GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 18: Power Items

[Kromm]

Your fancy baubles
Transformed by clever magic
To sources of might

— Wizards' Guild ad

Every GURPS Dungeon Fantasy spellcaster knows the value of a power item: an object that stores supernatural energy for those times when only really impressive magic will do . . . or when even a small spell would be dangerously taxing. And like all delvers, magic-workers are always on the lookout for better gear and abilities. Yet the only way to improve a power item seems to be "find something worth even more money," and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers sets an upper limit on that path.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 18: Power Items presents a trove of arcane lore that changes all that. Upgrade your existing item through means both mundane and magical, whether by adding physical adornments, temporarily supercharging it, or permanently turning it into an "item of power." Learn about the different kinds of power items – including some that aren't limited to casters – and discover how many varieties you can exploit at once. Spend points on power-ups that bend and break the rules. Or simply use the formula or extended table to go way past 40 FP.

Whether you're a spellcaster who's frustrated that all the best treasure is nonmagical, a non-caster who's envious of the free boost that spell-slingers get from their gear, or just tired of being tired, Power Items has a solution. All you need to do is provide the cash or points. (Warehouse 23 doesn't accept points yet, sorry!)

—

Store Link: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-0334

[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. :)

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by dripton

Some perks and advantages related to power items, including one that costs 75 points that I predict no actual PC will ever buy.

I immediately see use as an Alternate Ability, for example as a Learned Prayer/Miracle for a Dungeon Saint.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by dripton

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.

It also includes a half-page on players upgrading their items, which is applicable to non-Power Items as much as it is to PIs. This is pretty critical to people with Signature Gear.

[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.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I immediately see use as an Alternate Ability, for example as a Learned Prayer/Miracle for a Dungeon Saint.

That's the thing . . . Even with basic clerics and wizards using stock power-ups, it'll often be an alternative ability. Nobody will actually need this at the same time as Magical Bolt 2d-1 [45], Retribution [40], Secret Teleportation Spell [100], etc., so there will be a cost savings. It's even worth putting into an AA set with abilities that have limited uses and recovery times, because you could use it at the start of the day, recover, switch to your one-off, use that and freeze your AA, get your one-off back, use Recharger again, and recover, ad infinitum.

Of course, the ultimate test is "Would you buy it?" Those who won't, won't. Those who will, will find ways to make it useful. I've worked out more than a few abuses that give me pause at 75 points, and I'm pretty sure anybody familiar with DF could work these out.