Building D&D Magic Items in GURPS

This is regarding an unofficial conversion of D&D material to GURPS.

This page involves heavy use of GURPS Magic, GURPS Fantasy, and GURPS Thaumatology; the first book is mandatory while the others provide greater flexibility. GURPS magic systems in D&D goes into various options in greater detail. The Hypertext SRD 3.5 provides an online list of D&D magic items though it does not include 1.x Artifacts.

"Off the Shelf" Magic Items

GURPS has a lot of prebuilt or quick create (one spell) magic items. Those in Magic and other works have been collected into the Magic Items Catalog which provides the barest information on the items. This is by design as it is to serve as a guide not a replacement. Besides the details in all odds don't really fit into most D&D worlds.

Does the item need to be magical?

Not all items that are magical in D&D need to be magical in GURPS.

For example the librams, manuals, and tomes that raise a reader one level in D&D may simply well written instruction books that eliminate the need for a teacher in GURPS. As such they have three important limitations

• They can only teach skills for which the player already has the necessary prerequisites and/or defaults (they assume some basic knowledge of the subject)
• They are helpful only if the skill level of the writer is higher than the reader
• The 200 hours = 1 character point rule can still apply.

Another example is weapon quality.

• Fine Weapons: -1 to break; +1 to cutting and impaling damage for bladed weapons only. Cost anywhere from 3 to 10 times normal cost.
• Very Fine Weapons: -2 to break; +2 to cutting and impaling damage for bladed weapons only. Cost 20 times normal cost.

How is the item magical?

As outlined in GURPS Fantasy there are three broad categories for magic items via GURPS: Natural, Alchemic, and Enchantment.

Natural

As the term suggests these are things that pick up an enchantment naturally. Plants and certain minerals can have magical properties and it may the task of the adventures to find out what those properties are. Such natural magic items usially have a handfull of abilities. For instance a four leaf clover was believed to break faerie enchantments and Dragon’s Blood would give the ability to understand animal speech.

Alchemy

This skill allows the creation of the some 66 available elixirs (potions, powders, pastilles, and unguents) listed in GURPS Magic all of which can be turned into Charms (Amulets and Talismans) which use different mechanics then normal enchantment.

Note that in GURPS alchemy skill is totally separate from being a wizard so anyone can learn and use alchemy. However wizard alchemists can have access to spells like Mature and Distill which, in theory, could allow them to speed up elixir production.

Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic has something similar to D&D's magic spell in a bottle mechanic but it is more free form mechanics rather than more examples.

Enchantment

This is how standard GURPS Magic and D&D items are made and this is where the bell curve of the 3d6 becomes important. Since each enchantment spell’s chance of Critical success (3-5, 6 if effective skill is 16+), normal success, quirking (on a roll of 16), or destroyed the item (17 and 18 are always critical failures regardless of skill level) there are built-in mechanics for why there are "cursed" items and why such magic items are rare. It should be mentioned Divination spells will not improve the Enchantment success.

Note that unlike D&D magic items GURPS magic items do not have to be mastercraft (fine or very fine) quality. However if the item that has been enchanted is broken the enchantment ends so it makes sense at least in the case of armor and weapons to use the best quality one can get ahold of. Also holy relics are enchanted by a higher power not the cleric. Such items have can have their own set of rules and guidelines for use which is up to the GM to flesh out.

For arcane enchantment there are two methods:

• Quick and Dirty: takes one hour per 100 points of energy required (round up) and all the energy is spent at the end of the enchantment. Each assistant is -1 to skill and if effective skill is below 15 enchantment is impossible. The enchanter and each assistant is limited to personal Fatigue and one powerstone. If Paut Talismans exist only the enchanter can use one as the timing is so critical.
• Slow and Sure: calculated in mage-days (a full eight-hour workday for one mage that produces 1 energy point) so 10 mages working on a project can complete it in 1/10 the time.

Commissioned items are $33 per energy point at TL 3 for slow and sure enchantment. This cost should be adjusted for TL so in the average TL (3+1) D&D world the cost would be $66 per energy point. A starjammer setting, which works out to TL(3+2), would see $166 per energy point.

There are Alternative Enchantment methods for Slow and Sure which dramatically improve the creation of magic items.

Due the number of spells or no spell equivalents some D&D magic items tend toward a heady mixture of Natural, Alchemy, Enchantment by Deeds, Enchantment by Age and spells.

