GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 18: Power Items

[dripton]

Yay, a new DF book.

Capsule review: It's short, it's $5, and it's written by Kromm. DF power items are so simple you don't really need this book -- the short sidebar in DF1 is plenty. But if you'd like to expand that little sidebar into 11 pages of detail, this is the book for you.

It goes into detail on what kind of items can be power items, and the benefits and drawbacks of a few types. Details on upgrading or replacing your power item as you get more cash. Some perks and advantages related to power items, including one that costs 75 points that I predict no actual PC will ever buy. And a few suggested optional rules for GMs who want to boost or limit them.

As someone who actually both plays a DF wizard and GMs a DF game with a wizard and a cleric, even I don't actually need this book. But I'll probably use a couple of things from it. Some of the ideas (for example, using your armor as a power item, or changing the rounding on the prices from up to down to be meaner) had already occurred to me. Others (like using your house as a power item, or self-charging power items that aren't powerstones) had not. It's a good read, for the right audience.

[PK]

Speaking only for my own DF group, I know the rules for heroic, endurance, and scholarly power items have all generated a stir. Our scout is always running out of FP, particularly because the wizard loves casting Great Haste on him, turning him into a machine gun of arrows. Our GM ruled that he could use an endurance item to recoup the FP he lost from that spell (since he isn't casting the spell, it seems more like a mundane exhaustion) -- I'm curious if Kromm would agree.

[PK]

Originally Posted by dripton

Capsule review: It's short, it's $5, and it's written by Kromm.

Thanks for the in-depth, honest review, dripton!

Some perks and advantages related to power items, including one that costs 75 points

Kromm, I'm curious -- how did you come up with the 75 point cost for Recharger?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by PK

Kromm, I'm curious -- how did you come up with the 75 point cost for Recharger?

Rolled 1 d100. :)

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by PK

Kromm, I'm curious -- how did you come up with the 75 point cost for Recharger?

I was curious as well. I suspected it was Regeneration applied to the the power item or something similar.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by PK

Our scout is always running out of FP, particularly because the wizard loves casting Great Haste on him, turning him into a machine gun of arrows. Our GM ruled that he could use an endurance item to recoup the FP he lost from that spell (since he isn't casting the spell, it seems more like a mundane exhaustion) -- I'm curious if Kromm would agree.

I would agree. The FP lost by a third-party Great Haste subject is totally physical and mundane. It's basically an extra-effort cost. The bit where the caster doesn't pay it if he casts on himself is woo-woo magical hand-waving, but the casting cost isn't mundane fatigue.

Originally Posted by PK

Kromm, I'm curious -- how did you come up with the 75 point cost for Recharger?

There was a thread around here some time back wherein I proposed 100 points. I was called on it and therefore did some math. In the end, 75 points seemed fairer. Some people felt it wasn't worth more than a few points, others that it had no fair, finite price, but I chopped off both of the extremes and looked at the middle.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kromm

There was a thread around here some time back wherein I proposed 100 points. I was called on it and therefore did some math. In the end, 75 points seemed fairer. Some people felt it wasn't worth more than a few points, others that it had no fair, finite price, but I chopped off both of the extremes and looked at the middle.

It was this post from this thread.

[Pseudonym]

http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/0...wer-items.html

My review. Good pull quotes. Very specific focus with no beating around the bush. Wish there was slightly more, but it delivers on exactly what it promises.

[Edges]

Awesome book.

Quick question: Can mind control be used to make someone use up their power item against their will?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Edges

Awesome book.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Edges

Quick question: Can mind control be used to make someone use up their power item against their will?

They can't just be told, "Empty your power item," because there's no quick way to dump all the energy at once for its own sake, without using a fatiguing ability. If you can maintain control for an hour, though, you could order them to unlink from it (p. 11). But it would probably be easier to command them to use some fatiguing ability in a useless way – or even better, for your benefit – and to draw energy from their power item until it's all gone. Telling a wizard to cast the biggest Create Air he can manage would do the job in a second; ditto having a cleric cast, say, Awaken on a huge area.