Stating out an outfit of sentient clothing

[oneofmanynameless]

Alright, so... a player character got their intelligence transferred to their clothing while their body is destroyed. They are now a sapient outfit. The clothing includes boots, jeans, a t-shirt, a denim jacket, appropriate underwear (female character). It now falls to me to build their new "racial template" and I admit I'm a bit lost. I've decided that I want the "outfit" to move around as though it was being worn by an invisible person (I'm giving it her basic lifting and striking strength.)

Please, please help me. How do I build this!?! How many HP should it have? What traits does it need to have? What is this thing!?!

[ericthered]

Can it move in ways other than if the invisible person where there?

If I Folded up the clothes and put them in a drawer, would it be able to get out? If not, is the character dead, or just disabled until someone straitens them out?

If I stabbed her through the "Heart" with a spear, what would happen?

Does she still need sleep?

Can she thread herself under a door?

All these questions are VERY important for coming up with actual gurps statistics. What you described could be mostly cosmetic or it could be a huge source of abilities.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Can it move in ways other than if the invisible person where there?

Maybe it would be better to think of it as clothing animated with animating TK. It can move under it's own power in any way clothing could move, plus the ability to take a "human form"... not sure if that answers the question.

Originally Posted by ericthered

If I Folded up the clothes and put them in a drawer, would it be able to get out? If not, is the character dead, or just disabled until someone straitens them out?

It would probably require an escape check, but it would conceivably be able to shift it's position, press on the roof of the drawer and the front of the drawer in order to apply enough leverage to push the door open, and then climb out.

Originally Posted by ericthered

If I stabbed her through the "Heart" with a spear, what would happen?

Same thing as if you stapped a shirt through the "heart": there is now a hole in the shirt, it's taken damage. But it doesn't have vitals or anything. It's clearly less useful as a shirt, but hasn't lost structural integrity yet so she's still around.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Does she still need sleep?

guess... no.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Can she thread herself under a door?

Yes.

Originally Posted by ericthered

All these questions are VERY important for coming up with actual gurps statistics. What you described could be mostly cosmetic or it could be a huge source of abilities.

and I definitely agree with that! Any more important questions are welcome!

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Maybe it would be better to think of it as clothing animated with animating TK. It can move under it's own power in any way clothing could move, plus the ability to take a "human form"... not sure if that answers the question.


It would probably require an escape check, but it would conceivably be able to shift it's position, press on the roof of the drawer and the front of the drawer in order to apply enough leverage to push the door open, and then climb out.



Same thing as if you stapped a shirt through the "heart": there is now a hole in the shirt, it's taken damage. But it doesn't have vitals or anything. It's clearly less useful as a shirt, but hasn't lost structural integrity yet so she's still around.

It would have Injury Tolerance. At least No Vitals. But perhaps one or more of Homogeneous, No Blood, No Brain, No Eyes, No Head, No Neck, and Unliving.

guess... no.

Doesn't Sleep

Yes.

Some variant of Shadow Form perhaps, or Double-Jointed.

and I definitely agree with that! Any more important questions are welcome!

Does she need to breath? Or eat?

[Dragondog]

I got the following quote from Kromm, though I don't remember where I saw it posted. If something on that list has changed because she now is sapient clothing, a trait is needed to define the difference.

