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The artwork for the barathu, haan, urog, and wrikreechee (playable races from Alien Archive) all appear to lack articulated limbs capable of manipulating devices meant for traditional humanoids.
With few exceptions, nothing says these aliens can't utilize the same weapons and devices as traditional humanoid characters. However, nothing says they can either. It's a total gray area that looks to have been totally ignored or overlooked.
What is the official stance, and how might the utilization of such tech be readily explained? Even if you account for custom devices made specifically for their anatomy (such as the blue dragon with its shoulder-mounted aurora arc rifle), what happens if a haan, urog, or similar creature (which appears to have scythes rather than hands) attempts to pick up and use a laser pistol made for a human? Could they shoot it? What if they tried to pilot a starship that primarily uses a flight stick? Could they fly it without hindrance? There are numerous situations in which their ability to manipulate objects could be called into question.
*Sinister villain voice* "You will never escape my wrath, urog slave! Every exit of my grand palace is barred with sinister, if primitive devices, once known as door knobs!"
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I suspect that ignoring the problem, for the time being, is the way to go.
Of course, you could always argue, that weapons should be adaptable to various hands to not discriminate against other races. Basically, like a disabilities act (which IIRC forbids round door knobs).
And hard stance one way or the other might strand players characters with weapons they can't use properly.
Disclaimer: I don't have access to the Alien Archive (yet) so I can't speak specifically to the races you mentioned.
We do know that most weapons of normal size can be used by both small and medium size creatures without penalty, which seems to indicate at least some flexibility in their design. Conversely armor requires you to be both the right size and have roughly similar anatomy (an example is a Kasatha needing to adjust armor designed for a two-armed creature) as the original owner. Other than that, the rules seem to be silent on the matter. Since it isn't really covered in the rules, I'd say it is up to the players and GM to figure out what works best for their game together.
If you want to go easy on characters with an unusual anatomy you could rule that most weapons have a quick-release trigger assembly that can be switched out to fit a wide variety of anatomies. Most computers and technical devices are designed to accept a variety of input, such as typing, voice commands, limb gestures, and olfactory signals.
If you want to be a bit more strict about it, you could require the character to acquire homebrewed equipment that would work as an intermediary whenever he/she/it needs to use gear it doesn't have the anatomy to use natively.
One of my favorite computer games when I was a kid was Startopia, where you build and maintain a space station (think Dungeon Keeper or Theme Hospital, but in space) which features a wide variety of races. One of the races that could live on your station were Polvakian Gem Slugs, a fabulously rich and hopelessly stuck up race. You'd think being literally giant slugs would slow them down some, but they sidestep the problem elegantly by cruising around in hovering recliner armchairs customized with robotic hands, perfect to juggle your hors d'oeuvres while you humble-brag about the second beach house you just bought in the Space-Hamptons.
Coming up with similar gear for other races shouldn't be impossible. :)
The artwork for the barathu, haan, urog, and wrikreechee (playable races from Alien Archive) all appear to lack articulated limbs capable of manipulating devices meant for traditional humanoids.
The secondary pictures for haan and wrikreechee show them decked out in equipment; their limbs aren't as non-articulated as one might assume. The barathu have tentacles. The urog ... OK, I got nothin'. I imagine their limbs are better at manipulating things than their pictures suggest, much like the difference between the two haan pictures.
The artwork for the barathu, haan, urog, and wrikreechee (playable races from Alien Archive) all appear to lack articulated limbs capable of manipulating devices meant for traditional humanoids.
With few exceptions, nothing says these aliens can't utilize the same weapons and devices as traditional humanoid characters. However, nothing says they can either. It's a total gray area that looks to have been totally ignored or overlooked.
What is the official stance, and how might the utilization of such tech be readily explained? Even if you account for custom devices made specifically for their anatomy (such as the blue dragon with its shoulder-mounted aurora arc rifle), what happens if a haan, urog, or similar creature (which appears to have scythes rather than hands) attempts to pick up and use a laser pistol made for a human? Could they shoot it? What if they tried to pilot a starship that primarily uses a flight stick? Could they fly it without hindrance? There are numerous situations in which their ability to manipulate objects could be called into question.
