GURPS Powers and Enchanting

[scc]

So if using Powers, Magic as Powers, Chi Powers, Psi Powers or pretty much anything else Powers based, what do people think would be needed for people to enchant or perform an equivalent task for their Power Source? I'm thinking that one or more Afflictions would be a minimum necessary, but additional skills or techniques or instructional books are likely needed for item made.

I'm not asking just for PC manufacture here, if the PCs need to buy an item in such a setting figuring out these basics is needed to know how hard it is to find someone to perform the task, and if the PCs need to perform a task like lifting a curse that's been somewhere for a while, knowing this gives me an idea for what they'll need to lift said curse.

[Celti]

The Enchant spell in Sorcery and its associated rules, while obviously designed with a focus on magic are quite easily generalisable to “powered devices” for alternative powers.

[whswhs]

It totally depends on the power source.

* Biological powers: The way you grant someone else your powers is by reproducing. The way you grant another organism those powers is genetic engineering. If they're exotic comic-booky powers, you'll want to use Weird Science and make inventing or gadgeteering rolls. See GURPS Powers: The Weird for the weird science of Ontogenetics.

* Chi powers: You really can't give these to someone else; they come from within. ("Change comes from within," as the hot dog vendor told the Buddhist monk.) Canonically the way you get them is through long study, which often takes the dramatic form of a training montage. See GURPS Martial Arts.

* Divine powers: They're granted by a god. The powers of gods are not normally represented in game mechanical terms; if you do want to provide a character sheet for one, its abilities will be Cosmic. The standard way to get these powers is prayer.

* Psionic powers: They come from the mind. You might be able to grant another organism your powers by reproduction, or by deep mind-to-mind fusion. There could be a permanent affliction for this; the Darkover novels have the notion of a "catalyst telepath." To do it scientifically, you need to engage in genetic engineering to change the brain (see Biological powers) or to reprogram the adult brain in some way; see GURPS Psionics and GURPS Psionic Powers for ideas. GURPS Psi-Tech discusses psi devices.

* Spirit powers: See divine powers. Also, take a look at Path and Book magic in GURPS Thaumatology.

* Super powers: In general, you don't have a power of empowering others, though powers may get transferred around by weird accidents—in the Silver Age, pretty much everyone who knew Superman gained super powers at some point. Every super gains powers through a different origin: exposure to cosmic rays, exposure to gamma rays, self-experimentation, the bite of a radioactive spider, being drenched with chemicals, being trained by the Amazons, dosing yourself with an exotic herbal extract. . . . (The classic Legion of Super Heroes joke is, "My scientist father gave me the ability to make the sun become a supernova. But I can only do it once.") The only thing that really unifies super powers is that they can all be affected by Neutralize and Static—this is canonical too. (And even then, for example, I remember a story about Wolverine having his mutant powers shut down, but still having his adamantium skeleton and claws.)

I hope this is some help.

[weby]

A few notes on the excellent list by whswhs:

Biological powers: In some settings/some of the powers may be transferable by things like blood products for temporary(until they decay) or permanent(it is an infection) effect. In those cases the counter is to neutralize the effect with something that removes the transmitted thing, like if it is a disease you need to kill the bacteria/virus.

Divine powers: Expanding on the prayer comment: In some settings it is very common for holy men to bless others granting them temporary powers and in some they may temporarily transfer their power to others. All that happens true prayers. Neutralization is normally through praying to an opposing god of the original granting them. Also champions of opposing gods may have neutralize powers.

Psi powers: These are neutralized by other psi powers and/or Psi technology.

Sprit powers: in some settings someone can direct the spirits to possess or help a willing or unwilling target. Neutralization is often though Exorcism.

Super powers: Some super powers are gadget based and there have been cases where someone has stolen the power object of some super and used it.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by scc

So if using Powers, Magic as Powers, Chi Powers, Psi Powers or pretty much anything else Powers based, what do people think would be needed for people to enchant or perform an equivalent task for their Power Source? I'm thinking that one or more Afflictions would be a minimum necessary, but additional skills or techniques or instructional books are likely needed for item made.

I'm not asking just for PC manufacture here, if the PCs need to buy an item in such a setting figuring out these basics is needed to know how hard it is to find someone to perform the task, and if the PCs need to perform a task like lifting a curse that's been somewhere for a while, knowing this gives me an idea for what they'll need to lift said curse.

