Cost of an Enhancement for Imbuement Skills

[DAT]

Take the Penetrating Strike skill. Per RAW (if I understand correctly), the Character using the skill declares what level they what to try to achieve, and then rolls with a modifier/penality according to that level: 0 for (2), -2 for (3), -4 for (5), etc.

So if my Mystic Knight with Penetrating Strike-14 wants to have a (5) armor divisor, he rolls at an effective skill of 10. If he rolls an 11, the imbuement fails and his attack has no armor divisor.

Rather than declare a target level, I want to just roll and get the effect based on the roll. So in the above example, with a roll of 11, the attack would have an armor divisor of (3).

Questions:
What do people think an appropriate cost would be for a skill enhancement that would allow this?

Or is this better as a Perk?

Penetrating Strike has ~5 different levels. Should the cost be different for ones with only 2 levels?

What about the cost of adding in the "no FP cost with a -5 modifier"?
i.e., Cost for:
1) if roll successful with -5 modifier and get armor divisor (5) and no FP cost; 2) if roll successful with -5 modifier and get either: armor divisor (2) and no FP cost, or armor divisor (5) and cost 1 FP.

-Dan

[the_matrix_walker]

You cannot enhance Skills of course, So you're looking to modify the Imbue Advantage, or some up with a custom Advantage to do the job.

You want your effect to be "Margin Based" rather than pre-selected. That's mighty potent!

I think if I were your GM I would so it one of two ways, I would either Have you buy your individual Imbue skills at Wildcard skill price (triple, even though it was still specialized to a weapon), or have you apply a full on +300% Cosmic to the imbue ability.

It's absolutely that powerful.

As for the -5 for removing a fatigue point, if your GM approves, take 5 levels of talent (at 10 points each) and call it "Reduced Imbue Fatigue 1 [50]"

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

You cannot enhance Skills of course,

You're right of course, you can't modify skills as such.

That said, on Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II, p. 14, we have Kromm's article From Skills to Advantages. Convert the desired imbuement skill(s) and skill level(s) as an advantage, and then modify as normal (constrained by the limits advised in the article).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

You cannot enhance Skills of course,

Uhhh. No, it's allowed if the GM allows.

Originally Posted by Basic p.102

The GM might even permit specific
enhancements on certain skills,
but this is difficult to justify unless the
skill functions much as an advantage
(which is sometimes true of
racially innate skills possessed by nonhumans).

[B9anders]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

You cannot enhance Skills of course, So you're looking to modify the Imbue Advantage, or some up with a custom Advantage to do the job.

You want your effect to be "Margin Based" rather than pre-selected. That's mighty potent!

I think if I were your GM I would so it one of two ways, I would either Have you buy your individual Imbue skills at Wildcard skill price (triple, even though it was still specialized to a weapon), or have you apply a full on +300% Cosmic to the imbue ability.

It's absolutely that powerful.

I don't think it's that powerful at all, tbh.

As for the -5 for removing a fatigue point, if your GM approves, take 5 levels of talent (at 10 points each) and call it "Reduced Imbue Fatigue 1 [50]"

Eldritch Talent is only 5/lvl. But other than that, it is the right idea. Though I think I'd price it at 20 points a level instead of 25. It's obviously not as versatile as regular talent.

edit: OTOH, slapping on an extra 5 points as an Unusual Background for an ability breaking the limits of Talent seems reasonable. 25 does feel more appropriate in cost.