You do know that the boost is not capped at the rating of the power? Each hit on Mag+Boost increases the attribute by one. So, with MAG 5, on average you'll get +2 for rating 1, and +2,3 with rating 2. The boost however is capped at the Augmented attribute maximum, so with a 3 as base attribute, you could get a maximum of +6.

Yup, since SR4A synaptic boosters are not so much of a no-brainer anymore

You are right about that, but unfortunately REA cannot be boosted if you have Increased Reflexes.

Don't forget, you have to buy an extra skill for it: exotic melee weapon: whip. Although the monowhips damge is great, I'd rather go for a more easily replaceable weapon.

Here's a slightly unorthodox idea for a spirit slaying adept.

Weapon foci when activated are active on both planes whether or not the adept is. You'd think a free floating greatsword swinging wildly in both planes would be a fairly dangerous item.

If the spirit is materialized... great slice and dice time as normal. If it's not, but is floating in the vicinity... you need some way to locate it's approximate position to attack it blind. I don't know if motion sense, or detect magic type adept power would work though. But barring that martial arts specialized in blindfighting (or awakened fighting)...

Lacks the normal weakness of the adept (sitting duck in astral), but lacks the fine detection and reading abilities of assensinng.

You have mentioned the weakness yourself. The spirit can clearly see an attack the weapon focus. If it is feeling generous, it will just knock it out of your grasp (assuming that works) or ,which is garanteed to work, will break your focus.

Actually Dakka... try reading the rules before slamming the idea.

The most that can be done to a focus is to deactivate it... and that requires a direct mana spell out of digital grimoire. And damage done to the focus regenerates at a fairly quick rate at which point you can just reactivate it again.

Digital grimoire is the only place I've seen anything regarding attacking and deactivating foci.

Entire point is to pick out abilities which are also usefull in meat, while still allowing it to engage an astral target in close proximity. It's a stretch to use those abilities though I admit.

I have not read that part of the digital grimoire, but all the necessary rules are in the BBB and possibly street magic.

Active foci are dual natured. Thus their physical representation can be attacked from both planes. A spirit can smash the astral form of the focus and the physical object that is the focus is destroyed. The adept holding the focus however cannot defend against this because he is not aware of the attack.

Unless you can cite a passage saying that foci cannot be destroyed, the normal rules for dual natured objects apply.

Firstly, think of the ramifications of what you said.
If it were as you said... there'd be very few adepts w/ weapon foci, as any mage can and would trash them at will w/ his spirits (as most cannot astrally perceive). This is obviously not the case in the system.


Secondly.
No they are not that clearly cut & dried. You need something to assert that.

First of all, there is no such thing as a standard 'dual natured object' there are 'dual natured creatures'. In fact all dual natured items I can think of fall under either the special category (fab/vines..) or foci as best I can tell.

Things like FAB which have rules to attack and destroy from astral have those rules contained within their sections.

The only rules I've seen for attacking an active focus, simply deactivate it, it turns off... and then it takes some time for it to regenerate itself, then it's usable again. However, it requires a special spell specifically crafted for that purpose, not something your typical spirit will have.


Thirdly,
Though I just found my answer to above... wielder must be dual natured to use the weapon focus in astral combat. Of course, put in a section away from weapon focus and such... typical.



This gets into my issue w/ most breaking weapon rules in many games. If you can hit the weapon hard enough to break it (unlikely except for some light and fragile weapons). You hit it hard enough to knock it clear out of the other guys hand. (and if it's a focus leaving the hand or astral form deactivates it). (excepting special weapons designed to trap and break other weapons... and exactly what is the hardness, HP, and armor of a combat axe in meat space, let alone astral.

From everything that I have read, all objects have a "health track" of 8 + (Body/2)... This is because the various spells that target objects actually deal damage to the item (and thus to their damage track)... Now, if you do not actually destroy the object, it will function at a lesser capacity (same as the damge to the character... now, if you do not actually destroy the focus, it will heal a number of health boxes equal to its rating every turn... does not do it much good it hte item was actually destroyed, however...

If you can break the object that is magically enchanted, the enchantment is destroyed... the spell you are talking about in the Digital Grimoire is for disruting (and therefore deactivating) foci... why would you want to deactivate a focus rather than destroy it? well, if you can defeat the character that owns the focus, you can take it for yourself... not so much if you have destroyed it...