Fundamentals

Looking over GURPS Magic it should be clear that the more powerful a magic item is the more mage days it takes to make. Also remember the more spells an item has on it the rarer and more expensive it will be. Similarly D&D magic items that seem to best represented by a GURPS spell that normally cannot be enchanted on an item then is may be a secret variant (Charge Powerstone can be handled this way), a Critical Success, Q&D regular failure with another spell depending on whether the spell is beneficial or harmful, Symbol Magic , or something that is a product of the item's history (Enchantment Through Age and Deeds). Regardless of how the item is created it will be rarer than a “standard” magic item which in turn will increase its value.

Note that since a magic item looses its magic when broken the items the party will find will usually be of high quality, very well taken care of, and or be enchanted with Shatterproof. So that Sword +1 is more likely to a very fine blade (already +1 to damage) enchanted with Accuracy 1 then a cheap blade enchanted with Accuracy 1 and Puissance 1 (the later was more likely to break and would have taken twice as long to make)

Magic shops

In towns large enough Industrial Enchantment becomes viable but only for items used by enough of the general populous and the town guards/local ruler and staff to make it profitable. Food and water items will abound and what bonus items do exist will be of the +1 variety. Powerful magic items sold to such shops will likely be sent to the ruler to get them out of circulation.

Differences in Magic Items

A critical factor to remember is that item created via the Enchant spell can cost their users fatigue if the spell is not "Always On".

All items created via the Enchant spell have a Power Level. This use of "Power" should not be confused with the spell of the same name or with Power Items. To prevent confusion use the term "Spell Power".

These types of magic items must have a Spell Power of 15 or greater adjusted by mana level to function. More over while they require no ritual there is no reduction in casting time or fatigue cost.

Mages have only two options to reduce this fatigue cost for enchanted items: use the Power spell or have a Powerstone built into the item (dedicated or exclusive). As a matter of practicality in time and energy dedicated Powerstones will be the most common option used by mages.

Powerstones

Powerstones are nothing more than magic batteries. You may want to add Powerstones to your treasure awards to reduce spell costs and the limit of a wizard being able to use only one Powerstone (regardless of it being 'loose' or in an item) at a time and their recharge rate will help prevent Powerstones from becoming a problem. Powerstones built into magic items are more efficient than ‘loose’ Powerstones: dedicated Powerstones act if they are double their FP and exclusive Powerstones act as if they are triple their FP. The main difference between dedicated and exclusive Powerstones is that magic item with exclusive Powerstones can only get their power from the Powerstone - once it is exhausted the item is useless until the exclusive Powerstone recharges. This makes exclusive Powerstone an effective way to simulate D&D magic items with ‘charges’ in GURPS.

Scrolls

Scrolls have many key differences

• Scrolls can only be written by wizards of Magery/Power Investiture 1 or higher.
• There are no adjustments for skill ie a Spell Power 20 Scroll costs the same amount of energy and takes the same amount of time to write as a Spell Power 15 scroll
• Scrolls take as many days to write as the base energy needed to cast the spell ie a spell that takes 5 energy to cast takes 5 days to write.
• A scroll must be read aloud to function and this takes twice the normal casting time.
• Knowing the spoken part of the language the scroll is written in at a level below Native incurs a penalty: -1 for Accented and -3 for Broken.
• The only skill roll (that of the scroll's writer) needed if the spell is resisted.

Armor

In D&D the bonus of magical armor can be represented in GURPS terms by Deflect, Fortify, or some combination. There are two important points to keep in mind. First unlike in D&D GURPS magical armor weighs the same as non-magical armor unless it has been enchanted with Lighten and this spell at best only halves the weight. Second, if a piece of armor accures enough damage (natural DR*5) without being repaired magically (Repair spell) the armor looses its enchantments.

Weapons

You may have noticed that the GURPS spells Accuracy (to hit) and Puissance (to damage) only go up to +3. This isn't as limiting in GURPS was it would be in D&D thanks to the 3d6 and 17-18 automatic failure mechanics. However, is you really want weapons above +3 there are options.

Cutting and impaling weapons like knives, swords, axes, and polearms can be of better quality but this only increases damage not to hit; fine quality is +1 and very fine quality is +2. The higher quality weapons are expensive, averaging seven times normal cost for just a fine weapon. Penetrating Weapon is another alternative for damage but it is only effective against armored opponents. Neither option works for crushing weapons.

Lend Skill can add as much as +4 to skill level but it cannot raise skill level above that of the caster. This means that not only must the mage be skilled in enchantment but in the skill itself making high level items a rarity.

The addition of the Bless spell can add as much as +3 on top of other magics. The Bless spell has an additional “mortal danger” advantage which activates to help avert or reduce one major serious danger to the owner of the item. The major disadvantage is that the triggering of this “mortal danger” feature of the Bless spell results in the spell ending. Note that Bless items cannot be stacked; only one bless overall can be active at one time.

