[Character design help] Magic weapon as starting equipment

[JSE]

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?

[Nymdok]

Off the top of my head Id say there are three solutions:

Imbuments: Eletric weapon, and Imbue 3 will give you this ability with ANY Axe. This will run you about 43 cp. With appropriate limitations (One skill only, and Accessability(Only THIS axe)) This cost can be brought down pretty signifigantly.

Magic - An Axe with Shocking Touch really sounds close to what you are looking for. Since you only want 1d not 1-3 as the spell allows, maybe he'll give you a break on the 25*1500 price of 38k by saying
Limited to 1d = 10K$
1d or 2d = 20K$
1d - 3d = 40k$
In 100$/cp, thats gonna run you 100 cp for the 1d only model, but it will work for anyone that weilds it.

Finally we have

Advantages. This could be an Innate attack that is
Burning, Surge, and Has Follow up. The problem is that Follow up only works AFTER the Axe gets through DR and I dont really think thats what your looking for.

Instead Look at MeleeAttack(STBased) on Powers 103 and that might be what your looking for.

So wed have InnateAttackBurning(1d), Melee Attack (Malediction, Cant resist and DR cant save You) +300%+ MeleeAttack(ST-Based) + 100% and we'll get out for about 25 points. Adding Side effect(B109) Stunning may help round it out.

Hope this helps
Nymdok

[aesir23]

Yes, I think that an Innate Attack with Gadget Limitations (Can be stolen, Unique, etc...) is definitely the way to go.

I'd make it Innate Attack (Strength Based) Cutting. Depending on how you want the electricity to work, you can either buy a Burning Attack with Surge as a Follow Up to your cutting attack, or simply Linked. Alternately you could just add Surge and Incendiary to the Cutting Attack.

[EDIT] Actually Surge is pretty useless in pre-electronic societies, I'd just skip it. The fact that it's electrical is basically a special effect anyway.

[Extrarius]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

[...]The problem is that Follow up only works AFTER the Axe gets through DR and I dont really think thats what your looking for.[...]

Follow-up always goes off, but it only ignores DR if the base attack penetrated. Consider a HEAT round with a shaped charge explosive in a metal round - the kinetic damage is the primary attack, and if the kinetic part penetrates, the shaped charge goes off inside the target (ignoring DR) but if the kinetic attack doesn't penetrate, the explosion goes off on the outsie and has DR applied as normal.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Extrarius

Follow-up always goes off, but it only ignores DR if the base attack penetrated. Consider a HEAT round with a shaped charge explosive in a metal round - the kinetic damage is the primary attack, and if the kinetic part penetrates, the shaped charge goes off inside the target (ignoring DR) but if the kinetic attack doesn't penetrate, the explosion goes off on the outsie and has DR applied as normal.

WOW! Your right! Ive been misreading that! (Smacks Head)

Thanks for the catch!

Nymdok

[Anthony]

I'd actually be tempted by 'Innate Attack, Burning, Surge +20%, Followup (Axe Strike) +0%, Cosmic (Can apply followup to a weapon attack) +50%, Melee 1 -25%'. The basic point of cosmic is to allow ignoring some rule that normally applies, and since you can't normally have a followup attack except to an innate attack, this bypasses that rule.

[Kuroshima]

For all your pre-industrial lightning effect, I recommend that you take Surge, Arcing from Psionic Powers. It has that nice "reduces metalic armor to 1" from Magic's lightning effects.

[sir_pudding]

Fantasy page 131 suggests that in settings where magical weapons are extremely common Magical Signature gear might give 1000 Energy Points per character point.

[DreadPirateLynx]

Burning Attack (Gadget/Can be Stolen -10%, Gadget/Unique -25%, Link +10%, Melee R1 -25%, Surge, Arcing +100%)
Cutting Attack (Gadget/Can be Stolen -10%, Gadget/Unique -25%, Link +10%, Melee R1 -25%, STR-Based +100%)

As Nymdok suggested you can also add Side-Effect (Stunning) +50% to the Burning Attack.

EDIT: You may also be able to justify bumping up the value of Can be Stolen a little, depending on how easy it would be to do so.

Or build it as a Cutting attack with a burning follow-up like so:

Burning Attack (Follow-Up -25%, Gadget/Can be Stolen -10%, Gadget/Unique -25%)
Cutting Attack (Gadget/Can be Stolen -10%, Gadget/Unique -25%, Melee R1 -25%, STR-Based +100%, Side-Effect (Stunning) +50%, Surge, Arcing +100%)

Notice that the Cutting attack gets Arcing and Stunning in this example as neither can be used with Follow-Up, which may cause it to work a little strange. I personally prefer the mechanics on my first example, but I'm not sure which works out more economically. I think the first example may be more economical now that I've looked at it a bit as a burning attack is cheaper than a cutting, and in the second example, the cutting attack is getting all of the large positive modifiers.

EDIT: Just realized that Surge, Arcing can only be added to a burning or corrosive attack, so with a follow-up, there is no way to get that effect unless you build the burning as the carrier and the cutting as the follow-up, but then I don't know if you can have the cutting be STR-Based, and the whole thing just feels wrong to me. Overall I think this works best as a Linked Advantage

[DAT]

I'd be incline to use Imbue: Imbue 3 (-80%, single skill) [8] and Electrify (?) DX [8].

However, your concept sound better as a Magical (Holy) Weapon per Fantasy as Sir Pudding pointed out, 1 point per 1000 energy. The Innate Attack approach is probably more balanced.

As a GM, I might be tempted to let you take the Axe as an Ally (the innate attack power would be it's ability), which would likely cost the fewest points, however I would build it as a full character and it might have a few quirks and disadvantages, plus a Will of it's own at times (you might want to avoid attacking thevery big giant, but your bloodlusting Axe has other ideas).
-Dan