Loot in GURPS??

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

5. I don't know whether i should give my 135 point starting players one of those backpacks to start with, or wait till 200 points, or 250, or ... you get my point. at what level is a certain item appropriate? THAT'S the biggest thing i need help with.

That is simply not a decision the game system has an opinion about. It depends on the world, and the style of the campaign, not the game system. Because GURPS tries hard to be both "generic" and "universal", as opposed to D&D's firm dedication to a particular style of fantasy game, the core rules don't have answers to question like that.

An even deeper issue is that GURPS doesn't have a concept like character levels. You can't say "250 points is about like 7th level D&D", any more than you can say "All 40 year old Americans drive cars worth between $15,000 and $25,000". Some can't drive, some drive cars worth a lot less, and some worth much more. A GURPS 250 point TL10 catgirl bioroid from the Mars of Transhuman Space won't be able to do much in a D&D world, and a D&D magician won't be able to breathe, let alone do any magic, on the Mars the catgirl is from.

[Obirandiath]

Turhan beat me to it, but I second that motion. The cost is relative to how common or how rare magic items are in your world. The accepted standards presented in Magic are that any item with an energy cost to create equal to or less than 60 will cost $1 per point of energy. Any item that requires more energy than that to create will cost $33 per point of energy. The math behind those prices is laid out in detail in Magic. I understand that Dungeon Fantasy increases the $1/point threshold to 100 energy, but otherwise is the same.
Regarding the skill bonus items you asked about, the spell Lend Skill does that. However, it was subject to severe abuse in 3E and so in 4E can no longer be enchanted into items. Attribute bonuses (ST, DX, etc.) still exist in enchantment form though they are expensive (+1 to DX is 2000 energy).

4. what if i want to create an item that modifies or gives bonuses to an advantage? or mitigates (or enhances) a disadvantage? what are the rules for such items?
There are spells that mimic some advantages and can be enchanted into items - Combat Reflexes and Perfect Balance, for example. Removing a disadvantage is rare but some spells can have such an effect - Bravery to mitigate a Phobia, for instance.
The Powers book also has rules for creating intelligent items that fall under the Allies advantage. Since these items are characters, they can have advantages and some grant them to their wielder.
As for the question of allowing players to start with enchanted items, I usually go with: if they can afford it, let them. The prices are generally prohibitive to starting characters, even wealthy ones. While buying armor with Fortify +1 on it costs only $50 more, having +1 DR isn't going to throw the game out of balance. Buying that weapon that has Accuracy +2 costs an additional $33,000, so will be well out of reach for anyone who is not Filthy Rich. I can think of many better ways to spend 50 cp's other than on Filty Rich, especially at character creation.
Finally, a note that is presented in one of the Dungeon Fantasy supplements advises that it's generally better to err on the side of being too generous with loot than too stingy. Many rules allow for the destruction of equipment, especially weapons and shields. Thieves, tax collectors, Enemies, etc., all have their eye on cool items, too. Players who want to make sure an item sticks around will have to pay for it with cp's in Signature Gear (1 cp/$500 value). Everything else should be considered temporary.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

you guys... are delightfully weird.

1.in d&d the price is given for an item to give the gm an idea of how powerful it actually is, in order to gauge when it would be appropriate to give it to the character. that's why the resultant price is included in the item creation. I'm not noticing this much guidance in GURPS. There is a price chart for powerstone costs, but i don't understand how that might be ported to every other type of magic item. If i wanted to create that handy haversack, how much would it be/how valuable would it be in terms of player reward?

So here's the biggest weakness of the Generic/Universal part of GURPS: because the system doesn't profess to know the setting, style, etc., of the campaign you are playing, there's no practical way to do this. In fact, if the game world makes any attempt to have some sort of realistic socioeconomic model, power-level of characters isn't likely to scale with PC power level so much as social status, rank, and wealth. So that metric doesn't really work for GURPS campaigns unless they are set up explicitly to do so. The closest to that is the Dungeon Fantasy line, and even in it there is no economic gauge for power level -- the best distinction is "artifact" vs. "magic item".

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

3. what if i didn't want it to be a magical handy haversack, i wanted it to be a technological handy haversack? psionic powered? what would the difference be? how would i create it, and especially calculate the costs/value?

Probably GURPS Powers would be the best for this -- it would allow you to create items that grant powers. In this case, some sort of cargo capacity, with the psionic power limitation.

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

4. what if i want to create an item that modifies or gives bonuses to an advantage? or mitigates (or enhances) a disadvantage? what are the rules for such items?

Again, Powers. Though some of this is in the Basic set. I believe the item limitation exists there. As for either of these items, pricing would be arbitrary, and you'd probably need to figure out how they were created within the game world. The considerations there (other than power level) are rarity, demand, material costs, and labor costs.

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

5. I don't know whether i should give my 135 point starting players one of those backpacks to start with, or wait till 200 points, or 250, or ... you get my point. at what level is a certain item appropriate? THAT'S the biggest thing i need help with.

