blackaeronaut - about your character

[Sirrocco]

Blackaeronaut - there is an issue with your biomod. It's not actually a balance issue. The best in-world approximation I can come up with is as follows.
Cool Stuff:
- The arm is Really Quite Tough, possibly to the point of being effectively armored, and possibly somewhat sronger than normal.
- The arm has a sort of limited short-range, three-use-then-rest-awhile speed drive that sends it flying at the enemy and drags the rest of your body along for the ride. Requires that you Call Out Your Attacks.
Significant disadvantages:
- Your arm is Really Quite Ugly
- (probable) there are low levels of ongoing damage that don't ever quite heal. Using the speed drive will make them worse over time.
Random Side Effect:
- The speed drive is quirky, and constantly bleeds off a bit of motive power in a way that causes a constant strong breeze to be blowing by your head and neck. (I really couldn't figure any good way to include random scarves in the effect without an actual breeze.)
This would be fine, given some good writing to back it up, except... it's pretty clearly a weapon. I can't think of any way to run what you're suggesting without it being a weapon - and last I'd seen, we weren't allowing biomods that were explicitly weaponized. If you can think of a way to have this thing without it being either primarily a weapon or ridiculously overpowered, I'd love to hear it.
For the transformation abilities - I'm not at all sure what you mean here, unless you're talking about the upgrades he gets over the course of the series, in which case you're running pretty heavily into the "you only get one" part of the rule.
It might also be worth putting in a few mundane quirks to give your character a few more interesting attributes to hang storybits off of.

[Black Aeronaut]

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Cool Stuff:
- The arm is Really Quite Tough, possibly to the point of being effectively armored, and possibly somewhat sronger than normal.

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Well, it's more than just a little, but nothing insane. Put it this way, my character is supposed to use that arm on a fen who has a "Klingon" biomod - it doesn't kill the guy, but he'll need to have those ribs looked at when he wakes up.

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Significant disadvantages:
- Your arm is Really Quite Ugly
- (probable) there are low levels of ongoing damage that don't ever quite heal. Using the speed drive will make them worse over time.

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Well, it was never really meant to be aesthetic. ;-) As for that damage, it's no biggie. The Handwavium and The Professor knew to take this into account and part of what it does is reinforce his frame with a structural integrity field, a la Star Trek.

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Random Side Effect:
- The speed drive is quirky, and constantly bleeds off a bit of motive power in a way that causes a constant strong breeze to be blowing by your head and neck. (I really couldn't figure any good way to include random scarves in the effect without an actual breeze.)

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Hrm... As Gryphon over in EPU is fond of saying on his boards, don't investigate this too closely. That aside, Handwavium is bound to do all sorts of inexplicable things. The Dramatic Hair and Scarf is a 24/7 side effect that my character has to deal with. A small price to pay for such a useful biomod.

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This would be fine, given some good writing to back it up, except... it's pretty clearly a weapon. I can't think of any way to run what you're suggesting without it being a weapon - and last I'd seen, we weren't allowing biomods that were explicitly weaponized. If you can think of a way to have this thing without it being either primarily a weapon or ridiculously overpowered, I'd love to hear it.

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Ahh, well as a spacer and a courier it comes in handy as more than just a weapon. His EVA Skin Suit has a specially made shoulder cuff that leaves the arm exposed to the vacuum. Why? So he can use it. It's pretty handy to have three shots of emergency high-energy thrust, not to mention the Unyielding Grip of Doom(tm). Sometimes, he doesn't even use a life line, but that's only when having one could be an inconvienience.

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For the transformation abilities - I'm not at all sure what you mean here, unless you're talking about the upgrades he gets over the course of the series, in which case you're running pretty heavily into the "you only get one" part of the rule.

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Nah, don't worry. No upgrades on this one - as I said, I don't want this to be ridiculously powerful. When Ben got his biomod, he was very explicit with The Professor in that he didn't want to always be lugging around a huge armored arm. The transformation ability is simply the ability to transform from normal fleshy arm to uber-armored arm. The trade off is, just as in the anime, he needs to use some sort of material in the vicinity to convert into the armor and 'ammunition'.

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It might also be worth putting in a few mundane quirks to give your character a few more interesting attributes to hang storybits off of.

