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"A hoverchair can carry its user in addition to an amount of bulk based on the model. If its bulk limit is surpassed, the chair powers down and must be restarted. Also, each hoverchair features one or more compartments for storing gear (again, based on the model)"
The bulk limits are never specifically addressed in any of the entries. The only bulk listed is the bulk the pockets are capable of carrying. This is a problem because going over the limit shuts down the chair, and from this description it SEEMS the limit is 2-3 bulk which is very small. I have SO MANY questions about this:
1.) "A hoverchair can carry its user"
- Does this include things the user is carrying, up to the user's carrying capacity?
- If so, how does this interact with power armor, which doesn't count against your encumbrance when you are wearing it and also alters your carry capacity?
- How do the Encumbered and Overburdened conditions impact the movement or function of the chair? (Can either condition set off the shutdown sequence?)
2.) "An amount of bulk based on the model"
- Was there supposed to be a chart or some text that got left off? Or is this talking about the pockets? It seems unlikely this is talking about the pockets, because of the way they are mentioned as auxiliary "Also, it features pockets" as opposed to "determined by the number of pockets".
- Do mounted weapons count against this bulk limit?
- Do items in chair pockets?
- Do utility items mounted to gear slots?
- Does armor the player is wearing?
I would also note that the chair's pockets seem to be similar mechanically to a backpack. So that is another reason I don't think they are supposed to represent max bulk.
Since the hoverchairs seem to be designed to mostly stay out of the player's way, and with their speed based on the user's land speed (for their species), I would assume that by "user" they mean "user, including gear." The additional bulk per model does, by my reading, mean the compartments (and utility gear slots).
I think that makes sense, it's just vague as to whether the cutoff point at which it shuts down is "encumbered" or "overburdened", and it would have been so much easier conceptually to just say:
"If the user becomes overburdened, the chair shuts down. Also it has pockets that allow it to function as a backpack, increasing carrying capacity by the listed amount."
So it's all just the slightest big vague and perplexing. But I agree with your analysis I just would have to convince my GM of that and he might look at this and read something completely different.
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I follow the author of this section on Twitter, and she states in her work about similar disability aids for D&D that the idea is to make the character in the chair as similar to a non-disabled character as possible. This is why the hoverchair's speed is the same as the character's. For this reason, absent any clarification, I would interpret this rule to say that the chair's Bulk limit is the same as the character using it - if you can't carry it without a chair, you can't carry it with one.
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Agreed that the idea is to have the chair be as much of a non issue as possible: no disadvantage so that the rider is just as capable as anyone else and no advantage so that no one is getting one for a bonus or ability.
The chair is as fast as you. The chair holds as much as you. Maybe they're powered by witchwarper warpdrives. Don't have your characters think to hard about it. Either it's not going to make sense to them or they're going to start muttering about grays and strange beings from other universes controlling everything.
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I also follow the author on twitter and agree with this interpretation. The original version of this thread actually said "based on what I know about the author there's no way they intended for this chair to provide a carry weight detriment of any kind - their philosophy is usually that mobility aids in TTRPGs should never provide detriments as that defeats the whole point". But I was worried about getting into fights with people who don't agree and getting the whole thing derailed into the usual bad faith discussions about disability in TTRPGs. Glad to see that's not where the conversation went!
It seems like most folks say this is common sense so I'm not too worried about having to convince my GM that's how it works but that's basically why I made the thread was to see if this was a common sense way to interpret what's written or not. Still think it could use more specificity but I'm no longer as concerned based on this discussion.
The chair touches on real world issues of accessability and presentation. Those issues are going to overide any damage to immersion the in world results of that result in. Just try not to think about it or perform experiments on it and your brain will thank you.
Well, the way I see it is like armour, they are fitted towards a certain character/Race. So your Nuar wouldn't actually fit in the Dwarf's chair.
I do agree it would be nice if they did have stats, but the way I am happy to see it is they are tailor made for the person, with the upgraded ones being just that, upgraded versions.
Though, does a chair gain an improved land speed from class/Feat/Implant bonuses? Like an Operatives speed increase, Jet Jockey and fleet and which ever implants improve land speed?
I disagree.
The single biggest advantage pen & paper rpgs have over any other form of gaming is the freedom and interactivity you can have. Being then told to "don't think about" aspects of the game runs directly counter to the core of rpgs.
for a small group you can do what you want. But by the rules the item is meant to act a certain way, for stated reasons, and those don't allow for the kind of immersion you're looking for. You're trying to extrapolate how the item works based on the idea that it's acting according to in world rules and it just isn't; the hover chair is set up to act according to paradigms outside of the game world. Trying to extrapolate how it works in game is just going to get nonsensical results. If you think that's bad design I can't disagree, but I think it is the least bad option.
