Infirm makes sense as negative quality for a rigger or a hacker. Basically I consider myself to be a great big fat nerd (much like in real life, I suppose).

But I was jumped-in to a creepy-crawly (a Shiawase Kanmushi) and wanted to sneak accross something. I don't have infiltrate, which is a physical skill, so by the rules I can't do that. My GM and I decided that while jumped in I could default.

How have other people ruled on this? Thanks:)

I think while jumped in you would use Vehicle response + Rigger skill, which when defaulted is actually Vehicle response - 1.

Shouldn't be much objection to that as long as it's a defaultable skill.

not positive about this, but I believe that while you're jumped in, the attribute you would use would be intuition. Therefore, I would think that you could default.

I agree, if worse comes to worse, just use defaults and throw in some negatives. As long as its fair for the players and GM alike ofcourse.

There's a table in the faq (http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/resources/faq.shtml, search for "rigging") that spells out the infiltration test as Infiltration + Response, so not intution, but not your physical body either. So it makes some amount of sense to say it isn't physical.

...while conceptually interesting, this kind of comes back to the old discussion of sidestepping negative qualities or taking negative qualities that would rarely come into play (such as the mage with Sensitive System or the hardcore Sammy with Incompetence in both Artisan and Pilot: Aerospace Vehicles). Basically, if the character can easily jump into some kind of vehicle and all of a sudden have access to a skill DP he would not have due to the restriction imposed by said quality, then it could become an issue of imbalance.

I believe that in the description of Infirm (I am currently at work so I do not have my PDF/Book handy) the character is considered "untrained" (I think that is the correct term) in any physical skill he does not already possess. Someone who is untrained in a particular skill (in this case Infiltration) cannot default to perform it.

Again I do not have the rules with me, so I could be in error on this.

Personally speaking, I prefer the original Infirm flaw over the SR4 version since in the older one, the racial maximum (and thus augmented maximum as well) physical attribute rating was reduced by each level taken. This would still have an effect on DPs that are linked to physical attributes as well as an effect on how much augmentation can be added (I have sumbitted the original Infirm flaw in the Homemade Negative Qualities thread).

However this is a topic for another discussion.

the infirm flaw should read: not only is your character going to die horribly as a result of you taking this flaw, but clearly you an absolute moron for even considering this flaw, for any character design, ever. this flaw should have never been written (followed by the standard rules text found in your BBB).

seriously, it's not a flaw that someone who shadowruns for a living can deal with.

alternately, they could change the flaw to affect physical skills linked to physical attributes, which would make a whole lot more sense, and would make it possible for you to not be a walking corpse just from taking the flaw.

Being that Infirm is a 20BP negative quality, I don't think you should be able to bypass it to some extent.

On one hand I tried to look at it in terms of allergy and said, well a drone wouldn't react if you were allergic to something. So I do see why you asked.

But the part that seems to deny you using infiltration isn't just the fact that your character didn't have enough exercise or muscle memory to perform physical skills, but that he is also unaware/ignorant of them.

I.E. a guy who is infirm (or as you said big and fat) not only couldn't effectively sneak around, but has never really considered how to go about it. He wouldn't stay in the shadows or think of doing any of the things that would up his chances as he has exactly zero experience at it and seldom gets off the couch.

The work around for this is simple though. You pay double the cost for some infiltration skill. After creation you pay either 8 karma for infiltration 1 or 40 karma to get rid of the negative quality.

That's a good point, Wiseman. I'll run that by my GM, though right now he's really happy with what we've gone with.

Alternately, you could simply trade in Infirm for four Incompetences in physical skills. This gives you much more flexibility in designing your character, and avoids the worst parts of the Infirm flaw.

Really, the "group incompetences" of Infirm, Uncouth, and Undecuated are seriuosly not worth it. You're better off buying Incompetences instead.

...the thing is for KK trading off the uneducated flaw (the way we described it) for a couple Incompetence qualities really didn't fit her concept. Basically she was supposed to be a klutz with tech. In SR3 she had the Computer Illiterate flaw (which affected all sorts of technical devices, not just computers) and one level of gremlins (which worked a lot differently than it does in SR4).

Under the new build, She has the homemade quality "Dain Bramaged", which fit's her backstory perfectly.

I'm wondering how to simulate the old paraplegic/quadriplegic flaw from 3E.

I played a paraplegic rigger that had a motorized wheelchair, and a small army of drones he used as his 'body' most of the time.

Infirm would seem to apply, but this idea that even rigged physical actions would be affected kinda bothers me.

I've seen plenty of 'couch potato' types with excellent reflexes - as long as those reflex actions could be accomplished by clicking a controller or moving a mouse. The type that can barely move to get up and go to the bathroom but are absolute gods at things like FPS games.

Physical actions that aren't being done with the actual meat body really shouldn't be as affected, in my opinion.


-karma

You can accomplish this with low Strength and Body, but high Quickness and Reaction, plus a few physical Incompetences.

Watch out for the GMs who think you are being a 'munchkin' by doing this.

As a note taking four incompetences give you four points of noteriety, good look getting any work.

The rigger in the example should just bite the bullet and get a point in infiltration, as he can still buy it at double cost, then pick up a spec in vehicles for it.