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Old 10-29-2016, 01:05 AM   #1
Tallor
 
Join Date: May 2016
Default Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

I rolled for random loot for one of my players and got the Miraculous Toolbelt, shown here:

Quote:
Originally Posted by GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 8: Treasure Tables
Miraculous Toolbelt. $18,500, 2 lbs.
A leather belt hung with a few pouches. A craftsman searching
the pouches will always find exactly the right instruments for
the job he is doing: awls and knives for leatherwork, hammers
for carpentry and smithing, needles and scissors for sewing, and
so on. It acts as a good-quality (+1 to skill) tool kit for any nonesoteric
skill requiring tools. If implements are destroyed in the
process of working (for example, picking a lock protected by disintegration
skills or dissecting a creature with acid blood), the
user can always pull a new one out of the belt.
He also happens to be a rogue, and quite clever. Could he summon up a Locksmith kit from it for Fine-quality lockpicks?

I'm also wondering if anyone had some clever adventurer-centered uses for such a kit.
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Old 10-29-2016, 01:39 AM   #2
Celjabba
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Ropes (and pulley) are certainly tools of masonry and others skills.
Explosives (if existing in setting) are a tool for civil engineers !
+1 axe, pickaxe, Knives, billhook, scythe, forging hammer... are +1 weapons as well as tools.
I don't even want to think about the various adventuring use of a 800 lbs pocket anvil but I hope you will forbid that one...
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Old 10-29-2016, 02:42 AM   #3
Celti
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
He also happens to be a rogue, and quite clever. Could he summon up a Locksmith kit from it for Fine-quality lockpicks?
Lockpicks are quite explicitly tools for a non-esoteric skill (that is, Lockpicking) — but they would be Good-quality, for +1 (quality) to skill — not Fine-quality (+2).

GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy define “esoteric” skills as those with cinematic or supernatural prerequisites: Chi skills, spells, and so on. As far as I can recall, the only such skills in DF that actually take equipment modifiers are Alchemy, Esoteric Medicine, and Exorcism.
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Old 10-29-2016, 02:57 AM   #4
Celti
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celjabba View Post
Ropes (and pulley) are certainly tools of masonry and others skills.
Explosives (if existing in setting) are a tool for civil engineers !
+1 axe, pickaxe, Knives, billhook, scythe, forging hammer... are +1 weapons as well as tools.
I don't even want to think about the various adventuring use of a 800 lbs pocket anvil but I hope you will forbid that one...
I would disagree with most of those.
  • Masonry certainly does not require ropes and pulleys — that kind of stone-moving is best handled by Engineer (Civil) at a bonus (though Masonry as a penalty is valid, it's not a primary task).
  • Civil engineering is not primarily a technological skill, and certainly doesn't get a single “tool-kit” — and even if it did, in a standard Dungeon Fantasy setting explosives of any sort are definitely esoteric!
  • The “+1” the toolkit grants is a +1 to skill for use as a tool and in conjunction with other appropriate tools. It will certainly not give you a Balanced example of an axe, hammer, or pick at will — but it might give you such an item that is both Balanced and Tool-Grade (Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures, p. 17; such weapons are cheaper but get a -1 to use as a weapon; thus, a Balanced Tool-Grade Axe is a +1 tool but no better than an ordinary battle-axe when fighting).
  • The anvil, I could justify if it were a magical backpack full of tools. An anvil is a necessary item for any proper smith. For a magical tool-belt, I'd probably rule that you can pull out some sort of magical framework and metal sheets that make up a “collapsible” anvil that will work as a standard one if you unfold and fill it full of gravel or earth.

Even despite those examples, it is still a very useful tool for any adventurer! Need a drill to get through the wall and disable that trap? You've got one! Need a file to cut through those bars? In this pouch! Did someone curse the party, and everybody broke their weapons and armour at the same time? Don't worry, I can fix it!
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Old 10-29-2016, 03:17 AM   #5
Celjabba
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

I agree on NO for explosives and full-sized anvil, if my post didn't make it clear.
Ropes on the other hand are a given imho, and likely one of the most usefull to get.
I haven't read Wilderness in detail yet, but that is a fair and clear ruling for weapons . Thanks. Still, a belt of polearms and paring knives, even unbonused, is a nice thing to have.
A supply of Chalk and wax crayons is always usefull too.
Would cooking pots and pans comes from the belt or the hypothetical backpack ?
And how could we forget the stereotypical 10 foot pole ? And its sister the 6 foot heavy crowbar.

