Karma cost increase for enchanting yourself? Options

[GM on the Thresh...]

Tell me if I read this right...

According to Street Magic, the final step in creating a focus requires the player to spend a point of Karma to complete the item. You then pay the costs to bind the item as normal from SR4.

Perhaps its just me, but it seems like the easy course is just to spend the cash and go through a talismonger to buy the item. It may cost a character more nuyen, but the amount of effort you save on collecting the materials and taking the time to refine them and pass the tests along with paying more Karma makes it seem worth it.

It almost makes me think something got missed during the editing of the book. In 3rd edition and earlier, there was a Karma cost reduction for going through all the work to make it yourself.

[Samaels Ghost]

Your GM should reward you with karma for playing it out. Other than that, you're getting exactly what you want, because you designed it. That's a sweet deal right there.

[James McMurray]

You get a monetary reduction. The SR3 karma cost reductions could be easily abused, so I won't be sad to see them gone.

[emo samurai]

I will... :(

[James McMurray]

Add them back. The rules as presented in Street Magic (at least according to the OP) seem too tame for your game anyway. :)

[Dread Polack]

I like to think of it this way: karma and nuyen are both rewards for playing. During character creation, you covert BPs directly into nuyen for starting gear, and you are rewarded with karma for gaming sessions, as well as nuyen. While nuyen might seem completly unconnected to karma/BPs after character creation, they're sort of the same thing, in different currencies. While nuyen seems to come and go in a non-mystical sort of way, it still is (and needs to be) regulated by your GM, since both affect your character's abilities. Moreso in SR than other RPGs, where you can literally buy skills and attributes with money, "treasure rewards" aren't much different than "xp awards."

I think that's why, for balance purposes, mages need to pay to bind spirits and karma to bond with and create foci. Playing a mage is a big karma suck, and less of a nuyen suck than a street sam, but both are needed to play either character.

So, I guess my long-winded point is that you shouldn't automatically think that only paying nuyen is a easier way of getting something than paying karma. Maybe that's not your concern, but it may be for someone else.

It's actually one of the more beautiful things I've noticed in the design of the SR RPG, but then I'm a huge nerd.

Dread Polack

[mfb]

in SR3, you can easily make twelve force 1 power foci and use 'em all, for a total karma cost of 12 karma (1 each). this requires, if i recall correctly, about two weeks of enchanting per focus.

[hyzmarca]

And those 12 power foci would be destroyed by the mist mana ball that hits you unless you allocate an absurd amount of spell defense to them.

A single high force focus has some real advantages over many low force foci. They are far more difficult to destroy, for instance.



The karma cost of creating a focus could be offset if you allow cash for karma. After all, I doubt that most dedicated enchanters spend their time breaking into high security facilities and shooting people so that they can get the karma that they need.

[Cabral]

Rather than give you karma reductions, the telsma and orichalcum make the Extended test to enchant the focus go faster. If you're bothering to enchant something yourself, you likely took the time to make sure it has Object Resistance of 1. Therefore, you're facing a Threshold 17 extended test. With the bigger foci, you'll need the bonus telsma grants to finish the enchanting in a reasonable amount of time.

With low force foci, it's the enchanting that's the big time sink. With high force foci, it's designing the formula, which unfortunately telsma and such don't help.