I'm trying to visualize what different values of attributes look like on people. Strength, for example, is an easy one. Power-lifters all have a certain body shape that goes along with their Strength of 6/7. Body seems like it would be somewhat related, since more massive people with lots of muscle are generally better at absorbing damage. My teetering, very thin 91 year old grand mother with the osteoporosis would be a Strength 1, Body 1 character.

What would a human with Strength 1, Body 6 look like? What about one with Strength 6, Body 1?

The first would be a rail thin marathon runner guy. Not tossing any boulders, but can keep going and going and going.

The second would be a real fatass. Super large, able to manhandle people, but gets winded going up stairs.

Yeah. Truth is, while the attributes can exist independent of each other, and there's no rule requiring any particular relationship between any two attributes, some combinations have no justification. That there is a good reason to have a character image before you start assigning numbers.

I don't think you can show me even one martial artist, that is Strength *6* and not at least Body 3-4 as well in game terms.

Bye
Thanee

Strength 6 Body 1...hemophiliac power lifter?

STR1 BOD6 is a fat guy who is so large that punches and even small bullets are stopped by his massive folds.

I think a tough, wiry guy could also be str1, body 6. But yea, fatass is the most likely.

Is Body directly related to size? I thought it was more a measure of resistance to physical force, and immunity to toxins. Either way, you're missing two other key physical attributes to draw your picture from. Also, athletics skills may further flesh the notion out.

A High Body character with low strength, and low agility will more likely be more sluggish, traditionally displayed with more weight. But what happens if they have a high athletics skill? Can you be athletically overweight?

Meanwhile, improving agility strikes me as the distance runner type - Who, while have very hearty stamina, and well compacted and tough muscular system around their bones, lack the physical strength to effectly levy their strength on others. But when if their athletics skill were non-existant? Perhaps in that case, a character may be a bit lanky, comfortable with their own body despite how it can work against them levying their strength against other people and objects?

But as most people in real life fall into the range of average, it's hard to imagine someone with an attribute rating of '1' - Afterall. That's nearly the absolute bottom of human possibilities.

Yeah. Rating 1 attributes would be a sign of things like severe mental retardation, autism, immuno-deficiency syndromes, cystic fibrosis, hyper-obesity, paralysis, etc. Someone with a stat like this would, in all liklihood, be noticably handicapped.

A houserule to set a hard cap of 3 on the other stats in a given category (physical or mental) wouldn't be out of line. If you can barely roll yourself over (agility 1), how in the hell are you going to exercise enough to benchpress a car? With intensive physical therapy, you could probably get your other physical stats up to "average" ranges (if you're lucky), but whatever deformity or defect you have causing the first problem is going to limit the rest of your physical performance. The skills linked to your crippled stat would probably need to be treated as Incompetencies, while those linked to your capped stats would be similarly capped, though you could still get a benefit from specializing.

If you're going to house rule that everyone has to start at 3, then 3 becomes 1....

And everyone is spending 80 of their 400 build points on stats.

And metahumans become *far* more prevalent. 20 points for an ork, vs 40 points required to increase str and body to 3? Sure. 25 for dwarf vs 40? Yes please!

You'd be silly not to be a meta at that point.

And there's no indication that 1 is impaired. If that were the case, it would definitely have been called out in the rules describing the attributes.

I'm actually surprised that SR doesn't have negative qualities that give you those sorts of impairments, though....

0 is actually available, with the use of Decrease Attribute spells. However, it's treated as basically incapacitated. The system doesn't allow you to START at 0.

I was under the impression that Infirm had made it into this version. Am I wrong?

A rating of 1 isn't necessarily "impaired" any more than someone with no cardiovascular capacity, serious butterfingers, or a complete inability to read body language might be "impaired." It doesn't necessarily indicate a wasting disease, old age, bad arthritis, or having been sitting on your couch for so long that your skin is threatening to grow into the upholstery. However, it's worth noting that someone who does suffer from these conditions might be statistically represented as having the same rating in that statistic.

Bowlers!