AI in MODS?

[kito]

Hio all small problem one of my players want to put AI into there mod. i have lookd and found nuting in ay of the guieds as to wut AI does. at +3 i assume it sloud be good but for the most part i am at a lost.

my current house rule on it is pritty much you wont need to tell me if it is on or off it will go on when it needs to and go off when it needs to. e.g in his case he wanted enhansed vision see in dark, x-ray, underwater, bright. and a few more. so with his AI if it goes dark or goes light he wount get a -1 sit for the time it gets him to activate his eyes it would be instant same with things like flash bangs he would not even notce them go off. is this a good way to do it or is it to ecpensive for to little?

[Brainstem]

It's one of the many poorly defined rules in the book, but I would say you've got a good grasp on it. Find some way to make it useful given what you already know.

[malice]

A.I. doesn't do anything. All his enhanced vision modifiers are already always active, he doesn't need to turn them on and off, so A.I. wouldn't do him any favors.

Allowing a player to take the A.I. advantage on a modifier without designing what A.I. does in your games is neglectful at best.

It's just one of the many parts of the game that never got completed. What it does is up to each individual GM to create, because there is nothing in the game for it.

[Gryphynx]

See, when I hear AI on a Mod like vision enhancement, thats not how I see it... I think it would allow a calculated awareness of things without requiring his own thoughts. Ie, without spending stones on Intelligence or Tracking to be aware of something in his vision, its automatic. Xray and dark let him know without searching that theres a safe behind that painting which contains the Lost Ruby of Drethmon.

[kito]

i always have them tell me when they turn on there vision and wut one? unless there vision is always on. like under water. but as for x-ray unless they always have x-ray on i would tell them they have to tell me when it would be on. im guessing that is a house rule of mine but juts semas to make sence to me for that to happen. but that is for an enhansed vision things like animal sences are always on. and for the most part wut i described exsackly like u gryohynx but you just did a different but better example.

[Brainstem]

Ok, here's the deal with Modifiers (as I see and interpret them):

Modifiers land into two categories; you have the Active and the Passive Modifiers. Passive Modifiers are the ones like Toughness or Unmovable. These are the Modifiers unconnected to any Action and are, instead, always in effect. They're passive because they require no focus to activate.

Active Modifiers are the type like Claws, Targeting, and Enhanced Vision. These Modifiers are the ones that are only active when you pair them up with an appropriate Action or Ability. They don't, inherently, cost one of your Actions to use, but don't take up a new one, either. Simply put, they exist to Modify an Action (funny, hm?).

AI would go into effect in the case of Active Modifiers; it would allow these to trigger without you triggering them. Say you're searching for a hidden object. If it's been stashed in a safe hidden within the floorboards of an office, you would usually have to scan with your X-Ray vision to see it and would, generally speaking, know to do that. But what if you were a kind of "metal detector?" When you walk over a floorboard and there's something out of place underneath it, your X-Ray Vision instinctively kicks in, even if you weren't searching (provided the Modifier is enough to detect). The same could be applied to walking into a room filled with invisible enemies, having no reason to suspect any kind of attack.

[malice]

You are categorizing differences that don't exist, and making A.I. the solution to a problem that also doesn't exist. Enhanced Vision is ALWAYS ON, it just IS. It's right there on page 67, "always on." We have all heard the expression "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," you guys are breaking the rules so you can "fix" them with +3 to cost level. A.I. just doesn't do anything. If you want it to, make something up, but don't hamper the functionality of existing rules so your "patch" looks relevant. You have to understand modifiers properly before you can design a modifiers-only advantage. Sorry for the clump of text, posting from my phone.

[Gryphynx]

Malice, nobody is debating whether or not we're house-ruling it. As has already been said, there are NO rules for what an AI on a Modifier does, just that it's allowed. Our objective shouldn't be to try to give the canonical explanation, that'd be impossible, there is no canon. Our objective is to present a possible use of it on the specified Modifier that makes the +3 seem appropriate.

Don't forget, the entire chapter of Actions and Modifiers begin with the words "Examples of".

However... I think what's missing here is that a person should first describe what they want. If, as Malice says, the Modifier already accomplishes what they want, then paying +3 for something the modifier includes at +0, is just foolish.

When I list what I see AI on a vision Mod doing, it wasn't with the intent that you expand over what a person desires, it's so that you don't over charge for something they already have. If THEY do not have the desire to receive this sort of intel, and all THEY want is the power to turn their Modifiers "on", then it's a freebie.

The Vision, Enhanced is an EXAMPLE of a Modifier. If you want, you can decide that your own Modifier isn't always on. You could even get bonus points for it (-1 not always on). But charging them extra to do what they should already be able to do is just... bad form.

