03-16-2008, 08:35 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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[GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
The Problem
GURPS has rules for enhancing mundane weapons - see Powers, p. 146, "Modifying ST-Based Damage", and Supers p. 81. Basically, you calculate the cost of an Innate Attack that does the appropriate type and number of dice as the attack you're enhancing, figure the cost of the enhancement as applied to that attack, and then pay just the cost of the enhancement. For example, if you do 1d cutting damage with your claws, but you want to add an armor divisor of 2, you calculate the cost of a 1d cutting attack (7 points), then add +50% for armor divisor 2 (11 points total). Then subtract the base cost, and you end up with what you have to actually pay (4 points). This works fine if all you want to enhance is a single weapon, be it claws, your firsts, your longsword, or your Thompson submachine gun. However, where the system begins to struggle is when you start wanting to apply a particular enhancement to several different types of weapons. What if you want to be able to add an armor divisor to any sharp weapon you pick up, for example? The system also has problems modeling improvements to weapons that are not already modeled with enhancements and limitations. For example, what if the priest of a smith god automatically makes any metal item they pick up Fine, or Very Fine quality? There's no "Very Fine" enhancement, and no point costs for the base item nessecarily anyway, so it's hard to price. Finally, the system doesn't handle enchantment very well - you might be able to Afflict someone with the ability to give a sword an armor divisor, but how do you set it up so that the sword gives that ability to anyone who picks it up? |
03-16-2008, 09:07 PM | #2 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
My proposed solutions to these issues:
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So, for example, if you wanted to make every gun you picked up have +1 Acc, and gain an armor divisor of 2, you'd calculate what the highest damage gun in your setting was (for this case, we'll assume 4d+4 pi++), and calculate the cost of putting Armor Divisor 2 and Accurate +1 on it (24 points, in this case). The base cost for the Modular Ability will therefore be 125 points (5 points for 1 slot, plus 120 points for 24 points in the slot). However, the limitations mentioned above apply: -50% for a fairly limited trait list, and -20% for only applying to guns. The limitations total -70%, for a final value of 38 points. Quote:
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03-16-2008, 10:24 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
I don't know if this would help, but a while back I fooled around with the idea of enhanced ranged weapons (my idea revolved around guns specifically, but others could be done easily) like one would enhance natural weapons as found in Powers. I based this off of the idea of benchmarking attacks that you can find in in a sidebar of Powers. I never tested to see if it worked or put it on my computer (I was leery I guess) but I still have the notebook it was in if you would like me to post it.
Ghostdancer
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03-17-2008, 06:27 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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03-17-2008, 06:11 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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03-17-2008, 07:09 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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If you're looking for a system to price out enchantments created using an Advantage-based magic system, just price them out in CP *as though* they were Gadgets, then make the cost equal to that many CPs' worth of Signature Gear. That way, it costs a character the same whether it's a Gadget or SG, and everybody's happy. |
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03-18-2008, 05:50 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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Also, Signature Gear provides plot protection, which is really just baggage when this sort of thing is concerned. Some enchanted items would qualify as Signature Gear, sure. But not all of it will, and players will probably reasonably ask for some kind of point discount on gear they don't care about losing. |
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03-18-2008, 06:07 PM | #8 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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What I was posting about was specifically the case of a specific weapon that works for anybody. If you want to put the Follow-Up on a weapon temporarily and hand it over to another party, we might be looking at an Affliction (of the Follow-Up attack) again. Quote:
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03-18-2008, 06:38 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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Also, the Gadget method doesn't seem very susceptible to adjustment based on the enchantment process. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any clear rules at all for how long enchantment would take with the Gadget scheme - does one just pay the points, and *bang*, an item appears? How would one model an enchantment that takes several weeks of dedicated work to create? With the Affliction model, the player or the GM can use appropriate enhancements and limitations to model the creation process. Also, the Gadget/Sig Gear method produces one cost for a given item, varying only by TL, no matter how much process the GM thinks enchantment should require in their world. An item that takes a second and an effort of will costs the same as one that requires a mountain of gold, a skilled team of artificers, and years of back-breaking work. That seems odd. |
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03-18-2008, 10:59 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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