All they do is add dice to melee attack rolls, but from what I've heard, they're supposed to give some huge mystical bonus for attacking spirits. Am I missing something?

A weapon focus bypasses a spirit's formiddable resistance to physical attacks. That's not listed in the weapon focus, it's listed in the power immunity to normal weapons, where it states that the power does not affect damage from weapon foci. Similarly, regeneration does not help against weapon foci damage.

-Frank

So you bypass its armor with weapon foci? AWESOME!!!

or killing hands...

Weapon foci are also useful in astral combat.

... Or Critical Strike ...

... Or while astrally perceiving ...

k00l... So, basically, as long as you have a serviceable melee attack skill and a weapon focus of any level, you just destroy spirits?

Depends on the Force of the spirit, but a weapon focus can definately help.

Most of the kvetching about weapon foci is with regards to how effective they are compared to other tools. Many adepts who invest in weapon foci gain little advantage that they could not obtain with Deadly Hands and Critical Strike; while magicians may be better off investing their Karma in Combat spells. Still, an adept could use the Improved Ability adept power to enhance the melee skill relevant to their weapon focus, and an astrally projecting magician who has to engage in astral combat would definately find it advantageous to have a weapon focus.

There are a number of other situations where weapon foci may be especially useful or preferred, but some are quite unlikely to occur, and I don't see the need to go into all of them here.

So invest more in literal hand-to-hand combat?

Honestly? It depends on your character.

If you want to pistol-whip spirits with your weapon focus Ares Predator IV that has the lucky preces foot attached to the handle, by all means go ahead.

If you're talking mechanical advantages, vis-a-vis Karma costs...a weapon focus can cost more Karma (and way more nuyen) than a spell or adept power that is almost as effective, and unlike a weapon focus, can never be taken away from you.

Roleplayers might find a weapon focus to be a convenient way to keep an otherwise non-combat magician both in-character and a viable asset to the team. For example, if you're an artist adept, justifying Deadly Hands to the GM could be difficult. But any adept can bond a focus.

Roll-players appreciate weapon foci because of the advantages they can gain from them with a little creativity and a thorough reading of the rules. For example, a player might interpret the Magic Fingers spell in such a way that their weapon focus adds dice to melee weapon attacks they make with a similar weapon using the Magic Fingers.

My dude is a John Woo archetype/ninja. He has kinesics, combat sense, ambidexterity, sneakiness, and skill with both the katana and two-gun fighting. He is GOD, or at least he will be once he maxes out his skill groups.

Also, if he had 5 magic points but he spent them all on adept powers, can he still get a level 5 weapon focus?

Weapon foci for adepts can make sense. The weapon focus can give you bonuses to your melee dice pools beyond what the killing hands can, and it has a linear rather than tringular cost which means that improving a weapon focus will ultimately be cheaper and better than initiating for more close combat prowess. It's not a stellar argument, but it holds water. Some adepts will be better off with a magic knife or monowhip than they would be with magical karate chops. Not all, but some would be.

That being said... a magician really has no excuse to bind a weapon focus. Stunbolt is infinitely more effective on the physical and on the astral than a magic sword, and it's cheaper. By the time you can use a magic knife half-way decently, your magician could just trivially soak the drain off a Force 9 stunbolt and be better off all around.

And of course, the people who really want magic weapons, the people who actually don't have a plan B for dealing with spirits - the street samurai - can't bind a weapon focus in the first place. The primary argument against weapon foci is that the only peiople who can have them are the people who don't care very much (adepts) or don't care at all (magicians).

-Frank

I could be using those power points to upgrade my other abilites, like combat sense and stuff. I see your point. Killing hands just gets more and more expensive over time.

Not sure if this is mentioned yet, but also, if you have a katana foci at say lvl 5 (very high I think, might not be to some players though), with the blades skill at 6, and then a large portion of your pp's spent on increasing the dice to your blades skill by say 3 pps (6 extra dice I think), and buying improved reflexes 2 (3pps), and your agility maxed out, your dishing out 17 dice, 3 times a turn, so basically your dishing out 17X3=51 dice worth of attacks a turn.

But for it's cost, your a one-trick pony not to be messed with.

as a side note, combat sense is godly.

The biggest disadvantage of a weapon focus is that it can be taken away from you.

The biggest advantage of a weapon focus is that its modifiers stack with those from an adept's Improved Ability power. On top of that, you are just spending the build points to buy and bond it, rather than power points, so the points that you would have spent on Killing Hands or Critical Strike can be used for other powers. I think the Availability rules limit you to a Rating: 2 weapon focus at char-gen, but with the lower skill cap, those two extra dice can still give you an edge.

