[GURPS Challenges] Enhancing Mundane Items

Kelly Pedersen · 03-16-2008, 08:35 PM

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, 08:35 PM	#1
Kelly Pedersen Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada	[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?