Optional rules for enchanting. Options

[emo samurai]

For each exotic reagent used in the creation of a focus, you reduce the Karma multiplier of the focus by 1. This change has to be decided on at the focus design stage and the reagent can not be used to work off a critical glitch. The finding of every reagent should be an adventure in itself and must be gathered by the magician.

You can not use more than one reagent of each type in the creation of a focus.

This option will probably only be used by people who design their own foci and are building really bigass stacked ones, which is the intent. Nobody will buy a focus formula that forces them to slay a unicorn and pull the 50 pound pearl out of a 15 foot wide oyster.

[Cold-Dragon]

Mmm, I'd say it's a decent concept. It gives more reason to risking your butt for that dragon tooth, for example (I never did like that when I read it, and foci are expensive enough as it is).

Of course part of the magical balance is being expensive too. It's not that hard to use mind control to start a rave on the streets or other choice publicity stunts.

[emo samurai]

Mind control has a time limit now, a really short one. And I like the idea of a year spent collecting dragon's urine and sand from the banks of the River Ganges culminating in a stacked force 10 power/centering/shielding focus that you don't have to spend karma to bond.

Is it too powerful? Cause I can see somebody finding a branch from an awakened redwood, blood from an alpha male hellhound, an awakened pearl, a mathematical formula written in blood by the man who invented it, fossil coral, the tooth of a Ghost Dolphin, a 1 lb. sample of frozen arctic ice, and the heart of a dryad, and then bonding a force 10 power focus with no problem.

Then again, I think it's awesome.

[Ancient History]

[emo samurai]

I can see a problem with this: There is no longer any reason to avoid high-powered foci. Once you get 8 radicals, you can bond a bajillion-force focus for no karma.

Hmmm... how to balance this...

[Smed]

Just make it reduce the absolute karma to bond by one, not the karma multiplier.

[emo samurai]

Then they'd just make orichalcum. Maybe I'll limit the amount the'll be able to reduce the karma multiplier to 1/2 the normal karma multiplier, round down. So if it's normal X3, then they can reduce it by 1. This will make stacked foci reasonable.

That is, of course, assuming you allow people to use orichalcum to reduce bonding costs, which I do.

[Welt]

Hi all. Long time runner, recent lurker, first-time poster. :)

Actually, I'd be tempted to have used units of Orichalcum reduce Karma similarly. Back to the roots, or something.
Orichalcum may be "easier" to aquire (for an Enchanter) than an Exotic Ingredient, but still carries the opportunity cost of not selling it, which also equals or exceeds a solid run or 2's income.


Some other ideas (Mainly Earthdawn-inspired, and intended to make magical gear more "upgradeable" instead of having to replace) about Enchanting and Foci i've been thinking about lately, seems on-topic here given the general tone of the title:

- Foci can be bonded partially, in increments of full force points. In this case only the bonded portion of its Force can be used, until more Karma is spent to bond more.
This is based on Earthdawn's Thread Weaving concept where items only unfolded their full power over time and incremental investment of power too. Since Bonding is linear, x Karma per force, this should be no problem mechanically.

- Foci can be "reenchanted" to a higher force. Haven't precisely hammered out the rules in detail yet, thinking along these lines:

>Rewriting the formula should probably be easier than designing a new one from scratch (ie, incorporate the work that went into the old one), thus maybe based on a threshold of (Force difference)^2 instead of newForce^2.
>I *think* normal Focus formulae are reusable to make multiple identical Foci, this should not be the case here as the upgraded formula specifies that specific focus as "Telesma", which is unique. Well, if one comes up with another identical base focus, the same formula could be used to upgrade that one too, I guess.

>The new enchantment process should probably get the full new Force as negative modifier instead of just the difference.
>Probably introduce a new "Magical Telesma" bonus of some magnitude (half old Force?) to make it a bit easier.
>Unsure how to handle Radicals and Orichalcum and such.
I'd probably have the material modifiers that applied in the original enchantment apply again, provided that the difference in force is added for each radical type that applies. This'll be a bit of bookkeeping hassle to remember details of old enchantments though (or GM call what was used, incase on non-player-made Foci)
>Not quite sure about the test, considering to reduce the base threshold of 16 to 8 or so. Also, since the base item is magical, maybe reduce/ignore the object resistance.
> Finalizing the enchantment costs the usual 1 Karma, after that the "new" Force points of the focus are unbound and can be bound as normal (above houserule for partial Focus binding obviously applies)

> Since enchanting stacked foci works based on plain addition of their Force, it should probably be possible to convert a single focus into a stacked focus using this system. Maybe make the formula design harder in some way (full design process, specifying the old focus as Telesma?) to represent the more drastic nature of the alteration.
>Haven't fully compared upgrading to designing from scratch yet, if it comes out as overall easier, that'd be a feature, not a bug. I'd imagine working to keep one's gear in shape as one grows in power a core part of a magician's activities if this rule is in effect. It should be the norm, so no reason to penalize it over creating new Foci.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

(Edit for linebreaks/readability)

[Ancient History]

See, this is why I didn't write rules for upgrading foci in Street Magic.

[Synner]

Told ya it was for the best...

[Welt]

[Ancient History]

1) The rules involved tend to get a bit complex. Far too complex and wordy for something with limited appeal.

2) It encourages munchkinism.

3) More bookkeeping than is simple or necessary.

4) My version was less friendly. :grinbig:

[emo samurai]

But the thing is, that limited audience will DIG complicated rules. If they're tweaky and rules-oriented enough to want to upgrade, they'll slog through Virtual Realities 2.0 level complexity.

[Welt]

[Cold-Dragon]

Foci costs become less problematic if you extend the cash for karma rule as consideration: A large potion of magical soda water (I'm being creative here, meh) worth 10k could certainly be worth a few karma if you use it for making a foci.

There's more than one way to 'help' without completely bending the rules over backwards.

I also considered a twisted path style of foci making - stealing other foci and using them instead, lol. You can contribute half the force (or just the force rating, if you want to make it harder) of a sacrificed foci into the twisted model to pay for it instead of using your karma (though you can both use your karma and foci). The catch would be that the twisted foci now has a link to every mage that owned a foci sacrificed, and they can follow it back to the foci itself.

*puts a 2 nuyen credstick down*

[Jaid]

just curious, what's so 'twisted' about sacrificing foci? they're inanimate objects. it's no more twisted than causing an ally to inhabit a drone or something.

[fistandantilus4....]

Blood from a stone?

I think he's thinking along the lines of cannibalizing power more or less.

[Cold-Dragon]

Yep. A foci that isn't yours is linked to someone else through blood, sweat, tears, etc (figuratively speaking). You are literally consuming a part of another person if you were to use it as part of creating your own foci. Under normal conditions, that isn't possible.

But you have blood magic and cannibalize, why not one that lets you use foci to fuel your own instead of wasting your precious karma?

Another possible risk could be insanity or some sort of curse from all that bad mojo getting concentrated. Tendency for dark spirits or blood spirits to sniff you out, etc, etc.

If you take it personally that someone stabs you to fuel their spells, wouldn't you take it personally if they took your foci to make theirs too?

[krayola red]

[Ancient History]

[RunnerPaul]

[Jaid]