[Powers] Leech and nonsapient victims

[Baldo]

Leech "only affects living beings", but Gurps Powers says nothing about the SAPIENCE of your victims.
Can psionic/magic/whatever Leech and its various enhancements affect normal animals, plants and/or anything alive with a IQ score of 5 or less?
On a side note, if Leech "only affects SAPIENT living beings", the Morph ability of the Vampirism power (GURPS Powers p.135) needs a "Sapient Forms Only" limitation, but I can't decide the price (-10% or -20%?), any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Bruno]

Leech affects living things. Id doesn't say anything about their brains because there's no restriction based on brains unless you LIMIT it to such. With a limitation :)

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Baldo

Can psionic/magic/whatever Leech and its various enhancements affect normal animals, plants and/or anything alive with a IQ score of 5 or less?

Rules-as-written, Leech works on anything the referee defines as "alive".

Rules-as-intended, I do believe Kromm has posted something about it being intended to work on targets with IQ 1 or higher and that if we wanted it to work on IQ 0 targets we could flip that as a zero-cost feature (which stops it from working on IQ 1+ targets) or a +100% modifier (which lets it work on both). I vaguely recall something about a modifier to make it work on non-living targets instead / as well ...

I'd suggest searching the forums.

Originally Posted by Baldo

On a side note, if Leech "only affects SAPIENT living beings", the Morph ability of the Vampirism power (GURPS Powers p.135) needs a "Sapient Forms Only" limitation, but I can't decide the price (-10% or -20%?), any suggestions?

I'd price that as a -20% Accessibility modifier.

[Flyndaran]

I would say greater than -20% as while sapients are rather common, it's much harder to hunt secretly. The world is full of trees with more than enough hit points to keep a plant-pire happy.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Rules-as-written, Leech works on anything the referee defines as "alive".

Correct.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Rules-as-intended, I do believe Kromm has posted something about it being intended to work on targets with IQ 1 or higher and that if we wanted it to work on IQ 0 targets we could flip that as a zero-cost feature (which stops it from working on IQ 1+ targets) or a +100% modifier (which lets it work on both). I vaguely recall something about a modifier to make it work on non-living targets instead / as well ...

Correct:

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I had asked:

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery
Hi Sean, A point was brought up in the Help creating life-draining touch ability? thread, that the basic Leech ability allowed for draining HP from plants. The text does seem to support this, but it feels overpowered to me that a non-limited leech can just go suck a tree for healing, without having to worry about victims that might fight back. Is that really supposed to be the idea?

Followed up by:

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery
Would a variant Leech(Plants), like the mentioned Leech(Mechanical), be a valid extension of the rules?

Sentience appearing to be the main determinant, but once you branch into nonsentience, it looks like categories become necessary. I would rather keep such stuff away from PCs, as a general rule, but I am conservative that way. I cannot think of many examples of Leech being used on non-sentients.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I would say greater than -20% as while sapients are rather common, it's much harder to hunt secretly. The world is full of trees with more than enough hit points to keep a plant-pire happy.

much more importantly, there are much larger ethical issues: feeding off of cattle gets you labeled a theif at the very worst, feeding off of people gets you labeled as a monster.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by ericthered

much more importantly, there are much larger ethical issues: feeding off of cattle gets you labeled a theif at the very worst, feeding off of people gets you labeled as a monster.

Add Steals Other Score: FP and suddenly you're just a friendly neighbourhood daemon.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

much more importantly, there are much larger ethical issues: feeding off of cattle gets you labeled a theif at the very worst, feeding off of people gets you labeled as a monster.

Now a days, people keep a look out for missing pets as in the real world it can be a sign of up and coming serial killers.

[Baldo]

Thanks for all the replies, if Leech works fine even with nonsapient animals, my character is going to add a new quirk: Loves draining cats for sport.

Still, it sounds weird Steal Youth can give you eternal youth by draining the occasional cat...

[Fwibos]

Originally Posted by Baldo

Thanks for all the replies, if Leech works fine even with nonsapient animals, my character is going to add a new quirk: Loves draining cats for sport.

Still, it sounds weird Steal Youth can give you eternal youth by draining the occasional cat...

Weird...or weird-awesome?

It's dangerous to drain cats alone! Take THIS!