[Plane]

Originally Posted by maximara

In fact, Extra Arms. has the limitation Foot Manipulator (-30%) where the “arm” is really an unusually dextrous leg.

The "cannot walk" aspect of that (B53) is sorta confusing though. Like for example, if you have Extra Legs (B54) you can continue to move (half speed) if you lose a leg, so I assume you could keep moving if you were using it as an arm too.

It seems like, if you had just Extra Arm (Foot Manupiulator -30%) [7] and don't buy extra legs, that it might mean two possible things:

1) you have grown a 3rd leg (and require ALL THREE to move around, it is not a spare like if you took Extra Legs) but you can lift it up and use it as an arm.
2) you have 2 legs, but can lift one of them up to use it as an arm

Then of course there is how we represent "Modifying Beings With One or Two Arms". There are two possible disadvantages here:

Foot Manipulator [-3]
Foot Manipulators [-6]

In the first case, you have 1 normal arm, and your 2nd arm is actually using both your legs as an arm.

In the 2nd case, you have NO normal arms, but you can use both of your legs as a pair of arms.

Normally you need an advantage to be Switchable to use Temporary Disadvantage though. I wonder if FM is the reason many often forget this?

I think buying Switchable would NORMALLY make sense, since you are actually getting an advantage here in a way. Having the forms of Lame representing missing limbs as switchable actually has a benefit: protecting them from harm. Similarly, having a switchable Extra Arm would ALSO protect the arm from harm when it is switched off.

Why I think Switchable wasn't charged was basically because "your arm is your leg and your foot is your hand" counteract the normal benefits acquired from switchable limbs: in neither state is either limb actually protected from harm.

Another thing is I'm supposing you don't get the normal benefit of Legless, which is getting points for reducing your Basic Move down to 0 (as B141 instructs).

I would normally do that, if taking Legless as a temporary disadvantage, but that would make pricing more complicated so I can see "switchability is free" as a simple compromise. +10% offsets the -10% you would get for taking Temporary Disadvantage: -2 to Basic Move.

B141 "Legless" seems wrong form of Lame to take if it was just one Extra Arm. Normally it means you are missing BOTH legs, so getting a -30% discount would seem like you need to use both your legs to fulfill the job of 1 arm.

The -20% you'd get for Temporary Disadvantage: Missing Leg(s) seems more appropriate if you're left with 1 leg you can still stand on (and which can still be hit).

This also happens to be the exact value of "Limb -20%" for Strikers (introduced in GURPS Martial Arts) which upgrades an existing arm or leg to 'Striker' status instead of generating a new striker limb.

For ONE extra arm that is a Foot Manipulator, this should actually be Missing Legs [-20] which actually means missing LEG (singular) for humans.

You have lost some, but not all, of your legs.
For a human, this means you have one leg.

It should probably be titled Missing Leg(s) since plural only applies if they had more than one to begin with... but in that case I would think it would actually be Negated Advantage: Extra Legs... weird.

So you could do:

Extra Arm 1 (Temporary Disadvantage: Legless -30%) [7]
Extra Arm 1 (Temporary Disadvantage: Missing Leg -20%) [8]
Extra Arm 2 (Temporary Disadvantage: Legless -30%) [17]

Looking at this, it seems cheaper to just by the middle one twice for [16].

If somebody who already had a Missing Leg got smacked with Affliction (Disadvantage: Missing Leg+20%) [12] would it do nothing at all, or stack with their existing to upgrade their disadvantage to Legless? I guess that's the question as to whether or not that's feasible.

Kind of like what happens if you have a One-Handed Man who gets hit with Affliction (Disadvantage: One Hand +20%) [12] if they would be unaffected, or lose their remaining hand and be upgraded to No Fine Manipulators?

Originally Posted by maximara

Per this Horizontal [-10] and No Fine Manipulators [-30] alone would result in two limbs that could not function as legs ie they don't support your weight, they are effectively Paraplegic, or something else that prevents them from being used as legs in the manner GURPS defines them.

I'm not understanding how you're reaching that conclusion. One thing to keep in mind here is that legs are not the only things you can stand on.

B139:

You can use one hand (if you have hands) while standing on your other limbs

That stands out as intentional: a quadriped human for example, is most comfortable "standing" using 4 limbs: 2 legs and 2 arms.

