Quadriplegia and cybernetics?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Quadriplegia and cybernetics?

 

Not taking STUN for having a Foci hit is no more of an Advantage than buying a EB as a FOCI in a superhero campaign and not taking STUN when it is shot. Its just an ancillary effect.

 

I am trying quite hard to find some middle ground here. Apart from my comment about the limitation on the pool for changing limbs, there is nothing wrong with the build. My experince of players with cyberlimbs though is that you have to be careful that your expectations and theirs are in accord. It is all too easy for that sort of build to be abused, albeit often unintentionally, far more than, say, the same set of powers built through an armour focus. It is all about perception.

 

I DO appreciate that focus is a limitation above and beyond having it taken away, and I do appreciate that it is a limitation in the power build outlined at the start of this post. What I have not been making very clear is that IMO, focus (limbs) can almost be used as a sort of PC automaton construct, if you purchase cyberlimbs with high defences, they are never going to be damaged except by specific focus killer powers. I don't know about you but I do not like powers built as '1 pip killing, quadruple penetrating'. If someone wants to kill a focus use a main attack power or buy dispel, like the rules say. Again the instant build is not in any way abusive as far as focus goes - small powers, easily KO'd by a EMP dispel BUT - and this may bear some discussion - all foci are not equal. IF you buy defences and even power defence through a focus it makes it far more difficult to effect in combat. Focii with a lot of powers in them are far less vulnerable than focii with a few powers, even if they do not contain defences, and that is leaving aside the whole question of unbreakable foci (what were they thinking?).

 

In fact I would think that the problem with the current build is that the limbs are TOO easy to destroy. I doubt whether the character is going to want to spend every other session hopping, limping or dragging themselves around the battlefield. In this instance I would be inclined to leave the focus limitation out as too limiting.

 

I do get your point about superheroes not generally using hit loactions but foci being targettable (I'm not JUST being obtuse ), but I'm confident a smart player can work round that a good part of the time.

 

Right back to the start then: can we build cyberlimbs then take a quadraplegic limitation with the points effectively discounted by focus (so you actually get less points). Well, yes you can but I think there are problems:

 

Quadraplegic - just looking at the physical limitation disadvantage - would be worth 45 points: Unable to walk (frequent, fully, 20 points) and No arms (all the time, fully, 25 points)

 

Now if you buy the abilities back through focus the costs would be (assuming OIF) 13 and 17, or 30 points.

 

What this means is that you have gained (net) 15 points of disadvantages, used up most of the available points in physical limitation AND spent 30 character points, so (assuming a 350 point build) you now have 320 points to play with.

 

I think you'd be better just reducing the frequency of the limitation as you have cyberlimbs in place most of the time (buy both back to 'infrequently') and you then have 30 points of disadvantages and no character points used up, and still 20 more points of disads you can slot into physical limitation if you want to.

 

This also leaves discretion with the GM as to whether, when a limb is damaged, you can still use it for 'normal' tasks, even if the powers in it are destroyed.

 

As to the suggestion that you buy down running/swimming/leaping and buy it back up in the MP, I think that is probably a good idea, as it makes the limbs that bit sturdier, and able to resist damage, and the more powers in a focus, the more hits it takes to completely disable.

 

Here's a question for you though: if you buy 'no legs' and get the disadvantage points, what IS the disadvantage? Well, it makes you a bit shorter, and stops you running and leaping and slows down your swimming, and should seriously effect your melee CV and some DEX based tasks. If you have all those things bought back to zero anyway, what is the actual physical limitation for 'no legs'?

[DataPacRat]

Re: Quadriplegia and cybernetics?

 

Goodness; I go away for a weekend, and when I come back, find that there's actually been some decent discussion going on in the thread I started.

 

It may interest some readers of this thread to note that, since I wrote up the first version of the character sheet for "Bunny, the Modular Superheroine", one line under Disadvantages has always read:

[15] Physical Limitation: Quadriplegic (would be worth 45 if she lacked her cybernetics), Infrequently, Fully

 

My GM has expressed a few reservations about buying a 'disadvantage-nullifier' as an actual Power, so simply having the Disad as Infrequently has always been the solution here.

 

Yes, Bunny's limbs are more detachable than ordinary limbs. It's recently been mentioned that she prefers to sleep limbless, and that she often takes them off in the bath. And, if she's stuck in the Evil Gooper's lime jello Entangle trap, he can tug off a pair of limbs each Turn. (Hasn't happened yet, but the game hasn't been running all that long.) One of her other powers is Invisibility with Camouflage, defined as colour-changing fur; given that it works even when she's not wearing arms, I've described her shoulders as being completely covered with fur, as are the limbs themselves (eg, no obvious seams); I haven't explicitly specified it yet, but I'm guessing that the limbs are held in place with a combination of gecko-like-settae and some careful control of EM fields (ie, magnets). (Very close to a 'push button to detach' mechanism, as suggested above.)

 

(Another player is running a shapeshifter, and once we get some experience to spend, I'm going to suggest that the shifter work on getting the 'power trick' of connecting to Bunny's cybernetic interfaces...)

 

I've been fully playing out the 'difficult to change slots' Limitation. Bunny keeps a selection of her limbs at home, and at her 'base' (really just a U-Stor-It...), but once she's out on patrol, then unless she's specifically packed her mermaid tail in the car trunk, or stuck her telescoping arms in a backpack, she doesn't get to change which slots she's picked until she goes back to home/base/wherever.

 

 

At the moment, Bunny has no special defenses on any limbs, nor is it likely I'm going to be able to convince the GM to let me rewrite the sheet to include some. (A pair of arm-wings she's kept in storage because she's afraid they won't keep her from falling, sure. Throwing rPD/rED in the Multipower pool to avoid the negatives of Focus hits, nopenope.)

[DataPacRat]

Re: Quadriplegia and cybernetics?

 

Here's a question for you though: if you buy 'no legs' and get the disadvantage points, what IS the disadvantage? Well, it makes you a bit shorter, and stops you running and leaping and slows down your swimming, and should seriously effect your melee CV and some DEX based tasks. If you have all those things bought back to zero anyway, what is the actual physical limitation for 'no legs'?

 

Welp, for one, I'm only specifically buying back Movement, not DEX or CV. Second, yes, 'shorter'. Third, it counts as a 'Distinctive Features' - I bet that if she tried, Bunny could get handicapped plates for her car.

 

Or, let's look at it another way. My copy of Fifth Edition lists, under Physical Limits, 'Bad Leg' as an example. It also notes that a character with 'Bad Leg' might want to buy back some Movement; the "related effects on a character which give him further Character Points" are seperate from the Physical Limitation itself. What's important is "how often, and to what extend the problem hinders or impairs the character". With Bunny's cybernetics, being legless occurs Infrequently instead of All the Time; however, when it does occur, it's Fully Impairing (as listed in the sidebar, as 'Unable to Walk').

 

 

... Then again, I could be wrong.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Quadriplegia and cybernetics?

 

Wrote up a system of Cybernetics for a Dark Champions / Cyberpunk setting here:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/metacyber/MetaCyberCharacters_BodyTech_Cybernetics.shtml