One of the players in my group posed an interesting question to me earlier today; and I couldn't find a clear solution (though we did find a logical one)
How, exactly, are the limbs numbered on a synthmorph?
Anthromorphs like the Case and Steel Morph don't list any "extra limbs" in their stock Enhancements or under Morph Advantages.
Nonhumanoid synthmorphs like the Arachnoid, Reaper, Cetus and Fenrir list what appears to be their total number of limbs as "Extra Limbs" in the stock Enhancements and Morph Advantages.
So; as written: either the Case and Steel come as quadruple amputees (well, it is a Case. You get what you pay for), or being humanoid gives you four free limbs. Common sense, obviously says that it's just the authors' way of clearly stating the total number of limbs for nonhumanoid morphs. But then, you've got to wonder what Hoyden engineer thought it would be a good idea to load the egos of six soldiers into a big walking tank with no ability to manipulate the world around them during their off-hours except to kick things or club them with a gun barrel.
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A handy question
Thu, 2013-05-30 22:30
#1
Trinary
A handy question
Thu, 2013-05-30 23:08
#2
Decivre
The extra limbs feat really
The extra limbs feat really only deals with arms. You can assume something has legs if one of its movement forms is "walk", but otherwise you don't need to necessarily assume. But extra limbs will tell you if it has more than two manipulator arms.
It would admittedly be nice to know which synthmorphs have no manipulators (I believe the dragonfly is one such synthmorph).
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Fri, 2013-05-31 03:56
#3
Armoured
The Kite doesn't list or
The Kite doesn't list or describe any arms either. Which makes sense for a hovering drone, I suppose. Though personally I would add a couple of extra-limb tentacles to it.
I have been wondering about a related question though; if you add a limb to a limbless morph, does that count as a "off-hand", applying -20 to actions with it, as it is beyond what the morph had originally? Or can you designate any of your available limbs your "primary" at a time, and only ignore that penalty (like an Octomorph does, as far as I can tell)?
Fri, 2013-05-31 04:52
#4
Decivre
Armoured wrote:The Kite doesn
I generally allow my players to always assume they can choose their own primary hand, and only restrict that when, say, I decide their primary hand was injured via damage.
It's way less stressing than occasionally asking "wait, are you using your right or left hand?"
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Fri, 2013-05-31 07:27
#5
Armoured
Hand/tentacle preference
After a quick check of the rules, there doesn't seem to be anything specifying handedness preferences. This makes sense to me, as a AGI or octopus uplift isn't going to have any preference, so inflicting a oddity of modern humanity on other tranhumans seems unfair to me.
As written, there is no difference between your limbs. If you want to use more than one at a time to attack, you start taking the -20 to attack, unless you have the Ambidexterous trait, which can be taken repeatedly. I realize that I've just answered my question, though. :)
Fri, 2013-05-31 18:34
#6
DivineWrath
Many RPGs sit on the extreme
Many RPGs sit on the extreme side of things. Some RPGs I've read focus excruciating detail on the gear of ships, robots, and other stuff. I've read other RPGs that only briefly mentions what a device is supposed to. Most RPGs seem to fit somewhere in between those 2 extremes.
Eclipse Phase happens to focus on the augmentations you can get for your morphs, not on the looks of your morph. Whether or not your morph happens to include a pair or arms legs, arms, eyes, a nose, or a set of reproductive organs (functional or otherwise) is often not mentioned by the "stats".
I would reason that all morphs are humanoid and are anatomically correct unless you have reason to think otherwise. Your typical synthmorph doesn't look quite human even if it is human shaped (unless they have something like the "Synthetic Mask" augmentation). More exotic morphs like Octomorphs, Reapers, or Scurriers definitely don't look human. I need to do some further checking to see a pattern, but I think its a good idea to make a GM call on this matter.
I did some other checking, and some morphs are considered exotic, so anyone resleeving into one will suffer a -30 mod to Alienation and Integration tests. That should raise a few red flags as to whether or not a morph needs a GM call.
Fri, 2013-05-31 19:24
#7
DivineWrath
I did some further checking
I did some further checking in the Core Rulebook. From what I've seen, any morph that is supposed to be humanoid in shape doesn't mention extra limbs or how many limbs a morph has. A morph that isn't humanoid tends to mention the manipulator setup in their descriptions though.
The description for the Novacrab (Core Rulebook, p. 142) mentions in its description that it has a set of dexterous manipulator digits on its 5th set of legs. It mentions in the advantages that it has 10 legs.
The description for the Arachnoid (Core Rulebook, p. 143) can extend or retract manipulator claws on its arm/legs. It mentions under enhancements that it has 10 arms/legs.
The description for the Dragonfly (Core Rulebook, p. 144) says it has multiple wings and manipulator arms. No special mention under enhancements or advantages of additional arms or legs.
The description for the Reaper (Core Rulebook, p. 144) says it has 4 legs/manipulator arms. It mentions these additional limbs under both enhancements and advantages.
The description for the Swarmaniod (Core Rulebook, p. 144) says it has difficulty in manipulating its environment. It does not mention any limbs or the lack of under enhancements or advantages.
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This seems to be inconsistent. I need to look up what the other books say, and think about this more.