Focus Addiction Options

[Seth]

In earlier versions of Shadowrun there were quite comprehensive focus addiction rules. Do these still exist in Shadowrun 4.

I know you can get the negative quality, but I haven't found any references to how you might acquire focus addiction if you don't select that quality.

Thanks

[Cheops]

No. As with most things in SR4 the GM is supposed to Magical Tea Party it. So you might have a very lenient GM and never have to worry or you might have a hardliner who makes you burnout because of your Force 1 Sustaining Focus.

Edit: To be more useful I'd treat the focus as the equivalent of some drug. I'd tend to go with narcotics if I had to pick one in general but it might be cool to vary them based on the "flavour" of the focus. So a Power focus would be the equivalent of the most hardcore drugs (can't remember what tops the tables) whereas a Sustaining Focus could be equal to an Opiate.

[pbangarth]

GAINING FOCUS ADDICTION IN PLAY
When a magician relies too heavily on foci, they become
a “crutch” that begins to undermine the magician’s abilities.
Prolonged (ab)use of more foci than the magician can safely
handle can burn out their Talent.
Focus Addiction (p. 26, Street Magic) uses the Addiction
rules (See Addiction quality, p. 80 and Substance Abuse p. 247,
Shadowrun, Fourth Edition). The gamemaster can call for a Focus
Addiction Test at any time she feels the player is abusing foci; a
good guideline is whenever a character has a total Force of active
foci in excess of twice their Magic attribute. When a character fails
the Focus Addiction Test, she gains the Focus Addiction Negative
Quality (See Focus Addiction, p. 26–27, Street Magic). Treat focus
addiction as a Mental addiction with a Threshold of 2.
Ultimately, it is important focus addiction be an integral
element in roleplaying the addicted magician to emphasize the
dangers of magic. Many find kicking the habit difficult, if not
impossible, because the magician must abstain from using foci
altogether during the withdrawal period.

[Cheops]

Heh, little more concrete than I remembered it. Semi-magical tea party then.

[Ascalaphus]

I think it'd be nice if both Substance and Foci abuse rules had been fleshed out a bit more. As a player, I hesitate to use drugs without knowing how risky they are - and therefore part of the game design isn't actually used.

Foci on the other hand, are dearly paid for. Karma and (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) both, so you do want to use them when you have them. As a mage, you feel you've a right to because it wasn't cheap. On the other hand, permanent christmas tree magi are a bad thing too.

[Ramaloke]

Well, what I find interesting is that Focus Addiction only comes into play when you use more foci than you can safely handle.

What exactly does that mean? You are are limited to Magic*5 Force in Foci, so your typical Runner magician can bond with anywhere from 25-30 force worth of Foci. That is allot of foci.

The max you can have active at one time is equal to Logic. If the magician has magic 6 & logic 6, he could have all of his bound foci active at once, but the question is still "At what point does this become dangerous?"

[pbangarth]

"Total Force of active foci in excess of twice their Magic attribute." So, with a Magic Attribute of 5, using a Power Focus (3) and two Sustaining Foci(4) exceed the limit of (10), and a Test is called for.

[Ramaloke]

It seems to me that this optional rule has been put in place to allow GMs to curb the consequences of a mistake on their part (allowing the player to have a powerful foci that negatively affects game balance).

[Yerameyahu]

Well, obviously. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Mages are more unbalanced the fewer balancing rules you use (optional or otherwise). As always, it comes down to the GM-player relationship: if the player is making extensive use of powerful foci, it might be appropriate (for balance, for drama, for whatever) to use some kind of addiction.

[Ascalaphus]

It was intended to be a limit to the use of lots of foci. The idea was that handling all that much power all the time would have some sort of downside. I can get behind that idea. As a player you're allowed to stock up on Foci if you're good enough to get them, but knowing how much to use is a separate type of wisdom.

[Seth]

Am I correct in the following summary:

You only need to roll Willpower + logic with a threshold of 2. This only needs 8 die (barring minus's) to guarantee sucess. If you have a lot of active foci, you have a lot of logic...so I think this this situation is only going to occur when you are badly wounded, and cast spells using foci, reducing your willpower + logic below 8.

[Yerameyahu]

Well, the GM never has to allow buying hits (IIRC), but my personal answer is that there's the *concept* of Focus addiction, and then there's the *suggested rules* for it. The concept is the important bit, and if the suggested rules don't achieve the goal, change them.

