Armor Buffs in Sorcery

Armor Buffs in Sorcery

One of the spell classes in Sorcery is Weapon Buff, but fiction and other games often have plenty of armor buffs as well. However, it seems that making armor buffs in GURPS are not as simple as applying Accessibility, Only on armor, -20%.

If you look back to D&D, you will see that armor is a singular item. This isn't true in GURPS, unless you simplify the system a lot, as armor is piecemeal. By RAW, if you use a spell with Accessibility, Only on armor, -20%, you affect only one item from the set you may be wearing, and armor can consist of more than a dozen of items! Imagine recasting the same buff spell to every item and passing out due to losing all FP. This obviously doesn't work (unless this behavious is intended for your magic system).

To buff all armor worn by the target, I suggest adding Area Effect, 1 yard, +25%. However, this may also buff armor of other creatures in the same hex, or, for example, a pile of armor on the ground that is then taken and donned by different creatures. This also will result in unintended (probably) side effects.

Let's add Accessibility, Only worn by a single creature, -5%. Now, we have resolved that issue. However, now you can buff a person's armor, and that person may remove some parts of it and give it to others. That also may be unintended.

Let's add Terminal Condition, Piece of armor removed, -5%. Now, if any piece of buffed armor is removed (voluntarily or forcibly), the buff is dispelled for the entire set.

If you combine all these modifiers, you get Armor Buff, -5%. Technically speaking, by RAW this shouldn't work on creatures that take up multiple hexes, but I suggest simply ignoring it and treating the ability to affect larger targets as a free feature.