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I'm open to further suggestions. ^_^

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

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[Sirrocco]

nonononono.
I am sorry. You do not understand.
Your biomod. It is too much.
I was trying to make it *not* too much, by pointing out disadvantages it could have.
Also, "dramatically blowing bishonen hair" really doesn't count as much of a disadvantage, unless you really want to play up the slapstick.
Also, this is not UF. We *do* "investigate this too closely" here. It's part of what keeps the system functional.
Also, putting in a personal structural integrity field for you just took this from "too much, but we can work on it" to "way too much".
Also, "I went to the Professor for a biomod." is not naturally followed by "I got this cool biomod that was exactly what I wanted, with all its potential flaws minimized." It is naturally followed by "What the heck did he *do* to me? ...and what crack was I on that I thought that this was a good idea?" Remember, the Professor is not there to give you exactly what you want. He is there to EXPERIMENT!
The phrase "a small price to pay for such a useful biomod" is *in and of itself* a warning that your biomod may well be Too Cool For School.
...and you want this thing to be something you can *turn off at will*? Bwah? No. Not so much.
Also, it's *still* a largely weaponform biomod, and therefore not really in the rules.
I am sorry.

[Morganite]

An obvious solution presents itself to me.
Have it not be an effective weapon. '.'
Maybe the hair movement is where all the kinetic energy that ought to be going into whatever it hits ends up. '.'
-Morgan, it's about as believable as speed drives..."I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[CattyNebulart]

Biomods can be somewhat weapon form, and I think with a few tweaks I think it's workable.
1) Turining off, just make it unable to turn of and it ompensates for a lot.
2) Sensitive Skin, the armored arm is just as sensitive as your real arm, so punching hard things hurts
3) This is streetfighter, When you hit an object below about 200kg the drive field transfers to them, sending them flying away in a dramatic ar, but not doing that much damage.
I'd say pick two of those restrictions and you're good, of course Siccorro might disagree with me.
In the seris Kazuma was able to dent mundane armor plate, but that was the absolute uper limit until he got an upgrade, considering most things are wavium enhanced this seems reasonable.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Black Aeronaut]

Sirrocco:
Really? I thought that those were your observations, not suggestions. My apologies.
I agree with Catty, though, that boiomods can be somewhat weaponized. Just ask any Catboy/Catgirl about their claws. Besides, like I said, it makes the dandiest tool for EVA's.
Okay, here's a thought. What if his arm kinda had a mind of it's own? Kinda like in that movie, Idle Hands. Be really funny if that "mind" was a somewhat lecherous one.
As for tweaks suggested... Sensitve skin sounds good. It's only natural, especially since even if you are wearing guantlets it's gonna hurt when you slug a brick wall with everything you got. I also like the "This is Street Fighter" bit... Though, I can not help but have the funny imagery of people still being made violently motion sick by such an action. This would not only fulfill the required slapstick factor, but also still incompasitate an opponent.
I am a little bit uncertain of what you mean by his biomod being unable to "Turn Off". Do you mean he's always lugging around the ugly metal arm, or that once he starts into a "Thrust" he doesn't stop until he hits something?

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

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[CattyNebulart]

I meant the always wearing the arm. Though I really like the mind of it's own bit, esspecially the lecherous one.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Black Aeronaut]

Eep. KJ went ahead and posted. This'll make it tricky for me to fix stuff, but I guess we can work it out. Anyone else have anything else to say on the subject?

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

---

[KJ]

Oh... uhm... er... whoops. ^_^;;
Though really, if you're going by anything but the "always on" problem, I don't know that it makes much difference except in the aftermath; p'raps spending part of your time bitching about how much that hurt as you work on running away?
I like the Street Fighter-ification idea; it looks like it should be instantly and messily fatal, and the target goes flying through walls and other scenery, but it's really only a particularily strong punch in terms of power.
That and a mind of its own at times? Oh dear.

[The Hunterminator]

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Eep. KJ went ahead and posted. This'll make it tricky for me to fix stuff,

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Which is why I refrained from posting it yesterday as I had promised KJ. We can still change it though, simply send the changed version to KJ and he can edit his post.

[Black Aeronaut]

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That and a mind of its own at times? Oh dear.

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Yeah, and, if lecherous, he'd have to be fighting that arm throughout half of the post, since KJ is not only female at the moment, but unmistakably so. Hilarious indeed, but it might mean a full repost in order to make it work.

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

---

[KJ]

Bugger. Oh well...

[Black Aeronaut]

Dems da breaks. I'll see you guys in a couple days - got a train to hop tomorrow.