Don't forget, reach modifiers, ability to do alot of damage even if low strengthed, (higher strength you can probably argue for killing hands)

Do I stand a chance if it engulfs me and I'm still holding a super-katana?

In general I'd rather have a sustaining focus maintaining Combat Sense, but sure.

-Frank

They are a lot cheaper...

i dunno. sure, stunbolt is awesome, but you can't use it to defend yourself in melee. a weapon focus provides a broader range of defensive and offensive options for a mage than does a stunbolt spell.

I agree, even if it's just a level 3 or so focus, that's more dice to help you incase those one trick pony adepts chop their way past the street sam and get in striking range of the mage. THose extra dice are a god send for reducing successes that would otherwise be adding to the damage on you.

Another good reason for a weapon foci to back up spells, two words :
background count

What about focus addiction? Does it add to addiction while it's on your back, or only while you use it? And what do you mean background count?

Focus Addiction and Background Count are two rules from the previous editions' magic books which will presumably make an appearence in Street Magic. Rules for them do not currently exist for SR4.

Focus Addiction is the idea that a magician who uses foci too much becomes reliant upon them, and ultimately loses the ability to perform magic without them. The key word here is uses - there's no effect for having bonded and not used a powerful focus.

Background counts are areas whose astral space is in some way altered off the normal baseline, making magic difficult. This is a concept which has historically been rather muddled up with the idea of the Power Site, since background counts can be aspected towards specific types of magic (making those kinds of magic easier instead of more difficult). Background counts that happened because the mana levels were high and unstable (ex.: site of the Ghost Dance) and counts that happened because the mana levels were low and unreachable (ex.: Space) were functionally identical, and not distinguished game mechanically.

In previous editions, the game mechanics of background counts were such that they had no effect on weapon foci - there wasn't any in-story reason why they wouldn't, it was just that weapon foci rarely made the die rolls that were background count modified. Perversely, characters with weapon foci actually wanted to fight in a near mana warp, because melee target numbers were unaffected, and you didn't give a damn how well your sword did on its perception tests.

But that was a hole in the rules, and hopefully not something that will be repeated in SR4. Magic Swords are supposed to be inconvenienced as much as anything else in a poor-mana region.

-Frank

thank god my .45 rounds don't care about magic or not, just space to travel through =p

Seems strange that they haven't kept the rule that made longer reach Weapon foci cost more to bind and buy? Now I can see a heck of a lot more Combat Axe weapon foci weilding Adepts than ones that had swords! More damage and longer reach! In fact it makes a friends character that was a Troll Phys-Ad with a Glaive (a type of pole-arm) scarier as in 3rd Ed. she was struggling to get enough karma together to try and bind a decent weapon foci version of her Glaive. Now she can start with one at force 2.

aye, but reach isn't as overpowering as it was before.

what about abnoramal weapon foci-here is a list

Plastic or rubber bag sprayed with oricalcum
shanks or screwdrivers
base-ball bats-the oricalcum is inside
meat cleavers
machetes
brass knukles
razor blades
shirkens(ninja stars-yes I know you'll have to get them back but heck you might be able to control their flight mentally)
scythes
whips
nunchuks
pool cues-like the base ball bats
spears
ball and chain
tonfas
fire wheels
goku hooks
crow-bars
meat hooks
boomerangs

That about covers it I think

just thought of this one

Maybe a Zip Gun

that one is doable it's just that orichalcum metal flake spray paint isn't cheap

but I am surprised on one has mentioned the pool cue yet

cue!

You see the little button that says 'modify' above your post?

Use it.

My version of that button says 'Edit'. Is it different depending on what theme you view the boards in?

aahhhhh! aaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

if you're looking to have a 'ranged weapon foci', you can get something close by making a weapon w/ a sustained Enhance Aim built in. Won't work on shurikens still because it has to be in contact with you. ut it will work on a gun. Looking for Enhanced Aim in SR4, see how it works.

Doesn't have the cool side effects of by passing Imm to Weapons or blocking regeneration.

And it's nowhere near as badass as an orichalcum spraypainted plastic bag!

I prefer having an ally spirit named 'Megatron' with a gun form and a powerful custom indirect attack spell called 'fusion cannon'.

Most of the time, you can have Megatron sustain enhanced aim on you while you shoot people with him. When the going gets tough or something with Immunity to Normal Weapons shows up you just point Megatron at it and have him cast fusion cannon.

Of course, if you are incapacitated he can take his other form, which usually causes the opposition to wet themselves and run away, latter posting about how this fraggin' magician's fraggin' gun transformed into a fraggin' giant robot.

back...................
Then lets get bad ass......
wheapon focus power tools

drills
chainsaws
circularsaws

machines + magic

why?