Infusion/Adept Foci and Active Adept Powers? Options

[Mr.Sinister]

After being informed about Infusion Foci from my last thread, I borrowed SOTA:64 and MITS from my GM before he went out of town.

In SOTA:64 it mentions two new foci for Adepts: Infusion Focus and Adept Focus. In both descriptions, it mentions the total number of powers an Adept can have active at one time...

[Mark McCrea]

I don't have my book here to check this but I believe that it is a total number of levels in a given power cannot exceed you magic attribute. I think the limit is mentioned in the adept section of the core book.

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Just a random thought for the day. :cyber:

[Mr.Sinister]

[Herald of Verjig...]

Toss in a point of magic loss, suddenly you have more powers total than you can have active at one time.

[mfb]

SR3 page 168, second paragraph under "Adept Powers". it's not a limitation on the number of actual number of powers you can have active, but a limit on the levels of powers you can have active, and also the total pp value of your active powers.

[Mr.Sinister]

[Mr.Sinister]

[mfb]

the rule on SR3 p168 is what the infusion/adept foci rules are referring to. it's easier than saying "the total value in power points of the character's active powers", or whatnot.

[Mr.Sinister]

[mfb]

theoretically, yes. in reality, you're going to be losing magic points to focus addiction before to long.

[Kanada Ten]

An adept can only have a number of Power Points active at one time equal to their Magic Attribute plus the rating of a bonded active an Adept Focus.

Let me see if I can find the reference.

[Mr.Sinister]

Ok, another question. I currently have Improved Reflexes:2 at a cose of 3 power points. Improved Reflexes:3 costs 5 power points. According to the FAQ on the shadowrunrpg.com website, an adept can improve a power by using power points equal to the difference in cost from the current level to the next up. In this case, 2 power points. Could I obtain an infusion focus with a rating of 4 (giving me 2 power points) to bring my Improved Reflexes up to a level of 3?

[Mr.Sinister]

[mfb]

SR3 page 168 is the reference. sinister, you'd probably need a rating 6 focus, with imp reflexes 2 in it, to do that.

[Mr.Sinister]

Ok, here's the exact info from SR3, pg 168....

[Modesitt]

You expect them to define their terms? HAH! This ain't D&D. Why back in my day, we had to pay Ms. Cleo money to tell us what the rules said!

But more seriously, the general concensus on how you interpret 'active' comes from the description of how bioware affects adepts. Basically, an adept can turn powers on and off. It's never defined what kind of action this is. The reason you'd turn powers on and off had to do with how bioware in an earlier version of the errata screwed with magic. Now it works like cyberware, so that bit of errata is just a piece of non-canon history.

Example: Joe Schmoe has powers A, B, C, D, and E.
A = 3
B = 1
C = 1
D = .5
E = .5

Joe however, can only have 5 points active at a time. This means he could have powers A, B, and C usable, A,B, D, and E, or any similar combination of powers 'ready to use'. This could mean either giving you reaction boosts, making you walk silently, boost your stats, whatever. Since they never define what kind of action turning a power on and off is, it's up to your GM to determine. The reason this works out for the adept is relatively simple - You usually don't use certain powers at the same time. For example, it's not very often that you need to use Great Leap at the same time as Improved SMGs.

[Mr.Sinister]

Modesitt, thanks for the informative post!

I'm curious though where the info came from. Obviously, I'd like to read up on it more and find out what determines how many powers can be active, how that number can be increased/decreased, etc. Did it come from a particular sourcebook or compiled?

Thanks again.

[Fortune]

Your Magic rating determines how many Powers can be active. This number can decrease through Magic loss of any kind, and can be increased through Initiation or the use of an Adept Focus.

[fistandantilus4....]

It's also limited by two other factors.
1) you only get .25/per centering success. So if you have a crappy centering skill, that infusion focus isn't going to go all that far.
2) also limited to your initiate grade.
That really limits how much you can get out of it. So really the infusion and adept focus' work best as stacked foci.
The infusion focus can give you a pre-selected extra power, but only have .... 'open slots'.
The Adept focus gives you the 'open slots' but no powers. So they're pretty much designed to work in tandem.

Example: say you don't have Inc. Reflx (for some crazy reason). You would need a stacked foci of infusion1/adept1, since you can't get more than Lv. 1 for a power you don't have.

That way, it takes more karma to bond it, and has a higher focus rating, effecting things like focus addiction, mentioned before. Still, pretty cool. Kinda like "I put on my gloves of killing hands Deadly".

It's still pretty balanced too. A weapon focus/infusion/adept power focus that let's you boost your weapon skill would be just as effective as a straight weapon focus. So there's not as much room for abuse.

[Cochise]

My usual 0.02¥:

1. The core rules generally limit the maximum rating any power with a rating can have to the adept's magic rating: e.g. magic 6 => improved ability stealth 6 is allowed, while improved ability stealth 7 isn't

2. The core rules limit the total power point cost of all powers to a number of power points equal magic rating. This limitation only counts at chargen: e.g. magic 6 => the sum of all power point costs may not exceed 6 at chargen. However during gameplay, the 20 karma rule allows the adept to exceed the original limitation => he can have magic 6 and a number of powers with a total power point cost of 7 or more (I know that the FAQ suggests that you don't use the 20 karma rule once you play with initiation rules from MitS, but that's not the point here).

3. There's no implicit or explicit restriction of simultanious use of powers in regards to magic rating in the core rules. => An adept who makes use of the 20 karma rule can simultaniously use all his powers under core rules

4. There used to be a rule that explicitly limited the simultanious use of powers to a power point cost equal to effective magic rating: The now errataed bioware rules allowed an adept with bioware to use a number of powers simultaniously as long as their power point total did not exceed the virtual magic rating. This rule is gone now, but back then allowed the interpretation that a similar restriction could be applied to the normal magic rating of an adept as well. This is how it was under non-errataed M&M rules.

5. The new rules on adept and infusion foci do something similar to what the non-errataed M&M rules did: While there's no explicit restriction of that kind in other current publications, these rules implicitly create such a restriction. Thus when playing under SotA'64 rules this restriction is automatically in place.

6. For the sake of consistancy it would be better to have the core rules errataed as well in that regard, because rules through implication tend to lead to discussion like this.

As always YMMV

[mfb]

fistandantilus, you're confusing the infusion metamagic with the infusion focus. infusion foci simply give you adept powers; no centering roll required, nor are they limited by grade.

i'm 99% sure that somewhere in SR3 or MitS, it describes how an adept who's suffered magic loss can switch between his known powers, so that the total pp cost of his active powers isn't higher than his magic score.

[fistandantilus4....]

Sorry, I was going to go off on a tangent about howit would be nice if the infusion focus could give you more die for the centering test, but then I actually read my book again and got my head out butt.
Of course, that put me on a different tanget, which I rambled off on.

That being said, is there a type of focus that would give you more dice for centering infuson METAMAGIC test? At first guess I would say power focus, just becaue they seem to be the foci that cover most everything. Any thoughts?

[mfb]

well, a centering focus gives you extra centering die, with no restriction on how they can be used.

[Mr.Sinister]

I got a reply from ShadowFaq that seems to clarify things...

[mfb]

hm. just so everyone's aware, that clashes with the current FAQ ruling: