Can SROs, being creatures made entirely of non biological parts, acquire and benefit from biotech augmentations? They don't have any DNA or physiology in the traditional sense.
What about magitech, necrografts, or synergizing symbiotes?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yes. All augmentations work the same for buying and installing them. The flavor text for regular cybernetics also mentions replacing biological components. Do you think that precludes SROs from all augmentations?
I imagine they look weird, gross, and like a Velstrac's wet dream, but yes.
Well, presumably the SRO with biotechnology would need to start consuming some kind of nutrient paste, to support their organs. You could make an argument for needing to incorporate power sources into meatballs for their cybernetics, but explaining that away with bioelectricity harvesting working really well in this magical universe seems like a slightly easier sell.
Either way, neither of them gains special requirements as a Rules Question, without having done some homebrewing, as far as I can tell.
I would say that a completely inorganic SRO can't benefit from biotech - there's no organic system to sustain the organic parts of the implant. But there could easily be a SRO-compatible version made so you could hand-wave the whole thing.
I think that's a reasonable chain of logic, and wouldn't have a problem with it if I was playing a game where that rule was in effect, as long as it was clear up front. However, since it's expanding past what's said in the rulebooks, I don't think that it can be said that it is part of the rules of Starfinder that players can be expected to assume.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My (non-rules) answer is that there is a robotic equivalent to the biotech upgrades.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can make cybernetics into biotech with a modest increase in price. I'd probably allow the reverse for an SRO.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
THE ARMORY IS QUITE CLEAR THAT ALL PC RACES CAN USE ALL ITEMS OF EQUIPMENT, WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THEIR SPECIFIC LISTED RULES. I, FOR EXAMPLE, HAVE A WYRMLING BLUE DRAGON GLAND, BECAUSE OF COURSE I DO. I AM DRAGONBOT!
At the very worst, if you are homebrewing the inability for SROs to use biotech, at least give them the opportunity to use the reverse of Adaptive Biochains to make biotech into cybernetics instead of the other way around.
You can make cybernetics into biotech with a modest increase in price. I'd probably allow the reverse for an SRO.
As long as you are aware it's a homebrew. By the rules an SRO can use any augmentation of any type.
Reverse adaptive biochains to explain what's actually happening is fine, but I'd leave off the price increase - they'll probably just grab necrografts for the price decrease, and frankly beneficial effects of the necrograft subtype.
By the rules...
Could you please cite and quote the rule(s) you are referring to, for the benefit of those participating in this thread?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sure. First of all, 'reverse adaptive biochains' don't exist, therefore you can't purchase them.
An SRO has an additional built-in
cybernetic component with an item level no greater
than half the SRO’s character level (minimum item level
1). Each time the SRO gains a level, they can swap out
this piece of equipment at no additional cost to represent
internal reconfigurations. These pieces of equipment
don’t count against the systems in which an
SRO can install cybernetics.
SROs are definitely able to install cybernetics despite the flavor description that cybernetics replace a biological component.
Biotech
mostly operates by the same rules as cybernetics and uses the
same implantation slots.
There are no specific rules defining 'mostly' in the generic biotech description. Unless a specific piece of biotech has a requirement a SRO doesn't meet they can install it.
I'm again ignoring the flavor of 'rewrites your DNA' for the same reason I'm ignoring cybernetics flavor.
Magitech augmentations follow much the same rules
as all other augmentations in regards to implantation,
activation, and removal (see page 208 of the Core Rulebook).
Necrografts follow the existing rules for augmentations
(Core Rulebook 208), but they use diferent components
than biotech and cybernetics. Any biotech or cybernetic
augmentation can be created as a necrograft and installed
for only 90% of the augmentation’s normal cost, but doing
so causes the recipient to gain the necrograft subtype (see
below). Necrografts have the same system restrictions that all
augmentations share.
Same as they others.
...And of course the FAQ is currently missing...
Was it the FAQ or a dev post that clarified Bantrids? Where all races are assumed to have a 'normal' number of hands, etc. unless their racial description says otherwise?
SROs don't have a racial ability preventing them from installing biotech, in the same way bantrids don't have a racial ability preventing them from wielding weapons. Oddly enough, they also have a lungs system slot despite not breathing. Since nothing has taken it away, they have all the common system slots:
Common Systems: Although exceptions do exist, most
augmentations require installation into one of the following
body systems: arm (or all arms), brain, ears, eyes, foot (or all
feet), hand (or all hands), heart, leg (or all legs), lungs, spinal
column, skin, and throat.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
...And of course the FAQ is currently missing...
Was it the FAQ or a dev post that clarified Bantrids? Where all races are assumed to have a 'normal' number of hands, etc. unless their racial description says otherwise?
