Heightened Concentration, How SHOULD it work? Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Like visibility... well blind fire doesn't apply to spells.

My dwarf has no trouble w/ visibility... (he took the night vision quality in RC, so he has both darkvision and low-light naturally). No cyber involved. Even without that, if using astral perception... most common visibility penalties disappear.

I have no idea how you come up with 3-4 sustaining foci... magic 6 means max of 12 force in active foci unless you're bringing focus addiction into play. Lets be generous 1 power focus, and 2 force 4 sustaining foci (of individual schools). The spells cast into those foci are of very limited force... the foci themselves cost both money & karma. So it's nothing like the adept power (which offers effectively unlimited force, no money/karma cost... just a -1 dice magic... which is quickly offset by ignoring many other bigger penalties).

Another thing you don't stop and consider are those means are not mutually exclusive. You could use a sustaining focus, spirits, AND centering and have an absolute monstrous amount of buffing on you.



Also, something you just said doesn't compute... your mage shoves all his sustained spells off on *A* spirit... A spirit will sustain *1* spell (of the appropriate school) for Force combat turns for a single service. Just how many spells is he sustaining?! As per the FAQ clarification (which I really like)... a spirit will only provide 1 service at a time. He also must be really rolling in the dough to have a full stable of high force spirits bound.
(each spirit at say force 6 is $3000 in ritual materials, if he's edging services and gets 10 services per binding (this is actually a high estimate as it's effecitvely 24 vs 18 dice net hits), each bound service is 300+). Not only this.. if he has substantial sustaining penalty it applies to everything from perception and so on... ordering a spirit to do this for a service is a simple action for each spirit.

It sounds to me as if said mage is not having the rules enforced properly against him.


Also, abuse of spirits is something for the GM to monitor... if he's actually regularly getting his spirits killed (or draining them to power spells)... his spirits will start spending edge to resist him, or will start using 'wish wording' where the GM asks what he orders the spirit to do, because the spirit will do it in it's own way which he may not like.

Alright... <Cracks knuckles to allow better typing>

Visibility Modifiers are easily canceled for Adepts with this trick, Mages will not get the benefit, because, well, they cannot have Heightened Concentration, and they really do not need the break anyways... Mystic Adepts could of course benefit...

I have found it more common for Mages to have 3 or 4 sustaining Foci from rating 2-3; Power Foci are rare in my experience, though I do understand their utility, and I have seen them, but the ones I have commonly come across are rating 2... so 2 Rating 2, and 2 Rating 3 Sustaining Foci, and a Power Foci 4 equals 12... which generally fits into the better mages pretty darn easily with no risk of Addiction, and all active at the same time (Logic 5)...

Of course they are not mutually exclusive, and I am okay with that... as I said, there are so few actual Mystic Adepts that I have come across (mostly played by me actually) that the difference does not really matter... Mages cannot use Adept powers, so it is not abused like many tend to imply...

Now, My Teams current Mage... he has on call, ALWAYS, 5 spirits due to binding, though he rarely edges a Summoning or a Binding. He always summons that 6th one when bad things start to happen... he casts spells and sustains them himself (usually one or two) until something happens and then passes them off to his Spirits (Should have been plural, in case it wasn't before)... Many times his Spirits of Man are responsible for the maintenance spells that he generally uses all the time (his Increased Reflexes and Increased Agility Spells)... Now, he commonly has anywhere between 4 and 8 services per spirit, and that is a lot of sustaining; as well, Spirits of man cast their own spells and sustain them themselves, so a couple less spells for the mage to cast... Indeed it takes a few simple actions for the Mage to hand off Sustaining penalties, and he is not responsible for performing much in the way of other activities, he is our casting and summoning expert, not our perception expert (which I fill, along with several others) and the other mage is responsible for astral perception tasks and whatnot...

His spirits are generally in the force 3-4 range most commonly, with the spontaneous spirit either a force 4 or 5.. He never Spell binds them, so his actions are not generally seen as harmful to the spirits, so abuse is not a problem... in fact, he actually goes out of his way to make sure that he remains on good terms with his spirits, often even releasing them with services remaining if they have performed exceptionally for him... He has even gone on Astral Quests to simple converse with tehm in their own home metaplanes on occasion... Weird I know... Now, at our table, all spirits above force 3 spend Edge to resist summonig by default, and you have to go way out of your way to get around that by treating your spirits well, appeasing them at every opportunity , and maybe even offering rewards for their services... he has yet to get a spirit killed in the entire time that he has played the character, generally releasing wounded spirits before they go down in combat... he treats them quite well... Our GM is well on the ball for the ethical treatment of Spirits, and he enforces the Magical rules very well indeed... it is a rare summoning that goes beyond a mage's Magic Rating (our mage has only done it once in two years, and it was for a force 7 Spirit, and only just recently, because we absolutely had to have a more powerful spirit than he normally summons)

As for the costs of spirits, yes, he spends a fair amount of funds on binding materials (which he gets at a 20% discount from his Magical Group), which oftentimes the group pitches in for, much like they pitch in for the drones for my character's drone operations (none of which are expensive, and generally all are less than 10,000 Nuyen, with most around the 2-3, 000 Nuyen mark; Surveillance Drones Primarily)... Now, we are talking about exceedingly well developed characters with an average of 300 karma under the belt over the last 2 years... We have access to good amounts of funding, and we are fairly well equipped... but even still, our mage only just acquired his Rating 2 Power Focus recently...