Last edited by Celjabba; 10-29-2016 at 05:46 AM.
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Old 10-29-2016, 07:40 AM   #6
Culture20
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

The 10-foot pole would be a common measuring stick for many crafts. The crowbar would be useful for masonry or demolition (or forced entry).
I personally would rule that the items only appear when attempting a skill roll and only exist as long as they are used for the appropriate skill, and only by the wearer (no building a lean-to with 10-foot poles even if it is a woodworking roll; they disappear when you're done measuring; also no sharing tools with assistants). Whether it works for a default roll is unspecified (mentions a craftsman, so implies someone who knows enough about the skill to know what tools are needed; e.g. Knowing you need a tension bar as well as picks for TL6+ locks).

"Pocket" anvils or stake anvils weighing 5-20 pounds definitely exist in real life, and would be more common in more ancient settings. If the GM forbids anvils, then stones and stumps work in a pinch, but a hammer & tongs giving +1 to smith skill wouldn't really offset the use of TL1 trench-forges. As above, I'd rule that dropping the anvil on to an opponent just makes the anvil disappear.

If you wanted to attack something with these tools, it would have to use the apporiate skill somehow, like chopping down an evil treant frozen in place (just a tree), or using masonry or civil engineering skill to demolish a wall to make the wall fall on enemies.

Creative uses still abound: "I measure the seeming 8-foot gap with my ten-foot pole, and I take extra time, allowing our Smurf friends enough time to cross the gap."
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Old 10-29-2016, 08:48 AM   #7
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Culture20 View Post
The 10-foot pole would be a common measuring stick for many crafts.
What crafts would those be? Perhaps a DF tailor catering to giants has a common need for ten-foot lengths. But it's something of an awkward unit of measurement. A "yardstick", perhaps, though that's a bit long to fit into a pouch. A builder might measure longer units, but much as modern builders use a rolled steel tape, lower-tech ones used a marked of knotted rope or string, sometimes perhaps leather or fabric, as the flexibility makes it a lot more portable. Surviving ancient and medieval measuring rods tend to be about half a meter long (often a cubit) or shorter.

I've always assumed the 10-foot pole in D&D 1e appeared as a reference to the idiom "I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole". The pole here is probably one used to push barges (as "... with a barge pole" is an earlier form of the expression). But poling barges is an occupation, not really a craft.

There's also the surveying rod, but that's 5.5 yards long (1/320th of a mile). It's also 1/4 of a "chain", which word suggests how long lengths would normally be measured. But surveyors certainly carried about actual rod-long rods. Even today, you'll see levelling rods used to sight a theodolite, and they're marked to determine slopes (the grade).

If you want to control possible abuse of the magic item, you might take the description literally. It says "a craftsman searching the pouches will always find...", so one thing a GM might do is allow characters only to produce tools for craft skills they actually possess at 12+. You need sufficient familiarity with the tools for the belt to produce them based on your need; it doesn't just create anything you vaguely remember or imagine.
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Old 10-29-2016, 10:17 AM   #8
robkelk
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
...

I've always assumed the 10-foot pole in D&D 1e appeared as a reference to the idiom "I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole". The pole here is probably one used to push barges (as "... with a barge pole" is an earlier form of the expression). But poling barges is an occupation, not really a craft.

...
It doesn't need to be a craft. The game-mechanics text says "It acts as a good-quality (+1 to skill) tool kit for any nonesoteric skill requiring tools" - it does not say "any nonesoteric craft skill requiring tools". And poling a barge is definitely a skilled task requiring a tool - the barge pole.

On the other hand, the intent is that the character gets the tools she needs for the task she's carrying out at the moment, so turning around and hitting somebody over the head with that barge pole is likely to make the pole disappear since the task being carried out has changed. (Also, weapons are usually not defined as tools, and the text specifically says "tools".)
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Old 10-29-2016, 11:50 AM   #9
Celjabba
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Well, combat has been called a craft... and most weapons in history are repurposed tools.
But the suggestion about the conjured items disappearing if used outside of their skill may prevent most combat use and various free raw material abuse if that is what the GM want. Although clever player will certainly try to find ways of getting around that, which should be amusing.
Outside of combat however, it is an amazing item, basically a lot of aspected gizmo or extradim payload with a lot of signature gear.
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Old 10-29-2016, 12:08 PM   #10
RyanW
 
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Default Re: Miraculous Toolbelt Uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celjabba View Post
But the suggestion about the conjured items disappearing if used outside of their skill may prevent most combat use and various free raw material abuse if that is what the GM want.
Possible fix: Each time a tool from the pouch is "expended" (used as raw material, broken in combat, pushed through a latch to bar a door during escape, etc.) roll against a HT 12. A failure lowers the skill bonus when using it by 1 (and eventually becomes a penalty). Once it is equal to improvised tools, any further failure results in it reverting to just a mundane belt pouch.

I would say that it shouldn't generally produce a specific +1 tool. It produces a toolkit that collectively provide a +1 to the task at hand. It the task suddenly changes (you get ambushed while fixing a wagon wheel) what you have in hand could still serve as makeshift weapons or improved tools.
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