Fortunately my search-fu is still pretty strong.
Is this what you were looking for?
Bantrids usually get weapons specially fitted for their little flange hands, which are fully prehensile. I imagine their armor looks like tubes of fabric they simply wrap around their midsection.
As for bathroom stuff, let's say they have an excretion hole on the lower part of their backs, if that's important to you.
Page 4 of the Armory also has this:
Exactly what I was attempting to hunt down, thank you.
Starfinder Design Lead
|
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
While Starfinder has a preponderance of nonhumanoid aliens with strange morphology, any playable alien race can purchase and use the equipment in this book. A betentacled barathu (Starfinder Alien Archive 20) soldier can wield a hydra cannon and make use of hoverskates just as easily as a kasathan soldier.
This line is supposed to make it clear that yes, SROs can use biotech.
And yeah, that might mean they need to eat a peanut now and then to keep the "bio" part alive, but a GM can just as easily rule that the bio in question is from an electricity-eating species and works fine off the SRO's power supply.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
While Starfinder has a preponderance of nonhumanoid aliens with strange morphology, any playable alien race can purchase and use the equipment in this book. A betentacled barathu (Starfinder Alien Archive 20) soldier can wield a hydra cannon and make use of hoverskates just as easily as a kasathan soldier.This line is supposed to make it clear that yes, SROs can use biotech.
And yeah, that might mean they need to eat a peanut now and then to keep the "bio" part alive, but a GM can just as easily rule that the bio in question is from an electricity-eating species and works fine off the SRO's power supply.
So many options! :D
It's one of the things I love about Paizo games.
So would this also extend to a khizar, which normally has nothing resembling or analogous to eyes, buying something like a wide spectrum ocular implant to gain a sense of sight?
Are khizar stated to be blind? If not, then it should work fine.
|
Copy/paste from the Pact Worlds entry:
Senses and Speech
Khizars have no eyes or visual senses, other than the ability to perceive the presence or absence of light. Khizars have blindsense (vibration) and blindsight (life), each with a range of 30 feet. Khizars can’t speak and can communicate only via telepathy.
Not blind, but simply no visual senses except for presence/absence of light.
I guess if a thing with no biological parts can use augments that require biological parts, then something with no eyes can use replacement eyes.
I agree, unless they errata that they have the limited Augmentation racial trait (pg 17 alien archive 2) like the Uplifted Bears do. Otherwise, It should work in my opinion.
I guess if a thing with no biological parts can use augments that require biological parts, then something with no eyes can use replacement eyes.
This is my thought as well.
*crosses fingers*
As I said before, unless they're listed as blind or have some sort of augment restriction listed then the description of having "no eyes" is purely fluff from a mechanics viewpoint and they can use augments that effect eye slots.
So something like a wide spectrum ocular implant would grant vision (I guess) and tie into the visual cortex, which exists since they can detect light. It's just not as developed in khizar. But conceivably the augment can handle that processing.
Just imagine that holovid on the infosphere. I can't help but think the vlaka and khizar would totally freak out at the gluttony of new envrionmental stimulis.
If this is possible though, then what is stopping those with traditional humanoid senses from picking up the extraordinary senses of more exotic races in a similar fashion?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If this is possible though, then what is stopping those with traditional humanoid senses from picking up the extraordinary senses of more exotic races in a similar fashion?Nobody's created an implant to accomplish that yet?
Or more accurately, nobody's PUBLISHED an implant to accomplish that yet. :P
|
Vlaka have text telling us they're either "naturally sightless" or "naturally without hearing", and that these conditions "can be removed only by effects that grant sight/hearing to creatures with no natural vision/ability to perceive sound".
So I don't think you can toss prosthetic eyes onto a blind vlaka to give them a cheap sense of sight.
Vlaka have text telling us they're either "naturally sightless" or "naturally without hearing", and that these conditions "can be removed only by effects that grant sight/hearing to creatures with no natural vision/ability to perceive sound".
Somebody could easily use that same text to make the opposite argument.
Other races that can't see can see using implants thus implants are among the aforementioned effects.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Vlaka have text telling us they're either "naturally sightless" or "naturally without hearing", and that these conditions "can be removed only by effects that grant sight/hearing to creatures with no natural vision/ability to perceive sound".Somebody could easily use that same text to make the opposite argument.
Other races that can't see can see using implants thus implants are among the aforementioned effects.
"can be removed only by effects that grant sight/hearing to creatures with no natural vision/ability to perceive sound" is supposed to exclude SOMETHING from working. What is that something if not cheap lowlight vision/darkvision prosthetics?
I'm sure it was just future proofing.
|
Starfinder Design Lead
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
There is a distinction between a prosthetic limb, which replaces a missing limb you did once have, and a cybernetic arm, which gives you one additional arm.
