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Old 06-25-2010, 08:44 AM   #32
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Japan
Default Re: [Martial Arts] Are mollusks susceptible to Arm Lock and Leg Lock?

Quote:
Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
What other effects did you have in mind? If they can be used as manipulators, that's it's own advantage as discussed before. If they can navigate difficult terrain that's it's own Perk (Terrain adaptation: uneven). Constrictor is another possibility.

I think buying "Extra Flexibile" for your extra legs, at any cost, results in a very poorly defined advantage. No one seems to know what it does for you in purely mechanical terms.

Better, I think, to determine what game effects you want from your legs and buy those advantages, rather than getting caught up in the need to buy something that's named "Extra Flexible Legs".
You're right. If you can identify and list all the game effects in advance, yes, it's ideal and we should do so. Sometimes it's easy -- if you have an ability that does 1d of burning damage at a distance and nothing else, just buy an Innate Attack. Simple.

However, sometimes it's not so easy. "Having extra-flexible limbs" is an example. The description of Extra-Flexible on arms -- canonical enhancement -- simply says, "can always reach and work with other limbs, regardless of body positioning, general layout, or 'right' and 'left'" (p. 53). There's no stats, no bonus or penalty, no purely mechanical terms in the text. You may call this "a very poorly defined advantage". Nevertheless, arms that are Extra-Flexible are rather expensive: they cost 5 points mutiplied by the number of arms. The lack of game-mechanical definitions doesn't mean that it does nothing for the character in game. Rather, they are supposed to do everything that's reasonably explained as effects of having flexible arms. The same is true for Extra-Flexible legs.

I don't think attaching Extra-Flexible (+50%) on legs is unreasonably expenive. It should be much cheaper since their in-game utility is more limited than that of arms, and in fact it is much cheaper than flexible arms: it's just extra 3, 5 or 8 points for all the legs the character has. Think of it as a loosely-defined bunch of several perks like Unlockable Legs, Terrain Adaptation (Uneven), etc.

Listing all the effects as specific advantages/perks in advance and then summing them up is undoubtedly correct -- if you can actually do so. That method often results in frustrating players by the GM saying, "No, you can't. What you paid for is Unlockable Legs perk and nothing more, regardless if you call it 'foot tentacles'. That perk doesn't mean your leg can reach underneath the bed unusually and feel for the handcuffs' key with your toe". I often experienced situations like this.
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