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Old 12-02-2015, 06:20 AM   #38
clnoel
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Default Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic

Hmm... well we apparently take different approaches to Magic in general, Skarg, since I make it a general rule that wizards in my world can know any spell. Even people who are racially magical (have Magery 0 in their racial template) are likely to know some of the simple spells from any school (like Light). It's "divine casters," who are devoted to a god and get their spells from that god, that are limited in which spells they are allowed to have.

And yes, I have no problem with my characters wanting to "invent" things! In many cases I would rule that it takes a lot of extra time to do it since there are weird side-effects they were unaware of as they build something experimental, or that the item that they get also has weird quirks. However, magical inventions mimicing technology underpin the world (there are magical street lights and "trains" in my world), even though we are in TL-4.

I have also established a third enchantment method that brings the 60-800 power enchantment range down into the level of purchasing feasibility: you can get an item in this range in about a week, and because of the quickness you can get it at about $2/energy point. The risk is that if you are doing this on commission (and the people who do this generally work on commission!) there is a much higher chance of a critical failure completely destroying the awesome armor that you're trying to improve.

I guess that's why I considered it feasible to have 200-point Link spells with 500-point Power spells attached to them lying around in dungeons... Although I would also probably rule that people building a trap could specify the link spell's trigger area as "that area of floor" not an area around the current location of the enchanted item. If the item is moved so that the Link can't "see" that specific area of floor, it can't tell if it's being triggered, so it can't function. This gives another way of disarming the trap, but also makes it impossible to steal a Link trap.

Or, would that be the fundamental difference between a "Link" spell that can make a glowing sword and a theoretical, invented "Trap" spell? A "Link" enchanted item can be carried around and functions in an area around its current location, whereas a "Trap" spell functions for a particular area only?

--Christina
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