Are you assuming hermetics, btw?

[TheOOB]

I think the important thing is to not punish the character for using foci, only abusing them. Magicians use foci all the time, and the majority have no addiction. The Force >= 2xMagic is a good rule, but tests should also be called when a character keeps a foci active for an extended period, many hours at a time, especially when it is not needed(for example the mage keeping increased reflexes on 24/7.

[Ascalaphus]

I think the important thing is to not punish the character for using foci, only abusing them. Magicians use foci all the time, and the majority have no addiction. The Force >= 2xMagic is a good rule, but tests should also be called when a character keeps a foci active for an extended period, many hours at a time, especially when it is not needed(for example the mage keeping increased reflexes on 24/7.

Especially that one.

[Ramaloke]

I think the important thing is to not punish the character for using foci, only abusing them. Magicians use foci all the time, and the majority have no addiction. The Force >= 2xMagic is a good rule, but tests should also be called when a character keeps a foci active for an extended period, many hours at a time, especially when it is not needed(for example the mage keeping increased reflexes on 24/7.

Especially that one.

I dont really see how thats such a big deal, I mean when you get right down to it a spirit of man is better than any sustaining focus. The spirit doesn't even need to be present to sustain it after casting it, and if the GM rules that It does need to be present you can give it a material link to ritual cast it on you and maintain that.

[Cheops]

The Spirit of Man also requires no Karma to bond and only costs a fraction of the sustaining focus cost. I believe it can last for a month off of one extended service right?

For those who think that mages should be making checks for having a sustaining focus on for 24/7 without breaking the 2*Magic limit I have a question for you: how often do you make hackers/TMs roll for Hot VR addiction when they are on the matrix almost every waking moment?

[Dahrken]

SR4A p. 187, sustaining a spell for (Force) combat turns uses up one service of a bound spirit, or it can be sustained for (Force) days by using up all of it's remaining services and loosing 1 point of Force per day (and using this tactic frequently is likely to make your work with spirits more problematic).

[WyldKnight]

The Spirit of Man also requires no Karma to bond and only costs a fraction of the sustaining focus cost. I believe it can last for a month off of one extended service right?

For those who think that mages should be making checks for having a sustaining focus on for 24/7 without breaking the 2*Magic limit I have a question for you: how often do you make hackers/TMs roll for Hot VR addiction when they are on the matrix almost every waking moment?

That is completely different though. Not only is it a measly difference (just +2 dice, no more then a smartgun for a gunbunny) but technomancers can only be in Hot sim so obviously their brains are wired for it. Only the most die hard hackers are in Hot sim 24/7 and I have yet to see it happen once. That is no where near the issue of a mage walking around, lit up on the astral for everyone to see, because he doesn't want to drop his IP bonuses.

[CanRay]

You know, I can just see a sleazy Taslimonger on the streets now, with a huge and bulky trenchcoat, telling new Mages and Shamans that "The first taste is free..." as they start down the road with a single point of Magic...

[WyldKnight]

I'm using that, it's too good not to.

[Ramaloke]

I wasn't talking about having the spirit of man sustain your spell for you, I was talking about having the spirit of man cast the spell itself, on you, and sustain it, indefinitely, with no force loss, ever.

[Caadium]

I think it'd be nice if both Substance and Foci abuse rules had been fleshed out a bit more. As a player, I hesitate to use drugs without knowing how risky they are - and therefore part of the game design isn't actually used.

I think the important thing is to not punish the character for using foci, only abusing them. Magicians use foci all the time, and the majority have no addiction. The Force >= 2xMagic is a good rule, but tests should also be called when a character keeps a foci active for an extended period, many hours at a time, especially when it is not needed(for example the mage keeping increased reflexes on 24/7.

These two posts demonstrate my mixed views of addiction within Shadowrun. On one hand we've got a potentially scary reason that ties into roleplaying as to why to avoid drugs. This can take some of the element of metagaming out. Yet on the other hand, I too have had to have discussions with players about where foci addiction comes into play. So far though, we've not had to put any rules into place and we seem to be doing fine.

