This is an extension of the "no foci flaw" argument. If the magician was unable to use telesma and foci that weren't made by him, I would argue that he would get around 10 BP. I mean, if he ever wants to use foci, he would have to get an entire skill group to do it. Having to possess a skill group himself to get an edge may be more debilitating than not being able to have that skill group and being able to buy things to make up for it. Thoughts?

Seems fine to me, although at the moment you'll need to homebrew rules for building foci.

Would this include having to make his own orihalcum? That would be the biggest pain ever.

well, yes.

although, technically speaking, you don't *need* orichalchum. it just makes things a lot easier.

I wouldn't require the character to make his own materials, not for 10 points. Just spend half the price of the focus for materials, and use the Build/Repair rules to create the focus. Probably Force x 3 for threshold, and an interval based on the focus type, e.g., one month per point of Karma multiplier in the bonding cost (2 months per roll for a sustaining focus, 8 months for a power focus).

Now, as a 20-point flaw, you could require the character to put materials together through a gathering skill, and only then make the focus with those personally-gathered materials.

Did they seriously take that long in earlier editions? And would spirit-gathered materials count? How hard would it be if he had a Salish-Shidhe passport?

That is a free 10 pts for characters who intend to always make their own anyway.

It depends on the campaign I guess. If time is not an issue (enough money and time between runs), 10 is too much.


If you make up both flaws (this and "no foci") you´ll have to consider relative bp-gains. No foci at all needs to be higher, but not too high.

I think that the programming task periods are WAY too long; I think that I'll decrease it to 1 week. I'll do the same for foci.

The crafting time for a focus was 30 days,

A design is needed before you can enchant anything.

The design time can be interrupted but the enchanting can not, wanting it to be practical for PCs to do there own enchanting without having to sit out for a year game time because they want a power focus (the unfortunate result of Azathfeld’s attempt, coding time means no hacker can ever program there own code) this is my sujestion

Design is a extended test, focus design (force *2) bonding multiplier *1 week
Glitch time is wasted
Cit. glitch need to start over


Enchanting is also an extended test. Enchanting (force *3) one week.
Glitch time is wasted
Cit. glitch need to start over

This permits a force 2 focus to be produced within a month if nothing goes wrong, more powerful than that and your going to need to take extra down time.

The design times could be lengthened because design allows you to go on a run half way threw. The actual enchanting can not be left for more than a couple of hours (and then you better not be far)

Edward

Could you use orihalcum to shorten the time? And would this necessitate people making orihalcum themselves?

I guess the 20 point flaw would force you to make your own; I'd much rather steal orihalcum than make it... and for the 20 point, "gather your own stuff" flaw, would stealing it count as gathering it?

Creating orichalcum slowly? My, but that's an understatement.

If memory serves, orichalcum takes an entire 28 day lunar cycle to create.

There are _no_ breaks in the creation process. If you stop for any significant amount of time, I think you end up getting totally screwed and you end up with nothing.

But, really, the gathering/enchanting/refining rules were just a little weird, in that the higher-skill alchemists could end up breaking the laws of physics by creating more material than they started with.

EDIT: I think gathering tests were something along the lines of 10 days per unit you wished to harvest, with extra successes halving the time each time.

What if you have spirits helping you? Does having spirits help you count? When do you stop "gathering them yourself?" What if you have an air spirit lift you up to the treetops and stuff? If that's okay, how about sending a spirit of man with "search" and "natural spell: leviate" on a remote service? And how much orihalcum could you create at one time? Another flaw I was thinking of having was to make it so that my character's foci couldn't be used by anyone else. How's that sound?

1) Spirits can add dice to the test equal to their force. Well, actually, that's a misnomer. ELEMENTALS could add dice. Spirits didn't last long enough in 3rd, given that you couldn't bind a spirit, I don't think.

2) You have to do the searching. You can't have somebody else do them for you. You could purchase them, sure, and most people did that and bought radical tin and lead, because they were way cheaper, compared to radical gold.

3) AFAIK, you cannot reduce the 28 days to make orichalcum. And said stuff will have your signature plastered all over it, with no way to get it off of there, short of changing your sig with initiation.

4) I don't really consider that a flaw. Most of the time, if a character is making a focus, they're going to use it themselves anyways. If they wanted to make money, they'd just sell component materials.