As for the FAQ... Mostly an Interpretation thing, and We generally ignore it... there are some good clarifications there, but most do not change how we have been playing the game anyways, so it was pretty useless (the rules are pretty self explanatory, as long as you resist the impulse to read more into the rules than are truly there already)... as for Only a single service at a time, I do not agree with that opinion on the FAQ and neither do many of the other people I know who play Shadowrun... SO your mileage may vary with the FAQ...

Hopefully, I have laid to rest your questions... any other, pelase feel free to inquire and hopefully i will be able to answer your questions...

WE do not tend to use Houserules (Though we are considering a change to test a more dynamic combat system, we will see how that works out), and the games run pretty standard to the rules found in the SR4A Core Book and the Supplementsal Core Books... Though I can bend the rules with the best of them, we also tend to stay away from excessive builds (you know the ones) and keep our DP ranges in the 10-15 range for the most part... Oh, and our GM is outstanding... just the right blend of everything that makes a really exceptional Game Master (Damned if he did not have the Johnson screw us out of our big payoff from the Zero Zone too (though in all fairness we are not quitre done just yet), but what the hell, those are the risks we take)... Just so you know where I am coming from at least...

It has been my privelege Falconer...

Keep the Faith

[Falconer]

I see what you're saying... I'm the opposite... almost all my play experience w/ SR has involved behing the party's magical support going all the way back to SR1.

Generally force 2 or 3 sustaining foci are nearly useless and not worth the karma to bind. Some of the other more esoteric foci can be usefull at low force 2 or 3 though... (such as a shielding focus, wepaon focus, power focus..)
Combat spells: no combat spells need sustained
Detection spells: this is about only area they can be reasonably usefull
Health spells: All health spells you'll want will generally be cast at least force 4+ to get enough hits or initial force to be usable (increase ref, increase attribute)
Illusion: If you're planning on bypassing OR5 drones... you'll need force 5 w/ 5 hits. Otherwise force 3 can be usable against dumb sensors.. and generally usefull against normal observers... although some people will see through, especially w/ counterspelling.
Manipulation: these you really want at high force... levitate works but you're pretty damn slow at low force & hits. Barriers... hits == strength... a barrier collapses if it is penetrated unlike a ward (which will regenerate), other manipulations have to worry about object resistance. Mental manipulations... those are a subject unto themselves (one I dislike). About only spell I can think of in manipulation being usefull at low force would be mana static... (which is a double edged sword to the focus itself).

Generally given normal urban visibility conditions... if it's dark... switching to astral perception if I'm not already using it (full mage always has this option) eliminates it... since astral has weird lighting. Living things glow against a dull background... only really a problem if you're looking for someone in a crowd of other auras. Care must be taken to avoid the astral attack pack though... best handled by having an astral spirit tagging along with you awaiting orders.


My experience is generally... if I can get say 4 or 5 well picked spells up on me... I turn into an absolute combat monster. It's like the worst of both worlds... the mage is almost a street sam in terms of actions and durability w/ the buffs, and he's like a rigger in his army of spirits. Using spirits for spells is troublesome, as then every time you have to pass through a ward you need to spend *two* services per spirit... one to have it materialize inside the ward then another to have it recast the spell (with variable effectiveness). Other spells like increase ref... you're better off keeping a force 4 or 5 health sustaining focus on hand so you can recast as needed (or using your summoned on the fly spirit for... since it's easily to dismiss him and summon a new one for more services).

Generally bound spirits... care is taken to use edge to get cost effectiveness... normally 1 or 2 points spent on the summoning/binding tests.

That's just to relate my experience.


Since you rig so much... I'd appreciate you checking what I wrote in the Vehicle Stuff AR vs. VR thread. I've been trying to learn more about it.

[Shinobi Killfist]

This does seem really abusive. It looks like a power meant for adepts but they forgot there was this thing called mystic adepts. But maybe I am just sensitive since I think mages of all stripes are overpowered in SR.

[Nifft]

This does seem really abusive. It looks like a power meant for adepts but they forgot there was this thing called mystic adepts. But maybe I am just sensitive since I think mages of all stripes are overpowered in SR.

Well, if you read the developer posts in this thread, you'll see that it was actually intended to work with Living Focus. Sustaining a spell without penalty is exactly what it was designed to do, so I think you're a bit off in imagining that the Mystic Adept's use of the power is a design flaw.

