[Angle]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Most Horizontal creatures have No Fine Manipulators.

Hmm, that's a good point. So maybe it applies in this case? Slivers are basically snakes with an additional taloned limb. They move by slithering, with their heads held semi-upright and their limbs used for balance. They don't have any feet to kick with, though I guess they can slap people with their tails? Yeah, okay, I guess everything on it applies to them. They would take the -1 to damage per die when tail slapping, and would move at half speed if they were using their claws to hold something, and would need to stop to do anything more complicated, like attack. Though I might allow them to do full move and also act, with a successful DX check, maybe? I mean, it should be possible, just not easy.

What about success rolls? Does anyone have any advice on how to manage those? Right now I'm leaning towards just rolling against the average skill of the group, with an administration roll by the queen as a complementary roll (The usual -2, -1, +1, or +2 depending on failure or success).

Edit: Wait, hold up. Maybe I should just do the monthly actions like job rolls? And have them deliver their value in goods and services. I can even take the occupations straight from Low tech 3, page 45. Just use the average skill of the group, and multiply times the numbers in the group.

Edit Edit: Lets try an example. So I have 20 Slivers gathering food, as per the gatherer occupation, with Area Knowledge 12 and Survival 12. So I roll against a 12, and get 10, margin of success 2. That gets me $400, +20%, so $480, * 20, or $9600 in gathered food. If slivers are living at an effective status of -1, then that would have them consuming $300 each, allowing me to support 32 slivers off those 20. That seems pretty reasonable. :/

Edit Edit Edit: It does raise some questions, though. Mainly, these creatures aren't human, so they're needs and desires would vary greatly, thus changing their cost of living. Also, I'm not sure how status and cost of living would work with them. The hive leader, for example, should probably be Status 8 to the others, but should they have the cost of living that goes along with that? I don't think so. It does make sense that they would have a greater cost of living, given that they're SM +6, but I don't think they'd care for the gold and finery that humans tend to take as a sign of status. :/