And if it only applies at certain times then it is a bonus and is not limited by caps.

Call me crazy, but wouldn't a mystic adept work better then just a normal adept pornomancer? I mean at least w/ the mystic adept they can also cast illusion based spells that will also increase their social dice pool. I mean there are a few glamor spells to push that cheese just a little further. With a few sustaining focuses wouldn't the mystic adept pull out the cheese even more hardcore or am I missing something?

I mean the pornomancer just walks in and casts orgy or orgasm... I mean what could make more sense?

Yes, especially since Kinesics is only 0.5 PP per die. That leaves you with half your Magic rating for casting spells.

Slap the dude with orgy, orgasm, entertainment, influence, and anything else you can think of in Street magic. You could actually give the dude a low magic and sink most of it into power points. Just have the elf overcast to force 2 or 3 and jam it in a sustaining spell focus.

Remember that only one sustaining focus can be active at a time.

Well ok, but really in the end you only need one. Slap the silly sod with some debuffs, hit yourself with some buffs, and walk all over his mind like Fred Astare. Even if you sustain a few force 3 or 4 spells on yourself without the sustaining focus and even with your -2 you are still hitting them harder when you work your social mojo overall. I mean god help you if the guy decides to shoot you, but how could they waste a thing of such beauty? I mean why waste the stunning elf? Now make love to the stunning elf constantly might be a problem, but let the GM worry about if they want to use that angle. Although throwing this many dice should have the Zoolander effect; Like being able to stop bullets and thrown weapons with a look.


Maybe it might be nice just to have a r2 power focus just to cast higher force spells and sometimes pass a few of the sustaining spell over to one of your bound spirits or something.

Then that's a mechanical failure of the rules.

That does work, but it presents problems of its own. For one thing, if you use it as a long term strategy, focus addiction might be a problem. For another, binding spirits requires resources. You'll need money for the materials, plus the skill to do it. That goes off magic. So now to get a decent DP (you're going to need at least 1 service...), you now get to make the magical choice of either sinking skill points that could be used on social skills, or pumping up casting magic, which is going to hurt your adept magic. Not saying it can't be done, just saying that at this point, you're making some sacrifices.

Pumping your character at the start of character gen I thought was the whole point of this was to roll off 400 bp character of crazyness. You can already start with some bound spirits at your beck and call. Summoning up a spirit on the fly and passing it a sustaining spell is free. Yes passing tasks off to spirits does cost money in the end, but hell if we are talking about going for the hard tweak a mystic adept is your best bet. I mean when you initiate you can take a meta magic, or get a power point. Thus either increasing your skills, or taking a possible useful meta magic.

In the end this build takes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) to keep the wheels working, but it has at the starting gate more dice with debuffs. In the end game it also has the potential to be more powerful then it's adept cousin in the very long run.

Lowering the Adept side of your Magic also lowers the maximum rank of your powers.


Incorrect. There is nothing limiting the number of Sustaining Foci you may have active beyond the normal foci limits.

Where do you get this from?

Ok, so if you do the math and you take a power foci r2 and have to split your magic and adept power at 2.5 and 2.5 can basically cast force 4 spells *edit* and have less of a chance of killing yourself *edit thanks fortune sorry for not being clearer*. If you take the 4 dice you lose (2 from kenesics and 2 from improved ability) you can cast a force 4 Influence sustaining spell, a force 4 orgasm spell, and a force 4 entertainment spell... even with the resist with the willpower you have probably at least broken even. The only problem is, is that it works better against adepts and mundanes, but worse against mages.

Possibly SR3 or 2 for the sustaining focus limit?

Power Foci do not actually raise the Magic Attribute, so do not really contribute to casting higher Force spells. They merely add their Force to any test involving the Magic Attribute, basically just giving you more dice.

It's not a failure, it's a feature.

If it wasn't then various augmentations would be totally pointless.

Not that I recall. There has always been a general rule about the maximum number of Foci that can be safely used, but nothing specific limiting Susutaining Foci.

No, that is exactly how the rules were designed to work. As hyzmarca says, a feature, not a bug.

Sorry, I won't have my book on me for a few days. But I was pretty sure you could only use one focus at a time. Or is it just that you can only use one focus on any given test?jj

If I'm not mistaken, you can only have one focus add dice to any one roll, but you could use 2 foci for the same test by using a spellcasting focus for casting it and a sustaining focus for sustaining it...

Yep. The rule is that you can only use on Focus (of any type) on any one specific test.

There is a limit on the total number of Foci that a person can Bond, which is equal to their Magic Attribute. There is also a limit on the total Force of all Bonded Foci, which is set at five times the character's Magic Atrribute.

Not in 4E! Quote from the top of pg. 186: "For all other purposes, including the determination of the maximum level for adept powers, the character's full Magic attribute is used."

Merry Christmas.

Man hat is so screwy I have to make a Mystic Adept Face now... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

...is it bad that I'm so intrigued by the mystic adept pornomancer that I want to build one, just to see how it works?

...and, if it works, I want to play it... I feel dirty...

I made one, have it on file at home, it's pretty much exactly like an adept pornomancer, but with spells like orgasm and it is completely grotesque... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Elf, Mystic Adept, Magic Component using Charisma as a Drain-Stat, preferably Possession Tradition too . .
high charisma, high agility for shooty/fighty stuff . .
yes, one can work with this *g*

Yeah well basically you take the adept and just give him/her crazy buffs and debuffs. No GM should allow that character to played in their game.