*Sinister villain voice* "You will never escape my wrath, urog slave! Every exit of my grand palace is barred with sinister, if primitive devices, once known as door knobs!"
The main book does give rules for modifying weapons to be usable by smaller/larger people. When you craft the weapon I believe it just assumes you sized the weapon for the intended recipient. But if you find some loot that you want weapon/armor wise there are rules to modify it to be usable by somebody who otherwise would not be able to do so.
What was the page number for those size mod rules again?
Starfinder Design Lead
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The artwork for the barathu, haan, urog, and wrikreechee (playable races from Alien Archive) all appear to lack articulated limbs capable of manipulating devices meant for traditional humanoids.
With few exceptions, nothing says these aliens can't utilize the same weapons and devices as traditional humanoid characters. However, nothing says they can either. It's a total gray area that looks to have been totally ignored or overlooked.
What is the official stance, and how might the utilization of such tech be readily explained? Even if you account for custom devices made specifically for their anatomy (such as the blue dragon with its shoulder-mounted aurora arc rifle), what happens if a haan, urog, or similar creature (which appears to have scythes rather than hands) attempts to pick up and use a laser pistol made for a human? Could they shoot it? What if they tried to pilot a starship that primarily uses a flight stick? Could they fly it without hindrance? There are numerous situations in which their ability to manipulate objects could be called into question.
*Sinister villain voice* "You will never escape my wrath, urog slave! Every exit of my grand palace is barred with sinister, if primitive devices, once known as door knobs!"
Any creature that has a gear line in its stat block, or is given the PC race traits to be a player character options, is assumed to be able to use equipment normally (within the rules for size and armor requirement in the core rulebook) without penalty unless it specifies otherwise.
Fo anything else, use the same judgement call you would have used to decide if a sphinx can use a crossbow.
The haan on page 59 clearly has fingers and opposable thumbs. We don't say haan have problems with equipment, so they don't.
Urog specify they can unfold their multiple sets of articulated limbs, there's no reason to assume they can't unfollow;d into a useful shape.
Wrikreechee have hundreds of opposable thumbs, in the form of feathery material lining their forearms.
The important thing is if we present a creature as being a good PC choice, or as using gear as a potential foe, and we don't note it's weird special gear, then it works as equipment is presented in the core rules.
I would have to look in my book when I get home. There was a set process and price for modifying weapons/armor to be bigger/smaller. I was paying attention to it because I was thinking of playing a contemplative and I kinda thought due to their weird body style some modification may be needed on armor I found to work with a totally abormal body style.
I think it was at the start of the equipment section but I am at work so don't have the book handy.
Thanks for weighing in Owen! That totally works for me. :D
You could also just hack off one of their limbs and replace it with a humanoid-style prosthetic, if you want.
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You could also just hack off one of their limbs and replace it with a humanoid-style prosthetic, if you want.
On the hand (pun intended), you could just cut off a humanoids arm and make a Wrikreechee limb replacement!
Who's to say humanoid gear is better?
I think the point Owen is making is that they haven't even detailed how equipment or gear works normally. This makes it easy to assume that unless otherwise specified, all equipment works for any playable race.
I mean the weapons could just mold and rearrange themselves to suit whatever picks it up. This is a universe where getting shot by kinetic weapons doesn't punch enough holes in the armour to degrade its environmental protection, so having weapons that can organically transform isn't that big a deal either.
It can make for some cool setting restrictions though, if that's what you're after. Coming on to an alien ship and trying to work out how they open doors or operate equipment makes for cool setting descriptions.
" Ahhhhhh.....I think I need to insert a tentacle over here while manipulating this with a beak?"
What was the page number for those size mod rules again?
It is in the equipment section for armor page 196. Looks like it mostly for armor but seems reasonable for weapons as well.