The only flaw seems to be that some people interpret six -1 penalties as a single -6 penalty.

- - -

Anyway. I guess just clearing up that sustaining each spell is a separate penalty is enough to fix Heightened Concentration.

Is it just me, or does Living Focus seem a bit lackluster? It costs a whole power point. I'm tempted to cut its price to 0.5 pp, or keep the price the same but allow it to sustain one spell for free (with no -2 penalty).

Thoughts? Thanks, -- N

[Karoline]

Is it just me, or does Living Focus seem a bit lackluster? It costs a whole power point. I'm tempted to cut its price to 0.5 pp, or keep the price the same but allow it to sustain one spell for free (with no -2 penalty).

Thoughts? Thanks, -- N

Agreed. I've never seen this actually used in any character build that I've seen, and I've never really considered it for any that I've ever made. It is exceptionally expensive for 'I get to transfer the penalty from the mage to myself'. I mean maybe if the adept could combine this with sustaining foci it might be halfway decent, but it still relies heavily on having a mage in your group that has the right spells to help you out at all. And while some mages will have such spells, not all will.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I see what you're saying... I'm the opposite... almost all my play experience w/ SR has involved behing the party's magical support going all the way back to SR1.

Generally force 2 or 3 sustaining foci are nearly useless and not worth the karma to bind. Some of the other more esoteric foci can be usefull at low force 2 or 3 though... (such as a shielding focus, wepaon focus, power focus..)
Combat spells: no combat spells need sustained
Detection spells: this is about only area they can be reasonably usefull
Health spells: All health spells you'll want will generally be cast at least force 4+ to get enough hits or initial force to be usable (increase ref, increase attribute)
Illusion: If you're planning on bypassing OR5 drones... you'll need force 5 w/ 5 hits. Otherwise force 3 can be usable against dumb sensors.. and generally usefull against normal observers... although some people will see through, especially w/ counterspelling.
Manipulation: these you really want at high force... levitate works but you're pretty damn slow at low force & hits. Barriers... hits == strength... a barrier collapses if it is penetrated unlike a ward (which will regenerate), other manipulations have to worry about object resistance. Mental manipulations... those are a subject unto themselves (one I dislike). About only spell I can think of in manipulation being usefull at low force would be mana static... (which is a double edged sword to the focus itself).

Generally given normal urban visibility conditions... if it's dark... switching to astral perception if I'm not already using it (full mage always has this option) eliminates it... since astral has weird lighting. Living things glow against a dull background... only really a problem if you're looking for someone in a crowd of other auras. Care must be taken to avoid the astral attack pack though... best handled by having an astral spirit tagging along with you awaiting orders.


My experience is generally... if I can get say 4 or 5 well picked spells up on me... I turn into an absolute combat monster. It's like the worst of both worlds... the mage is almost a street sam in terms of actions and durability w/ the buffs, and he's like a rigger in his army of spirits. Using spirits for spells is troublesome, as then every time you have to pass through a ward you need to spend *two* services per spirit... one to have it materialize inside the ward then another to have it recast the spell (with variable effectiveness). Other spells like increase ref... you're better off keeping a force 4 or 5 health sustaining focus on hand so you can recast as needed (or using your summoned on the fly spirit for... since it's easily to dismiss him and summon a new one for more services).

Generally bound spirits... care is taken to use edge to get cost effectiveness... normally 1 or 2 points spent on the summoning/binding tests.

That's just to relate my experience.


Since you rig so much... I'd appreciate you checking what I wrote in the Vehicle Stuff AR vs. VR thread. I've been trying to learn more about it.

Hey, it is all good Falconer... Makes a lot of sense to me...

I will try to address the AR vs VR Vehicle Stuff when I get a chance...

Keep the Faith...

[pbangarth]

Agreed. I've never seen this actually used in any character build that I've seen, and I've never really considered it for any that I've ever made. It is exceptionally expensive for 'I get to transfer the penalty from the mage to myself'. I mean maybe if the adept could combine this with sustaining foci it might be halfway decent, but it still relies heavily on having a mage in your group that has the right spells to help you out at all. And while some mages will have such spells, not all will.

I actually played an adept here on DS (Professor - until the campaign died) who has both Living Focus and Heightened Concentration.

His thinking (ie. my thinking) is that the Living Focus allows the adept to have a much wider variety of functions than he could buy for himself, as long as the party has at least one magician. And all magicians in the shadows have spells that are useful in the shadows, so ipso facto Professor would have some, too. I have never played in an SR game that did not have at least one magician. He has his skills which come mostly from his former academic life, and he took Living Focus to allow him to keep up with the hardened shadowrunners more easily.

Heightened Concentration came from that earlier academic life, but certainly applies itself to the shadows in the way Ancient History suggests. Not just for sustained spells but many other uses as well, as has been pointed out by others.

I too steadfastly deny that multiple sustained spells add their penalties into one penalty. Each is a separate distraction.