Now, if I did have to come up with a rule for foci addiction and tests I would agree with (Total Foci Force)>= 2xMagic. I can tell you that I would never allow players to simply buy hits for this test though. However, to the other point of extended foci duration, there are two parts to that I think you'd need to spell out. The first is how long of a duration is dangerous. The second is how long of a downtime do you need before you can do it again.

I have an easier time coming up with a simple for the maximum length a specific foci can be used before there is a risk of addiction:

(Force of that specific Foci) x (Magic Attribute) in hours.

Using the Increased Reflexes example, most mages will have a rating 3 or 4 sustaining foci for it. Considering a magic of 5 or 6 you wind up basically having to recast the spell somewhere around once per day, and risk exposing yourself to that drain. Similarly, a powerful Power Foci, say rating 5 and magic 6, would mean that after 30 hours on consecutive use addiction starts to become a risk.

Of course, the concept of addiction is totally avoided if you just have a rule for how long you can use it without a break but you don't specify a break duration. Again, using the increased reflexes example, just making a character recast the spell once a day to deal with drain but avoid addiction would still leave a character with a foci they can become very attached to having on basically all the time.

Now, a simple formula for how long the break should be is something that I'm having a harder time with. Right now the best I've got is something like:

(Maximum Safe hours as figured above) - (Willpower Attribute) - (Magic Attribute) - (Unused Safe Hours) = downtime, with a minimum of (Force of Foci) hours.

Using the Power Foci example listed above, activated for 20 hours, it would look like this:

30 (Maximum Safe hours) - 5 (Willpower Attribute) - 6 (Magic Attribute) - 5 (Unused Safe Hours) = 14 hours downtime before risking addiction. Given the power of a rating 5 Power Focus, if I had to make hard rules for foci addiction, this doesn't seem too harsh.

Similarly, lets look at a Magic 5, Willpower 5 mage using a Force 4 sustaining foci for Increased reflexes over a few different periods:

20 Hours: 20 - 5 - 5 - 0 = 10 hours downtime.
16 Hours: 20 - 5 - 5 - 4 = 6 Hours downtime (or some sleep)
12 Hours: 20 - 5 - 5 - 8 = 2, but Foce of Foci is 4 so 4 Hours downtime.
24 Hours: 20 - 5 - 5 + 4 = 14 hours downtime.
36 Hours: 20 - 5 - 5 + 16 = 26 hours of downtime.

Here you can see that if you used these systems a character would run a serious risk if they left a foci on for too long because they'd have to make a check then, and if they needed the foci again fairly soon they'd again have to make a check. This can create a slippery slope that could represent addiction. Even if the threshold is lower as another poster mentioned, there are times when dice will abandon you, and eventually even Edge runs out.

These were just off the top of my head, as I said I've not had to create hard rules for this with my group. I'd love to see what others think.

[Seriphen]

The problem I see with that rule is that you punish someone for having a low powered focus more than a high powered one. Force * magic lends itself to actually helping a high powered focus, which in my opinion should cause addiction faster, as it would give a higher safe time, if I read your post correctly.

[Dahrken]

I wasn't talking about having the spirit of man sustain your spell for you, I was talking about having the spirit of man cast the spell itself, on you, and sustain it, indefinitely, with no force loss, ever.

This is the spirit using one of it's power (in that case Innate Spell) on you - thus it use up 1 service per casting, and IMHO last only until next sunrise/sunset, so two services per 24 h (unless you're close enough to the pole), exactly like asking him to use Concealment or Movement.

Binding a spirit does not mean you can use it's services forever, it means you can wait forever before asking it to do something.

About the proposed rules :
while detailed and wll thought out, they seem a bit generous for high-power focuses). I'd suggest making the safe time something like (Magic - Force)xMagic rather than ForcexMagic. This way more powerful focuses have a shorter time limit.

[Ramaloke]

This is the spirit using one of it's power (in that case Innate Spell) on you - thus it use up 1 service per casting, and IMHO last only until next sunrise/sunset, so two services per 24 h (unless you're close enough to the pole), exactly like asking him to use Concealment or Movement.

Binding a spirit does not mean you can use it's services forever, it means you can wait forever before asking it to do something.

Maybe when you talk about Summoned Spirits.

A spirit will perform the services it owes until the next sunrise or sunset. At that time, regardless of any remaining services or what it was doing, the spirit will depart and return to its home deep in astral space.

Bound spirits however do not have that limitation.