5) The stuff, if memory serves, was an enchanting test, with the TN being something like 10-12, minus your magic rating. In SR4 terms, I figure the base threshold would be 10-12 minus your magic, with additional successes getting you additional units. The stuff _is_ 88,000 y a pop.

What with the new unified theory of magic and all, I'd imagine there are some major changes to the way that foci are made. I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about the old system if you're interested in coming up with a new one.

If you're not interested in homebrewing your own new system, this quality isn't really for your game. As there are no available rules in the RAW for focus creation, this necessitates creating your own path.

AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH STREET MAGIC!!!! (Say "STREET MAGIC!!!!" the way the dude in the old Mortal Kombat commercials said "MORTAL COMBAAAAAAAT!!!!") Would you say they'll shorten or lengthen the crafting times?

Edward, I'm having a hard time reading the rules you've written for making your own foci... Do they mean that the threshold for designing a force 10 power focus is 160? And what's wrong with having you spirits do "search" when you have to gather the materials yourself?

No.

I shall do an example using the force 10 power focus you suggest (remember that is a big powerful focus and will be hard to make)

Before you can begin the enchanting you need a design, this could be purchased but force 10 designs are rare as hens’ teeth so your probably going to need to make it yourself.

To do this you make an extended test using the focus design skill (part of the tails mongering group) with a threshold of 20 (force * 2) and a interval of 8 weeks (bonding multiplier weeks) you may stop and start this procedure at will, work half of each day for twice as long, so long as you make up the hours.

Once you have your design wether you made it yourself or obtained it threw some other means (witch is specific to the focus type and force as well as the telesma used, eg walking stick and necklace need different designs but the amount of alchemical radicals and oricalcum may change)

You make an extended test using the enchanting skill (also in tailsmongering group) with a threshold of 30 (force * 3) and an interval of one week. Your dice pool would be modified buy the nature of the telesma (its object resistance) and any alchemical radicals or oricalcum used.

Insolently the tailsmongering group would contain focus design, enchanting, gathering and alchemy.

Edward

HEEHEE!!!! My dude will rock so badly. And do bound spirits increase design dice pool or enchanting? And would the proper detection spells increase his ability to find and gather? And which stat is the group attached to?

I would say that a bound spirit will for one service aid you on any of those tests for one interval, adding its force in dice. The spirit would need to be of the appropriate type for the spell in your tradition. Or have the search power for gathering, not shore what would help with enchanting

And an appropriate detection spell would aid in collecting but that would have to be a very specific spell I would think. I’m not thinking of examples other than detect life form, rare sepses of plant you want to make radicals of. In that case add spell hits. Other spells would provide a bonus at GM discretion.

Edward

You mean mine. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

Also, I was thinking of having an "obvious spellcasting" flaw. Any time the caster uses magic, any observer gets a +6 to seeing it. It's sort of like a shamanic mask, but it's full-body and really, really obvious. Like, if Shen was casting and the air around him darkened or something. Would Physical Mask cover up something like this?

If physical mask would cover it up, it really wouldn't be much of a "flaw", so I would say no.

Personally, I would be very careful using custom-made Negative Qualities for a GMPC. Other players are likely to be suspicious to begin with (that the GM will favor "his" character), and this won't help. At the very least, you should be sure to post all of your new Negative Qualities up for everyone to potentially pick, before they even make their characters. That's also a good way to test potential Negative Qualities. If everyone picks those Negative Qualities, they probably give too many points or have too few disadvantages.

I'll do just that.

Did just that. Also, I'm allowing any flaws or edges people recommend; all that has to be done is for me to give it a cost and an effect.

This is my recommendation for a Hunted flaw, which will be a large part of my character.

Flaw: Hunted. 10 BP or 20 BP.

Someone with money and power wants to do bad things to the character. For the 10 BP flaw, said person, for whatever reason, will try to keep her vendetta personal. She won't alert law enforcement, and she won't publish the character's identity. She will, however, use in-house muscle and possibly even small teams of shadowrunners.

For the 20 BP flaw, she will do everything in her power to get the character arrested or killed. She'll have him framed for capital offenses, kill off his contacts, put his face all across the screamsheets, and put out a million bounty.