06-23-2014, 10:39 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2010
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create object/duplicate on firearms
When I first read the description on "create object" I thought it would be great for low TL firearms that take a long time to reload. Instead of spending fifteen seconds reloading you could just make a new loaded gun in two seconds.
Trouble is, it says that the object must stay in contact with a living thing or it disappears. You can, for example, give a created sword to someone, or try to pass off fake money. However, just the act of tossing a created coin in the air is enough time for it to disappear. So I figured that a fired bullet would just disappear when it left the gun. The next spell, Duplicate, is exactly like Create Object, except you don't have to know how to build something yourself if you have an example on hand. Thing is, then the Duplicate spell talks specifically about making a gun, but doesn't say anything about limitations of using one. So, does that mean guns are viable? I'm sure a big reason it chose a gun is because it's a complex object, but you'd think they'd have something to say about it being nearly nonfunctional if that were the case (though there is a high cost option to make it permanent). So, I'm going to rule that the time between firing and hitting another person is not enough for the bullet to disappear. At least at the relatively short ranges of old firearms. Advanced sniper rifles may have trouble though. Has anyone seen errata on this? Or have interesting opinions? |
06-23-2014, 01:57 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
Just because you can make a gun, there's no reason to believe, and just about every reason not to believe, that the gun you made is already loaded.
Furthermore, except for a very few weapons (ie, single shot LAWs), the rules of the game and general concepts of language treat the weapon and the ammunition as separate things. So I wouldn't let a single casting of Create Object or Duplicate create both a bow and an arrow, or a musket and the ball and powder. There's actually a fairly debatable question as to whether "a pile of gunpowder" is something you can even create with Create Object, but you'd have to be touching it until it ignited anyway so this is something you probably don't want to do. Of course, you can still use Duplicate to create an unloaded gun, and it's not a useless exercise. If you have more ammunition than weapons (which is normal), you could repeated castings of Duplicate to provide weapons for everyone in an army, even if you only started with a single gun. It's your game, and you can do what you want. But I'd rule that "a loaded musket" is not a single object for the purposes of Duplicate, and the ammunition has to be created separately and can't be loaded into the gun without releasing it and having it disappear.
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06-23-2014, 02:09 PM | #3 |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
I would only allow the Duplicate weapon to be loaded if the original were already loaded. Thus, this is something you would do ahead of time with pistols in a setting matching the Age of Sail, or, if you felt like starting combat with a pile of rifles next to you. Once you fire the weapon, however, you are simply copying an unloaded gun.
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06-23-2014, 03:18 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Dec 2010
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
I think the distinction between weapon and ammo is more for convenience than it is meant to be a mechanic. A gun is meant to come apart into dozens of pieces for cleaning and whatnot. But you generally don't carry a pile of extra triggers with you, so GURPS doesn't bother to tell you what those weigh. If you're going to count the metal barrel and the wooden stock as parts of the same object why split hairs with bullets?
I wouldn't have a problem with letting someone make a poisoned dagger, and the poison might be more complex then gunpowder, and would disperse significantly in whatever you stabbed... and then disappear completely when the victim died... Man, I just thought of an awesome gimmick for an assassin character. |
06-23-2014, 05:50 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
The distinction between weapon and ammo is not neither for convenience nor arbitrary. The natural use of the word "gun" includes all the levers, springs, pins, screws, and other pieces of metal, wood, or plastic included in the gun. But it doesn't include the ammo. If I say, "I just bought a new pistol", I don't have to buy a separate firing pin. But I do have to buy the ammo separately if I don't already have a stockpile.
I agree that poison might be more complex than gunpowder, but a pint of poison is a continuous and discrete object (mostly), while a pound of gunpowder is a lot of distinct grains of powder. Certainly a cartridge of black powder ammunition, with black powder, wadding, and one or more bullets, is probably not a single object, especially after parts of it are place into different parts of the gun in different steps of the loading sequence. But again, your game, your rules.
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06-23-2014, 06:06 PM | #6 |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
Sure, you can summon/create a loaded weapon! Then when you fire it, since the bullet is not in contact with the caster anymore, it disappears.
You've just created a pretty effective noisemaker!
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06-23-2014, 09:05 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
Being to hike without the weight of muskets and Create them when needed so you only need the carry ball and powder is useful however. You might even be able to Create the powder depending on how touch works. If you load it into a gun is the fact that you are touching the gun enough. If not you can't wear a (armored) glove with the create sword.
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06-23-2014, 10:39 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Albuquerque
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
Can't he just have a loaded pistol/rifle slotted away, and duplicate it, then shoot the duplicate, duplicate the original again, shoot the duplicate, yadda yadda?
----actually no... sorry x.x Why not just use cornucopia instead? LoL --Cause you can't... yeah looks like a whole lot of no for you here Last edited by Desthro; 06-23-2014 at 11:14 PM. |
06-24-2014, 12:59 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: The former Chochenyo territory
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
It's a really fun special effect for an Innate Attack though -- perhaps a spectral gunslinger who draws and fires horse pistols which then get dropped and fade into mist...
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06-24-2014, 01:15 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: create object/duplicate on firearms
If you make an explosive, does the shrapnel disappear as soon as it's not touching the person any more? Does the shockwave disappear? I would assume yes to the former and no to the latter, since the shockwave isn't made up of magically-created particles.
If you make a flashlight, do the photons disappear just as soon as they're outside of the bulb? I suppose you can't create a laptop either, unless you connect in a separate, non-magical monitor. Wait, no, the electrons couldn't power the monitor either. Need to figure out some way to do a monitor that doesn't emit its particles. Maybe it could have a built-in braille output, or other mechanical output. I wonder if there's any way to keep a bullet connected, like with a string attached to it. Is there any material that could do that? Maybe that would work with a rocket or grenade launcher. Or some sort of crossbow. You could have exploding tips. If you make a car with it, are the gases inside the cylinder still part of the machine, or do they disappear as well? Do the gases inside a firearm count as being in contact? As soon as the powder explodes (if we could find some sort of device that comes with its ammunition), then at what point does what cease to be? It's quite confusing.
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create object, duplicate, firearms, guns, magic |
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