Robot Components
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Characters, part 2

Built-In Benefits
Advantages for robots



      All robot characters start out with the advantages listed on page 9 of GURPS Robots. (They are repeated on page 55.) This default list is adjusted for neural-net and sentient robots, as described in the book.
      After I read through the Compendium I, I came up with some additional innate advantages. The list below is long, but, according to the rules, every robot has each of these benefits. There are a few cases where innate advantages are lost during design, so start with this list and then cross them off as you build your robot.
      I refer to three GURPS books in this article (the two previously-noted books and the Basic Set), so my page designations are marked with RO, CI, and B.


Immunity to Poison 15 points
High Pain Threshold 10 points
Immunity to Disease 10 points
No Blood 5 points
No Impaling Bonus 15 points
No Vitals 5 points
Vacuum Support 30 points
Doesn't Eat or Drink 10 points
Doesn't Sleep 20 points
No Fatigue Costs 15 points
Unfazeable 15 points
Radio Speech 25 points
Secret Communication 20 points
Total 195 points



Immunity to Poison
      This is one of the many hazards to which robots are immune. See the sidebar on p. RO97. You might want to remove this advantage if the robot has the Three Bio Features: biomechanical structure, a bioconvertor power plant, and a biomechanical brain. Or, instead of removing it, you could downgrade it to Resistant to Poison, which is worth 5 points (p. CI29).


High Pain Threshold
      Robots do not suffer from shock or knockdown (p. RO99). A biomechanical structure eliminates this advantage (see p. RO40).


Immunity to Disease
      Unless the robot has a biomechanical structure, it is immune to diseases. If the Game Master allows, you can make a biomechanical robot Disease-Resistant to reflect the fact that it is still substantially mechanical. (Disease-Resistant is worth 5 points. It gives the character +8 against diseases.)


Injury Tolerance
      Robots do not bleed (p. RO97), so they have the No Blood advantage. There are two cases that could make the robot a "bleeder" — if it has the Three Bio Features, or if it could leak some other precious fluid when it is injured.
      Robots do not take double damage from normal impaling attacks. This is the 20-point No Impaling Bonus advantage from p. CI58, reduced to 15 points because robots still take double damage from impaling energy weapons such as blasters and lasers.
      Although robots have vital parts in their abdomens, they don't suffer the effects listed on p. B248. This gives them the No Vitals advantage.


Vacuum Support
      Unless it has an internal combustion engine or a bioconvertor, a robot doesn't need oxygen to survive. According to page RO35, this benefit is supposed to be covered by the Doesn't Breathe advantage, worth 20 points (p. CI53). But a character with Doesn't Breathe still requires oxygen — he just absorbs it through his skin.
      I looked for a replacement, something a little more accurate. I tried Vacuum Adaptation (p. CI69), but it didn't work. It includes a DR bonus, the cost is weird (twenty-seven points?), and it gives the character "an extra layer of adipose tissue" (whatever that is).
      After reading the list of hazards that robots can resist (p. RO97), I chose Vacuum Support instead. It's just right. Well, there is a slight problem: Vacuum Support includes the 15-point version of Pressure Support (p. CI63). The 15-point Pressure Support allows the robot to survive at the core of a gas giant. Yeesh! (Why are these advantages combined like this? I have no idea.) I was planning on adding Pressure Support to the list of innate advantages anyway, but I was going to use the 5-point version.
      So, to make things as complex as possible (ha ha), all robots have a version of Vacuum Support that includes the 5-point version of Pressure Support. This is worth a total of 30 points and it covers most of the hazards in the sidebar of p. RO97.


Doesn't Eat or Drink
      . . . or excrete. Unless the robot has a bioconvertor. See p. RO94. But does a bioconvertor automatically make the robot excrete wastes? Does anyone out there know the official rules for robot poop???


Doesn't Sleep
      At 20 points, this is a steal. (I recommend you give this advantage to your current player character right now.) Not only does your character get a third of his life back, but he can be active while most of the world is incapacitated and vulnerable. It's also the shortest complete advantage description in any GURPS book (see p. CI53).


No Fatigue Costs
      "Robots take no Fatigue from combat, long marches, running or swimming, or losing sleep. They ignore magical or psionic attacks that would cause a human to take Fatigue" (p. RO93). That's quite a list. We've already covered sleep. What about the rest of it? Is there an advantage that covers this? I haven't found it.
      After reading p. B134, I'd say this is worth at least 15 points. This also covers the robot's immunity to Fatigue costs for extreme heat and cold (p. RO97).