Even though a cybernetic arm says it fuses to your spinal column, exoskeleton, or equivalent body structure, it should be available to a creature with no equivalent, unless that creature says it cannot use augmentations that require such systems.
However, a species that had no arms could not use a prosthetic limb to gain an arm.
By the same token, adding a prosthetic that enhances your vision is not going to give you vision if you don't already have it. It would be reasonable to have some augmentation that does that, but things that enhance sight don't give you sight if you lack it, unless they say so.
So does an enhancement that says you gain darkvision not actually give you darkvision?
I'm confused. It seems to me like you and/or Paizo are flip-flopping on the issue. Armory indicates one thing, but you just indicated another.
Either all races can use all gear, or they can't. Which is it intended to be?
Can a khizar use advanced darkvision capacitors? (No eyes in the traditional sense.) Can a blind vlaka? (Do blind vlaka even have eyes?) Can a bantrid or morlamaw not take speed suspension? (No legs.) Can a selamid not take dermal plating? (No skin.) I could probably think of dozens of other examples.
If the answer is no, then it seems to me like you're opening up a rather big can of worms, and table variation on the matter will explode as a result.
Think about all the Society GMs who will need to contend with such variation. What about them!?
;P
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Either all races can use all gear, or they can't. Which is it intended to be?
;P
Pretty literal either or fallacy there.
If a species LOOKS weird, the space walrus, space jellyfish brain, space minnow with its own bowl, the line from the armory applies. We have 3d printed technology, the fish can download what the equivalent of prosthetic legs are from their home planet.
If a species says it's incompatible with X then it's incompatible with x. The species is the more specific thing in the specific trumps general thing.
Can a khizar use advanced darkvision capacitors? (No eyes in the traditional sense.):
Senses and Speech
Khizars have no eyes or visual senses, other than the ability to perceive the presence or absence of light
So that's a no. The system isn't there at all and the species has a mechanical ability calling that out.
Can a blind vlaka?
No. The species has an ability calling out that it won't work.
Can a bantrid or morlamaw not take speed suspension? (No legs.)
Bantrid and mormalaw CAN take those. Neither the bantrid or mormalaw have a mechanical species trait "no legs" or something that would preclude it. They're different, so what the improved flipper or replacement wilson ball would look like changes aesthetically, but mechanically they're the same thing. The mormalaw goes into cyborgs are us and comes out with improved fins, the bantrid goes in and comes out with an inflatable rubber ball with steel belted radials.
Can a selamid not take dermal plating? (No skin.)
But no mechanical ability saying or suggesting that they can't, so they can. In this case it would be some form of webbing with plates attached and nickle sized dots of keratin protien or something.
I could probably think of dozens of other examples.
Keep going you might see a pattern...
Pretty literal either or fallacy there.
Either all races can use all gear, or they can't. Which is it intended to be?
;P
How so?
There are only two possible outcomes.
Paizo's official intent is that all playable races can use all gear.
OR
The above is not Paizo's intent.
If even one race can't make use of one item, then the second is true. If all races can use all items, then the first is true.
There is no middle ground. There is no third, fourth, or fifth option. Feel free to elaborate or expand all you want, but it really is an either or scenario.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is no middle ground.
This is abjectly false. I've pointed out the middleground. Or rather what happens when you read both statements.
Unusual anatomy as described or shown in a picture is not beyond the ability of augmentation manufacturers to deal with.
Unusual anatomy that has a mechanical limitation can't be dealt with by augmentations unless those augmentations say otherwise.
There are only two possible outcomes.
Paizo's official intent is that all playable races can use all gear.
OR
The above is not Paizo's intent.
General Rule: All playable races are capable of using all gear.
Specific Rule: Race 1 can't use Gear X.
I don't see what the problem is.
There is no middle ground.Yes there is: "All playable races can use all gear unless a racial trait indicates otherwise", for example.
I mean, Uplifted Bears. C'mon.
Those both fall into "the above was not Paizo's intent."
None of you have yet to prove my statement false.
Don't worry about trying though; it's off topic and a waste of time anyways.
What IS important is Paizo clarifying the issue so that everyone, from players to society GMs to future Starfinder developers, are all on the same page.
Paizo has clarified the issue and everyone but you seems to be on the same page.
The part that is confusing for me is for cases like the Khizar. The Vlaka have a more explicit statement of not being able to benefit from visual or auditory things.
I think if the Khizar aren't intended to be able to benefit they probably need a sentenced that's more like what is written in the Vlaka's description.
I'm fine with some races not having the ability to use certain kinds of augments, but I just want the races to have some sort of uniform description that conveys that.
Because to me the Khizar description is kind of ambiguous compared to the Vlaka's.