Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Greetings, all!

Based on some campaign-related tinkering, I realised that octopodes are surprisingly nasty in close combat. Possibly much nastier than housecats. Even if picks a housecat-sizes octopus, reducing SM to -4 and ST to perhaps 4, they still have many traits in their favour that compensate for the weakness of the cat. The cat's weakness is mostly the fact that commoners get +4 to their Grappling actions due to SM.

The octopus compensates for it to some extent: having 8 arms results in a +12 modifier to its grappling actions (including strangling!), on top of a base DX13, though penalised by -2 due to Bad Grip 1. Even with ST4, that's a roll against 14 for strangulation. Then there's the beak which may contain serious poison depending on species.

While all this isn't a guaranteed victory, it does seem like it makes octopodes very serious threats if somehow angered. I now think that our encounter with a much smarter and larger astropus actually went with extreme amounts of good luck, considering what these fellas can do.

Anyone ever used them as opponents? Other interesting observations?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Don't forget, those suckers are smart. If they REALLY want your SCUBA-equipped buddy dead, it doesn't take them long to figure out what happens when you remove the SCUBA mask and respirator.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Actually, there are some nasty octopi species which posess poison strong enough to kill a human.

Grappling by single octopus might be not an issue because humans aren't their usual prey so they don't know that it's their neck which should be grappled. And they don't usually fight larger targets anyway - they use poison, ink cloud or some other means to escape.

But if you have intelligent and aggressive one or have a lot of them or any other reason for them to actually attack humans (or whatever specie your PCs belong to) like protecting roe or spawn then it may be an issue.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

The best human divers in the world are still clumsy aliens under water. Not to mention that even accomplished divers may panic when something starts messing with their lifeline.

As to house cats, have you ever tried to hold a truly bat-**** insane feral cat? I thought my huge panicking fatties went ballistic when I tried to put them in carriers. But there is just a huge world of difference between that and true over the top insanity. Admittedly, I have no grappling experience what so ever.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Sometimes I wonder if an octopus having eight arms isn't one of those "Use the advantage name, not the advantage description" cases.

Of course, you're cinematic octopus can wield a weapon in each arm while easily grappling the damsel in two more.

but you're non-cinematic octopus? even if highly intelligent (or driven by a human), I somehow doubt it can effectively use all those arms to wield weapons and so on. And should the octopus really have +12 to grapple?

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Bring a main-gauche and sever the arms with Parrying Unarmed Attacks since God was silly and didn't build them as Strikers.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Grappling doesn't mean it can do anything afterward. Kittens can grapple my ankles all they want. It won't really affect me in any way other than making me squee like a little girl.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Taking out your mouth piece merely exposes your primate teeth... calamari-time!
Gulliver rules gives invertebrates lowered resistance to limb severing.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, there's strangulation, which is serious business given the modifiers. Not IWinButton serious, but not something to be ignored.

On one hand, this is true, and it is also true due to simply due to having 4-5 HP instead of 10. But lumping extra drawbacks onto an already nasty Disadvantage seems a bit wrong.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Stop giving the SyFy channel ideas. Wasn't Sharknado enough for you?

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Thanks for helping my MH game! Poisonous intelligent houscat sized octopi attacking the SCUBA-clad infiltrators! Awesome!!!

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Once again, if the octopus knows what a human is and how to kill it.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

And this is the real reason people fear Cthulhu. He doesn't so much have eldritch powers from before time and inscrutable irrational aims as he's a malevolent SM + 3 intelligent octopus with Physiology (Human)/12 - 17

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Funny. Just the other day on another site I was for completely different reasons referencing a sequence from an old POGO comic strip in which Albert the Aligator somehow wound up with an octopus on his head. Dang thing wouldn't let go. People started mistaking Albert for a girl. And his friends couldn't decide whether the correct gammatical construction would be "An Octopots gots Albert" or "An Octopiggle done gots Albert." Or if it should be "A Rhinocklewurst done went and gots Albert". After a while they lost track of exactly what kind of creature it was.

Eventually Albert got used to having a Octoctopoodle attached to his headbone. At which point it let go on its own.

He missed it.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, it's probably IQ 5 or maybe 4 if you're pessimistic*. I suppose it should have at least basic understanding.

