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Old 11-27-2015, 03:22 PM   #36
clnoel
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Default Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic

I took a quick look at the ACTUAL example for an Item for the Link spell. It says (Magic, p. 132)

Quote:
A sword might be Linked with a Light spell and a Sense Life spell, so that it glows in the presence of Orcs.
Ignoring the "Sense Life" for right now, which is part of the Link's Detect, the Light spell is Regular and has a 1 minute duration, and the only items listed for it are "wand, staff, or jewelry." (Though, not "mages only") To me, this implies that <i>if you are using Link as an enchantment</i> you can enchant any other spell into the same item and have the Link become the "user" for the purpose of activating the spell at the right time.

The spell should be enchanted into the item as you would a Spell Stone, at an energy cost of 20x casting cost. (For the sword above, this is 20 points. For a "Fire Cloud" trap of area 1, 2d damage, this 40 points.)

For powering the item,
1 - For a "permanent" item, the spell should be powered by a Power enchantment with enough power to trigger the spell. (For the light sword, this is 500 points. For the 2d "Fire cloud" trap, this is 1000 points. The item/trap will activate when the link's condition is true, then cut off after the duration of the spell, then reactivate when the link's detect is true again. If maintainable, it will maintain as long as the link's condition is true.)
2 - For a cheaper version of the trap that needs to reset, the spell could be powered by an exclusive powerstone (much cheaper). (For the sword above, this is 20 points. For the Fire Cloud... this is also 20 points, due to the tripled nature of the power supplied by the power stone. In this case, the spell would activate (or maintain) when the link's condition is true only if the powerstone has enough power, and wouldn't if the powerstone is recharging.)

Opinions?

--clnoel
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