enchanting karma costs Options

[Shinobi Killfist]

Anyone know why it costs more Karma to bind a focus if you make it yourself on average, than if you just buy one off the street. Sure you save some money but a lab costs 100,000, and then there are the materials or time if you got them yourself.

Sure I can gimick this a lot to make it way cheaper in karma but making multiple low level focuses with lost of radicals and orichucalum(sp?), but at its core its a good deal more expensive like force x7 instead of forcex5 for a power focus.

[Tanka]

Because you can make the foci for free. :D

[Kagetenshi]

Orichalcum.

~J

[Zazen]

I vaguely remember that there's also some sort of enchanting roll that can reduce the karma necessary to bond it.

[Tanka]

[Lilt]

Not to mention the fact that with 3 units of radicals that listed price is dropped by 4.

If you are making a particularily complex focus then you may even be best doing a circulation of orichalcum beforehand (28 days, 48K input) which should reduce your karma costs by 3 at least.

[min/max=munchkin]
If you really want to be a good enchanter then be sure to pick-up centering metamagic and an ally/familiar spirit. Be sure to give the ally a good Talismongering skill and possibly the enchanting skill itself.

Although you can't add power foci dice to the use of the enchanting skill itself, you can center when performing any active magical skill and the dice from an ally's aid power ability can be added to any magical skill test (As centering is a magical skill, it qualifies). I am assuming that the fact that the ally acts as a power focus means you can't add the dice directly to enchanting...

With Centering and an ally/familiar spirit (the higher the force the better) you can reasonably hope to doubble your output from an orichalcum circulation and the test to reduce the karma for bonding the focus.[/min/max]

[Namer18]

For low force foci on average it should cost less karma to bond ones you make yourself. For high level foci, (greater then force 6) your better off buying them. Also the lower the multiplyer in the basebook for the karma the better it is to not make your own focus. Since the cost to bond a focus that you make yourself can at minimum be the force of the focus for a specific spell focus or a sustaining focus you can never make a focus that costs less karma to bind then one you purchase, however, it can cost more karma to bind. The big advantage I see in making a focus yourself is if you want to have a low level weapon or power focus, or if you want a focus to look like something in particular. IF you wanted a sustaining focus that is a gold necklace with a potato charm on it, it might be easier to simply make it yourself, instead of shopping around for someone who made a sustaining focus just like that. Yup I think that sort of makes sense.

Namer18

[Bearclaw]

While I realize the system in SR2 was broken (I made a rating 6 power focus and spent 7 karma on it) it would be nice to come up with a system somewhere in between. Making it yourself should have a much lower karma cost than bonding one made by some one else. This should be obvious.
I understand that game balance makes it necessary to charge large amounts of karma for foci, but really, if you make it yourself, and pour your blood sweat and tears into it, it's already attuned to you. At that point, you just need to give it the karma to power it up.
Is my logic flawed here?

[tisoz]

[Adarael]

My answer's pretty simple.

Because sometimes when you want a specific kind of focus, you can't find it if your contacts aren't good enough. Say you want a Force 6 combo Reflecting/Drain focus. Where are you gonna be able to get that from? It's a pretty unusual combo, so I'd impose an auto +2 on the availability.
So you enchant it. 's what I'm gonna do.

Reason #2: You're making it for a friend, but want to split the karma cost with them because it's a christmas present ICly. I did that with a weapon focus 4.

[Lilt]

[Shinobi Killfist]

[Tanka]

Another reason: To earn extra money. Make the focus, then go sell it to the highest bidder. A pretty high level power focus could net you quite a bit of cash.

[Bearclaw]

I would never allow a PC mage the kind of time it takes to do that. It's really not something I would worry about.
If some one wants to create an enchanter/mage who makes oricalcum all the time, that's fine. Detail it, make a bunch of contacts, including a couple of PCs, and we'll place it. It's an NPC.
I'm not going to GM real life. I live real life. I'm hear for the violence and the dirty dealing

[Tanka]

I wouldn't allow them to do that as their runs. They could easily take Day Job and do that every day for an alloted time.

When it's run time, it's run time, no questions asked. In the offtime, however, they can make some orichalcum to sell off to the highest bidder.

[Bearclaw]

I've only allowed that much downtime between runs once.
Doesn't it take better than 2 months to make orichalcum if you do it all yourself?

[Lilt]

It depends on what you're prepared to pay. if you want to pay 11k then it'd take almost 6 months, 22k'd take 5 months, 44k would take 1 month...