Breathing through skin

[GCMorris]

The ability to breathe through the skin (as some amphibious creatures can) would be life support but how many points?

[Hyper-Man]

Unless it also includes the ability breath underwater it would not be any additional points per se.  However, it would require defining what would 'choke' the character (having too much skin covered by something airtight for example).

 

HM

[Christopher]

Primarily it would make you immune to choke attacks on the neck.

It would not protect you from being drowned, gassed, hard vacuum, being burried or the like.

 

Possible builds:
Self Contained Breathing, with severe limitations.

Maybe extended breathing (breathing through skin is a "unusual evironment").

 

But this is one of those cases where the price should better be based on the actuall utility in the campaign. i.e., how likely chokehold is vs all the other ways to kill suffocate a person. But maybe you actually want to aim high for self contained breathing?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'd just call it 5 points to represent how difficult it is to cut off their air supply (can't just cover their mouth etc).  Not worth a lot, but its worth something.

[IndianaJoe3]

Life Support: Expanded Breathing (Can't Be Strangled) seems like the cleanest build.

[Tasha]

They may also want to take a complication 1.5x effect from Gas based attacks (or poison liquids when swimming). Because it sounds like they can't hold their breath.

[Armitage]

There's a similar power in the Body Control powers section of Champions Powers and UNTIL Superpowers Database II as Oxygenated Skin.

 

"The character doesn’t breathe just through his mouth and nose — he can take in enough oxygen to keep himself alive through his skin. This makes it difficult to choke, suffocate, or strangle him."

Life Support (Self-Contained Breathing), Only To Protect Against Choking/Suffocation/Strangulation Attacks (-1).

 

(They also include Inherent.)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Life Support: Expanded Breathing (Can't Be Strangled) seems like the cleanest build.

 

That's the build I had in mind yeah.  Simple, straight forward.

[bigdamnhero]

Life Support: Expanded Breathing (Can't Be Strangled) seems like the cleanest build.

This. I might even give a price discount depending on how often that's likely to come up in the campaign.

 

Life Support (Self-Contained Breathing), Only To Protect Against Choking/Suffocation/Strangulation Attacks (-1).

Not to argue with RAW, but "Self-Contained Breathing, Only in ____" is pretty much the definition of Expanded Breathing. (The cost even works out the same.) So I'm not sure why they didn't just go with that?

 

Edit: Interesting point about Inherent. Per RAW LS is Persistent by default, but I realize I tend to treat it as Inherent anyway unless it's bought as a Focus or something?

[Christopher]

This. I might even give a price discount depending on how often that's likely to come up in the campaign.

 

Not to argue with RAW, but "Self-Contained Breathing, Only in ____" is pretty much the definition of Expanded Breathing. (The cost even works out the same.) So I'm not sure why they didn't just go with that?

 

Edit: Interesting point about Inherent. Per RAW LS is Persistent by default, but I realize I tend to treat it as Inherent anyway unless it's bought as a Focus or something?

Isn't Inherent only affecting Adjustment Powers? And is LS not immune to adjustment Powers? Need to check it.

[Christopher]

While looking for the Drain part, this little piece I stumbeled over under toolkitting LS:
"[...]you can add Safe Environments to
reflect common conditions in the campaign.
For example, in a Star Hero game, characters
might ofen get exposed to pulson energy felds
that can have negative effects on living tissue.
Te GM could make Pulson Fields a type of
Safe Environment, thus making it easy for
characters to buy protective suits"

Choke effectively works like a NND. Being chocked is effectively a "hostile environment".

Generally I still think the extended Breathing (through Skin) is the easiest approach, but it still worth mentioning I think.

 

Wich reminds me of the HSMA:

For Martial Arts purposes, Choke is defined as a NND. In effect it is a continous variation of Nerve Strike.

HSMA 247 goes a bit further an expands the NND defenses you can use for a Nerve Strike. And thus delves into defenses agaisnt Chokehold by coincidence:
"NND 2: Rigid Resistant PD on the neck or not
having to breathe: Tis is the defense for Choke
Holds and other NND strikes which cut off the
target’s ability to breathe. Te general comments
about defenses appropriate for NND(1) apply here
as well."

Maybe LS: Being Chocked is a valid LS build after all?

 

Regarding Drain and LS:
I think it is drainable by default. It is only marked as persistent Standart Power.

[Duke Bushido]

This is one of those things I'd leave up to a conversation between player and GM.  Is presented, if the player has a drawback or off-setting negative (as Tasha suggested above), I really think I'd likely cost it a 0.

 

"I can't be choked, but I can't hold my breath, either."

 

or 

 

"I can't be choked so long as thirty percent of my body is exposed to the air."

 

Either of those would be enough, unless of course you're playing "Strangler HERO" or something like that were being throttled is far more common than it ought to be.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Not to argue with RAW, but "Self-Contained Breathing, Only in ____" is pretty much the definition of Expanded Breathing. 

 

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking when I read that -- same cost, too.

[Christopher]

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking when I read that -- same cost, too.

It was among the possible builds I proposed too.