My Take on it, but not contested by any of the rules that I can find... can you show me where it states that Foci cannot be destroyed? The typical gun can be destroyed if it takes 10 boxes or so of damage... I would say the same for a Sword or other melee weapons, unless made of some extremely durable substance... this is what the various "Wreck" spells are so useful for...

As such, in every game that I have played in over the last many years, this is how it has been handled...

Anyway, My two Nuyen

SR4A, p. 193 :

So, the waving an active weapon focus around in the physical plane will not harm an astral form. Also, since only mana spells can affect astral forms, the astral aspect of a weapon focus, which is an object and therefore unharmed by mana spells, is immune to damage from spells on the astral plane. It can be disrupted by the eponymous spell from the Digital Grimoire because that is a mana spell, but that doesn't break the weapon, only turn it off.

The question remains whether the astral aspect of an active focus could be attacked by more direct means, destroying the focus. Physical objects provide no barrier in astral space, so the rules for attacking a physical barrier don't work. The only angle that might work is the assumption that the astral form of an active focus is similar to an astral barrier, for which there are rules for attacking (SR4A, p. 194). Those rules, too state that the astral barrier regenerates in the next turn. Again, it isn't destroyed, only turned off.

It would appear to me that the best that can be done to a weapon focus in the astral plane is disruption.

I would agree with this if the attack is on the astral against the astral form of the focus... but in the physical, Wreck (Sword) will still damage the material component of the Sword focus (or whichever form the focus takes with the equivalent Wreck Spell)...

At least, this makes sense to me, anyway...

I pointed out above... I saw that and realized that the idea wouldn't work in point3.

I agree w/ you two. physically the form anchoring the focus can be destroyed. I never argued against that.

Just from purely astral the best you can do is disrupt it, deactivating it. Not that this isn't usefull in it's own right.


And I can see a reason for the spell. If the best you can do from astral is disrupt the form. Then in astral mana spells are your only ranged combat option. A projecting mage who has foci... if they deactivate, cannot reactivate them while astral.


My other observation was just generally when you're talking about hand held weapons... it's easy to break things if they're held in a vise. If they're in someones hand you're far more likely to knock it clean out of their hand than break it. So I find most sundering rules fairly poorly done.

To use the barrier rating is a good approach. However a focus is not an astral barrier but a dual-natured one. As such both "components" are affected by attacks against it. While it probably regenerates, it does that only at the end of the Combat Turn. Spirits on the other hand have 3 IPs. How many hitpoints it has unfortunately is not mentioned.

I agree that the sundering rules in most systems are pretty flawed, but knocking the focus out of the adepts hand, would also end the threat of a weapon on the astral plane whose user cannot be attacked.

As for why there are adepts with weapon foci, there probably are two reasons. a) why destroy the focus when you can keep it. b)It is probably better to deal with the user directly than rendering the focus inaccessible and then hoping that the opponent is a lot less dangerous without it. You would still have to deal with him afterwards.

Sorry for the Misunderstanding then...

And yes, I would tend to deal with the person rather than the object, at least in practice, because it is indeed somewhat difficult to break something IN someone's hand, as enough force to damage the object tends to damage the meat as well, resulting in the meat no longer in possession of the object...

Dakka:
What you fail to understand is just because something has an astral form, does not mean you can interact w/ it astrally.

Illusion spells for example... they're pointless to cast against someone who can astrally perceive because they can see the spell's astral form. All active spells have an active astral form. But an astral mage cannot counterspell to eliminate the spell on a physical target. Similarly, a spirit cannot just drift over to the spells form and attack it and wipe it out.

All rules for interacting w/ astral objects come up under the sections for those objects. There are NO RULES TO INTERACT W/ ACTIVE FOCI, except the above spell. You say the generalized case applies... there is no generalized case. There are special rules for attacking other ASTRAL BEINGS, there are other special rules for attacking wards (which heal after you blow a hole in them). There are special rules for dealing w/ FAB and awakened vines. There are special rules for deactivating focus via mana spell. There is no generalized rule.

Wards again are a special case... if an active foci or spell or being runs into a ward (and is forced through).. either the ward gives way or the item/spell deactivates/awakened being is rendered unconcious (fill up the stun track... not a number stun damage... just fill the stun track and lay him out). But even in that case, the focus isn't broken... it merely deactivates.


