How to handle characters which are clumsy on land?

[Sam Baughn]

A lot of animals can get about on land, but are much more agile in some other medium. A penguin is awkward on its feet, but can swim better than some fish. Bats are generally more manoeuvrable than birds in the air, but (with a few exceptions) are almost helpless on the ground.

No Legs (Semi Aquatic) is apparently suitable for seals, but only covers Move, not DX, DX-based skills, or Dodge. Also, penguins have legs, so it isn't an ideal fit for them. Is the answer just to take Amphibious, and then buy ground Move down a lot?

Would buying DX with 'only in water' (or 'only while flying') be OK? What kind of discount would that be? How to handle Basic Speed if you have DX which only applies sometimes?

No Legs (Aerial) gives you a ground Move of 0. Bats can move along the ground, but probably at less than one yard a second (with a few exceptions). But bats also have legs (or possibly they don't; Template Toolkit 2 implies they only have arms, which fits the grasping function of bat feet and their inability to walk on them). Would it be OK to say that bats have ground Move of 0 but can 'climb' horizontally at normal climbing speed? That seems about right for bat movement at a glance. Lame (Legless) reduces Move to 0 and presumably allows some kind of crawling (I guess belly crawling or rolling, which changes your speed to 1 regardless of your Move... but then we're back to Move 1 being too fast).

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

No Legs (Semi Aquatic) is apparently suitable for seals, but only covers Move, not DX, DX-based skills, or Dodge. Also, penguins have legs, so it isn't an ideal fit for them. Is the answer just to take Amphibious, and then buy ground Move down a lot?

Would buying DX with 'only in water' (or 'only while flying') be OK? What kind of discount would that be? How to handle Basic Speed if you have DX which only applies sometimes?

Access: Only in Water is a -30% Limitation. You could take lower DX and/or Speed in general and then buy it up to whatever with Only in Water.

[Anthony]

I'd try Amphibious (Side Effect: lame (Crippled Legs), -X move).

[AlexanderHowl]

Amphibious (Reliable, +10, +50%) [15] and Enhanced Move 1 (Water; Reliable, +10, +50%) [30] would work for very agile creature in water.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Amphibious (Reliable, +10, +50%) [15] and Enhanced Move 1 (Water; Reliable, +10, +50%) [30] would work for very agile creature in water.

You can't take reliable on things that don't have associated rolls to start with. The only roll that could theoretically apply to is Swimming, but amphibious is already auto-success on Swimming.

[AlexanderHowl]

In Powers, Reliable is treated the same as Talent, and Talent gives Amphibious and Enhanced Move (Water) bonuses to Aquabatics and Handling rolls.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Amphibious (Reliable, +10, +50%) [15] and Enhanced Move 1 (Water; Reliable, +10, +50%) [30] would work for very agile creature in water.

What is Reliable doing in those builds?

[AlexanderHowl]

It improves Aquabatics, Swimming, and control rolls (Powers, pp. 42 & 49).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Reliable is treated the same as Talent
Talent gives Amphibious and Enhanced Move (Water) bonuses to Aquabatics and Handling rolls.

There are probably some situations in powers where buying reliable enhancement on an ability like this ends up being a better deal than putting points in the skill...

Unless of course you want to swap bodies, because then your physical advantage (and any skills it benefits) doesn't follow along.

Or be a teacher