 

However I just learned something:

Apparently the Poster GCMorris has been using 4E this whole time without telling us. We all asumed he was using 6E I guess.

As my oldest resouce is one revised 5E corebook, I can not even say if Life Support in that form existed back then or how the rules were different on such a detail level.

[bigdamnhero]

Isn't Inherent only affecting Adjustment Powers? And is LS not immune to adjustment Powers? Need to check it.

I can't find anything saying LS is immune to Adjustment Powers. It's Standard Persistent.

 

It Apparently the Poster GCMorris has been using 4E this whole time without telling us. We all asumed he was using 6E I guess.

As my oldest resouce is one revised 5E corebook, I can not even say if Life Support in that form existed back then or how the rules were different on such a detail level.

Ah, good catch. And a good excuse to pull my 4ed book off the back shelf! Life Support in 4e was Special rather than Standard, but was still Persistent. 4e doesn't specifically use the terminology "Expanded Breathing" but "breathe in an unusual environment" is 5 points.

 

However, Inherent wasn't a thing in 4e so I think you can ignore that part.

 

GCMorris: nothing wrong with using older editions - many of us do - but it is helpful to let us know that up front.

[Sean Waters]

Just a point of order, but being able to breathe through your skin would not necessarily make you immune to strangulation: most strangulation attacks put pressure on the jugular and restrict blood flow, which is what causes you to pass out quickly and then die.  The inability to breathe is a side effect, and an unpleasant one, but not usually the one you need to worry about - if you think about it you can hold your breath for a minute or more, and that is forever in Hero combat.  Certainly all martial arts choke holds concentrate on restricting blood flow.

 

Obviously the head has skin on it, but that is not going to help if there is no blood flow.

 

I would probably just assume that any minor advantage that accrued would be balanced by minor disadvantages.  What it would mean, for example, is that you could not use a scuba mask: you'd need a full body suit. Make it a zero point complication.

 

EDIT: Sorry - Limitation - we're in 4e!

[Christopher]

Just a point of order, but being able to breathe through your skin would not necessarily make you immune to strangulation: most strangulation attacks put pressure on the jugular and restrict blood flow, which is what causes you to pass out quickly and then die.  The inability to breathe is a side effect, and an unpleasant one, but not usually the one you need to worry about - if you think about it you can hold your breath for a minute or more, and that is forever in Hero combat.  Certainly all martial arts choke holds concentrate on restricting blood flow.

 

Obviously the head has skin on it, but that is not going to help if there is no blood flow.

 

I would probably just assume that any minor advantage that accrued would be balanced by minor disadvantages.  What it would mean, for example, is that you could not use a scuba mask: you'd need a full body suit. Make it a zero point complication.

While a good point, I think we can ignore it.

As the HSMA text I quouted said, being immune to breathing makes you immune to a chockehold. Having unusual bloodflow is not mentioned.

 

Maybe we have to slightly redefine the power or expand it:

Realistically you would need a totally different circularoty system with that "skin lung". Asuming that those lines to your brain are also more strangulation resistant is not a far fetch in superheroics.

[Sean Waters]

While a good point, I think we can ignore it.

As the HSMA text I quouted said, being immune to breathing makes you immune to a chockehold. Having unusual bloodflow is not mentioned.

 

Maybe we have to slightly redefine the power or expand it:

Realistically you would need a totally different circularoty system with that "skin lung". Asuming that those lines to your brain are also more strangulation resistant is not a far fetch in superheroics.

 

 

 

The point was more that being able to breathe through your skin would not necessarily change anything about how the character operated in terms of being choked i.e no powers necessary.  The advantages and limitations of breathing through your skin rather than using lungs probably balance out: you could lie face down in a pool of water without drowning but would probably have a hard time holding their breath to avoid poison gas as it would be difficult to prevent the skin surface being touched by the gas.

 

Frogs, for example, famously 'breathe' through their skin.  Well, they can absorb oxygen through their skin, but they still have lungs, and need them - they can not only breathe through their skin if they are doing anything strenuous.  Frogs can remain underwater absorbing oxygen through their skin, but they can only do that because they are small and they have a have a relatively high surface area to volume ratio.  If you wanted a 'biologically realistic' character who could breathe through their skin they would have to be constantly moist and very, very wrinkly.  If you did go for that though, a normal circulatory system would work fine.  All the lungs are are moist wrinkly skin on the inside.

 

If you want to use 'can breathe through skin' as a justification for being unable to be choked, that is fine, and you can build it as LS: Does not need to breathe (Limitation: only to avoid choking damage) Special Effect: Breathes through skin.

 

Like I say, that would not actually explain why you don't take choking damage: the SFX would have to be that you did not have a normal circulatory system and did not breathe through your skin.

 

The original post asked: "The ability to breathe through the skin (as some amphibious creatures can) would be life support but how many points? "

 

​I'd say, well, first even those that breathe through their skin use lungs or similar, unless they are really really small, but I'd probably not require a build or a cost.  You would get no substantial advantage or limitation, there are some situations where it would be helpful, others where it would not, but they would not come up much.  I imagine that, like the frog, the character would also have lungs.  If the character is supposed to be able to breathe underwater, what they are then buying is LS: Breathe underwater.

