Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Character design help] Magic weapon as starting equipment

JSE · 03-25-2010, 08:04 AM

Dear GURPS experts,

My group is going to start a new (fantasy) campaign soon, and I am going to play a norse warrior/viking type of character in it.

According to my character concept (approved by my GM ;)), my character would start play with a powerful magical axe, a holy relic of one of his gods.

So far so good... Now the crux: I envisioned the axe so that it would give off an electrical shock to enemies hit by it.

The GM was okay with the general idea, but neither of us could find a convincing way so far to realise this concept within the GURPS 4 rules.

Our first idea was combining the advantage Signature Gear with an enchanted item; reading the Magic Items/Enchantment rules, however, we quickly discovered that both the outlandish price suggestions (25$ per energy point at minimum) and the limitations of applying enchantments would not let us do it this way.

Next, we tried creating the axe as an (artifical) Ally (as suggested under Signature Gear), giving it the advantage Innate Attack (Burning) limited to Melee. This approach, however, lead to a somewhat messy combination of further advantages and disadvantages to represent the "ally" as an inanimate artifact. In other words: It would probably work to some degree, but would still contain a number of inconsistencies and rather shaky assumptions.

My current idea is to somehow combine Innate Attack and the Follow-up enhancement, although this doesn't seem to work the way I intended as according to the Follow-up description, Innate Attack can only be used as a carrier attack (as opposed to a follow-up attack).

How would you design my axe in rules terms? Is there any more direct or elegant approach I have overlooked?

03-25-2010, 08:04 AM	#1
JSE Join Date: Mar 2010	[Character design help] Magic weapon as starting equipment Dear GURPS experts, My group is going to start a new (fantasy) campaign soon, and I am going to play a norse warrior/viking type of character in it. According to my character concept (approved by my GM ;)), my character would start play with a powerful magical axe, a holy relic of one of his gods. So far so good... Now the crux: I envisioned the axe so that it would give off an electrical shock to enemies hit by it. The GM was okay with the general idea, but neither of us could find a convincing way so far to realise this concept within the GURPS 4 rules. Our first idea was combining the advantage Signature Gear with an enchanted item; reading the Magic Items/Enchantment rules, however, we quickly discovered that both the outlandish price suggestions (25$ per energy point at minimum) and the limitations of applying enchantments would not let us do it this way. Next, we tried creating the axe as an (artifical) Ally (as suggested under Signature Gear), giving it the advantage Innate Attack (Burning) limited to Melee. This approach, however, lead to a somewhat messy combination of further advantages and disadvantages to represent the "ally" as an inanimate artifact. In other words: It would probably work to some degree, but would still contain a number of inconsistencies and rather shaky assumptions. My current idea is to somehow combine Innate Attack and the Follow-up enhancement, although this doesn't seem to work the way I intended as according to the Follow-up description, Innate Attack can only be used as a carrier attack (as opposed to a follow-up attack). How would you design my axe in rules terms? Is there any more direct or elegant approach I have overlooked?