[Nobunaga]

Bit of a disagreement at the gaming table. The group's a collection of people that have SURGEd in the days after the comet's passing and the idea is to play through the hunts, the trials, the ups and the downs of being a Changeling in the early years before they found acceptance...etc.

Now while the mechanics of what's involved here are minimal to my wife (the character of who this pertains to), she has asked me to find a clarification on the following...

1) Each character has a dominant hand.
2) To make your off-hand just as good you must take Ambidexterous for 5 Quality.
3) The SURGE effect Shiva Arms states...

These so-called Shiva arms or Kali arms can be moved independently,
but they will still have one dominant hand unless the
character has the Ambidexterity quality (p. 77, SR4). A character
with Shiva arms can take the Ambidexterity quality multiple times,
each time applying the quality to one of her off-hands.

4) My wife believes the words in the above mean that when purchased, the new pair of arms have their own dominant hand separate from your other dominant hand on your "First Set of Arms"
5) Our GM believes that the words above mean that the statement implies no matter how many arms you have, you still only have one dominant hand, the one from your first pair of arms, all others added are off-hands.

The nature of this all? Does my wife take 3 Ambidexterous Qualities, or 5? Any help would of course score me (and by proxy yourselves!) some brownie points. Heh

[KarmaInferno]

It's 5.

The quality does not say that each PAIR of arms has a dominant hand, it just says that "they" have a dominant hand.




-k

[Mäx]

5) Our GM believes that the words above mean that the statement implies no matter how many arms you have, you still only have one dominant hand, the one from your first pair of arms, all others added are off-hands.

This one's the correct.
So if she wants no off-hands for the character she must buy the ambidexterity 5 times.

[Lansdren]

A person with four arms is in trouble but six is just silly. I'm suprised the GM allowed a changling who then surged even more odd. The social negatives must be getting nasty

[Mäx]

A person with four arms is in trouble but six is just silly. I'm suprised the GM allowed a changling who then surged even more odd. The social negatives must be getting nasty

Why on earth would the social negatives be any worse for someone having 6 arms compared to the 4 armed guy.

[Kot]

You can show them to 'bugger off' with six hands. That's 50% more insulting than four.

[Lansdren]

A person with four arms is in trouble but six is just silly. I'm suprised the GM allowed a changling who then surged even more odd. The social negatives must be getting nasty

Why on earth would the social negatives be any worse for someone having 6 arms compared to the 4 armed guy.

combination of social negatives for being a changling and also surged. both have problems and its nver said they dont stack. If your a freak thats one thing but a super freak is something else

[Lansdren]

one other point to give,


some of the shadow talk about surging from someone says if you surge with bug aspects alot of people will be shooting to kill. I would expect eight limbs to be missunderstood by alot of people (in the real world there are alot of people who confuse spiders with insects I cant see this trend changing)

[Mäx]

A person with four arms is in trouble but six is just silly. I'm suprised the GM allowed a changling who then surged even more odd. The social negatives must be getting nasty

Why on earth would the social negatives be any worse for someone having 6 arms compared to the 4 armed guy.

combination of social negatives for being a changling and also surged. both have problems and its nver said they dont stack. If your a freak thats one thing but a super freak is something else

So pure rules think, well each his own, but i find the following line of thinking just totally hilarious and more then little retarded.
"That four armed guy, yeah he's okey, but that six armed dude there, now that's a total freak."

[FastJack]

A person with four arms is in trouble but six is just silly. I'm suprised the GM allowed a changling who then surged even more odd. The social negatives must be getting nasty

Why on earth would the social negatives be any worse for someone having 6 arms compared to the 4 armed guy.

combination of social negatives for being a changling and also surged. both have problems and its nver said they dont stack. If your a freak thats one thing but a super freak is something else

So pure rules think, well each his own, but i find the following line of thinking just totally hilarious and more then little retarded.
"That four armed guy, yeah he's okey, but that six armed dude there, now that's a total freak."

Agreed. If you're going to be biased against Changelings, there's no "super-bias" against subsets of them.

[Ultra Violet]

At the Gentlemen who said, Nr. 5 is the right answer. Could you be so kind and tell me your Source of your approach/opinion?

... each time applying the quality to one of her off-hands.

Could mean both, and in my opinion it means, every pair has an off-hand, because if all extra hands are off-hands, they would written a little bit shorter. i.e. ... each time applying the quality to all of her extra hands.
But it isn't written like that, and if you have in mind that this Metagenetic Quality can be taken multiple times, then you deal with 6 arms and from then on the phrasing makes perfectly sense. You have 6 Arms and each set/pair of arms has an off-hand, so you have to take it multiple times (up to 3 times). A side effect of my way of seeing it is that the extra load of BP/Karma costs are more balanced (and player friendly), for that positive quality. Or in other words: It is possible to create a six arms fully ambidextrous guy at CharGen, in your case it doesn't work at all.

Imho you it is every time the same side that is the off-hand (left or right up to 3 times), as if the new/extra set of arms is a clone of the original set (same off-hand side).

So please show me the source of your approach?

[Mäx]

At the Gentlemen who said, Nr. 5 is the right answer. Could you be so kind and tell me your Source of your approach/opinion?

... each time applying the quality to one of her off-hands.

Could mean both, and in my opinion it means, every pair has an off-hand, because if all extra hands are off-hands, they would written a little bit shorter. i.e. ... each time applying the quality to all of her extra hands.

Whut, wording it like that would mean that you only need one ambidexterity quality as it applies to all extra hands
You have one dominant hand just as the rules state and then you can ably the ambidexterity to any one of your off-hands, can't figure what part of this is unclear.

[Ultra Violet]

5) Our GM believes that the words above mean that the statement implies no matter how many arms you have, you still only have one dominant hand, the one from your first pair of arms, all others added are off-hands.

That means (if I'm right?): You have 6 arms and 5 of those are off-hands. (Resold = 5 times the Ambidexterity Quality)
My approach is: You have 6 arms (3 pairs of arms) and every pair has an off-hand, so you have 3 off-hands in that case. And if you wish to give your six arms guy full ambidexterity you have to take it 3 times, one for each off-hand.

Is it now clear, what I meant?

[FastJack]

You're clear, UV. Everyone's tending to side on the one main hand and 5 off-hands approach, however.

[Ultra Violet]

Oh ok it's fine, only that I can't get why!? Or what is your working angle?

The main reason for me are the BP costs. You say it costs a Changeling with 6 arms: 30 BP in Metagenetic Qualities and additional 25 BP in Ambidexterity Qualies. And that is not possible at CharGen, cause Changeling costs at least 15 BP + 25 BP = 40 BP (the limit is 35 BP). So you have to wait or spend Karma to get there... In my approach you can start with it and have 5 quality points open for other character options.

Yes I am aware of the Nartaki Metatype, and that their costs aren't based on SURGE or Qualities, but they are always humans. If you want another Metatype you have to go the described way above.