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

---

[Sirrocco]

Well, I'd personally figure that if you took "always on" (and *not* taking that would take some doing, really), "Punch of a Thousand Flying Wires" and "Mind of its own" you'd be well within tolerances even without delicate skin/damage self/whatever. It's not a weapon any more, because the real effects it would have would be partial armoring and movement (you voluntarily, or other people involuntarily.) The whole thing about having a Large Ugly Arm is a bizarreness (Serious issue in Danespace, but essentially a nonissue in fenspace) and the random lechery (particularly if you *Really* wanted to run the slapstick and not have him necessarily notice when it did - until someone brought it to his attention) is a serious social disadvantage.
But that wasn't what I wanted to write about.
What I mostly wanted to write about is that slapstick is *not* obligatory. It can certainly be funny, and if you want to run with it, then by all means do so. It fits into the world just fine. It's not *required*, though, by any means. Seeing as how the thought that it was may well have come from stuff that I had been saying earlier, I wanted to make that clear.
Incidentally, if you *do* want to go with the slapstick... well... given the already-mentioned "bishonen good looks" and his tendency to be dashing (particularly if you took the "wind in hair" as a random occasional side effect (perhaps controlled by whatever lecherous semiintelligence takes over the arm from time to time)) - well, you might wind up having to deal with girls who didn't *mind* that you were being a little aggressive - and of course, those would be exactly the girls your character would be most desperately trying to avoid. It could go so *many* unfortunate ways.
Also, given that set of disads, it would be reasonable to give the arm a bit of extra strength if you wanted to - anything up to "regularly pumps iron" levels would be fine.
EDIT: Incidentally, I suspect that (assuming lechery) your character would soon develop a habit of keeping more than arms length from any females - or at least trying to. If he is in arms length and knows it, he may well be willing to accept a bit of distraction to maintain positive control over the arm. I suspect that these coping strategies might make it a bit easier to run the edits on the scene with KJ.
OTHER EDIT: Having read scene: Is a good scene. It *is* worth noting that killing Boskonians is not necessarily trivial in this universe. Any chance I could convince you to write that encounter up? Also, am curious as to what sort of weaponry you were talking about. Weapons in Fenspace are significant enough to be described (not necessarily in a bar chat, mind, but *somewhere*). Also the point about neko claws is that the weapon effect is incidental to the point of the mod - in this case, being like a cat - and the primary utility - most forms of cat claws give more utility for things like climbing than for things like fighting. Likewise, given a basic handwave effect of "strong tough(?) arm that moves things" - well, it can be quite helpful in combat, sure, but its primary utility is elsewhere (having a whole lot of knockback, for example, is somewhat useful for winning fights, if you know how to use it right. It is *very* useful for getting *out* of fights with even the most elementary grasp of tactics.)

[Black Aeronaut]

Well, missed my train yesterday because the freeways were, for all intents and purposes, shut down. Today I'll be going by light rail to the station to avoid THAT mess... So I got a few minutes today to make a post.
Sirrocco, I'm glad you like what we have so far. Means that we're doing our jobs right.
Anywho, slapstick aside (though it will be pretty funny) I do feel that the lecherous arm with a mind of it's own will provide a nice foil to the "Dashing Gentleman" trope.
I am reluctant to go with the arm being "Always On", but it will also lend my character even more instant noticability: he can't go anywhere without being noticed because of his monsterous right arm. Another interesting thing will be that this won't be a normal hand that's groping the girls... Instead is some beastly bio-armored claw. Bonus EEEK! factor. That said, I guess I'll go for it.
Any other throughts?

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

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[Norgarth]

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Any other throughts?

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If your arm is always active, you'll need some way to recharge your jet boost attack.__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Sirrocco]

Also, if you are going for the "monsterous lecherous arm" there's the question of what's driving it. Is it just an expression of your own innate, repressed lusts, or is there actually an AI in that thing? If there *is* an AI (there's plenty of space in there to grow enough spare nerve cells to function as a structure) then is it just a singleminded impulse, is it more or less at the "dog" level, or does it have enough of a mind to communicate with? If it's got enough of a *mind* to communicate with, then does it, in fact, communicate? If so, how?
Completely aside from that, there's the question of how much control this impulse has. Obviously, in violent or otherwise critical situations, you have full control, one way or the other. Either you have control directly, or whatever it is that controls the arm recognizes the importance of the situation and lays off for the duration. Other than that, though, is it just a case of the thing wandering off on its own when you aren't paying attention, or do you have to struggle a bit? What if there's some particular person that it *really* wants to fondle?
Girl: "Rhodesu-sama? Is there something wrong?"
Rhodes: (Currently staring at The Hand, which is hanging in midair in front of him, poised to lurch forward onto the girl's primary reasons for preferring low-G environments, and vibrating with conflicting impulses) "No. No. Nothing at all. Whatever gave you that idea? Excuse me just a oment, would you please?"
For that matter, is there something in particular that people might do that would particularly attract the attention of the Hand? Do the fangirls know this thing? Likewise, is there anything or anyone in particular that the Hand is either completely uninterested in or terrified by? Why?
All of these are entirely up to you. There's no real need to even tell us what they are (though if you want to, I certainly wouldn't mind.) It may be that your character doesn't even *know* the answers to all of them. Still, I figure it might be helpful if *you* knew them. There's plenty of story-tidbit opportunities regardless, but you don't get *any* of them if you just leave it vague.

