Permanent focus for Enhance Aim spell?, Questions re Adept (Magician's Way) PC Options

[Foreigner]

With regard to Elihazard's and Fonitrus' posts on 10/06/2003 (or 06/10/2003, for our European friends) and 10/21/2003 (21/10/2003), I'd like to know if anyone out there has an answer to this question:

Would it be possible to create an Anchoring or Sustaining Focus for the "Enhance Aim" spell--to be cast upon/used by the spellcaster, in this case, an Adept of the Magician's Way--that could not be:

(A) noticed, short of an Astral scan; or

(B) lost?

What I had in mind would be an enchanted tattoo, but in INVISIBLE INK, tattooed upon the back (or palm, if it matters) of each hand (assuming the character is ambidextrous, or has at least a small amount of weapon skill with his off hand).

Although I suppose a regular tattoo could work, if a high-level Mage or Shaman were to cast and anchor both an Improved Invisibility spell and the Enhance Aim spell upon the ink before the tattoos were put on.

Any ideas?

Serious replies only, please. As I've said before, I don't have all the sourcebooks, and I finished my first (so far, my ONLY) 'run just over two months ago, in late August.

Thanks in advance.

--Foreigner

[The Frumious Ban...]

First of all, a lot of GMs would consider a player trying to do that as just short of "cheating," as one of the balancing aspects of foci is that they *can* be taken from you.

But if you want to be able to cast Enhance Aim on yourself and don't want anyone to know about it, your best bet is to pick up the (Tattoo) Quickening and Masking metamagic techniques.

Quickening allows you to cast and "lock" a spell on yourself (or anyone/anything else) for a few points of Karma (Tattoo Quickenings tend to be more difficult to dispel, though regular Quickenings are completely invisible to mundanes unless the spell has a visible effect), and Masking allows you to hide it from astral scans/non-initiated magicians/spirits if you have a high enough Grade to cover the Force of the spell.

Your only problem with Quickening, which is what keeps it semi-balanced with the foci you mentioned, is that it's always on, so wards and the like can pose obstacles. But one of the perks of Masking is that you can attempt to slip past a ward without breaking it/alerting it with a little bit of effort.

Anything beyond that is pretty much just cheesy.

[RedmondLarry]

Here are links to the posts in question.
Magic guns? Guns for Adepts
Enhance Aim and Dual-Wielding guns

[Sphynx]

First, from my interpretation of the rules, the Quickening via Tattooing is done after the tattooing is completed, so your mechanics would be backwards there.

As for making the ink invisible before performing the tattooing, that'd make it impossible to DO the tattooing.

As for making it invisible after the tattooing, you can't target the ink, it would make the person invisible.

As for Anchoring Enhance Aim, that's surely possible (though only Quickening has rules), but he'd suffer the drain of casting it everytime he turned it back on.

As such, I don't see it as a highly possible, or even efficient way of doing things. Better off making a weapon into an Anchoring Focus.

Sphynx

[BitBasher]

And, better permanently write down all the individual die rolls on the success test for the spell, because Enhance Aim is resisted by the target, so the usefulness of it may fluctuate greatly.

[Foreigner]

Thanks, gentlemen and/or ladies.

Incidentally, I forgot something-- My character wears a pair of Hardliner Gloves when he's on a 'run, so I guess that it wouldn't matter if the tattoos were visible, would it?

I mean, if they were small enough (I'm presuming that a tattoo used as a SpellFocus/Sustaining Focus/Anchoring Focus doesn't need to be a certain minimum size to work; someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this), they'd hardly be noticed, even when he wasn't wearing gloves, right?

--Foreigner

[BitBasher]

Yes, there is a minimum size for anchoring a tattoo and it's pretty damn big IIRC... I don't remember the formula though.

[Sphynx]

Force x Force x 100 square cm. Average Human Body is 30,000ish square CM, so a Force 6 spell would take about 1/5th of their entire body space.

Also, Foreigner, unless you're House Ruling, Tattoos only do Quickening, not Anchoring and definitely not SpellFocusing.

Sphynx

[Foreigner]

Quick question, Sphynx:

My character in Sahandrian's campaign is a Human (norm) male, about the same size as Ryan Mercury's human form in Jak Koke's DRAGONHEART SAGA trilogy--that is, about 2 meters (between 6 feet 6 inches and 6 feet 7 inches) in height, and weighing between 130 and 150 kilograms (287 to 331 pounds).

