temporarily lowering IQ below 1

[Plane]

Against an animal with an IQ of 2 (like B457 Shark or B458 Snake) throwing 2 energy into Foolishness (M134) should lower them to IQ 0.

M137 "Mindlessness" for comparison discusses the effects of lowering a subject's IQ to 1, which seems to reflect someone who is no longer Sapient (below IQ 6)...

But since you need at least IQ 1 to be SENTIENT (per B15) would this basically mean you eliminate their self-awareness?

Since you need sentience to learn skills or have mental traits, would this mean that any skills/mental traits would be temporarily de-activated while at IQ 0? Like for example "Bad Temper" or "Brawling"?

But what actually happens. Can they make maneuvers at all? I assume they could at least continue to breathe (after all, plants aren't sentient and they still do photosynthesis) but I'm not sure how it would work with a shark since they need to actually swim to breathe.

Or with eating food... a venus flytrap can close its mouth so maybe a shark/snake down to IQ 0 could still eat if you put food in their mouths?

[Jefepato]

(Note: the following is just my best educated guess, and not something I can confirm precisely via the official rules.)

Examples of things with IQ 0 (per B15 as you noted) include plants and brainless clone bodies.

I'm not sure whether Foolishness is actually supposed to be able to reduce subjects to IQ 0, but I would venture that someone with IQ 0 is essentially comatose and helpless, totally incapable of taking voluntary actions.

I am honestly not sure about the shark swimming thing, but if I were GMing and the shark was somehow important to the PCs, I'd be inclined to be merciful. (I assume that even if they swim in their sleep their brain is normally involved in the process, but this isn't remotely my field.)

As for eating...well, I would point out that Venus flytraps don't need to actually chew and swallow their food -- they digest it pretty much where they trap it. Realistically, I think eating food normally would be a bit beyond the unfortunate IQ 0 victim. If someone really wanted to feed the poor snake and came up with a slightly plausible idea, though (feed it a liquid diet and try to stimulate it to swallow by reflex?), I'd probably be merciful as noted previously.

[Dustin]

Treating them as sleeping or comatose, but still functional at that level, seems fairest. For a shark, I would include being able to swim enough to breathe, and perhaps swallow reflexively if being nursed somehow.

[Balor Patch]

DFM2: Icky Goo allows IQ 0 Fungi, Jellies, Molds, and Slimes to function, with two of those being mobile menaces.

[vorpalvitto]

Mind Control spells like Foolishness work only on sapient creatures (IQ 6+) as per Magic p.133.
Now in case of a different ability that lowers a subjects IQ to 0, then the FAQ has a rule on what happens.

What does IQ 0, exactly, mean in game terms?
IQ 0 means you're a rutabaga. Per p. B15, at IQ 0, you're mindless and unable to act without somebody possessing you and operating you via remote control. You need at least IQ 1 to have a self and be able to perceive and act at all, which includes grunting and making gestures. You need at least IQ 6 to use tools and language – that is, to talk, wield weapons, etc. A human hit with -10 to IQ (making him IQ 0) is essentially a mindless clone body waiting to be possessed.

[whswhs]

Kromm and I discussed IQ 0 while I was working on Template Toolkit 2. There's established precedent that a cybershell that's not running any of the usual sorts of AI has IQ 0, and therefore Per 0. But it can still respond to stimuli that have a sufficiently high bonus to Per rolls; for example, a totally obvious stimulus with +10 to Per gives it a 50/50 chance of noticing. So TT2 adds a new zero-point feature, Insensate, which gives it Per 0 in all situations, or "you never get to make a Per roll for anything." Usable for rocks, vehicles without onboard computers, and so on.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Kromm and I discussed IQ 0 while I was working on Template Toolkit 2. There's established precedent that a cybershell that's not running any of the usual sorts of AI has IQ 0, and therefore Per 0. But it can still respond to stimuli that have a sufficiently high bonus to Per rolls; for example, a totally obvious stimulus with +10 to Per gives it a 50/50 chance of noticing. So TT2 adds a new zero-point feature, Insensate, which gives it Per 0 in all situations, or "you never get to make a Per roll for anything." Usable for rocks, vehicles without onboard computers, and so on.

How is Insensate a zero-point feature? Blindness [-50]; Deafness [-20]; No Sense of Smell/Taste [-5]; Numb [-20] totals -95 points, so what is balancing that out to bring it up to 0 points?

[coronatiger]

I think the idea is to have Insensate in addition to the disads you mentioned.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

I think the idea is to have Insensate in addition to the disads you mentioned.

No, it's not.

If you're working with a vehicle, instead of rolling for the vehicle's IQ or Per, you roll for the driver's IQ or Per. The driver is not blind; the vehicle has windows and/or closed-circuit video. The vehicle may even have radar, sonar, scanning senses, which the driver can use. What the vehicle lacks is not the physical sense organ embodied in radar, but the cognitive capacity to process it (since the driver is supplying that, and the vehicle has no "brain" in itself).

This is part of the same logic as the vehicle acting on the driver's turn, set by their Basic Speed; as its own Basic Move being independent of its (nonexistent) Basic Speed and the driver's Basic Speed; and as its maneuvers being based not on its DX but on the driver's control rolls (though it can have handling bonuses or penalties that are functionally bonuses or penalties to DX).

As for a rock, it seems to me that the issue is not that the rock is blind, but that it has no information processing that would enable it to process sense data in any way. Given that lack, its possession or nonpossession of sense organs is irrelevant, as it doesn't impose any further limitations on the rock. It's exactly like a dog, with IQ 4, not being able to take -6 points for Native Language (None).

It's a bit awkward, and I would rather have just said that if you have Per 0 you can never perceive anything, but we have a precedent of IQ 0 not imposing that limitation.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by whswhs

As for a rock, it seems to me that the issue is not that the rock is blind, but that it has no information processing that would enable it to process sense data in any way. Given that lack, its possession or nonpossession of sense organs is irrelevant, as it doesn't impose any further limitations on the rock.

This reasoning works just as well the other way:

As for a rock, it seems to me that the issue is not that the rock lacks the ability to process sense data, but that it has no sense organs. Given that lack, its possession or nonpossession of ability to process sense data is irrelevant, as it doesn't impose any further limitations on the rock.


In game terms, what's the mechanical difference between:

Blindness [-50]; Deafness [-20]; No Sense of Smell/Taste [-5]; Numb [-20] total -95

and

Insensate [0]

What justifies the 95 point difference? How do they differ in play?