Ground Move is 0 if not using both of your arms to stand on: you need to "sit" if using both hands, but can remain "standing" on all 4 limbs if only using 1 hand.

"I can run on 2 legs and 2 arms as fast as someone without this can run on two legs" seems to be a built-in benefit to Horizontal.

It seems kind of weird to allow that without giving a creature long arms (the length of legs) or short legs (the length of arms) to keep their limbs of roughly equal length, and the angle of torso level. Otherwise you'd expect their torso to be at a decline (shoulders lower than hips) like when humans "bear walk" or else require some inefficiencies (non-straight legs, feet behind hips instead of under them, wide feet outside of hips instead of under them) that would make walking more tiring.

I could actually see considering that as a perk (making the other effects of Horizontal maybe worth -11?) since there are benefits to being able to do that:
*B385 you take up two hexes, which can be useful if you want to present/deny just the upper or lower body to an enemy's reach.
*B389 for purposes of blocking line of sight for smaller creatures, you count as kneeling while standing
**this weirdly, mentions no benefit to sitters, but I imagine they should enjoy at least this benefit, as kneeling would presumably keep you taller than sitting/crawling would. MA99 for exampel has similar benefits/drawbacks for attacking standing foes in the 1st section of those in a kneeling or sitting posture.
**crawlers on the other hand, I wonder if perhaps should count as lying, as MA99 gives them similar (-2) penalties as lying down in respect to upper body and lower body hit locations. I would also assume crawlers take up 2 hexes like liers but Basic doesn't emphasize that.

Plus I would imagine that for some purposes (say for example, being easier to kick or harder to Punch) that hands would operate similar to feet while doing a "four limbed stand" (or walk/run) using the arms.

One thing I'm not sure of is how it works for a bear switching between 4-limbed stand and 2-limbed stand, like if that takes a Change Posture or something.

Given how it blocks line of sight similar to kneeling, I'm thinking maybe if using the MA99 rules ("Postures, Hit Locations, and Techniques") that a creature like a bear doing a 4-limbed stand might perhaps use some of the rules for kneeling in terms of how easy some locations are to hit.

Like for example "Remove- 1 from the hit location penalty to attack the neck, face, eye, or skull of a kneeling or sitting man". This doesn't apply to a bear on it's legs, but I could see why perhaps it ought to apply to a bear standing horizontal on it's legs+arms.

Similarly, instead of getting the above-mentioned benefit, a bear perhaps should get the kneeling benefit (Remove -1 from the hit location penalty to attack the feet, legs, or groin of a standing man) when doing a 4-limbed stand?

Originally Posted by maximara

Hence the need for the Extra Legs [5] - it's not really extra legs in terms of number limbs as you think rather but allows two of your limbs to function as legs.

There isn't a "need" for it though. The point of it is largely that you have spare legs so that if 1 is injured, you can continue on the remaining ones.

Semi-Upright (B153, found on B456 for Bears, B552 says it applies to apes too but it looks like they got left out of the ape templates) works in a similar way except you're reduced to 60% Move instead of 0% move when running on hind legs.

Bears do not have Extra Legs, what this means is for 100% Move a bear runs on 2 legs + 2 arms. That's why it says "all of your limbs" instead of "all of your legs".

Semi-Upright basically has the built-in benefit of "I can run at 100% Move while using my hands". Though I'm not sure what that is. I expect it SHOULD have similar effects as Horizontal even though B385/B389 only mention Horizontal and not Semi-Upright.

Originally Posted by maximara

So not only is the author messing up his Energy cost math he is effectively creating quadruped Golems with 4 limbs that can only really use 2 of them as legs ie crippled Golems. Wonderful.

You do not need Extra Legs to stand on your arms. B456 the Brown Bear does this with Semi-Upright. The only difference with the Q-golems (Qolems?) is that since they're Horizontal, they can't move at all on 3 legs, while a bear is able to move at 60% of his max speed while on his hind legs.

That seems a bit generous IMO... B456 assigns "Move 8" to a Grizzly for example, -40% to that is 4.8 (rounds down to 4) which means that a Grizzly can run on his hind legs at 4 yards (12 feet) per second? If B153 were intended as (40% of Move) instead of (-40% to Move) this would be 3.2 (rounds down to 3) which is STILL pretty fast, but at least it's a step in the right direction.