05-03-2015, 08:51 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: The City of Subdued Excitement
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
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I think it's iffy whether you can use "always on" items to cast area spells with zero cost that last indefinitely (especially since whether the item is "always on" will depend on the radius of the area the spell is cast on), and I think it's iffy to say the Link spell discriminates between spells cast directly by a mage and spells cast with an item. Moreover, the rules for Link seem to be designed to prevent you from making a permanent Fire Cloud. So given all that, I would have to see an official ruling on this before I could accept that such a thing is allowed. But you have made clear, at least, that the question of what the rules allow along these lines is more complicated than I realized. These kinds of complications are part of the reason I'd like to know if there are any published rules extending the magic system on trap-building before I'd want to make my own rules. |
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05-04-2015, 12:48 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
Could you create a Force Dome that traps the subject until he starves and thirsts to death? Preferably somewhere they can see food and water?
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05-04-2015, 02:56 AM | #33 | |
Computer Scientist
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
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05-04-2015, 04:44 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: The City of Subdued Excitement
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
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I think we're in a rather gray area of the rules and we aren't likely to agree on this, so I've emailed Kromm to ask. If he has time for an answer, I'll relay what I learn here. |
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05-04-2015, 09:01 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: The City of Subdued Excitement
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
So it turns out that "always on" does not work for items that cast area spells in the way I thought it did at all. Apparently I need to go back and think about it some more. Here's what Kromm had to say:
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11-27-2015, 03:22 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Nov 2015
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
I took a quick look at the ACTUAL example for an Item for the Link spell. It says (Magic, p. 132)
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The spell should be enchanted into the item as you would a Spell Stone, at an energy cost of 20x casting cost. (For the sword above, this is 20 points. For a "Fire Cloud" trap of area 1, 2d damage, this 40 points.) For powering the item, 1 - For a "permanent" item, the spell should be powered by a Power enchantment with enough power to trigger the spell. (For the light sword, this is 500 points. For the 2d "Fire cloud" trap, this is 1000 points. The item/trap will activate when the link's condition is true, then cut off after the duration of the spell, then reactivate when the link's detect is true again. If maintainable, it will maintain as long as the link's condition is true.) 2 - For a cheaper version of the trap that needs to reset, the spell could be powered by an exclusive powerstone (much cheaper). (For the sword above, this is 20 points. For the Fire Cloud... this is also 20 points, due to the tripled nature of the power supplied by the power stone. In this case, the spell would activate (or maintain) when the link's condition is true only if the powerstone has enough power, and wouldn't if the powerstone is recharging.) Opinions? --clnoel |
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11-28-2015, 11:57 AM | #37 |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
I find GURPS Magic is best used as a toolbox. When I determine which people (specific guilds, temples, libraries, tribes, etc) have which spells and resources etc., it can be interesting and consistent and manageable. However, even for one-off adventures, when I've tried to allow high magic including anyone might know any spell... I can't even come close to wrapping my brain around all the possibilities in a way that leaves me feeling I'm doing a good job of knowing what's going on in the world and having it make sense. Too many possibilities for my tastes.
I think the rules-as-written with no invented spells pretty clearly does not allow you to make a self-powered fire cloud spell with link to make a permanent fire cloud trap. I think it's easy enough to add, but requires making the decision to do so. As has been suggested, you can add a Trap spell (prereq: Link) or other spells, or modify the description of Link. I think that's probably good, for reasons of potential balance and world abuse. So it requires deliberately adding the ability, but makes it easy enough to do in a mechanically consistent way. Or even in the existing system, if you invent a spell to do it and the GM allows it, or if you luck out and your GM decides to allow that sort of use by stretching the rules interpretation a bit, as was suggested already. I can see several balance and abuse issues, unless you as a GM want that kind of abuse, which for the most part it sounds like you do. But not every GM wants to discover that the magic system allows creating permanent trap zones (which players may want to do or hire people to do) or other interesting uses of permanent self-powered enchantment with link spells. In particular, I can see players with mechanical enthusiasm wanting self-powered furnaces for steam engines and such (which is actually relatively abusable just with a self-powered fire item) not to mention the rest of the spell list. I have players who can cause great mayhem with the basic Sound spell and their imaginations, so... But if you want a world where it's relatively common to leave permanent magical traps lying about, it's easy enough to add a spell or a few. I tend to think that it would make sense to allow some limiting discounts for a static permanent enchantment, as a portable magic item with self-powered fire cloud is generally quite useful - probably much more so than a room that can't move. Except that as a trap, it's a feature if your targets can't pick up your trap and use it as a weapon against you. However I think there's a logic/balance issue with magic room traps - if a wizard has enough time and energy to enchant various permanent traps like that, then I'd hate to see what magic he has on hand for his personal use, and the use of whatever army of powerful bodyguards I'd expect him to have. That is, I think a smart wizard (look at the IQ they generally have) would tend to put even more effort into enchanting the weapons he and his pals and bodyguards use, than he puts into static traps on some room or door, no? In which case, it might make more sense if there were a set of more balanced trap spells or trap methods for existing spells, that don't involve permanent self-powered enchantments. How vital is it that the fire cloud room trap have infinite energy? Maybe if there were just a trap spell that lets you hook up and link a spell trap without the maintenance and -1 / spell issue, that would let you have far more routine traps, without implying that anyone with magic traps has to be some sort of uber arch mage who can make super-powerful enchantments. |
12-02-2015, 06:20 AM | #38 |
Join Date: Nov 2015
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
Hmm... well we apparently take different approaches to Magic in general, Skarg, since I make it a general rule that wizards in my world can know any spell. Even people who are racially magical (have Magery 0 in their racial template) are likely to know some of the simple spells from any school (like Light). It's "divine casters," who are devoted to a god and get their spells from that god, that are limited in which spells they are allowed to have.
And yes, I have no problem with my characters wanting to "invent" things! In many cases I would rule that it takes a lot of extra time to do it since there are weird side-effects they were unaware of as they build something experimental, or that the item that they get also has weird quirks. However, magical inventions mimicing technology underpin the world (there are magical street lights and "trains" in my world), even though we are in TL-4. I have also established a third enchantment method that brings the 60-800 power enchantment range down into the level of purchasing feasibility: you can get an item in this range in about a week, and because of the quickness you can get it at about $2/energy point. The risk is that if you are doing this on commission (and the people who do this generally work on commission!) there is a much higher chance of a critical failure completely destroying the awesome armor that you're trying to improve. I guess that's why I considered it feasible to have 200-point Link spells with 500-point Power spells attached to them lying around in dungeons... Although I would also probably rule that people building a trap could specify the link spell's trigger area as "that area of floor" not an area around the current location of the enchanted item. If the item is moved so that the Link can't "see" that specific area of floor, it can't tell if it's being triggered, so it can't function. This gives another way of disarming the trap, but also makes it impossible to steal a Link trap. Or, would that be the fundamental difference between a "Link" spell that can make a glowing sword and a theoretical, invented "Trap" spell? A "Link" enchanted item can be carried around and functions in an area around its current location, whereas a "Trap" spell functions for a particular area only? --Christina |
01-21-2016, 12:20 PM | #39 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Building permanent magical traps with GURPS Magic
Apologies for the necromancy, but I addressed this in my blog during my exile:
http://papermenplasticmonster.blogsp...-trap.html?m=0 |
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enchantment, link, magic, traps |
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