[Black Aeronaut]

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If your arm is always active, you'll need some way to recharge your jet boost attack.

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That's pretty easy. The Handwavium uses the "Alter Ability" to convert matter into more ammo, but in order to do so it takes a bit out of Ben. So, while he'll always have the Monsterous Arm hanging around, at least he won't always have the spikes jutting out his shoulder. That'd just be a bitch to deal with considering his mode of transportation.
Sirrocco:
I kinda imagine it being Chimpanzee-inteligent. It's reasonably smart, it has problem solving skills, and sometimes it can even put one over on it's Master, but it's no Einstein. Its "Brain Power" comes from some oddly enhanced nerves inside the arm.
Ben can mentally communicate messages to the arm. When it "communicates" to him, it sounds like Scrat, the sabertooth squirell from Ice Age.
As for control, Ben more or less shares equal control over the arm, so it leads to contests of will like the one you just illustrated. When it gets unruly, though, he'd restrain it through a sort of physical binding.
The presence of nubile females in general is enough to get the Hand's attention. In general, males do not interest it. How does it tells the difference? Ben figures it's pherimones and the hand likes to grope the feme's for two reasons: A) It has no eyes to see with so this is how it "inspects the goods" and B) it's just plain letcherous.
Is it terrified of anything? Yeah. Anyone who looks like Ashly from Army of Darkness. Why? Because it's been a rather misbehaved limb and is afraid of getting chopped off.

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

---

[Sirrocco]

Hrm... There is problem. Admittedly, it's not one you neccessarily knew about. I should have tossed it into the Laws, and I did not. My apologies. Have done so now.
Specifically, handwavium conserves mass and energy - or, at least, that's been the understanding I had had of the general consensus. Quick micro-speed-drive boosts take almost no energy. I'm not really liking the idea of direct matter-to-energy converters in general, except as one of the extreme ends of "my nifty little research toy", but that's a personal thing. (We normally get around that with the funky "It's drawing energy from *somewhere* - I just can't tell *where*." generators. Perhaps we'll have an interesting plot somewhere down the line where we find out where all that power is actually coming from.) Regardless, this would give *wayyy* too much energy for the effect even if that *were* what it was doing
Basically, recharging one attack off of a quick hit to the character's internal energy reserves sounds about right. If you're using the "alter" ability, not only do you have to explain how the ability works in the first place (doable), you have to explain how Random Thing Foo gets turned into a spike (still doable, if not trivial) and what happens to the spike/mass/energy afterwards (err....) If you are willing to *not* include the "consumes bits of landscape" part, then you can explain it relatively easily. The spikes are an odd sort of battery. For whatever reason, they protrude when charged up and sink back in when expended. Done.
I *am* amused by the idea of him throwing around a couple of Really Powerful Punches at thin air right outside his ship, so that he can fit into the seat properly.
It also occurs to me - his other arm doesn't have any of the biomod benefits, but I suspect that you'd still have a significant advantage in hitting people with it when you had to. With a right arm like that, *nobody* would be expecting the left hook. Alternately, for a more balanced fighting style, you could carry a knife of a gun in that hand - but you really wouldn't have any need to until after the boarding actions started heating up.
Also, one of the storylets I'd really like to see out of this character, set after the war against the Boskonians gets ugly, is having him rescue a large group of fangirls... just for that beautiful little moment of "Okay. Fight's over. I won. Thank goodness. Now I can.... I can.... I can... run away. That's what I can do. I can run as fast as my little legs will carry me."

[Black Aeronaut]

Yeah, that all sounds pretty good. The fact that he can just devote a bit of his energy to a charge for three monster blows sounds very convienient. And it can give him an excuse to eat a little more than he would usually have to (I'm one of those amazing people who eats all the time and never seems to gain any weight).
Yeah, he'll work on the other arm to make sure that it's a little stronger as well... My character will definitely capitalize on the left-hook-from-nowhere thing. Be a nice follow up after an Attack-punch, since that really doesn't do much more to an opponent that disorient and confuse them... Well, and relocate them by a fair bit and possibly do some property damage as well.
Speaking of property damage, it'd also make a dandy door-buster, too.
An hand weapon might also figure into the picture later on.
I'll just have to wait and see what'll fit with his style, though given that he wears a Rocketeer Jacket, it'll probably be a ray-gun a la Flash Gordon.
I'll go for the Ficlet. I kinda imagin that he'd be a Big Name Fen because he was the first one to bust a slavery operation. It'll probably give me a chance to develop a secondary character, probably a romantic interest.

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News
of this kind a danish requires."

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[DHBirr]

Every reference I read to the arm having a mind of its own caused me to hear Peter Sellers saying, "Mein Fuehrer." Sorry.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.