If you mean "What sort of trait do enchanters need?" I would go with "0 point feature" or "perk" or "Gadgeteer." If it's a feature, it's assumed that all people can imbue objects with power. If it's a perk, then it's assumed that only some people can do it, but it's not a huge advantage. If it's gadgeteer, then there's a steep cost (but presumably a steep benefit). What's pertinent here is that you're making an item, which in principle anyone can do, it's just the item you're making happens to have unusual properties.

The easiest way to handle enchantments-as-advantages is to treat them as advantages. 25 "energy points" will give you 1 character point, therefore 25 8 hour "days" or work will give you an enchantment worth a character point. Then it's just a matter of working out the costs of the advantages you want to give the items.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by weby

A few notes on the excellent list by whswhs:

More generally, every power source provides its own distinctive ways of gaining powers, granting them, countering them, and embodying them in objects.

And even that has an exception: none of these is possible at all with the Cosmic power modifier, at least by any ordinary means. (I suppose you could take Neutralize Cosmic with some level of Cosmic enhancement and allow it to disconnect your foe from the primal energies of creation, but straight Neutralize Cosmic simply wouldn't work.)

Anyway, what you need to do is study the power modifier and the rationale for it. Power modifiers aren't just trivial flavor differences in an underlying generic "I haz powerz" quality; they're different ways of fitting abilities into the game world.

[starslayer]

I get bills list there, but I think that may be unreservedly harsh. The GM wants to make enchanted items available, and wants to know what that will look like. Here are my thoughts/suggestions.

Biological: often times biological powers are granted by nanomachines, symbiotes, or weird organelle. Creating such a thing is weird science, xenobiology, or high TL tech or biology skills. 'getting' there item means surgery or injection. Generally this is one time permanent install. Rules should be for fantastic inventions.

Psi: 'focus' technology, or psi attuned items. Focus technology is technology (built with some sort of 'understand psi' skill), built with invention rules. Attuned items are built as per 'enchanting through cp' 25 days effort == 1cp.

Spirit/divine: if your powers come from others than items that are either separately empowered, or more appealing to requests for aid, should be possible. For things that grant powers use devotional enchantment. For things that increase the odds of existing prayers being answered I would go with a 'power stunt' on an influence roll against your spirits/deities (ie. Permanent is +300%, by taking a -30 on your influence roll you can produce something that always grants it's bonus while carried)

Super: super powers are all over the place, but super science gadgets are a pretty common 'power source'. Enchanted items are invented. They may not conform to science as we know it (crystal helmets and power rods)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

The easiest way to handle enchantments-as-advantages is to treat them as advantages. 25 "energy points" will give you 1 character point, therefore 25 8 hour "days" or work will give you an enchantment worth a character point. Then it's just a matter of working out the costs of the advantages you want to give the items.

It's also possible to treat them as results of gadgeteering, which is what I would recommend for anything weird science-y.

[Anaraxes]

Time, skill, and exotic material requirements are all also world-building decisions. If you were mixing many power sources in one setting, you might want them all to have the same basic mechanic (like the one Mailanka suggests) for fairness, leaving the rest as details, but not terribly different in overall cost and time from each other. Or you might have several power sources, but choose to have only a few of them be any good at deliberately making enchanted objects. (Say, the gods might be perfectly able to imbue a weapon with great power, but it's awfully hard to find one and get a favor when you need one. On the other hand, the local wizard is at least predictable and available. In this case, you'll see a lot more "magic" items than "divine" items, even if both are built on the same Advantages.) If the setting features one particular power source, the GM will probably want to tune that to suit the feel the world is supposed to have.

Perhaps a fantasy world has rare enchantments of great power, meaning you want them to take a lot of time, high skill, rare skill combinations, and/or hard-to-get heart-of-a-dragon and tail-feather-of-a-phoenix kind of materials. Perhaps the fantasy world has much more common magic -- perhaps even "gadgeteer" mages, who get the job done by making an item, and cart around a bunch of them if they need to have something suitable at hand on an adventure -- in which case it really can't take years of lone study in a tower to make each one of those items, and there might be an entire industry of adventurers collecting "rare" materials to feed the thriving enchantment industry (which really means those materials aren't actually all that rare).

Similarly, a game expected to have a slow pace over decades (say, Ars Magica's default setting) or a generational / immortal game, can afford much more time-consuming enchantment than the quick pace of a ticking-clock, world-in-peril setting.

The magic rules and also any enchantment rules are usually a strong part of a setting's feel, and so such rules have to be customized for such settings.

[scc]

OK, so far Ceti's one that's given me the sort of answer I'm looking for, I'm looking for things like making magical swords and stuff, not giving someone else my powers (Where did people come up with that idea?)