The only portion where you run into special case for interacting is wards, and other special magical constructs which restrict astral movement. In each case above, special rules for interacting/eliminating them are presented under the item section. A spirit has no way to interact w/ an active focus, despite it having an astral form.

Another example, the earth... it's an astral entity, but you can push through it and move through it w/ difficulty. Things on the astral DO NOT BEHAVE AS THEY DO IN THE PHYSICAL. (emphasis required) Even such basics as 2 pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space do not apply normally.

I assume there is a misunderstanding on your part.
Why wouldn't you be able to interact with something tangible?

Spells are not dual-natured. A spell is only present on either plane. While you can see the Aura of a spell cast on the physical plane from the astral. There is no Astral Form to interact with.

So by this logic a mundane runner cannot pickup a gun, because there are no special rules for it? Can he eat? Can he breathe? Does he need to? Are we talking about flying sartyrs here?

More seriously, those rules only explain how the interaction takes place. They are not allowing the interaction in the first place. This is already said in the beginning of the chapter on the astral plane.

There has to be a special rule if you want the earth to behave differenly than the rest of the astral forms.This rule applies normally to two Astral Forms as it applies to two physical ones. Astral Forms can only pass through Auras.

Let's look at the connection between astral form and physical form in a different way.

The astral forms of a magician and her weapon focus are not necessarily spatially linked to their physical counterparts. For example, a magician may astrally project and take her weapon focus with her into the astral plane. She may then move astrally several thousand kilometers away in the astral plane, with the astral form of her weapon still with her. Her physical form and the physical form of the weapon stay where they were when she projected.

Now, at that location thousands of kilometers away, another astral form may interact with the astral form of the weapon focus but that interaction cannot harm the physical weapon which is sitting on the magicians lap thousands of kilometers away. The best that can be done is that the astral form can be disrupted, after which the mage is without her weapon in the astral plane until she reactivates the weapon.

Given that the astral form of the weapon has been disrupted, there is no longer any spatial connection between the astral form of the projecting magician and her weapon, and she needs to return to her physical form, reunite with it, and then reactivate the weapon. Hence some of the value of deactivating a weapon focus.

An adept (or magician) who is astrally perceiving but not projecting will stay in contact with the weapon and be able to reactivate it immediately after it has been dirupted. Hence some of the value of astrally perceiving.

So anyway. I like this type of character. You can fight spirits in a hallway while using astral perception. If they move out of your reach, they can't attack you either. It's not nearly as much of a problem as everyone's talking about. monofil weapon foci are still lame. Use a sword or axe or something cool. You'll still be able to kill spirits. Melee is cool. Physical adepts are cool.

Get yourself some mirrorshades, get a flashy chrome datajack, and have your axe custom made to go with your usual outfit. since you're using a weapon focus axe, you probably can't get one for each outift, so you'll have to get in in colors that go well with everything. Neon Pink or green should do well. make sure to have a mohawk or something equally cool, preferably matching or clashing in color to the axe. Throw in some chains. Take distance strike if you need the range. And make sure to take a special skill of "Flashy Axe Tricks" or possibly bad dancing (use your best judgment here).

Now, to be able to keep up, make sure you also have the other skills to use your Perception to it's full advantage. Magic Theory, Assensing (I still don't like that skill, but what ev')?, Some knowledge of Spirits and the like. If you want to be "that guy", you could also go for some skills like parazoology or parabotany. These can definitely come in handy at times.

Now, go out and kick some spirit ass. Don't worry about people attacking your axe. If they try, cut them in half! No more issue.

Also, being dual natured was never a flaw in any edition. If it is, it's free points. I'd take that any day of the week. If there is such a thing, you might as well take it so you don't have to spend points on astral perception. But i'm sure everyone else here will say "omg if you're dual natured you'll obviously get attacked while you're eating dinner and die from it! twice!" But well, that's where the axe comes in! Smash some face, finish dinner, take a nap. Welcome to the shadows chummer.

Point of interest: This post is entirely serious.

Killing hands + A Flavour oriented take on the power (My hair can kill people) + Condition Geas (long hair in a mohawk) + Mohawk = Too 80's/ animae to be allowed to live

Make him dual natured and his hair can (scare/ cut) ghosts to death. Take a flashy weapon focus or a big gun as well and no one will see the neon pink hair coming till it's too late.

I'm sure I've seen this movie, but my mind is shielding me from full remembering.

Is it effective in a point efficent way: no.
Do I now want to be playing this guy: yes.