Implanted Foci? Options

[mintcar]

I concider foci to be styled after the standard traditions in almost every case. The more unusual, the more expensive. I don't allow custum foci without justification. I like to think of these things as tacky, over-the-counter new-age stuff, mostly. It makes more sense and gives role-playing oportunities not to provide mages with exactly the style of focus they were looking for. They may have their own take on a tradition, but they still have to put up with mainstream magical industry.

In SR4 you nolonger destroy a character by taking away their toys, because stuff isn't as insanely priced anymore. Some extremely paranoid player might still want a focus implant tough. I'd recommend skin pocket/pouch for that in that case. Unless the character has the money to pay for having a focus made from the raw materials up—every stage of the process plus extra for enchantment of highly processed materials— then pay for surgery.

[Platinum]

[Pendaric]

Mintcar has pointed to the crux of implantation, a pure gold ring is one thing but a thirty centimeter wand is another. The surgeon would have to find places where these items are not going to pierce the skin or muscle while under stress (movement) or itself break, doubly so if within the chest cavity due to large changes of space and vital internal organs.

Taking the case of Miss Frosty (Jane Foster), for the benefit of those who have not read Harlequin,
Ehran the Scribe (yes heavy hitter here) used orichalcum engraved and inlaid in the appropriate mystic symbols in Miss Frost's natural left femur.
Just a tad costly.

It is a grey area the exact nature of the device, a component in an advanced detection spell or a focus of some kind.
However for this thread it is a great example, it does demonstrate what was needed for a long term implantation and that it is possible.

Edit: The last stand by thought, fast moving lead projectiles and internal objects are a bad combination.....

[tisoz]

[Ophis]

That and if the foci were off, it wouldn't show anyhue.

[Aku]

wouldnt you still be able to "see" the focus with an assensing test? you can sense cyberware doing that, and i'd imagine that a foci that glows and is implanted would still "glow through"

Assuming it was active, ofcourse.

[Platinum]

[hyzmarca]

[The Stainless St...]

[Pendaric]

No, its a stlye habit of my group. The wink was, "courses PC more trouble", you remembered the rule right. I do allow in a pocket, resting on clothes etc but not the foci in backpack *shudder*.

[Brahm]

What problem do you find with having it in a backpack?

[Pendaric]

Distance and intent. I would penalise another character for not having their weapon or medkit or maglock pass key to hand. Ergo a focus/i that is packed away should not avoid the intent of the PC, hence they are beyond the aura of the character. Psyco actively for magical purposes if necessary.

[Brahm]

[Foreigner]

[stevebugge]

So I talked to the player involved in a little more depth. The idea came up because we are converting his character from SR3 to SR4 and he had learned the Tattoo Metamagic (Awakenings) and had some magical Tattoos. Basically he was thinking that a Sustaining Focus (or actually one for each effect) embedded under the skin would provide more or less the same effect and would alleviate the need for waiting years for the publishing of the SR4 magic book and hopeing the Tattoo Metamagic still existed. Basically used that way I don't really have a problem with it from a game balance point of view.

[Brahm]

[Coyote_Moya]

I troll buddy of mine named, simply enough, "Gutz" actually had implanted weapon Foci. You see, his extreemly long and nasty spurs were made out of more orchalcum than I could carry with a fork lift. To tell you the truth, active foci are vulnerable but it still takes quite a bit of effort to bust through and most of the time the foci were inactive. He had a great old time with them, especially since he was particularly anti social.

What you have to keep in mind is, does the essence loss of implantation really make sense with a magical focus. You usually end up losing more than you gain. Since G was already pretty much completely burnt out all he could do is percieve astrally and use foci. So that worked out for him.

[FrankTrollman]

[Platinum]

[Krotiez]

[Platinum]

[John Campbell]

It's worth noting that you can't disarm mages. Taking away their toys may reduce their effectiveness a bit, but unless they've crippled themselves with talisman geasa or the like, it doesn't nullify them.

This leaves you, the airline security director, with two basic choices. You can disallow mages from flying on your airline, or have them mage-masked or burned out or the like. Or you can recognize that, short of those extremes, there's no way to prevent a mage from being a lethal weapon, and only worry about them if they're doing something notably suspicious, like keeping combat spell foci in their carry-on luggage or trying to mind-control the flight attendents.

And I'd submit that in a world where mages are rare and valued for their abilities, the former choice isn't going to fly.

[The Stainless St...]

I don't think anyone is going to care if you have a legal, licenced focus on a sinned and registered magician, but there are limits. They won't let you on the plane with F5 power focus, just like they won't let you on with security armor or a PAC.

[Coyote_Moya]

Whatayagonna do? Ban magic users from airports? Just another reason to take Masking as your first Metamagic ability I guess. The only thing I would do to put this kind of reality into the game is to make it more difficult/expensive for magically active people to get fake SIN's. I am sure that once security knows you are a Mage they are going to keep a much closer eye on you than other people for all the great reasons people have come up with and would scrutinize that characters SIN. Cyber restraints are easy, but I doubt they would even LET someone with an implanted shotgun on a flight, but they are pretty likely to let the professor form the Cal Tech Institute of Thaumatological Studies on.

[FrankTrollman]