Unfazeable
      Unfazeable is at the top of a long list of advantages that allow a character to resist fear. The others are Cool (+1 against Fright Checks), Composed (+2), Collected (+3), Imperturbable (+5), and Fearlessness (2 points per +1 against Fright Checks and Intimidation).
      Unfazeable characters don't make any Fright Check rolls. According to page RO94, robots are immune.


Radio Speech and Secret Communication
      A robot with the basic communicator package (p. RO16) can hear and broadcast radio information. This is the same as Radio Speech. (Radio Speech includes Radio Hearing.)
      Since humans (and most aliens) cannot naturally hear or send radio transmissions, robot radios are a form of Secret Communication. You can remove this second advantage if robots are rare in the campaign — they don't communicate with each other enough to justify adding the advantage.
      It is possible that, in the campaign, robots are programmed to keep to themselves. They can hear radioed commands or pick up broadcasts so they can relay the information to their human masters, but they cannot send information. In this case, give all of the world's robots a restrictive program (p. RO60), get rid of Secret Communication, and downgrade Radio Speech to the 10-point Radio Hearing.



Other Possibilities
The following advantages could be innate to all robots. It depends on the nature of the campaign world and the degree of variation among robots in it.

Unusual Background
      According to p. RO85, a 10-point Unusual Background is recommended in worlds where robots are rare but not unknown (horror, fantasy, time travel). The 25-point version is the default in worlds where robots are very rare (martial arts, modern espionage, historical adventures, etc.).


Zeroed
      It's not likely that artificial people will be catalogued as extensively as living people. If robots are listed in databases, the information will probably be limited to model and serial numbers.
      Zeroed has a downside that is appropriate to most robot characters — assuming that artificial citizens are second-class, they will have trouble using credit cards and electronic money, getting a driver's license, or getting a gun license.


No Brain
      The No Brain advantage (listed under Injury Tolerance on p. CI58) doesn't apply to robots because they do suffer knockdown effects when struck in the brain (p. RO97). However, if the brain is not located in its head, the robot avoids these effects. You could represent this with a reduced version of No Brain, perhaps worth 2 points instead of 5.


Pious, Pitiable, and Sanctity
      These three 5-point advantages should be used if the rest of the world has special feelings toward robots. All three are described on p. CI29.
      If the people in your campaign world feel that robots have an innate moral sense — a sense of propriety that causes them to show uncommon respect to the living — then all robots are Pious. This doesn't work if robots are programmed to be Pious. It must be a choice. (And keep in mind that this general consensus could be wrong. Maybe all of the robots are secretly evil.)
      If people feel compelled to take care of robots, they are Pitiable. To make this advantage innate, the world's robots must be (a) unable to take care of themselves, and (b) as cute as puppy dogs. The range of robot designs in this world will be very narrow.
      Sanctity is a good choice if Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are standard-issue in all robots. Even if a few robots are not trustworthy, a society that expects them to act as guardians will regard all of them as Sanctified. This is a secular form of sanctity, of course. For some real fun, use the religious connotation of Sanctity and imagine a world in which the word "priest" and "robot" are synonymous.


Immunity to Timesickness
      It's likely that all robots are immune to timesickness, no matter what campaign world you're using. But how often does this come up? Unless the robots travel through time regularly, this innate advantage should be ignored.


Toughness and Damage Resistance
      Almost all robots are made of nonliving, durable material. So it makes sense to give all of them a built-in DR of 2. If the robot gets too "fleshy" as it is designed (a biomechanical structure, for example), drop it to DR 1 or get rid of it.
      I was going to put this advantage in the box at the top, but I decided to play it safe and out it here instead.


Magic Resistance and Psionic Resistance
      Robots lack a soul or spirit. This, combined with their metal-and-plastic bodies, might make them difficult targets for spells. If your campaign world has a lot of magic and robots, two or three levels of Magic Resistance should be standard.
      Psionic Resistance is even more likely. Not only are robots soulless, but even the sentient ones have digital brains. It is conceivable that all robots are immune to psionic attacks that effect the mind, not just resistant. They should have no special resistance to psi skills like telekinesis, however.





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all art on this page by Jeff Dee
(from an old Villains & Vigilantes adventure and a book for Space Opera)