[Sorcery] Creating a weapon buff out of a missle spell

[BoneWolf17]

I'm not sure where to begin for this spell idea. It's inspired by an ability from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice called Living Force, where Sekiro can use existing effects (a wind attack and a fire attack in the game) to infuse his sword with that element.

My idea is to have a sorcery spell that allows the user to parry an incoming missile spell with their hands or a weapon and turn it into a weapon buff immediately applied to the weapon they parried with.

For example, the character is targeted by a 2d burning damage missile spell. They parry the spell with their sword, and the sword gains 2d follow-up burning damage.

Any advice on where I might start?

[Anders]

Sounds like a job for Power-Ups 1: Imbuements. Imbuements are abilities that allow you to turn e.g. your weapon (any weapon) into fire, doing burning damage.

Edit: See p. 11 of Sorcery.

[Varyon]

In theory, you could give a character an Advantage that let them apply a follow-up to their unarmed attacks or a specific weapon*, then use a combination of various Enhancements alongside Selectivity, and make a bunch of Alternate Abilities to cover uses that the initial wouldn't (like if the original did crushing damage, and you needed ones that did some variant of piercing, or cutting, or burning, or whatever), and have everything limited with "Only after parrying a spell that does the same thing; can only hold 1 charge at a time." Offhand, I think it would be safe to simplify this and just charge [10] for every [5] worth of Innate Attack this can "steal." Stealing a 2d pi- effect would cost [12], a 2d tox effect would be [16] (and would also let you steal the pi-), a 2d burn effect would be [20] (and would also work for pi-, pi, tox, and cr), a 2d cut effect would be [28] (and give you all the previous, plus pi+), a 2d imp effect would be [32] (and give you all the previous, plus pi++), and a 2d fatigue effect would be [40] (and give you all the previous, plus corr). It's up to the GM what happens if you don't have enough to steal the entire spell (say, you have [20] in it and Parry at 4d burn spell); personally, I'd have your weapon get charged up to the maximum you can manage (so in the former case, you'd charge up your weapon with only a 2d burn attack).

This assumes you can already Parry such attacks anyway; if it also gives that functionality, that's probably worth some additional cost. Optionally, some Enhancements/Limitations on the original spell might influence the above costs. Range modifiers certainly wouldn't (it's always going to have the range of the weapon it gets bound to), but things like Armor Divisor, Cosmic: Unhealing Damage, etc may have some influence - I'd just use the Enhancement values normally. A 2d(2) burn effect would require [30], for example (as AD(2) is +50%). If you don't meet the needed points invested to steal the entire spell, but go with my suggestion to charge up the weapon to the limits of its ability, it's again up the GM how this goes; I'd have all the relevant Enhancements be in play and reduce damage as appropriate (so if you have [20] and Parry a 2d(2) burn spell, you'd charge your weapon with something like a 1d+2(2) burn spell), but I could see having it drop the Enhancement instead (above, you'd just simply have the weapon be charged with a 2d burn spell).

*If you want this to apply to all weapons and unarmed attacks, multiply cost by 5. If you want it to apply to a smaller group, adopt the scheme from Weapon Master - a single weapon design (say, Thrusting Broadsword) is x2, a pair of weapon designs is x2.5, a small class is x3, a medium class is x3.5, a large class is x4, and all weapons is x4.5. Including unarmed is +0.5 to the multiplier (hence all weapons + unarmed being x5). A character who can do it with one specific weapon and unarmed simply buys the Advantage twice, as Alternate Abilities of each other (a character who can do it with multiple specific weapons - say a specific sword and a specific spear - buys an AA for each additional weapon).

EDIT: To make this into a Sorcery spell, use Affliction to grant it. I'd say ignore the whole weapon class thing by having it work by either casting it on a weapon, letting the weapon function this way during its duration, or casting it on a person, which only makes their unarmed attacks benefit. Optionally, enhancing a weapon and enhancing a person could be two separate spells.

[BoneWolf17]

I came up with a build I'm pretty happy with. In case anyone else was looking to make something similar:

Living Force
Keywords: None
Full Cost: 49 points/level
Casting Roll: DX/2 + 3
Range: Self
Duration: Instantaneous

This spell may be cast as an immediate reaction to incoming missile spells. If the casting roll is successful and the incoming spell’s damage is less than (Living Force Level)x2 dice, the incoming spell is infused into whatever the caster used to parry with (probably either their hands or a weapon).
The next attack the caster makes with the infused weapon/hand/etc gains follow-up damage equal to the damage of the absorbed spell. For example, if the caster uses Living Force to parry an incoming fireball that deals 2d burning damage with his or her broadsword, the caster’s next attack with the broadsword will deal 2d burning follow-up damage.
The casting roll is modified by Talent and Combat Reflexes. If the caster tries to cast Living Force more than once in a turn, the casting roll takes a cumulative -4 penalty per attempt after the first within a turn. The caster rolls at -4 if stunned and cannot cast Living Force in situations where they would not get an active defense. If the casting fails, all future castings cost an additional 1 FP until the next successful casting. If the caster drops to 3 FP or less from casting Living Force, they cannot cast this spell until all FP are replenished. This spell does count as an active defense for the purpose of cumulative defense penalties and cannot be combined with other active defenses.
Living Force can only hold one spell at a time.

Statistics: Damage Resistance 7 (Accessibility, Requires gestures, -10%; Active Defense, -40%; All-or-Nothing, -10%; All-Out, -25%; Cosmic, Can change the target for Reflection, +50%; Force Field, +20%; Limited, Missile Spells, -40%; Limited, Melee Attack, -40%; Reflection, +100%; Sorcery, -15%; Triggered Delay on Reflection, +50%) [49/level]

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Anders

Sounds like a job for Power-Ups 1: Imbuements. Imbuements are abilities that allow you to turn e.g. your weapon (any weapon) into fire, doing burning damage.

