Do power foci grant any benefits to a non-caster adept, outside of adding to the Magic rating for purposes of rolls?

Not really, no. Really, power foci only help magicians; only weapon foci apply to all awakened.

You could argue that since it provides a bonus to any test that uses the magic attribute that any adept power that also uses the magic attribute to determine effect would benefit. Things like Attribute Boost for example. Up to the GM whether to allow that and up to the player whether the karma cost is worth it.

Under SR3 rules, they boosted the actual magic attribute, which helped adepts a bit more, if not all that much more . .
But this was changed in the SR4 Transition.

some powers come to mind.
Attribute Boost: Att + Magic
Wall Running: Running + Magic
Magic Sense: Perception + Magic

Gliding, distance=magic meters
Featherfall, height=magic meters
Distance Strike, distance=magic meters
Great Leap, Distance/height=magic meters

or something like that.
so a straight boost to magic can be pretty usefull.
but only +dice does not help nearly as much . .

since a Power Focus does not increase your Magic & those powers do no have Tests involved the Power Focus will not help them in any way I think Makki covered the only powers it may help, for that matter there are pretty much 0 Foci in all of SR4 that benefit an Adept in anyway & if you happen to be a Ranged focused Adept, not even Power Foci are useful.

Infuson Foci might be very helpful, but definitely circumstantial.
My detective adept with Psychometry did use an antique looking glass as a Dowsing focus. Again, a niche application. Same for Divining: Can be very strong and important, but depends on campaign and GM.

I'm adding the following powers to the list a power focus can be applied to:
Empathic Healing
Enthralling Performance
Motion Sense
Pain Relief

That's why you get the Attunement Metamagic and attune your ranged weapon. It isn't much if you are a low grade initiate, but every little bit can help. Not quite as cheap to get a bonus equal to what a power focus give a magician but it is better than nothing.

Yeah, quick rule of thumb is that ANY roll that uses Magic as a component of the die pool, benefits from a Power Focus - whether it's Spellcasting, Conjury, or some adept power or other. Theoretically, a Mystic Adept potentially gets more out of a Power Focus than anyone else. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Even Counterspelling can benefit from a Power Focus, just as long as you're not trying to counter a spell as it's being cast. Dispelling a sustained or quickened spell is a Counterspelling + Magic vs. Force + caster's Magic (+ Karma spent for a quickened spell) test.

I just wish they had adapted the Centering Foci to work for an Adept without houseruling

I think that would unbalance the Centering power for Adepts. Centering for Adepts doesn't add dice to anything, it just counters penalties so the focus would do what? Add its rating to grade and give a huge boost to the number of penalties you could ignore? So full auto fire with a minigun with no recoil compensation and no penalties becomes possible? No, I think it is just fine the way it is.

you do realize that's already possible with Adept powers right? Enhanced Concentration allows you to spend a complex action to ignore an entire penalty regardless of the amount of the penalty. So depending on the situation some penalties won't matter anyway.

Yeah I know but that power is expensive (1 PP), sacrifices a complex action to activate, has a limit of Magic for penalty value and can only apply to one penalty. So yeah you could do it with full autofire, so long as your grade and magic is high enough. But you give up a whole action to do it. Pretty pricey compared to just centering which can be used against multiple penalties. If you added a Centering focus that basically added to your grade for adept centering I feel that wouldn't be that balanced.

I dunno, I feel that limiting it to 1/2 Force increase to your IG for the purposes of Adept Centering makes it desirable while not overpowering.

However taking a force 6 Centering Focus as a Mage can push your 12 dice (I'd say thats on the low end for an Mage Initiate with Centering) to 18, not counting the possibility of adding a Sustaining Health Focus with a Stat Boost to increase your Dice to 20+ for Drain Dice. with that many dice pretty much anything besides heavy combat spells you're not taking Drain...

Yeah but in that case you've sunk a lot karma and cash into ensuring you never take drain. Most likely at the expense of some other aspect of your magic. In the case of Adept centering foci, it isn't as big an investment and gives a big return. Maybe at half force as a bonus, as you suggest, it would work better. It would be nice to see a few more foci of benefit to adepts. Then again, adepts focus so much of their magic inwards that not having things external to themselves that boost their power kind of feels right. Like it is in keeping with the spirit of what they are about.

Not quite... You ignore the Penalty up to the Limits of your Magic Attribute. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
But in combination with Adept Centering, it can become quite powerful.

Actually in the example listed of 12 drain adding a Force 6 Focus compared to an IG 2 Adept with a Force 6 Focus, they have spent probably equal amounts of Karma at this point, equal amounts to bind the Focus & assuming a IG 2 Mage Equal amounts to Initiate. However, remember that an Adept is also only limited to Physical & combat tests to ignore penalties of. (yeah I know there are lots of tests that fit in that situation)

so my example would give the IG 2 Adept up to a 5 IG rating 6 if he has a way adding onto it with a Force 6 (expensive) Foci

Your example mage also included at least one sustaining focus and the Increase attribute spell so I would have disagree on the amount of karma spent. But yeah, Having the focus for an Adept working as a half rating boost to grade could work. Quite expensive for the bonus but it could work.

well I was saying if they wanted 20+ dice they could do that, but 18 dice is quite enough to negate most Drain.

True.

Rather than making the focuses gain at 1/2 value and having to get into rounding issues. Make them cost twice as much (both karma and money) and apply at full value. That way you don't end up with rounding problems.

-D

I think thats blowing it our of proportion also does not bring balance in line. That's 72 Karma & 180,000 nuyen for a +6 to your Adept Centering for a Force 6 vs the 36 & 90,000 for a +3 yes its half as much but its much more reasonable price for the limited use some people may get out of it & it will also not make the Adept Centering overpowered until much higher levels of IG.

Okay, RAW (though this conversation has nothing to do with RAW):

Cenering Focus Cost Force x 15,000¥ and Force x 6 karma.

So with this in mind the current suggestion is:

Buy a force 6 focus for (6x15,000¥) 90,000¥ and bond it for (6x6 karma) 36 karma to get a +3 to centering

Or my suggestion is buy a force 3 focus for (3x30,000¥) 90,000¥ and bond it for (3x12) 36 karma.

How is mine more unbalanced? Sure with mine you could drop a lot of karma and money to get a +6, but you could have done the same thing the other way and bought a force 12 (also a +6). With my suggestion you don't have to worry about what a force 1, 3 or 5 focus does. With rounding you'd have to decide if people will only be buying odd-force foci (round up) or even-force foci (round down).

For 72 karma (the bonding cost of a force 6 under my suggestion) you could have initiated at least one more time (probably more) and have had a permanent increase without the need for a focus. Saving up 72 karma should take most characters a long time too.

-D

Edit: Since this is well within the limits of House Rules anyway, limit the force of the focus to IG rather than Magic.