Powers/Sorcery: Permanency

Powers/Sorcery: Permanency

I touched the subject of permanency in my metamagic post, but let's discuss it in more detail here.

First and foremost, some spells and abilities have a permanent duration by default. This can be either Extended Duration, Permanent, +150% (often accompanied by Cosmic, Immune to Dispel Magic, +50%) or Extended Duration, Truly Permanent, +300%.

Second, GURPS Powers has a framework of adding temporary enhancements. Adding Extended Duration (p. B105), at -2 to Will per level of the enhancement, is suggested, but Permanent and Truly Permanent durations should not be available for this trick, as per the guidelines in GURPS Powers. However, GURPS Psionic Powers says that in over-the-top campaigns such techniques may be appropriate. If your GM says that this is the case, then Permanent would impose a -15 penalty to Will, and Truly Permanent would impose a -30 penalty.

And the third option that I find very interesting is described in a book that I have barely ever opened - GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys in the Changing the World chapter (pp. 13-15). Those all are wonderful options, in my opinions, and I highly recommend checking out that chapter. The impulse points are expanded upon in the Impulse Control article in Pyramid #3-100. One of the interesting options is adding +50% worth of enhancements to an ability by spending an impulse point/character point. If you allow applying permanent durations to abilities this way, they will cost 3 character points (+150%) and not the amount described in the Impulse Buys book. I also suggest the following ability:

Permanency Points [3/level]

You have permanency points equal to this trait’s level, which can be used to make effects permanent as if they were unspent character points, using Changing the World (GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys, pp. 13-15). Permanency points return at a rate of 1 point per week of game time.

Statistics: Impulse Points (Doubly Aspected, Changing the World, -40%; Game Time, +0%) [3/level].