Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

The advantage of this set up is that it goes from trying to price every conceivable piece of equipment as an advantage which would be fair at the points level, to making the cost equal at the Character’s level. Thus two characters can get the same effect, for the same cost. If character A only ever uses a .38 special and character B is using a .50 AE, then the price is still fair because character A could go get themselves a .50 AE and get the same effect.

All in all: this is an elegant solution to a persistent problem.

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

The solution to that is define all equipment as powers right?

So when will the "How do I convert these things into powers" gripes will start comming up?

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

they have both the source limitation and are affected by talents. Even though they use the skills game mechanic, by virtue of the two above things, they ARE powers, are they not?

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

That does no stop people from complaining all the time about magic.

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

Just a quibble, but I think a closer comparison is the chi skills.

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

Yeah, except people don't complain as much about the chi skills. There's a reason for that. Chi's a lot more limited in terms of the number of powers you can get at a bargain price.

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

The other big difference is that most of the Imbuements can be added to a point-based power by buying the correct enhancement. Comparing to Magic, I still can't create an Utter Dome using Powers because infinite DR (even with limitations) still costs infinite points.

I am a die-hard abilities-as-advantages guy. I don’t like Magic because there are a lot of spells I cannot emulate, when I feel I should be able to.

What I like about Imbuements is that it’s a new building block for new abilities. It improves GURPS to allow you to do things you could only kludge through before. And, this Imbuement ability is a balanced advantage in precisely the same way that Magery isn’t. (Sorry for the Adams-esque reference) I don’t want to get into a Magic discussion, but a little is going to be unavoidable.

Off the top of my head, I can think of one thing in Imbuements that I cannot do easily without it: Dancing Weapon. I’m sure, given a bit of time and some interest, I can come up with a way to do it (probably using Allies) for a “reasonable” point cost. For many spells in Magic it’s unpossible (some of the Protection and Warding college come to mind). That bothers me.

All that said, I realized something after reading Magic again before I ship it off to RPK (I think Kromm might have said something to this effect, but I don’t know, so don’t quote me on it). Magic doesn’t have to be consistent with Powers because the two books were designed for two, entirely different, reasons. The Magic reason was Skill-Based Super Powers, Powers’ reason was Point-Based Super Powers. Mixing the two is going to cause you a lot of problems because they’re not consistent with each other, and they were never intended to be.

Imbuements, on the other hand, is balanced between the two.

It’s not a cheap ability, but what it lets you do isn’t exactly puny. It balances well because if you have a Mage and an Imbuer (I have no idea how to spell that, so I’m sticking with that spelling) they’re likely to be spending the same number of points. The Imbuer will have fewer abilities, but, they will likely work faster than the Mage, and be limited only to the weapons the Imbuer chose. The Mage will have a lot of prerequisite spells that may or may not ever be useful, but were still required.

If you have an Imbuer and a Super, then the Imbuer will still have a lot of points to buy other abilities, but will likely spike their skills allowing the Imbuer to regularly soak -10 to their skills and pull off some awesome effects (“Oh, mister Ul-tron! This’ll ignore your ar-mor!”). The Super will be able to do amazing things, and so will the Imbuer. Sure, the Imbuer may not be able to fly or teleport or calculate pi to the 8-billionth digit in between combat rounds, but they’re not likely to ever be truly disarmed.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
It's an elegant solution to an inelegant problem.

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

Did that too.

Damn the weekend for slowing banking down!

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

You know, I was never fully comfortable with the Chi skills. Always seemed to do stuff that seemed to fit better as advantages.

Reading through this, particularly some sections of the intro, got me thinking of the Chi skills in a much more possitive manner. I've kinda surprised myself by really liking how this works.

Good book!

Re: GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out
 

I downloaded it while I was at the airport waiting for a flight. God, I love living in the future. After reading it on said flight, I was very happy -- especially about the "1" in the title. I hope this becomes another popular pdf series.