For this, I can give you an example of what I'm doing in an upcoming campaign. I have a base of 129 points, plus an additional 6d6 points -- I like a bit of randomness in character point totals. I'm also giving players the chance to trade in up to 2 of these d6 (making it 5d6 or 4d6 additional points) for a roll on the DF 8 Treasure Tables. Whatever they get, they get. Which can be $15 in pepper, or a VERY POWERFUL artifact. The caveat is that they need to find a way to integrate the result of the roll into their character's background. Otherwise, all PCs start with $1000 as well as a very basic kit.
Is this the ideal way for things to work? It is for MY campaign, because I think it will be fun (and possibly serve dramatic purposes). But it may not be for any one else's campaign. A lucky roll could create power imbalances. But it could also serve as a plot hook, and can serve to help a player flesh out his character to explain why he has a +5 sword of thwacking.
I could just as easily sit down with each player and give them magic items to start with, which could also be fun (I've done it before). None of these are bad ideas, they just create different campaigns. Starting out with nothing by 3 gp, a knife and a loincloth helps to set the tone of the campaign, at least initially, just as much as much as starting out with a magic sword, a horse, and a good suit of armor.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

you guys... are delightfully weird.

You are clearly very diplomatic. I applaud your caution... Huzzah!

-P

[RyanW]

You could also treat the bag of holding family of items as a gadget (see Characters p. 116) giving Payload.

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

In D&D the explicitness of the rules are INCREDIBLY helpful because it gives a very good idea of the value of the loot

As has already been said, GURPS can't afford to assume much about the setting. A magic item might be a cheap, utilitarian thing in one setting, and a priceless artifact in another.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

5. I don't know whether i should give my 135 point starting players one of those backpacks to start with, or wait till 200 points, or 250, or ... you get my point. at what level is a certain item appropriate? THAT'S the biggest thing i need help with.

You've likely got this already but there's really no such generic mapping.

It's not at all unreasonable on the one hand to run 25-point stableboys who've wound up with the gear of high-level D&D type adventurers, street people who've been abducted by aliens to drive gigantic mecha, or a handful of working stiffs who fly a tramp starfreighter.

On the other hand, superheroes for instance tend to be demigods who don't generally use gear or get it as rewards. The heroes of the Belisarius Series are downright mythical, in a not-overtly-supernatural sort of way, but even their signature gear is at best very fine mundane equipment. Most modern-setting film heroes don't seem to operate on a level-appropriate loot basis.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

In D&D the explicitness of the rules are INCREDIBLY helpful because it gives a very good idea of the value of the loot, and you can know the in game value of an item that gives a bonus to a skill, increases magic, gives an ability, etc to anything and any effect. the rules are like a valuable crutch to the GM. Am I missing the rules for a ring/amulet that grants a +x bonus to y skill? for granting +x bonus to y stat?

5. I don't know whether i should give my 135 point starting players one of those backpacks to start with, or wait till 200 points, or 250, or ... you get my point. at what level is a certain item appropriate? THAT'S the biggest thing i need help with.

As someone else noted upthread, GURPS doesn't care about this kind of stuff as a system. GURPS hearkens back to earlier editions of D&D and gaming in general, where ultimately the amount of treasure handed out and what magic items were handed out were up to the GM.* D&D 3.x took the idea of certain characters having "appropriate" items and a certain amount of magic or treasure and ran with it. GURPS is more like those early days where you didn't really know if a 9th level fighter with a +1 sword was under or overequipped, or if a 4th level fighter with a vorpal blade was similarly under or overequipped. It's fuzzy but it's obvious if you've played a while which one one is which (answer: under and over, respectively).

In GURPS, even in GURPS DF, you just need to decide what's appropriate. My experience is to err on the high side with money** and the low side with magical power items. It's easier to soak excess money away without rancor than to convince someone it's totally fair that a disenchanting monster surprised them and whacked their vorpal blade away (although IIRC Gary Gygax did that to someone's character).

So it's really up to the GM. A weakness of GURPS is that you don't have an out of the box solution that answers all balance and appropriateness concerns. A strength is it's flexibility - you aren't a priori informed of the "right" answer and you can make one that fits your own game best.

* Yes, guys, I'm aware of random treasure rolling, treasure types, the chance of finding unguarded treasure in a room, etc. I mean they didn't tell you a level X guys should be fighting level Y monsters and have level Z treasure. You *could* roll up a single troll who had the Hand of Vecna in his stash in 1st edition AD&D, not that I ever did . . .

** I've been learning that the hard way in own DF game.

[trans]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Do you go well with onions? ;)

and some fava beans and a nice Chianti

[Captain-Captain]

See Magic. There are general rules in the beginning of the book and details for every spell that can be enchanted in the spell description. Typically this takes a lot of time, but 400 mages working in tandem for slow and sure enchantmen can knock off a wand of fireballs in a day.

Getting 400 mages together could be a headache however...