Casting spells with a weapon

[Adras]

I have a player who wants to be able to cast spells through his swords, I'm having difficulty finding any advantages or rules that would allow this unless I treat one of his swords as a mage staff. I searched the forum for this but could not find an answer so I thought I would post here and see what y'all thought. Any advice/ suggestions are appreciated.

[Dalillama]

Yup, that's how it would be done in the basic magic system.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Adras

I have a player who wants to be able to cast spells through his swords, I'm having difficulty finding any advantages or rules that would allow this unless I treat one of his swords as a mage staff. I searched the forum for this but could not find an answer so I thought I would post here and see what y'all thought. Any advice/ suggestions are appreciated.

Does he want to cast any and every kind of spells via a single sword? If so, the Staff approach is fine.

Can he only cast spells via his sword, or is he better at it when using that sword? If so, he could take a Gadget limitation on some of his Magery.

If he wants to zap things through a sword, and any sword will do, check out Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, available at Warehouse 23.

[Nereidalbel]

Does he mean that he wants his sword to act as if it had the Staff enchantment? Or does he just want his sword to do magic fwooshy things?

[Adras]

Thanks for the quick replies, he mainly wants to be able to deliver any and all spells through his sword.

[Nereidalbel]

Then just give him a sword with the Staff enchantment. Maybe a higher CF, since Staff shouldn't be able to cast on a sword.

[(E)]

And consider your opinion regarding spells being cast internally, it may come up.

I suggest "the spell goes off as soon as the point touches their skin" but that's just one way of doing it.

[Adras]

Ahh good point, thanks for that E.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Maz

I have a player who wishes to to get a bone dagger to use as his wizards staff. Or actually, to be explicit, a dragons tooth.


The rules for Staff (Magic p.70) is pretty clear that this is not possible as the object you enchant must be "Any rod-shaped piece".

I don't really see any harm in allowing a wand in dagger form though. And I kinda like the idea.
Per Low Tech a tooth-dagger would change cut to crushing, and would retain impaling damage, but with an AD of (0.5). But this is a dragons tooth! surely it would not lose cutting nor gain a low AD.

In fact the player wanted to apply Penetrating enchantments to it, to gain AD(2) or (3).


So effectively we end up with a normal dagger that could work as a Wizards Staff...


And now my questions (I know you where starting to wonder).
Would you consider that fair?
Would you allow it?
How much would you charge for the dragon tooth-dagger?

Originally Posted by roguebfl

The Limit is first and for most a setting flavor limit.

Ask you self if it can be put on a weapon dagger, Why not a Sword? even a Dragonbone sword? Do you Want wizard in your setting to use use Dagger and/or swords instead of Staves?

Originally Posted by Kromm

As has been said, the issue is entirely one of setting flavor. Anybody who believes that it's "unbalanced" to allow a wizard to have a dagger, a sword, or whatever as his Staff item simply hasn't seen short staffs, quarterstaffs, and other sticks in action in GURPS combat. Wizards aren't denied typically metal cutting and impaling weapons for game-balance reasons, but because when Steve Jackson wrote the Staff spell back in 1986, he favored the gnarly wooden staffs seen in fantasy novels. Needless to say, many real-world traditions consider "wand" and "dagger" synonymous, and fantasy games are full of warrior-wizards who channel spells through swords. I'd simply allow it and be done with it . . . although you might want to raise the energy cost to enchant harder materials with the Staff spell, also for reasons of flavor.

To implment the last part I would crib from the powerstone spell with what it says about enchanting Gem based Powerstones vs non Gem ones.

[CoyoteGestalt]

In a setting where the "Staffs are only long wooden cylinders" rule generally applied, I've allowed a Rules Exemption perk for a character to have something else work as a Staff, just to compensate for the surprise value.* For many worlds, though, there's no reason to even go that far, and mages can focus their spells through whatever seems appropriate.


*If everybody knows that wizards can only cast with staves, then they don't bother keeping up anti-spell defenses when their opponent is holding a metal sword. But they usually figure out the secret after the first mid-melee Spasm.