Edit: See p. 11 of Sorcery.

A Trigger limitation on an Imbuement would do this nicely, I think. I would suggest Common or Occasional, depending on how common combat is in your game (Very Common in a dungeon crawl).

Edit: The Trigger is something like "you block an elemental attack that matches the Imbuements' damage type."

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by BoneWolf17

Statistics: Damage Resistance 7 (Accessibility, Requires gestures, -10%; Active Defense, -40%; All-or-Nothing, -10%; All-Out, -25%; Cosmic, Can change the target for Reflection, +50%; Force Field, +20%; Limited, Missile Spells, -40%; Limited, Melee Attack, -40%; Reflection, +100%; Sorcery, -15%; Triggered Delay on Reflection, +50%) [49/level]

A lot of those Limitations don't make much sense, at least not together. All-Out requires it to be used as part of an All-Out Attack, meaning you can't defend.. but it's an active defense (even Limited as such). Also, you can't claim that it's Limited to both missile spells and melee attacks for separate discounts, although maybe that's meant to represent that the missile spell gets turned into a melee attack?


As for Imbuements, that doesn't look like what's wanted here - Imbuements modify your attack, turning (for example) a cutting sword slash into one that deals burning damage. This is adding a follow-up, such as giving your sword a flaming aura or similar, which is honestly a good deal easier; in fact, now that I think on it, Follow-Up, Universal +50% lets it apply to any attack, unarmed or armed (with a melee weapon), so my ideas on pricing for it working with everything are off. Honestly, [10] per die-equivalent affected is probably fair for the Universal version. Consider if you wanted to be able to replicate - not Parry-and-absorb, but just produce it on your own - any 1d-equivalent attack spell. That would be something like 1d-2 fatigue (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [6] + 1d-2 corr (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [6] + 1d-1 imp (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [8.4] + 1d-1 pi++ (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [8.4] + 1d-1 cut (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.35] + 1d-1 pi+ (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.35] + 1d cr (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.5] + 1d burn (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.5] + 1d pi (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.5] + 1d+1 tox (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.8] + 1d+2 pi- (Universal Follow-Up +50%) [7.2]. With these as Alternate Abilities, the end cost is [22.92] (round up to [23] - or [25] to play well with GURPS' rampant pentaphilia), although this is arguably rather overcharging (really, the pi-class should arguably be a single entry, with appropriate modifiers for higher/lower wounding modifier). Only working after Parrying the same effect, and only for one use (that gets replaced by Parrying some other effect), is a pretty hefty Limitation, which is why I think [10] is an appropriate price (although that was more eyeballed, that puts it at roughly a -60% Limitation). Now, there are sundry add-ons to account for - like Armor Divisor, Hazard (for fatigue damage), etc, but as my suggestion requires you to account for these anyway, I think it works. If you dislike needing to work out equivalent costs and the like and would rather it just be a flat cost per die, with whatever add-ons there are being able to come along for the ride, something like [15] or [20] per die is probably fair.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As for Imbuements, that doesn't look like what's wanted here - Imbuements modify your attack, turning (for example) a cutting sword slash into one that deals burning damage.

"I can use this Imbuement that lets me use burning damage with a weapon for one minute after I block burning damage with that weapon." does, in fact, fit what was requested; uses existing mechanics; and is mechanically simple.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

"I can use this Imbuement that lets me use burning damage with a weapon for one minute after I block burning damage with that weapon." does, in fact, fit what was requested; uses existing mechanics; and is mechanically simple.

Originally Posted by BoneWolf17

For example, the character is targeted by a 2d burning damage missile spell. They parry the spell with their sword, and the sword gains 2d follow-up burning damage.

These are two different things, and the latter is what has been requested (and matches with the effect he tried for with his own build). Imbuements are transformations, while what we need here is a follow-up.

Of course, if what OP wants is actually a transformation, Imbuements is certainly the way to go. I haven't played Sekiro, so I don't know if the effective is a replacement (imbuement) or adds damage (follow-up), or which the OP truly prefers, so I'll keep quiet on that bit until OP clarifies.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Varyon

These are two different things, and the latter is what has been requested (and matches with the effect he tried for with his own build). Imbuements are transformations, while what we need here is a follow-up.

Of course, if what OP wants is actually a transformation, Imbuements is certainly the way to go. I haven't played Sekiro, so I don't know if the effective is a replacement (imbuement) or adds damage (follow-up), or which the OP truly prefers, so I'll keep quiet on that bit until OP clarifies.

Alright, fair enough.

[BoneWolf17]

OP here, sorry for the confusion. My goal was to add follow-up damage rather than change the damage type of the attack, which is why I didn't go for imbuements.

The Missile Spells limitation is referring to the attacks the spell can defend against, while the Melee Attack limitation refers to how the reflected damage can be applied. I'm not sure if I calculated that correctly but that was my thinking with applying those modifiers.

As for adding All-Out and Active Defense together, the idea isn't strictly RAW but what I'm trying to say is that Living Force is mutually exclusive with other active defenses. By default the Active Defense limitation still allows the normal parry, dodge, or block, so I added all out to say that you cannot parry, dodge, or block immediately after if you fail your roll for Living Force.

This spell build is for my players since they're all big Sekiro fans. The game is a setting where pretty much everyone is some kind of wizard warrior so I thought it made sense for sorcerors to develop this spell as a more advanced variety of spell parry.