* == Smart enough to use tools and understand a limited set of symbols, smart enough to imitate other animals' mannerisms, and smart enough that TL10 surgery alone can bring them up to IQ6.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

This isn't the THS forum. You made me look to make sure. Intelligence isn't one number or thing. So being almost human level at a small set of problems doesn't say much about any other set. Gurps has IQ 6 being everything that a young human child is mentally, which is profoundly different from any super intelligent cephalopod.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Used the numbers from Bio-Tech (4e), not Under Pressure, whose Octosap is modified only in having its IQ boosted (to IQ6). But I've heard of octopodes deliberately plugging their opponents' breathing orifices when fighting, so I don't think strangling an opponent is that out of whack.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Not impossible for an unusually smart octopus, I agree. I just don't like how it's in vogue now to grossly overestimate their "human-ness" the way they used to for elephants.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Human-ness? Seriously? They're probably the prime candidate for the description of a very inhuman intelligence.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Human level and type of sapience I mean. Too often inhuman is just code for irrational monster.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, the level seems to be very clearly below that of dolphins, chimps etc. The type does not seem to be all that similar to anything mammalian.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

references please? this sounds good!

Thats the result of being lazy, I think. And so often people decide they will try and end up with a irrational being because they can't separate humanity and rationality (people are quite irrational about that word, by the way). Though with an octopus, I don't know how rational it would be.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Wait, why on earth do octopuses have Bad Grip? Their tentacles are covered in suction cups.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

You don't remember when they kept pushing the intelligence of elephants beyond chimp levels in the media? They are amazing creatures, but simply not linguistically as adept as apes or some monkeys by a long shot.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Writers use that disadvantage to mean poor manual dexterity, despite it having a completely different effect. Oddly, the missing finger or thumb would have a more reasonable effect despite not sounding remotely appropriate.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Their somatic / manual dexterity intelligence seems far greater than apes. But I doubt they have much in the way of linguistic / social intelligence.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

This is, I think, where things break down. Invertebrates with no exoskeletons aren't good at constricting - octopi don't squish fish, they bite them with hard mouth parts, and for a darn good reason.

Hydrostatic pressure is NOT good for coiling around something and tightening up. An o-ring muscle (like the one that snaps the beak shut) works great, but octopus arms aren't built like that, and plain old don't have leverage. Suckers provide grip, but not leverage.

What hydrostatic limbs (and suckers for gripping) are better at is holding on while more serious body parts go to work. Octopi and squid have beaks, starfish and snails have rasping tongues, and some snails of course have venomous harpoons.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Sometimes I think everyone's forgotten about poor old Hamfisted.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Octopi have very poor proprioception and can't really tell where their arms are in relation to their main body or their other arms by any means other than looking at them. They have very good grip with their suction cups, but poor ability to many things at once with their arms. Bruno also pointed out that they don't have much in the way of leverage.

On the other side of the equation, most experienced scuba divers carry a knife on their person while diving. I'd assume that a proper adventurer would have a knife as well.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Once an octopus has stuck on to you, it is very difficult to get it off until it decides to let you go (or, presumably, if you kill it). I really doubt a +12 to strangulation is justified, but I can see +12 to maintain a grapple.

Of course, the real reason for this is the suckers, not the extra arms.

Luke

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

So right; good as a name and in the technical write up.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

I still say + infinity isn't useful if it doesn't have the strength to harm you.

I wonder if the suckers should be a limitation in an environmentally diverse setting as they wouldn't have such a grip while wearing clothes or a spacesuit.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

No idea. Maybe the fact that they can't coordinate their limbs to full theoretical efficiency for purposes of grasping.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, they understand shapes, can learn from observing another even when not deliberately taught, and reportedly shale with fish if they don't have other company to go along (this one probably depends on the species and individual). I don't expect them to learn sign language.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, the official template does cough up the points for 6 Extra Arms (Extra-Flexible too).

Do you think they should have Clinging? (I did give Clinging to a fictional cephalopod which is the root cause of this thread, but I wonder if real ones qualify.)

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

How do you calculate the point at which something doesn't have the strength to harm you? Strangulation is a Quick Contest, and given enough time, ST3 can strangle ST10.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

It shouldn't as that is silly.
I know it's horrible overkill, but I wonder if we could research the amount of pressure it takes to strangle an average person and fix that as a ratio of average strength. Those too weak to ever exert that level of pressure are just out of luck.
The Wikipedia article lists blood vessel occlusion at 3.4 N / cm^2. I'm not sure how that is adjusted for thick or strong resisting necks.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Smart for a mammal and freakishly so for an invertebrate is still not even close to what 3rd edition called presapient like parrots, apes, some monkey species, and a few individuals of other critters.