 

If you have that, you still have to breathe and you can still be choked; you are not 'immune to breathing', it is just that you can breathe - and be choked - both above and below the water.  You can, for example, choke frogs (see attached .jpg)

[eepjr24]

So you'd acutally need to define choking better. When people lose consciousness from being choked, it can be from one of two things. The first is called strangulation, which is the collapse of the windpipe, causing a lack of air to the lungs. I think this is the method you are probably talking about. The second involves a choke hold or other maneuver which applies pressure to the neck without collapsing the windpipe. There are competing explanations as to why this causes blackouts, either through constriction of the arteries and other blood vessels that supply the brain or through pressure on the "sensors" for high blood pressure which cause a dilation of the blood vessels in the brain, which when combined with a lack of high pressure induces ischemia.

 

With breathing through skin you would likely be immune to the first but likely not be immune to the second. To be immune to the second you would have to not require blood flow to the brain, have a different physiological method for oxygen delivery or something of that nature.

 

- E

[Christopher]

So you'd acutally need to define choking better. When people lose consciousness from being choked, it can be from one of two things. The first is called strangulation, which is the collapse of the windpipe, causing a lack of air to the lungs. I think this is the method you are probably talking about. The second involves a choke hold or other maneuver which applies pressure to the neck without collapsing the windpipe. There are competing explanations as to why this causes blackouts, either through constriction of the arteries and other blood vessels that supply the brain or through pressure on the "sensors" for high blood pressure which cause a dilation of the blood vessels in the brain, which when combined with a lack of high pressure induces ischemia.

 

With breathing through skin you would likely be immune to the first but likely not be immune to the second. To be immune to the second you would have to not require blood flow to the brain, have a different physiological method for oxygen delivery or something of that nature.

 

- E

I give it a 95% that this thread was for the Posters attempt to reinvent this character:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94017-tongueleaping-powers/

So while not mentioned, I asumed superheroic settings mostly. That is why I sugested just expanding this ability to include "unusual circulatory system" so it works against both special effects for being choked.

 

Not even a book like HSMA (wich is firmer tied to the Heroic Side) delves into the difference between "crushing the Windpipe" and "stopping the Bloodflow". There is one choke Maneuver, one type of Choke NND to defend against.

 

 

The original post asked: "The ability to breathe through the skin (as some amphibious creatures can) would be life support but how many points? "

As so often that is a special effect that can describe many game effects. So we went for likely wanted game effects and posted builds for those.

[GCMorris]

I give it a 95% that this thread was for the Posters attempt to reinvent this character:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94017-tongueleaping-powers/

So while not mentioned, I asumed superheroic settings mostly. That is why I sugested just expanding this ability to include "unusual circulatory system" so it works against both special effects for being choked.

 

Not even a book like HSMA (wich is firmer tied to the Heroic Side) delves into the difference between "crushing the Windpipe" and "stopping the Bloodflow". There is one choke Maneuver, one type of Choke NND to defend against.

 

 

As so often that is a special effect that can describe many game effects. So we went for likely wanted game effects and posted builds for those.

Yes, that was me. I'm creating a race of amphibians humanoids and was using Toad as a template.

[InfiniteKarma]

So you'd acutally need to define choking better. When people lose consciousness from being choked, it can be from one of two things. The first is called strangulation, which is the collapse of the windpipe, causing a lack of air to the lungs. I think this is the method you are probably talking about. The second involves a choke hold or other maneuver which applies pressure to the neck without collapsing the windpipe. There are competing explanations as to why this causes blackouts, either through constriction of the arteries and other blood vessels that supply the brain or through pressure on the "sensors" for high blood pressure which cause a dilation of the blood vessels in the brain, which when combined with a lack of high pressure induces ischemia.

 

With breathing through skin you would likely be immune to the first but likely not be immune to the second. To be immune to the second you would have to not require blood flow to the brain, have a different physiological method for oxygen delivery or something of that nature.

 

- E

 

If it helps, in real life, cutting off the air supply takes a long time (30 seconds to a minute) to cause unconsciousness, the same as someone holding their breath, which is what expanded breathing is comparable to rules-wise. Cutting off the blood supply causes unconsciousness in a handful of seconds, which the NND chokeholds would have to be, rules-wise, to be relevant in a typical combat.

 

The skin effect described here doesn't necessarily need to prevent the second scenario (which would cost more points, IMO) to be useful in the first.

[Christopher]

Yes, that was me. I'm creating a race of amphibians humanoids and was using Toad as a template.

If they are Monarchic, I guess the King/Queen has a lot of Toadies

 

Since this is for a whole species, consider having lesser and better versions of every natural power.

The better version can be left to higher Level NPC's (super level), while all the mooks have the lesser level.

[Ninja-Bear]

Sean waters about choking. The common usage in martial arts circles is chokes block air and strangulation cuts blood flow. You can be strangled and still breathe.