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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, 10:59 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items
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