GURPS Power-Ups 1 is out

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Taumaturgo

Now, if the guy are a imbuer, then he pay :
Imbue 3 (Limited Axe/Mace Access, -80%) [12]
Penetrating Strike NH20 [36] (supose DX15)

Total cost: 48 points.

Actually, you misunderstood, the Skill Limitation is for Imbuement skills, so it be:
Imbue 3 (Limited Penetrating Strike, -80%) [8]
Penetrating Strike (Axe/Mace) DX+8 [40]

Total cost: 48 points.

Originally Posted by Taumaturgo

And the imbuer have the advantage of enhance any axe/mace in his hands.
The guy with the gadget have only one mace with this properties, and the gadget can be stolen (or lost), and his cost is more expensive.

The Imbuer can actually enhance any weapon in his hand, but unless he has ST around 60 he's not going to be doing anywhere close to 10d6 of dmg, which that gadget mace does, so the Imbuer will normally only be doing around 3d6 of damage.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Taumaturgo

No, both cases are doing 10d damage. The Innate Attack is only one point of damage, The ST-Based enhancement add the characters swing to the damage. I presume a PC with very high ST. Actually, tha mace damage listed in BS is swing+3, and a 1-point innate attack is swing+1, so the imbuer do more damage! And, if the imbuer use a axe, the damage is cut! Is much better use imbue.

If the innate attack is just one point of damage, why did the crushing attack cost 152 points? I'm probably being dense today, but I would think that the cosmic advantage would modify the innate attack. 300% of 2 is 6. I'm really feeling like I'm missing something.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

What I like about Imbuements is that it’s a new building block for new abilities. It improves GURPS to allow you to do things you could only kludge through before. And, this Imbuement ability is a balanced advantage in precisely the same way that Magery isn’t.

AFAICT, Imbuements presents the same potential for imbalance as Magic when compared to Powers, and for the exact same structural reason. The reason the kind of things that Imbuement does aren't easily costed out in the Powers system is because under that system, their value would vary dramatically based on the character's ST and (if the rules in Powers were extended to cover enhancing weapons in the most obvious way) the stats of the weapon involved. Imbuements does away with the complexity of that in a neat and easy to use way, but in doing so detaches itself from balance with Powers. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you don't mind Magic, but it seems to me that it is pretty clearly a feature of Imbuements.

Off the top of my head, I can think of one thing in Imbuements that I cannot do easily without it: Dancing Weapon. I’m sure, given a bit of time and some interest, I can come up with a way to do it (probably using Allies) for a “reasonable” point cost.

You can't really duplicate anything in Imbuements except the application to unarmed attacks without extending Powers beyond its express limitations.

Its not too hard to see how one could extend the framework in Powers to accommodate this without loss of balance, of course.

For many spells in Magic it’s unpossible (some of the Protection and Warding college come to mind). That bothers me.

I thought the reason you liked Imbuements was that it was that, unlike Magic, it was a new framework for new abilities, but now you are saying (I disagree, but that's beside the point) that everything in it can be done with Powers, whereas Magic covers things that aren't possible within the framework of Powers. These arguments seem contradictory.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

I thought the reason you liked Imbuements was that it was that, unlike Magic, it was a new framework for new abilities, but now you are saying (I disagree, but that's beside the point) that everything in it can be done with Powers, whereas Magic covers things that aren't possible within the framework of Powers. These arguments seem contradictory.

If I can put words in his mouth, he's stating that Imbuements are internally balanced and consistent with 4e rules, while by contrast there are many absolute spells in Magic which are not consistent with 4e rules and are not internally balanced.

There are many spells which provide absolute protection, absolute invulnerability, etc.:
Incoming cruise missile? No problem, I have Deflect or Return Missile.
Air burst nuclear explosion? No problem, I have Force Dome.
And so on.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Actually, you misunderstood, the Skill Limitation is for Imbuement skills, so it be:
Imbue 3 (Limited Penetrating Strike, -80%) [8]
Penetrating Strike DX+8 [40]

Total cost: 48 points.

Actually, if I may be pedantic, the latter would be "Penetrating Strike (Axe/Mace) DX+8 [40]".

The Imbuer can actually enhance any weapon in his hand

Only if he buys those skills as well. Well, he can use them at default, sure, but only if there's a default -- the guy with the build above certainly can't Imbue a nunchaku.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Actually, if I may be pedantic, the latter would be "Penetrating Strike (Axe/Mace) DX+8 [40]".

I wouldn't call that being pedantic, it's a required part of the skill descriptor which I omitted by mistake. It's now corrected.

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Only if he buys those skills as well. Well, he can use them at default, sure, but only if there's a default -- the guy with the build above certainly can't Imbue a nunchaku.

Right, but I think the main difference with the gadget build, is that the gadget costs much more because it does its own innate damage, as opposed to our Imbuer who still needs thews to hit harder.

[dataweaver]

Not true. The gadget does a single point of innate damage; the rest comes from the wielder. Therein lie two of the gadget's issues: first, the sum total of all of the modifiers applied to it amount to a single character point, since they're being applied to "one point of damage". Second, there's the matter of asking how much damage the "Ignores DR" enhancement should apply to, and thus how many points it should cost. AFAICT, there's no published answer to the latter; if it has been officially answered, it happened on this forum, not in a book.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Not true. The gadget does a single point of innate damage; the rest comes from the wielder. Therein lie two of the gadget's issues: first, the sum total of all of the modifiers applied to it amount to a single character point, since they're being applied to "one point of damage". Second, there's the matter of asking how much damage the "Ignores DR" enhancement should apply to, and thus how many points it should cost. AFAICT, there's no published answer to the latter; if it has been officially answered, it happened on this forum, not in a book.

I must've misread the intent of the suggeted gadget then, I thought he meant a gadget which did 10d6 dmg enhaced with armor penetration.
There wasn't actually a full gadget built posted, so I went off of what I read as his intent.

As for how much damage a gadget enhancement applies to, it applies exactly to howevermuch it has been bought up for.
So if you buy an enhancement for a single point of damage, then only 1 point is enhanced. (This is described both in Basic, Powers and other places.)

If you want an armor piercing gadget which in enhanced by your own muscle ST, then you must buy the additional Melee Attack (ST-Based) +100% enhancement (Powers p.103-104), along with the Innate Attack bonus you want, as well as buying up the armor piercing enhancement for the full amount of damage you can generate with your ST when swinging that weapon. There's no freebies, ever.

Imbuement make for a much cleaner build for this type of thing.

[Taumaturgo]

I am creating sheets of super heroes, using Powers and Supers. I have problems to create characters like Silver Samurai, and the Imbue seems to be a solution, but it generates a imbalance in the point costs.

I think Imbue is structurally imcompatible with Supers.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Taumaturgo

I am creating sheets of super heroes, using Powers and Supers. I have problems to create characters like Silver Samurai, and the Imbue seems to be a solution, but it generates a imbalance in the point costs.

I think Imbue is structurally imcompatible with Supers.

Imbue was built to be fully compatible with Supers, if you're seeing an issue, then you might want to start a new thread explaining the problem in detail, so that we can try to clarify the issue for you.