Magic spells as advantages for a non-magic character

[Schilcote]

I'm designing a character who is an Expression 2 chip. It's a little integrated circuit chip that can influence the world around it in certain ways, like applying a force to something, changing its color, or finding out where a certain kind of object is.

GURPS advantages don't seem to cover all the character's abilities sufficiently. I notice, though, that most of these things that the character ought to be able to do are spells in GURPS Magic.

What I'm thinking is, the character would have a certain amount of FP bought with the "for spells only" limitation (she would have Machine, of course, so she wouldn't have regular FP). That FP would be recharged by being in the presence of a certain kind of energy field; the stronger the field, the more FP restored. How would this ability be statted?

Additionally, this character should be able to use excess energy to enhance her abilities, ala the Absorption enhancement for Damage Resistance. I'm thinking I'd just copy that, more or less; each FP over the maximum that is 'recharged' turns into a character point instead for one second. Does this sound appropriate?

As for the 'spells' themselves, implementing them as skills wouldn't seem to make much sense, since they aren't actually spells and don't need to be cast, and they shouldn't have any chance of going wrong like spells do. I'm thinking each ability would cost as much as the skill at a certain level (18, I'd think, since they won't fail under normal circumstances).

Anyone done this before, or have comments on how I've tried to make it work?

[Dalren]

Check out Pyramid 3/44: Alternate GURPS II. It details how to convert skills and spells into advantages.

[Varyon]

This sort of "FP" seems well-suited for being represented by Energy Reserves (from Powers). Give it Special Recharge to represent the necessity of the energy field. The overcharge option is tricky, and may be better represented as a series of Alternate Abilities that boost stats for a short while when in the presence of a particularly strong energy field.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Schilcote

GURPS advantages don't seem to cover all the character's abilities sufficiently.

What abilities are you having trouble with building as Abilities?

[Schilcote]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What abilities are you having trouble with building as Abilities?

It might be easier to list the ones I'm not, actually.

applyForce() can be implemented with Telekinesis (and Flight, can't remember if standard TK allows you to pick yourself up as well), gvars and signals are a form of Telecommunication, ranger functions are a cosmic form of Scanning Sense (though that doesn't account for their ability to be offset), the :pos() function could be a form of Absolute Direction...

That leaves the color functions (there's a spell that does that), entity discovery (similar to a Knowledge spell), holograms & sound playback (Illusion magic), and the PropCore functions (Create Plastic).

Of course, there's also a few things I'm leaving out intentionally, like the ability to instantly kill anyone who is sitting in a chair that is owned by the same person who owns the chip, but the listed ones are the abilities I'm interested in.

EDIT:

Also, unfortunately, I do not own Powers, so references to it might require a little explanation at least. I'd buy it if I could, but I can't.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Schilcote

Also, unfortunately, I do not own Powers.

That explains why you didn't just go for Control (color), Detect, Illusion, and Create (Plastic) :) If you get into building abilities, you want Powers.

"Entity discovery" might also be Clairvoyance or Para-Radar. By "offset", do you mean countering a detection roll, as with Obscure, or displacing the point of sensing to be remote from the viewer (as with Clairvoyance)?

TK does let you pick yourself up. The rule of thumb is actually two thumbs -- invisible ones -- attached to the rest of their invisible hands with which you can remotely grab things. That's more like Levitation than Flight, though.

Buying a single spell as an Advantage was called a "Knack" in 3e Fantasy. 4e calls it "Fixed Magic". See this thread for an outline as well as some alternatives.