Mimicking others is unusual for a not otherwise social animal. I must admit that. Most cats don't even do that.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

It requires very little strength to choke someone out if you know what your doing.
Usually it is done with the inside elbow but I have done it with my hand.
Even with no bones wrapping around the neck will give you more leverage I think, much like a snake.


Clnging does not help you grip something as I read it, only helps you climb.
I would like to see an enhancement to change that though. then maybe add Lifting ST one power only.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Yup. They certainly can cling to surfaces very well.

Luke

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

I guess I only know people with really weak grips. ;) It's hard to imagine how tentacles would not take a penalty for lack of piecemeal leverage that anchored digits have let alone the bones themselves. Snakes have bones though. It would be more like a... something that probably doesn't exist as largish hydrostatic skeletons on land are used by just earthworms.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, I imagine it as comparable to a ring of rubber, or a ring of leather that contracts as it dries up: it doesn't have a bone-like structure, it just gets narrower and narrower. If octopodes are bad at that sort of holding on, maybe this is the reason behind their Bad Grip?

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

How would you characterise their accessibility limitation, if any? (Which surfaces are valid targets, which are meh, and which are not at all?)

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

The only accessibility limitation I can think of would be Not In Vacuum. Perhaps also Not On Mesh because something with holes in it would just let in fluid from the other side to negate the suction effect. Although on most mesh surfaces the flexible, muscular part of the suckers could just grab the surface rather than suck on to it, which would have the same effect.

Luke

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Uh, do I read that right to mean that they are good enough to stick to wood, wallpapers etc.? I was expecting cloth to be at least as bad or even worse than mesh.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

The live octopodes I have physically interacted with have been powerful, if small, lumps of muscle with considerable strength. My experiences are limited and not recent, but reports from aquaria workers also state that octopodes are quite strong. Certainly they are able to restrain animals of similar size with rigid skeletons (sharks, crabs) and remove tightened lids from jars.

Luke

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Of course. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that volume not taken up by bones can instead by given to even more muscle. I've never even seen a cephalopod in person, so I can't give any such hands on input.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Wood and wallpapers would allow easy stickage, as do rocks, corals, skin, shells, boat hulls and most other things. Cloth would negate the suction effect because of the holes, but the suckers could pinch the cloth to get a grip (this may be less effective, though).

Luke

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well I am not talking about crushing the larynx ;)
Pushing down on the carotid artery is one (and arguably the best) form of the GURPS choke hold. Suffocation by crushing the throat takes more ST but is doable, though it takes no strength to simply cover the mouth and nose.

Why are bones needed for leverage? I am not seeing it.
You can strangle someone with a piece of rope. the material needs to be moderately strong to resist tearing and leverage is not about how strong the material is (though a weak leaver will break more easily) and more about spreading the load over a larger surface area.
Or am I using the term wrong?

EDIT: Oh and of course it need not be said (but I am anyway) that Technical Grappling addresses this in what I consider a better way.
It still misses a couple of the details were talking about here since it is more human focused but there is a way to model the suckers, it just is not called out directly.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

I'd say that an elephant's trunk counts as a muscular hydrostatic manipulator. Those are rather capable things.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Well, if octopodes do get Clinging, they probably get +2 or even +4 from Abilities Enhancing Skills (P162). But by RAW, this requires an IQ roll to get the bonus. I suppose the roll could be something else, like HT or DX, if the GM deems appropriate.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Could they float that roll with Attribute Substitution?

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

RAW clinging only helps you hold onto a wall or ceiling, does not help you better grip things. So it would be a house rule if it was used to help a grapple.

Re: Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner
 

Abilities Enhancing Skills is a RAW option. Optional, but still a RAW option ;) The whole point of the option is to allow abilities to give a small bonus to something logically related to their field that they don't normally give bonuses to - one of the examples being Flight and Acrobatics.

But, as noted, it requires an IQ roll to pull off - it's not automatic because it isn't part of the standard use of the ability. And octopi just aren't that smart.