Please Help Create a Bird-Person Template

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Lifting ST is significantly cheaper than that, and probably shouldn't have Costs FP if Flight does. I probably wouldn't use Costs FP on Flight either, unless you really want them on the ground the vast majority of the time. Winged Flight is pretty tiring as it is, about as bad as non-stop sprinting.

This is just a house rule, but I personally avoid using build traits like Skinny on racial templates. Skinny relative to what? What about a Bird Person who is Skinnier than other Bird People? I'd give them higher ST and low HP to represent the fragile build but ability to fly, and leave Skinny, Fat, etc to individual characters.

Originally Posted by Raekai

It's a little messier here because I'm using Knowing Your Own Strength from Pyramid #3/83: Alternate GURPS IV.

Since I'm using those rules, Lifting ST is 7 points/level. And winged flight isn't too bad. You can pace yourself. The idea here is that a Bird-Person is not built perfectly to fly. Flying humanoids are pretty tough to make. I maybe should have mentioned that they are the result of a demigod's engineering. However, I will consider removing it or definitely allowing a Bird-Person to buy off that limitation.

As far as Skinny goes, I don't imagine that a Bird-Person could get that much skinnier, and I don't want to drop their HP for a reduction in mass. I thought about just doing a Thin Frame [0] as a Feature, but it didn't feel right. Normally, I wouldn't use Skinny on a Template, but it felt right in this instance. You don't really have a skinnier Bird-Person. You might have someone who is emaciated and underfed, but I don't imagine a lot of variance in their bone structure. But maybe that's not worth -5 points. Could it be a Quirk? Thin Frame [-1].

Originally Posted by Expy

Hey Raekai, I believe that the answer to your question about the talons lies in the Basic Set, under Extra Arms B53:
"In GURPS, a limb with which you can manipulate objects is an arm, regardless of where it grows or what it looks like."

So both your bird-man's wings and their feet count as arms in the GURPS system. Now, further down under special limitations you can find the 'Foot Manipulators' limitation, which is exactly what you would need to stat the talons. At a guess, they might look something like:
- Extra Arms 2 (Foot Manipulators, -30%) [14],
- Ham-Fisted 1 or 2 (Accessibility: Foot Manipulators Only, -20%) [-3 or -8],
and/ or Bad Grip with a similar limitation. I'm sure that there's a better way to model this, though.

I can't help you with the wings, unfortunately! I'm not familiar with flying creatures and I wouldn't want to feed you bad information accidentially. Best of luck in your GURPS'ing!

Thank you! Seeing it written out as such is helpful. In the end, I think I'm deciding for the talons not to be Fine Manipulators. An eagle might have dexterous talons, but chickens' feet don't seem quite as useful. Though, I've been kicked by a chicken before.