In 1955, John Wayne made a film called THE SEA CHASE, about anti-Nazi Germans trying to escape to South America. There was a scene in the film in which one of his crewmen-- "Schlieter", played by James Arness (one of the few actors in Hollywood bigger than the Duke, at least physically; he was 6' 7" and between 250 and 260 pounds in his prime, as against Wayne's 6' 4.5" and 200 or so pounds at roughly the same point in his career (Wayne was born in 1907, Arness in 1923))-- having lost a bet made with some British merchant seamen while intoxicated, agreed to be tattooed. (The actual bet and tattooing weren't shown on-screen; they were described after they had supposedly already occurred.) He showed up later with an ENORMOUS tattoo of a British man-of-war (I'm not certain of the type, as the tattoo was only shown for a few seconds), displayed against the Union Jack flag, with the caption BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES. The tattoo covered his entire back, from shoulder to shoulder, and from the base of his neck to his waist.

My question is--Is that roughly the right size you meant for a tattoo that would cover, as you said, "1/5th of their entire body space", at least in the case of a Human of this size?

Thanks again for the help. :)

--Foreigner

[spotlite]

Sounds about right, yeah.

It could also be covering an entire arm or leg etc etc.


Here's a fun night - watching Crying Freeman and trying to figure out how many spells and at what force are quickened into that dragon tattoo which coils round his whole body.

The man is a walking character concept, I drek you not!

[Foreigner]

Thanks, spotlite. :)

That's about what I figured as well, but I wanted confirmation from a more experienced (or, at least, more knowledgeable :); no offense meant, BTW) player than I.

Besides, I guess the size of the tattoo doesn't matter on a fellow this big. As long as he wore SOME form of upper-body clothing, such as a T-shirt or jacket (as well as trousers, etc.; after all, this is SR, not an X-rated video ;)), it would be obscured from view, wouldn't it?

--Foreigner

[BitBasher]

Yep, and it would be blatantly obvious from astral space, even under clothing IIRC.

[Foreigner]

BitBasher:

I thought about that, too. :)

I was planning for my character to learn some Masking metamagical techniques (see the earlier post under this topic by The Frumious Bandersnatch) in order to hide the tattoo (and the associated spell) from astral scans.

--Foreigner

[BitBasher]

as long as he is astrally active, and an initiate grade equal to the force of the spell then it's all good :D

[Foreigner]

BitBasher:

Thanks again for clearing that up. :)

--Foreigner

[Sphynx]

Hey Foreigner, if you go to my Shadowrun Calculator, you can click on the unmarked button and pull up the skin-area calculator I'm working on. I'll have it marked once I finish the chart that I'm also creating so you can avoid punching the numbers in and just look at the chart.

PS. Page takes time to download cause you're hitting my PC which is connected via a whopping 56k connection. Sorry about that.

Sphynx

[BitBasher]

So in other words: Don't post that link idly in a SlashDot post. Got it :evil:

[Sphynx]

BTW, here's the chart as-is. Still needs work to make it more readable, but it's accurate (although if you see a 100 cm, 1000 kg individual... call a doctor. :P). It'll load quickly enough since this one requres your CPUs to build the page and lacks graphics.

Sphynx

[Sahandrian]

I'd go for tattoos on the arms, if I was doing it. One down the outside of each forearm, enchanted as one tattoo. Mainly because that would look cool.

I'm not sure if you're allowed to do that by the rules, but it's my game anyway (which I may be continuing sometime soon), so it doesn't really matter.

[Foreigner]

Thanks for the input, San. :)

--Foreigner

[Munchkinslayer]

[Foreigner]

Munchkinslayer:

That works. :)

Actually, I'd considered it after my idea for the enchanted ink was shot down by Sphynx, but I wasn't certain if it was a practical idea.

--Foreigner

[Shockwave_IIc]

I was thinking aong the same lines for a yak hitter, and i was suprised by the amount of tats i could get on my body (5'11" and about 9 stone 6lbs. yes im a skinny assed mother-f!!) And i was pretty certain he could get more!!!

I scraped it in the end, he was i tad on the hard side shall we say (i didn't know when to stop).

[Sphynx]

[Foreigner]

Oh, well, so much for that, thought... <SIGH>

Thanks, Sphynx. I didn't know that.

Just out of curiosity: Would LEMON JUICE work? That's been used as an invisible ink for ages. It becomes visible when heated, IIRC, but it needs to be exposed to higher temperatures than normal (Meta)human body temperature (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit/37 degrees Celsius) in order to do so--holding the treated paper over an open flame, such as an oil lamp, for example.

Although I suppose you'd have to mix it with something else (a natural waterproofing agent of some sort, I guess) to keep it from washing off if you perspired or showered often... :)

--Foreigner