fantasy TL3 armor full kits v2

[Gef]

THREAT ENVIRONMENT

As I said, my campaign is fantasy. The idea was to incorporate all the “weird stuff” from GURPS in a non-silly way, so I have standard spells, alternate magic systems including psi as magic, superpowers a.k.a. chaos mutations, and the magic of motion; in my world, cinematic equals kinemagic, and Weapon Master is an inborn talent like Magery, hard to come by if you’re not born to it. That said, I run with non-cinematic point totals, typically 100 to start, and that makes you a special person. Journeyman crafters have 25 points, masters 50, and that’s enough to be a skill 16+ expert with Guild Rank and a Comfortable or Wealthy income. Likewise a 50pt veteran soldier can easily have skill 16 with his best weapon. With 100 points, a player can afford a jorneyman wizard with Comfortable Wealth and a 50pt energy reserve (One College Only and requires either a familiar or gadget: wand), or he can afford a knight, much like that veteran soldier in ability but with the balance of points in Legal Enforcement, Military Rank, and Wealth, yielding some free status.

Wizards have energy reserves and knights have money. How does that interact? Well, modest magic items are fairly common, even among freemen. I allow limitations on spells which give bonuses to skill. Several limitations grant a bonus which makes possible a coven of enchanters with 13 members, allowing quick enchantment up to about 750 energy. Cost to enchant is $1 per energy, but retail is twice that to pay for distribution. That’s for commercial grade, where the limitations are seen as a benefit by the state. For instance, most commercial-grade enchantment fails in the presence of a bit of mithril. The stuff is rare, but senior gendarmes have mithril badges to protect themselves from criminals with enchantment. Also, a cloak of invisibility may be useful to a stage hand, but not so much a bank robber, because it gives off a blatant magical aura that bank guards are equipped to detect. Military-grade enchantment cannot have such limitations, so the practical limit for quick enchantment is about 400 energy. Increase these thresholds by 50% and double the price per energy for whole circles of powerful better-paid enchanters, but be aware that they will specialize in products for which there is consistent demand. Powerful unique items will require slow enchantment. Also, apply a generous (to the guild) surcharge of 10% per additional spell on the same item, to cover the risk of quirking.

So, a level each of Accuracy, Puissance, and Penetrating are quick enchantable, and so is a second level in conjunction with Bane. I rule that Bane can apply to a hit location, halving cost to enchant, thus you get “heartseeker” weapons with a bonus to strike the vitals and “vorpal” weapons with a bonus for the neck. Cost to enchant is 100 for Bane, 250 times 3 for the first level of each spell, 750 times 3, divided by 2, for the limited second level of each spell, and throw in 400 for Shatterproof to protect your investment, plus 70% for 8 castings, for a total of $4037.50, double to cover the cost of distribution to $8075 plus the cost of the weapon itself.

Suppose the weapon is a fine spear with +1 to hit and +1 damage, base cost $280 before enchantment. As an impaling weapon, it’s enchanted as a heartseeker. A Very Wealthy knight can afford one, along with his horse and some good armor (say plate over mail from the list above, with Fortify +2 and Lighten 25% for $660). With ST 13, he inflicts 1d+5 if he goes for the vitals, and he takes a net penalty of zero, counting the enchantment and quality bonus. If he hits another knight armored like himself, with a double-layer of mail over the heart, DR 13 divided by 3 is 5, 1d net to the vitals, tripled, yields a major wound, with unconsciousness resulting from a roll of 5 or 6, but it is survivable. By comparison, a regimental soldier (scale with Fortify +1) would only stop 2 points, and net 1d+3 tripled will assuredly cause unconsciousness and maybe a death check! This from one blow, without Extra Effort, by a character who is not a Weapon Master. Such is the power of money.

Sir Mundane can never acquire kinemagic, but he might with effort learn to match such natural talent with hard-won skill, for about the same point cost, learning a technique that gives +2 damage and a combo for an extra attack – preferably a feint, since his foes know to cover their hearts. Now with a Mighty Blow and his special technique, he inflicts 1d+9, quite possibly enough to kill another knight on the first blow! This is still doable with an optimized 100pt character and quite natural for 120 to 150 points, perhaps raised in play during the early stage of a campaign. My last one endured for years and PCs attained 250 to 300.

That was a spear, by the way. Make it the morning star “Brainbane” in the hands of a weapon master, 2d+9 to the skull with extra effort, the penalty to parry a flail makes up for the bonus against a telegraphic attack to make up the penalty to hit the skull. Again subtract 5 for some pretty good armor, and you get 2d+4 quadrupled. That’s good for 3 or 4 death checks.

Foes of this stature are uncommon, but not unheard of. The point values just aren’t high enough; heck, they’re well below Dungeon Fantasy. There is healing magic, of course, but that’s no good once you’re dead. Heavy armor can save your life making healing possible, but non-wealthy characters are outa luck. Weapon Masters can dish it out, but they can’t take it, and likewise the effect of enchantment, particularly Penetrating Blade, leads to weapon supremacy over armor. All of which leads me to the conclusion that there should be an Armor Enchantment for Hardening, so priced that the first level is affordable by merely Comfortable professional soldiers, but the second level is not amenable to quick enchantment.

I'm aware that I went heavy on the weapon cost for this example, cutting deep into the knight's starting budget. If he pays for his horse as an ally or has enough skill to dispense with Accuracy, then he can have Lighten 50% and Fortify +3, with an extra level on the extremities, on armor layered over light leather of quality. As long as the DR is divided by 3, these improvements make no difference; the fact that armor is a bit easier to enchant than a weapon is wiped out by the existence of Penetrating Blade with no counter. My campaign features other forms of magic; in particular clergy use path magic and the empire is the world's policeman in part because the have the most organized church. Spell magic of the standard system may be the least powerful, but it is also the easiest (game mechanically), therefore the most common and the most commercial. It's possible to have tier 5 runic enchantment of penetration that ignores hypothetical tier 6 magical hardening, but that at least will be more rare (thus more expensive).

I've tried various means of adjusting the balance of offense and defense for Weapon Masters. Of course they're elegible to purchase DR as a ki-based advantage but that just makes them impervious to common threats. The best I've come up with is to adapt the Flesh Wounds version of Extra Effort from GURPS Action, spending FP to overcome injury, but I don't want to put magical healers out of business so that benefit is temporary. Also, I limit the damage bonus from Weapon Master to +2 instead of +2 per die. The balance isn't perfect but it does help prevent fights from being a contest of who fails their defense first, one party unscathed and the other unconscious and dying, always in less than half a minute.