Note that in addition to a FP level Powerstones have a Spell Power as well. By standard rules a Powerstone must be Spell Power 20+ to be used in a low mana area. If this is a hassle then just ignore it. In addition to the normal quirks, Powerstones can have one of two unique "quirks": Mana Pool and Mana Vortex. Mana Pool increases the local mana level by 1 step in a 1 hex radius or 2 steps in a 3 hex radius. Mana Vortex, by contrast, turns any area it is in into a no mana zone.

Another possibility is that Charge Powerstone has been used in the enchantment which effectively halves recharging time for each usage. Note that, barring special conditions no Powerstone will recharge if an larger powerstone is within 6 feet of it unless put into a Powerstone Recharging Rack.

Paut Talismans

Paut is an alchemic elixir and like all elixirs it can be made into a charm or talisman (these are totally different from the spells with those names). A Paut Talisman effectively works like powerstone with several advantages and disadvantages including what amounts to a 'can only be used once in a particular time period' quirk. At a practical level with a normal lab/workshop Paut Talismans will generally be limited to 6 energy (6 doses), In normal mana this would be akin to Powerstone 6 energy (can be used once in a 1.42 day (~34 hours) period).

Advanced Conversion

For the really powerful D&D magic items neither the spells in GURPS Magic nor Symbol Magic may be enough. Such items may require Items as Advantages or even Items as Characters but those methods require using the Basic Set.

Effectively the item is built with points with each point, baring Speeding Enchantment Up options, equating to 200 hours (25 8-hour days). Signature Gear allows one to convert these points into money; each point is 50% of base starting wealth assuming such an item can be readily bought. However the item can be built as a Gadget in which case it is "bought" with points.

For example, a Staff of Fireballs with 6d damage that also gives a +2 boost to IQ and can create Fog around the caster would be 115 points to enchant, takes, in theory, 2875 mage-days to make, and would, based, on points, cost 5750% of base starting wealth.

However, as a gadget that [115] Staff would be adjusted by Breakable (Durability, Repairability, and Size), Can be stolen, and (if applicable) Unique.

Assuming the above staff is made of a hard wood giving it DR 6-15 (-15%), it is easily repairable (+0%), is SM 0 (-25%), requires a Win a QC (-30%) to take away, and is not unique, it is (-70%) of its base point value or a modest [35] and 875 mage-days.

This is only its point total as starting gear not its monetary value and only works if the item is non-sentient. Sentient and especially sapient items should use the Items as Characters guidelines which should be "purchased" as allies...or enemies.

Using the Toolbox

Some D&D magic items have a huge amount of spells and by the standard rules would be either quirked into oblivion or destroyed during the enchantment process.

For example, the Staff of the Magi in D&D has 19 castable spells and what amounts to Magic Resistance +2. The chance the item would survive this is an 11 on a 3d6 (62.5%), not the best odds given the amount of time it would take for a lone mage to make.

While the Staff of the Magi could be built with via the Magic Items as Advantages (Knacks) method, one is still talking about a minimum of 267 points for the spells (before the various Gadget modifiers or a totally insane 6,675 mage-days. Given the number of spells it is just not viable to redo them as powers for most campaigns.

A Dragon #101 article, "Charging isn't Cheap" gave how the more powerful magic items might be made and it combines Natural Magic, Alchemy, and enchantment. The "Materials" chapter in GURPS Thaumatology suggests using the Ritual Magic skill to unlock the magical abilities of certain materials and while geared towards alternative colleges and symbol magic GURPS Thaumatology p. 43-47 can also serve as inspiration for components of magic items.

Using the right materials could reduce the number of spells which in turn reduces the mage-days. Finding out what these materials are and how they are handled generally involve the Hidden Lore, Research, and Thaumatology skills.

Some ideas:

• Since Ruby is part of items that allow Fireball spells to be cast perhaps putting it the "right" type of material made in the "correct" way will "awaken" this properity eliminating the need for the item to be enchanted with that spell. Relevant additional skills: Carpentry and Jeweler
• Perhaps using Silver Fir as the material for a staff or wand effectively provides the Stable Casting enhancement substantially reducing the chances the item is destroyed if a critical failure occurs. Relevant additional skill: Biology (Trees) or Naturalist.
• Letting the item soak in Paut elixir may allow it to work as if there was a dedicated or exclusive powerstone in the item. Relevant additional skill: Alchemy.
• Other types of magic such as Syntactic Magic or Symbol Magic can be used in place of minor spells. Relevant additional skill (Symbol Magic): each rune is a separate skill

The various additional skills help make the item relatively rare while allowing the Enchanting time to be reduced.