[kito]

well I also picked the vision enhansed because it was what my persion picked they are a mutants named Optic i think. and there power is most the vision enhansed options. as far as i know you could not see properly if they where all on at once, you brane just could not take it, mutant or not seing x-ray, energy, inferred, telisopick, ultivilet, ect all at once would stop you from being able to see at all. so with AI it was the way for him to Auto controll it, so it would auto go on when it needs to always. if the guy he is aming for with his bow gets to far away his vision enhanse telisopic kicks in automatickly with no transitions, and if it goes rilly dark, he will auto go into night vision, ect. as far as all mods always being on i have enver follwed that rule. like claws exstendable retactable it is not auto on you tell me when there in or when there out. same with vision enhansed. if you have lik 3+ options then no there not on all the time for th emost part. if the options ar elik see underwater see in dark see in bright light then ya they could be on all the time. but x-ray shure you could have it on all the time but y would you want to that is a weeknes you might see threw the guy your ting to spot. i do pritty much wut brainstem described but ony where it makes sence(to me) for them to be you tell me when/wut is on. as far as to say all mod are alway on i would say i can think of a few that have to be activated like rage, and Bone wepions.

[malice]

Your inability to imagine what the world looks like from better eyes than yours does not delete THEIR ability to see and understand more than you can.

"I can't see that" is one of the worst reasons you can ever take something away from a player.

If someone's eyes are capable of seeing more spectrums than yours, they're built for it and their brains are designed to receive it. Again, that's just how it works. Just because you can't picture it doesn't mean it doesn't work. Explain flight without wings sometime, just because you can see it in your head doesn't make it easy to justify scientifically.

If you had a better idea of how eyes actually work you wouldn't have such a hard time understanding how they COULD work. Do you know why dogs and cats can see in the dark? It's not because when the streetlights go on they hit an "on" switch in their eyes. It's because their eyes are specifically deisgned to make more use of the light available. They have extra reflective tissue in their eyes, which is why their eyes flash silver when you shine a light on them. Our eyes flash pink because we have the same reflective tissue, but not as much of it. That reflective tissue lets eyes re-use illumination to better define images. That's a laymen's explanation, but I promise it's all very cool, very impressive, and very easy to imagine once you understand it.

Remember that the characters in the game are not restricted by what you know, what you understand, or what's plausible in our world. I know that the Blob is fat and useless and his CAD sucks, but my character doesn't. MY vision is horrible, I'm blind in one eye and nearsighted in both, but my character can see as many enhanced vision options as I give him, all the time, as long as his eyes are open and he's alive. Your limited imagination should make no difference in anyone's character, and it doesn't change how the rules work.

[Gryphynx]

I agree completely with Malice. To a blind-deaf creature, the ability to see, hear, taste and feel all at the same time must seem as something far too impossible for a brain to understand.

[kito]

Flight with no wings = happy thought XD

My point was how could you see in inferad and x-ray and telicopic and microscopic and ect.. all at once? can you think of a way for it to make sence some of the visions he pick are opisitis like tele/micro. are you saying he can see tele/micro at all times how would that work? altho dogs and cats can see better at night they are also colour blind so they can see better when it is dark, we see in colour making it harder to see in dark( a less science way of putting it from my grade 10 Bio like 5 years agao but is afective) if you eye does more it cant see as well is to simplafy it i cant remember the exsact words anymore but it is natures way of stoping your brain from working to hard.

so the end result is I should tell my player to not get A.I and have the same thing as they do now? I will hapily do that if you can justify my abouve question on how it could see in all spectriems at once including oppisit ones.

[malice]

It probably isn't that different from seeing different colors. If you were capable of seeing all those things you would have a horrible time trying to explain what you see to someone who couldn't see it, and they would have a horrible time understanding you.

You konw thsoe wrod puzlezs olnine taht sohw poelpe raed jsut the frist and lsat lteter of wrods msot the tmie? Tehy can sitll raed sracmbled wrods lkie tihs?

Your mind learns to dismiss the unnecessary and focus on the interesting. You brain is programmed to deal with everything your eyes can tell it, but "dealing with it" doesn't mean thinking about everything, it means throwing most of it out.

Awhl bck I tld a bddy hw th Hbrw lngg hs n vwls, nd tht 2 ndrstnd th dffclts f prprly ntrprtng th Bbl y hd t apprct th lnggs ts bn thrgh. (H lvd th "rddl" aspct f fgrng t m wrtng lk ths, s h plyd dmb jst 2 gt mr f ths)

When you're driving you don't focus on every blade of grass, or the fact that it's green. You don't read every sign. You don't study every detail of other drivers. You focus on what you need to in order to get from point A to point B. The vast majority the details and information your eyes pick up, you dismiss immediately and keep driving.

You can't understand exactly what the world looks like for someone whose eyes see it so much more clearly than yours, but you can understand how YOUR eyes work and magnify the concept.

[mrmackadocious]

Can read the first one but the second eludes me (and I'm nearsighted in one eye myself and even that is annoying)

[malice]

For the most part it lacks vowels.

It reads:

"Awhile back I told a buddy how the Hebrew language has no vowels, and that to understand the difficulties of properly interpreting the Bible you had to appreciate the languages it's been through. (He loved the "riddle" aspect of figuring out my writing like this, so he played dumb just to get more of this)"

It was an attempt to illustrate the MASSIVE differences in how people can perceive and process things. What one culture, or one person finds impossibly complex and alien, another finds so commonplace that it dismisses it. My younger brother has something cool like 20/15 vision (I could have that arranged incorrectly), and he sees better than me at ALL distances. A human female sees more variation in color and texture than a human male, but a human male's eyes track motion better. People are different, and someone's inability to understand how does not dispel the differences.