Questions about weapons!

[ravenfish]

Regarding silver weapons, it may be mainline GURPS Dungeon Fantasy rather than Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, but GURPS Fantasy Tech 2- Weapons of Fantasy has official rules for precious metal weapons. They boil down to "when a 'silver' weapon is worth less than its weight in silver, assume the +19 cost factor buys enough silver on the business-end of the weapon to deal with vulnerable monsters; if you insist on a 100% silver club (or sling bullet) add the price of the weapon's weight in silver to the base price of the weapon, treating this increase as a cost factor so it isn't further multiplied by other weapon modifiers".

[tbone]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Regarding silver weapons, it may be mainline GURPS Dungeon Fantasy rather than Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, but GURPS Fantasy Tech 2- Weapons of Fantasy has official rules for precious metal weapons.

Ah, so the matter is already addressed by GURPS. (No surprise there...) Good find; thanks.

For all-silver bullets/pellets/stones, it looks like the text essentially suggests pricing these by weight as lumps of silver, plus the cost of the original ammo. (Given the tiny cost of the latter, it's safe to ignore it.)

The text doesn't directly address silver coating, but it all works easily enough, and in line with what I was suggesting. Take a $60 pure silver sling bullet, factor out the CF of silver, factor in the CF of silver coating, and you get a $9 bullet. Looks good to me.

[LordMunchkin]

I guess I am a more generous GM than most of the folks here when it comes to Signature Gear. The only time I would not refund points spent is when they are WILLINGLY sacrificed, i.e. sold or traded. I don't count a weapon breaking a battle as that, even against opponents who are prone to breaking weapons. A piece of Signature Gear being used to save the party from a deadly trap also wouldn't count. IMHO, not being generous with Signature Gear devalues it greatly: there's no point in taking it if it doesn't provide routine protection from hazards, which is a massive list considering the Dungeon Delving genre. And considering how little advantage Signature Gear provides (guaranteed access to a piece of equipment that will likely be outlcassed by newer options in 2-3 adventures), it probably isn't worth lawyering ways to take it away from the players.

On a sidenote, one of my personal GM philosophies is avoid taking away anything related to character growth whenever possible, i.e. levels or character points. If they lose stuff, like having their mind fried by a really bad Fright check, I always provide a way to recover what they lost. It might be not easy but there should always be a way for players to get back on track with their adventures. At least in the sort of casual games I usually GM. For survival horror campaigns, I do the opposite (and likely wouldn't allow Signature Gear in any case).

[tbone]

Originally Posted by LordMunchkin

On a sidenote, one of my personal GM philosophies is avoid taking away anything related to character growth whenever possible, i.e. levels or character points.

I feel ya there. The occasional step backwards on the path to power really isn't an unreasonable thing to expect, and it certainly happens in adventure fiction. But I remember "level drain" in old-school games, and how we players just loathed it. More than the threat of horrible injury or even PC death. Like nothing else, it would spark a reaction of "but... you... you can't do that!"

I still don't know the "official" answer to whether a Signature Gear-protected weapon is vulnerable to a mundane occurrence like breaking on a parry (including a seemingly-safe parry that ends in a break due to crit miss). But I can imagine a Signature Gear purchaser reacting pretty poorly to that.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by tbone

I still don't know the "official" answer to whether a Signature Gear-protected weapon is vulnerable to a mundane occurrence like breaking on a parry (including a seemingly-safe parry that ends in a break due to crit miss). But I can imagine a Signature Gear purchaser reacting pretty poorly to that.

Signature gear doesn't make you immune to losing access to the item, it just makes you immune to permanently losing access to the item; if we assume that applies to destruction as well as theft, the implication is that the item can always be repaired. Note that there are plenty of fictional examples of people carrying around broken swords (for example, Aragorn carrying around the shards of Narsil) so this is thematic enough.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Signature gear doesn't make you immune to losing access to the item, it just makes you immune to permanently losing access to the item; if we assume that applies to destruction as well as theft, the implication is that the item can always be repaired.

I think that's a ruling mirrored by many GMs, and it sounds reasonable to me.

I suppose a kind GM could find a middle ground like this: when a dice roll yields a result of breakage for a SG weapon, employ the mechanic of a second roll to "verify" the result. If the second roll comes up safe, the weapon is only knocked away (with potential for later recovery). But if the second roll comes up "break" again, the weapon is now broken (though again, with potential for recovery of the pieces).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by tbone

I think that's a ruling mirrored by many GMs, and it sounds reasonable to me.

These day's I think if you have a weapon break result for a bit of signature gear I'd let you pick. The weapon really does break (repairablity is the same as for any other broken weapon), the weapon doesn't break but you lose your grip and it flies off somewhere inconvenient (you can pick it up after the fight, or should there be a long pause) or your [hand] breaks but you keep hold of it (temporary crippling injury, but you can swap the weapon to your other hand and continue the fight with it if you wanted)

[Anthony]

I would note that breakage is only much of an issue for normal or cheap weapons, and keeping your father's normal sword when other people are using very fine magic weapons is its own problem. Honestly, breaking it is an option to get it reforged better.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by malloyd

These day's I think if you have a weapon break result for a bit of signature gear I'd let you pick.

I like that. It'd be good as a general mechanic for any Signature Gear: when the advantage crops up in play, let the player suggest an outcome for GM approval (similar to advantages like Serendipity).

[Balor Patch]

Is allowing a PC to begin with Signature Gear for equipment that they don't have in working condition reasonable?