"The game assumes that a human not only has ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 10, HP 10, Will 10, Per 10, FP 10, Basic Speed 5.00, and Basic Move 5, but is someone who…
• is a member of the setting's dominant sapient race.
• has Status 0, and in fact has a Status rating at all.
• has a Wealth of Average, and starts with campaign starting money.
• has a TL, because his/her racial average IQ is high enough.
• has a culture, because his/her racial average IQ is high enough.
• has a language, because his/her racial average IQ is high enough.
• can articulate that language.
• has an Appearance of Average vis-à-vis other humans.
• has sex-differentiated positive Appearance, if he/she has positive Appearance.
• can have any mundane advantage or disadvantage, but can't have exotic or supernatural ones.
• is self-aware and creative.
• can learn and improve skills and attributes.
• has senses of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
• can see color, depth, and motion in a 180° forward arc, including 30° of peripheral vision on each side.
• sees in the spectrum that starts after IR on the long-wave end and ends before UV on the short-wave end.
• has poor night vision but good light tolerance.
• hears in the frequency range 40 Hz to 20 kHz.
• has no intrinsic supernatural awareness, yet has the innate ability to resist supernatural attack even when unaware or unconscious.
• has a vertical, upright posture.
• isn't blob- or box-shaped, and so bases SM strictly on height.
• has a head -- with two ears, two eyes, one nose, and one mouth -- atop a vulnerable neck.
• has two arms that end in hands with fingers, two legs that end in feet with toes, and no other limbs.
• has a master hand and an "off" hand.
• has a bodily layout that allows catching, climbing, digging, dodging, dragging, hiking, jumping, lifting, running, striking, swimming, and wrestling.
• uses consistently the same ST and DX for all of these purposes.
• can deal thrust and swing damage based on ST.
• can lift weights based on Basic Lift calculated from ST.
• has a default Water Move of 1/5 Basic Move and a default Air Move of 0.
• has native conditions of a 21:78 O2/N2 atmosphere at 1 atm of pressure, a temperature of 35°F to 90°F, and 1 g of gravity.
• must breathe, but not so constantly that injury results instantly from pausing for a while.
• must eat and drink three times a day, but almost any organic matter will do except for a few things specifically described as "poison."
• must sleep approximately 8 hours a night.
• is vulnerable to acid, disease, heat and cold outside natural limits, poison, radiation, vacuum, etc.
• is living, not unliving, homogenous, or diffuse.
• bleeds when injured.
• suffers extra injury when hit in the skull, neck, or vitals.
• risks unconsciousness at 0 HP, death at -HP, certain death at -5×HP, and bodily destruction at -10×HP.
• heals naturally, but doesn't regenerate.
• benefits from drugs manufactured by human society.
• ages, and gets 32 years of optimal capability, between maturity at age 18 and possible decline due to aging at age 50.
• has FP in the first place, and so can use extra effort.
• gets one turn per second.
If any of those things isn't true, then you have to account for it in a racial template. Exceptions won't always cost points -- often, features will do the trick. However, you must still account for them; statements like "one of these things won't be true, so these others won't, either" don't cut it. In particular, if you're assuming that a creature might be a PC, then it's very definitely important to specify things like Dead Broke. Telling a player, "No, your character is a plant, of course you don't own anything" is a good way to start an argument. Personally, I think it's best to have a purely physical meta-trait (Body of Plant), and to have separate mobility (Potted Plant, Tumbling Plant, etc.), mentality (Mindless Plant, Sentient Plant, etc.), and social (Household Plant, Wild Plant, etc.) meta-traits."

[DouglasCole]

I can't help it:

"In Soviet Russia, rich corinthian leather feels YOU."

[ericthered]

Ok, you're doing the high powered version.

Immune to Metabolic Hazards
Doesn't Eat or Drink
Doesn't Sleep
Doesn't Breath
Injury Tolerance

• Either Unliving, Homogenous, or Diffuse*
• No Blood
• No Vitals
• No Head
• No Eyes
• No Neck
• Independent Body Parts (instant reattachment)
• Damage Resistance (some level, Crushing only -40%)

Flexible (Double Jointed)
Fragile (Combustible)
unhealing (but may be repaired)
Dependancy **
Something to emulate being able to act when flat***

* This all depends on your budget and on how the body resists blades. If the cloth gives way before the blade without really cutting, its diffuse. Otherwise its probably homogeneous, but a case can be made for unliving if a few hole are likely to knock the shirt down.
** most magical constructs have SOME disadvantage to reflect living requirements. Dependency (mana or amulet). Maintainance, or so forth.
*** Independent body parts may do the trick. As may an alternate form with invertebrate.

yes, this is incredibly expensive. That's because its incredibly powerful.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Ok, you're doing the high powered version.

Immune to Metabolic Hazards
Doesn't Eat or Drink
Doesn't Sleep
Doesn't Breath
Injury Tolerance

• Either Unliving, Homogenous, or Diffuse*
• No Blood
• No Vitals
• No Head
• No Eyes
• No Neck
• Independent Body Parts (instant reattachment)
• Damage Resistance (some level, Crushing only -40%)

Flexible (Double Jointed)
Fragile (Combustible)
unhealing (but may be repaired)
Dependancy **
Something to emulate being able to act when flat***

* This all depends on your budget and on how the body resists blades. If the cloth gives way before the blade without really cutting, its diffuse. Otherwise its probably homogeneous, but a case can be made for unliving if a few hole are likely to knock the shirt down.
** most magical constructs have SOME disadvantage to reflect living requirements. Dependency (mana or amulet). Maintainance, or so forth.
*** Independent body parts may do the trick. As may an alternate form with invertebrate.

yes, this is incredibly expensive. That's because its incredibly powerful.

shadow form has a modifier for making it paper thin (I think it's in powers) rather than an actual shadow. Could the advantage switchable version be used to do the flat thing?

[oneofmanynameless]

Also, just a thought, but what about... uh... people being able to wear it? Wouldn't that constitute enough payload to carry a person their size? Even if the payload is exposed (which it should be, this isn't an iron man suite) that's another 50 pts. But a ton of stuff wouldn't be available while it was "carrying" a "passenger."

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Also, just a thought, but what about... uh... people being able to wear it? Wouldn't that constitute enough payload to carry a person their size? Even if the payload is exposed (which it should be, this isn't an iron man suite) that's another 50 pts. But a ton of stuff wouldn't be available while it was "carrying" a "passenger."

Nah, that would be more of "I'm technically Grappling this guy/gal, but, I'm not resisting his/her movements until I decide I don't like where (s)he's going."