[Sorcery?] Invisible weapon ala Darksouls' Hidden Weapon

[Kalminos]

A friend of mine is making a sorcerer character of theirs, and a power they wanted to have was 'hidden weapon' ala darksouls- what it did was it made the user's weapon totally invisible- others could tell they they were holding SOMETHING- but who knows what, or even how long it was.

In that game it allowed you to trick people with having an absurdly long weapon or making the moveset harder to perceive.

I thought about something based off of invisibility, perhaps simply afflicting it upon the weapon, but then the question came up of what the combat effects of this might be. Thoughts? (the user of the weapon and their arm/hand are not invisible in any way.)

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/hidden-weapon

link to game wiki on the spell, though it hardly says anything useful.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I'd create it as a Buff and use Invisiblity as a base and so it can only work on weaponry. Then use the rules on p. B394 - that is the first attack allows no active defense and the second and further attacks get a -4 penalty. That seems fair to me.

[Kalminos]

No defense seems rather brutal- you can still see the attack coming- the swing of the weapon arm or whatever else. Especially since this is gurps and one undefended attack means the enemy is decapitated or stabbed in the eye.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kalminos

No defense seems rather brutal- you can still see the attack coming- the swing of the weapon arm or whatever else. Especially since this is gurps and one undefended attack means the enemy is decapitated or stabbed in the eye.

Sure, but that doesn't mean instant death - just that you got hit in those locations. This is also how mundane hidden weapons work in Martial Arts - if your target cannot spot them he doesn't get to defend against that first attack.

[Kalminos]

but you CAN spot the attack coming- especially when its with a very large weapon. You can't see the weapon itself but their body movements will give it away. Perhaps a -8 if you've haven't seen the weapon before, -4 if you have seen it prior to the spell, going down to -2 after the first defense if you've seen ? (like an automatic deceptive attack at -4)

(in my experience, it's death to not defend against one attack when the opponent is aware you can't defend- they can take all of their deadliest options.)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kalminos

but you CAN spot the attack coming- especially when its with a very large weapon. You can't see the weapon itself but their body movements will give it away. Perhaps a -8 if you've haven't seen the weapon before, -4 if you have seen it prior to the spell, going down to -2 after the first defense if you've seen ? (like an automatic deceptive attack at -4)

(in my experience, it's death to not defend against one attack when the opponent is aware you can't defend- they can take all of their deadliest options.)

Hey, man, you asked for options - this is what I'd do. If you want a lesser penalty you could get more involved with the build design and figure out what the cost might be for a given weapon in the setting by adding Low Signature onto it - but that just seems so fussy. Another way to do it might be to add the Fringe modifier to Invisibility and see how that works out. Yet another way might be to Afflict levels of Chameleon + Silence. But that produces some overly complicated builds.

[Kalminos]

Thanks for the input. I'll pass it along, Ghostdancer.

Edit: Upon reading the rule in Basic set again, it seems like you have some strange interpretation of it, since there is a specific provision for being aware of your attacker allowing defense. At no point is the entire enemy invisible. Whats the page on the Martial Arts bit?

[Edges]

This might be of help.