[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by rerednaw

From what I've seen it seems to be a way to give martials spellcasting without IQ, Magery, or taking extra time. Is that the intent?

I wouldn't quite say that was the intent of Imbuements, no. Imbuements are designed to fill a previous hole in GURPS - that it was difficult to build the ability to enhance attacks made with mundane weapons.

They compete with magic abilities, certainly, though I'd say that imbuements are a) less flexible than magic, and b) generally less impressive for the same FP cost and skill level. The "less flexible" bit is simply a matter of magic being capable of almost anything, whereas imbuements are always going to be about buffing your gear. You won't see an imbuement capable of, say, the Create Fire spell, or Summon Elemental, or Invisibility, or Detect Magic, because none of those are logically things you could enhance an object to do as part of its intended purpose.

The "less impressive" bit comes from comparing spells to comparable imbuements. Take Incendiary Strike, for example. This imbuement skill adds a flaming aura to your weapon, adding burning damage to the normal weapon damage. The most obvious comparison is Flaming Weapon. Incendiary Strike, like all imbuements, costs 1 FP for every turn you use it, and by default, adds 1 point of burning damage to your hits. In contrast, Flaming Weapon costs 4 points to cast, but then lasts for a minute, and costs 1 point to maintain after that, and adds +2 burning damage. Now, Imbuements can be improved by buying up the skill - Incendiary Weapon allows you to increase the burning damage added by taking a penalty to the roll to activate it, and all imbuements allow you to take a -5 penalty to the roll to eliminate the FP cost. But more points in skill also helps magic - high skill reduces energy cost and casting time. Also, the spell has the advantage that it can be cast on anyone's weapon, whereas the imbuement is limited to the imbuement-user's weapon.

Originally Posted by rerednaw

These are some of the uses I have seen:
Add enhancements (fire, acid, etc.) to a martial-based strike and attack during the same round.

These are all valid uses of imbuements, yes.

Originally Posted by rerednaw

Conjure ranged attacks that work like missile spells without taking a turn to create the effect. Skill levels of 15 are sufficient to make imbuement time zero.

Imbuements are always zero time, regardless of skill level. If the missile was equalling the power of the typical missile spell, however, the imbuer must have invested very heavily in either imbuement skills, or in having a weapon with a very high base damage. In the first case, similar investment in a missile spell would probably produce equal, if not better, effects, while in the second, I think it's reasonably balanced to allow a character who can do 2d impaling with a bow shot to change that to 2d burning if they want.

Originally Posted by rerednaw

Triple the striking strength (ST 12 ->14 through one effect and then 42 through a second) plus attack and do this every round.

I don't know of any published imbuement that would do this. The boost to basic ST I'm not familiar with at all. Tripling the ST sounds like the Power Blow skill, but to do so every turn, they'd be facing a -20 penalty to skill, so they've clearly invested a lot in Power Blow.

Originally Posted by rerednaw

Oh I have one more question: Are they subject to critical failure effects like spells or not?

They're certainly subject to critical failures. By default, a critical failure on an imbuement roll means you don't get the effect you wanted and you must pay 2 FP. However, if the imbuements are defined as magical, the GM could rule that they use the rules for magic spell critical failures too.