In the rules, robots determine their human appearance by rolling 1d100 minus 30 (with zero or less meaning that no one would recognize them as human).

I basically allow robots with even a 1% human appearance to be able to pass in movie theaters and dark alleys by wearing trench coats and hats (as so often happens in comics and movies). It's fun to try to determine in a general way what is different about the character: Mocker from the Crusader module is a great example with his "beholder" shaped head (for D&D fans).

If the appearance is 0% or less, they look too different to pass as human. How they are different can be fun to work out.

Androids, on the other hand, roll 1d00 (with no adjustment). Since most androids in comics and science fiction look closer to human than not, I'd suggest adding 30 points to that roll. If an android is 100% human looking, they can pass for human, appearance-wise even in a bathing suit.

If they end up with 101-130% human appearance they are more like a Philip K. Dick replicant. Even under medical inspection there is a 1-30% chance they they can pass for human.

I'm willing to let androids ix-nay their body power to boost their human appearance or self-repair scores.

polarboy wrote on Sep 9^th, 2009 at 11:18pm:


Cool idea. Welcome to the boards!

For starters, here's a link to a visual gallery showing the human-appearance percentages for many V&V robots: http://powersandpossibilities.blogspot.com/2009/11/robot-gallery.html

While I've got your attention...

Standard V&V rules say that characters with Robotic Body multiply their weight by 2-5 (1d4 +1).

To add variety, I give a player with this power the option of randomly rolling weight 1d4 more times, and adding the totals to the character's starting weight to determine weight of robotic character. The robot still weighs as much as 2-5 people, but not necessarily 2-5 times as much as a particular person.

Part of the reason for this decision is because I can think of a number of characters in comics who became robots (Cliiff Steele, Roger Bochs), and as robots they were heavier than their original weight, but not exactly 2, 3, 4, or 5 times their original weight.