There are also "body strangles", which somewhat relate to...

- constrictions, like bear hugs, body scissors and heavy pins prevent the subject from breathing by crushing the chest on the inhale. As they do not have lungs, this race may not be affected by this in the slightest. The Limited No Hit Location may or may not apply here, depending on interpretation of the limitation. For the record, this is not quite the same thing as what a constrictor snakes does, which also includes the body strangle aspect that I mentioned above.

But again, this is all probably overly technical hair splitting minutia for HERO System terms...

[Bolon]

On a bio mechanical sense, the lungs are required to support a brain large enough for higher functions. As ants who live in a contained environment underground, the air might be different enough or enriched enough to support this larger brain. What kind of issues are you looking at for this? Is it a creature or a humanoid?

[mayapuppies]

It's humanoid and we have the added advantage of a highly magic environment in the setting.