GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 18: Power Items

[PseudoFenton]

I just want to say that this book in incredibly illuminating of the assumed underlying principles of the DF universe.

How things are powered, what they store, how they're charged and tapped, what counts as being effectively the same despite looking very different to their users - all of these setting details make up the cogs and levers of the mechanical underpinning of the (steadily expanded on) world/s that DF inhabits, but also defines and expands on a lot of the lore and world building details that DF usually tries to shy away from.

As such this is actually a fascinating read just to see all the power sources listed out with both their mechanical interactions, but also their fluff (like how demonologists power items store a little bit of Hell in them).

The book is also very good at going into the details and expanding the options for power items and stuff, but who would want to buy it for that??

[Blind Mapmaker]

A decent book, but only useful for an audience that actually uses power items. It almost succeeds in selling the concept to me and it certainly makes things much fairer by letting all character types have a piece of the cake. Suffers a bit from being too long for a Pyramid article and pretty short for a stand-alone book, though.

I posted a more detailed review on my blog: https://blindmapmaker.wordpress.com/...8-power-items/

[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.

[scc]

Question: How does this (And several other previous works when I think about it) effect the cost of magic items? And normal rules anything that allows a Mage to have more energy to put into spells changes the break points for enchanting, but DF doesn't follow the normal rules

[chandley]

Originally Posted by scc

Question: How does this (And several other previous works when I think about it) effect the cost of magic items? And normal rules anything that allows a Mage to have more energy to put into spells changes the break points for enchanting, but DF doesn't follow the normal rules

They would have a huge effect is on the limit for Quick and Dirty enchantments. This might already be figured in for DF, the Q&D limit is 100 energy, not 60.

Assumptions: 1 Master (1,400 per month), 5 journeymen (700/month). 6 50 FP Power Items ($69,000 each, spread out over 1 year), 30 apprentices whose job is to practice Recover Energy and Lend Energy (Poor, $200/month ea). 2 "cycles" of spend and recharge is 720 energy a day, which would actually bring the per energy price to almost exactly $1 again... but with a Q&D limit of 360.

Basically, the limit is more "how much capital does the guild want to have sitting around in expensive power items". A rich, established guild could really crank out Q&D items, or at least have a huge reserve for special rush orders. Especially since, with the above assumptions, after year 1, you could increase the value of each of those power items by $69,000 a year. Nice, steady progress to ever higher Q&D limits. You might run out of Lend Energy apprentices before you run into a limit on power item use, really.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by scc

Question: How does this (And several other previous works when I think about it) effect the cost of magic items? And normal rules anything that allows a Mage to have more energy to put into spells changes the break points for enchanting, but DF doesn't follow the normal rules

They don't affect it, because GURPS DF is explicitly not about world simulation.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

They don't affect it, because GURPS DF is explicitly not about world simulation.

Yes and No. A large part of DF is getting stuff, so accurate rules regarding how this stuff is made is important, even if the PCs can't make it. If the PCs in a DF game you ran found a Psi 'enchanted' sword and wanted to have an NPC sage enchant it more with magic, what would your response be? Is it even possible? Are there special requirements or costs for performing such a feat? How will the 'enchantments' already on it interact with the ones the PCs want to put on it?