I disagree.
The single biggest advantage pen & paper rpgs have over any other form of gaming is the freedom and interactivity you can have. Being then told to "don't think about" aspects of the game runs directly counter to the core of rpgs.
These are, literally, one size fits all rules. The rules were written for the express purpose of one game mechanic standard for all people. From that standpoint, having the same cost for the same gain makes some measure of sense. From an engineering aspect, I will admit that the idea that it takes the same amount of economic resources to carry a small size, 40 pound gnome, as it takes to carry a large size, 500 pound Megalonyxa makes my eye twitch a bit, but they try to balance that some by the fact that the chairs have the same speed as the individual they are made for. That still sounds like the halfling's chair should be cheaper, but again, the concept behind the rules as written is about balance for all players, not practical real world industry or economics.
Ok, so by your own general tone Ixal, why bother with any laser weapon beyond the Standard (Plus level variants)? They statistically are better then most other laser weapons so why have more then one type? Why bother with a variety of different types and styles of weapons?
Its called choices. You argue the freedom and interactivity of TTRPGs, so why shouldn't I have the choice to be in a chair? Yes, your PCs have the choice to go for augments. What about before they become a PC? Not everyone is going to be from a prime 1st world area. Not everyone is going to so easily accept the invasive principles of cybernetics/Bionics. Not every city is going to have the medical facilities for it.
Yes, they should have given it base stats, but its not game breaking like you are treating it. Yes, I would also like to have stats but I am not going to let that break the game for me.
Some players like their characters to have interesting backgrounds and histories. You even see it in adventure paths and published works, things to make characters different in some way. Like an Operative having a distinctive scar. Realistically if they can replace body parts, scars can be cleared up. A distinctive scar is going to be recognizable. Not good for your infiltrator but for a few creds he can get it removed, job done but no, it makes him interesting.
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And while others are ok with just saying "don't think about it" I am not. Not being allowed to think about aspects of the game world and not being able to interact with them in any creative way because they have been designed to be broken from the ground up destroys one of the main advantages and draws of RPGs.
I'm telling you not to have your character think about it, or not to have you think about it as something in the world, because it's not going to make any sense or fit any paradigm you can derive that way. It doesn't work according to in world physics it works according to out of game considerations. It's designed specifically so you CAN"T get creative with it. It does one thing and that's it. It's thing is to act like it isn't there.
When that is the case of course you, logically, won't have many disabled people in the setting. The same way you won't have many obvious transgender when you can get sex change serums out of vending machines.
True. But adventurers tend to outliers of their societies to start with. In game maybe you don't react well to nanites the same way people in real life have allergies to antibiotics, or your family has had a curse on it since the gap, you were attacked by a psycic monsters, ticked off a local deity, got cut with an artifact sword etc.
One of my home game players has a trans vesk. She was on a cooking show, and a male vesk was verbally trash talking her lack of cooking skills for the camera (too much time holding a doshko, not enough time holding a brazier!) they were telepathically talking about "why not just snag the serum" The more serious response was "because THIS is who I am".
If that doesn't make sense for your characters, or you don't think it would be a majority response then you do your characters your way. But it's a big universe and you're going to see some unusual things in it. I don't think it would be any odder than some real life decisions or circumstances.
I follow the author of this section on Twitter, and she states in her work about similar disability aids for D&D that the idea is to make the character in the chair as similar to a non-disabled character as possible. This is why the hoverchair's speed is the same as the character's. For this reason, absent any clarification, I would interpret this rule to say that the chair's Bulk limit is the same as the character using it - if you can't carry it without a chair, you can't carry it with one.
What is the slowest species in Starfinder? Giving a hoverchair the same speed as the character's species works as long as the setting does not support species similar to Pathfinder's merfolk.
And of course this chair would be totally useless as a mobility aid if it grants a paraplegic character a speed equal to his own speed without such aid.
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The hover chair lets them move their full land speed, as opposed to their reduced land speed due to whatever is slowing them down.
With that interpretation, you could also ignore armor speed penalties. Encumbrance penalties too if we are handwaving stuff the character carries on them.
No, since armor reduces ones full land speed.
Or we don't have stats on the exact wording of mobility impairments.
You can't chainsaw dissect the grammar for something that isn't there.
If you can reasonably interpret an item so that it does something overpowered, something, or nothing, you take the interpretation that is something.