Armory is used as described in the basic set to make meele weapons, metal arrow heads, and armor (bows are covered by a separate skill, Fletching). Roll against the lowest effective skill used on a piece to determine it's quality--a failure by 1-3 produces an item one quality level less than intended, failure by more indicates the weapon is useless, and a critical success produces one of one quality level higher than intended. See MeleeWeapon for notes on how quality affects a weapon.
The base number of smithing hours to forge a weapon is it's weight in pounds times 0.75, +6 is the weapon is a blade that must be hilted.
o Multiply by 2 if no blank is available (i.e. working from scratch). This will reduce the cost of forging the weapon from $5/lb to $1/lb. Does not affect hilting/hafting time, or armor forging.
o Multiply by 1 if the weapon is a blade (sword, knife, etc. Remember also to do a quenching test, and add a hilt), by 0.9 if any other cutting or impaling weapon, and by 0.8 if a crushing weapon.
o add two for adding a haft to a hafted weapon of reach 2 or more, add 1 for hafting a hafter weapon of shorter reach.
o Multiply by 1.2 for artistic design.
o Multiply by 1.5 for a skill bonus of 1, or by skill bonus for a bonus from 2 through 10. Greater bonuses cannot be had from working slowly.
o Multiply by 1-(skill penalty)/20 for penalties from 1 to 10.
*Note: always refigue time for the worst roll. Working more slowly after rushing doesn't really help.*
This will give the number of smithing hours necessary to complete the piece.
The base number of smithing hours a smith produces per hour of work is equal to his ST+DX/30.
A stronger smith can forge faster due to the weight of his blows, a more dexterous one due to the efficency of his work. This is why smiths are often broad-shouldered men, powerful and vigorous, and skilled with their hands. **(My own idea, normalized for ST=DX=10, alternately use ST+DX+HT/45, or simply 2/3, the number in the book)**
o Multiply by 1 if the smith is working under field conditions.
o Multiply by 1.5 if he is working under normal conditions, with a stable forge and good tools.
o Multiply by 3 if he is working under good conditions with specialized tools.
o Multiply by ?? if the smith is a Fast [Gadgeteer]
Forging armor or shields takes a base time of 0.1 smithhours per lb. for cloth, 0.5 smithhours per lb. for leather, 1.5 smithhours per lb for scale, 2.5 smithhours per lb. for chain, and 3 smithhours per lb. for plate. Double the time for chain if sufficient wire of a suitable guage is not already present. Blanks are not required, but artistic design increases time as normal. Shields must be strapped, a process taking 1-2 smithhours.
A smith may forge cheap weapons at a +10 to skill, fine weapons at a -10 to skill, and very fine weapons at a -20 to skill. Highly complicated or cusom weapons may carry their own skill penalties.
Here is a list of possible modification and spiffies that can be built into weapons, gleaned from GURPS Low-Tech: [Weapon Customizations]
ArmoryInventory is a list of standard weights and effects for armors and weapons (human scale is assumed). Hopefully, this will be replaced by a general armor/weapon creation system at some point in the future.
2002/04/04 18:26 EST (via web):
Is the above from G:Low-Tech? Either way, I think it's pretty cool. The 15x Fast Gadgeteer modifier is pretty scary, even for a 50-point advantage... still, being able to turn out a sword in half an hour's pretty Legendery, so sure. The "work faster at a skill penalty" thing's kinda weird. I actually like: multiply work rate by 2/3 for every +1 to skill, divide by 2/3 for every -1 to skill. We're MIT engineers, we can do exponents in our heads. So if you want a +10 to skill, you take (3/2)^10 as long (roughly 60 times as long). If you want to work 60 times as fast, that's a -10 to skill. Hm. The rules you gave put an elbow in the curve at your actual skill, which seems like a good idea. Exponential for skill bonuses for taking a long time is good, but maybe logarithmic for skill penalties for going fast is a better idea -- so you can go 10 times as fast at a -60 to skill, for example. Got to think about that, and maybe their linear approach is wiser (just *(1+(penalty/20)) for going faster, *(1/bonus) for going slow and careful. I have to say I really like the work-rate mods you've got here. Armory is for any combat-relevant object: shields, armor, metal, wood, bone, weapons, bows, arrows, swords, very sharp rocks... and the ED Improve/Forge Weapon rules have always been nutty, and should be replaced. Something like "jury-rig improvement" to give a temporary bonus, and the ability to put smith-work hours in *after* an item is "finished" would be two interesting Talents, for example. --bts
Armory itself can be used to rework a piece, but that's pretty much a precess of taking it apart and werorking it completely. The Reforge tallent allows for improvement of weapons and armor at a greater speed, but mostly I'm counting on Smiths of 4th circle or about being fast gagiteers if they intend to do things on the fly. --zebediah
bts, 2002/05/07 12:04 EST (via web):
Making blanks useless to a Gadgeteer is an interesting option, and one I'm not at all sure I'm fond of...
'k. Strike it then...I was thinking that Gadeteers "build stuff," frequently stuff that's not been built before, and that seemed a logal bonus. Part of the problem is that I don't know the text of my own advantage...what exactly does "gadgeteer" do? --zebediah
Slow Gadgeteer gives you a degree of freedom from the Invention rules; in particular, it lets you break the usual TL restrictions in various ways, and also invent things in a fraction of the time a normal inventor would use. As yet a third benefit, it makes Invention a reliable process. Normal inventors have to roll at skill-15 or so to invent something new; Gadgeteers get to just roll against their skill
Fast Gadgeteer goes even further, dispensing with cost and time requirements for most inventions. --bts
The effect I really want is to be able to say "we need a rock drill. It weighs about 10 lb (GM estimate), so it takes about..." 8 hours to forge. Ha. reduce that to 4ish hours if for some reason you don't need blanks (which seems a reasonable thing for at least fast gagiteers, who can reinvent the sword on the fly), but that's still a lot of time. Dividing the time taken by 10 takes that down to 1/2 hour, which seems much more feasable. Also being able to say "all out weapons and tools are gone, but there's a bunch of junk lying around. Give me an hour or so, and I'll have a makeshift (low-quality) armament for the party." That's what I would like out of high armory talent and fast gagiteering.--zebediah
(Slow) Gadgeteer doesn't give you any bonus to building a sword, and in a normal campaign neither would Fast Gadgeteer. I guess I'm having trouble visualizing how the skills of MacGyver and the Professor would apply in the circumstances you mention: sure, MacGyver could arm the party, but it wouldn't be with swords and bows, or with his era's equivalent: it would be with a backhoe, some compressed gas cylinders, and he'd have to get himself locked into a toolshed to do it. --bts