i just got a question pop into my head; if all foci are dual natured when on, can you in theory have a foci other then weapon in form of a sword or any other weapon and do damage on astral on it. Like if i have a sword as a power foci, and i turned it on, would i be able to look on astral and hit a astral being with that sword and hurt him?

**ps: i meant this time with more foci **

I'd buy that. Of course, the non-weapon focus wouldn't give any additional dice for the attack. And you'd have to use your Willpower + Astral Combat for the attack, and probably just your (Cha/2) for damage (as with an improvised club).

Imay go so far asgiving it the damage of a club (not improvised)

Its being sharp would be irrelevant. That you would gain its reach is a significant advantage.

Now. What is the damage code for an astraly preserving (dwarven) dwarven sharman. And dose the wielding troll gain the shamans totem bonus to astral combat.

Edward

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...&hl=power+focus

See the discussion on this topic in this thread. I'm not sure we ever really came to a conclusion.

My thoughts? No.

We've got weapon foci for a reason. They're magically engineered (is that a contradiction?) to be incredibly dangerous on the Astral, in addition to providing bonuses for the person they're bonded to. If beating on something with a power focus worked just as well, there'd be no reason to have a weapon focus.

If you want a magic sword power/weapon focus, just buy both foci out of the gear section, and say they're in the same object.

I'd have to go with no. The shape of the power focus doesn't impact it's function. If it did, then, my power focus in the shade of a wand could be used to jab someone in the eye on the astral.

Well i wasn't thinking of the useing a power foci as a weapon. I was more thinking about a last resort weapon (like a chair or bottle would be), But i take all the nos as my idea was silly. Thanks alot for the help.

Actually, it's not that bad of an idea. It's just that you probably won't get too much from it. Since we all agree that you shouldn't recieve the special weapon focus bonuses, all you get is maybe a little extra damage over your base stats.

If I was GM'ing a game where a mage used a power focus as an improvised weapon, I would a) Give him some extra damage for it, b) see if his power focus survives being batterd against another astral form.
I read through the other very long string of posts about this, and everyone has a point, so I would say that it is upto your GM, or if you are the GM, then make your own choice. I would think that everyone would aggre that if a power focus is allowed as an improvised weapon, then it should have a very decent chance of being destroyed by the 'impact' (a tea cup could be used to bash someone over the head, but sadly the tea cup would not survive to be bashed against another head)

Doc

I wouldn't allow it because astral combat isn't just about hitting things but if it were allowed I'd try use the forcing things though barriers rules.

If you jabed an astral spirit with an astral power focus then you would force astral combat between the two. You wouldn't do any damage but the focus would get to roll its (Forcex2) vs the spirit's (Forcex2). If the spirit loses it would be disrupted. If the focus loses it would be destroyed. Depending on your luch and their respective forces, it is either a quick way to take out a weak spirit or a quick way to destroy a very expensive focus. At least that's how I see it.

The advantage of a weapon focus is that it conducts you attack. You aren't just sticking one astral form into another. Also, this should not work for dual natured foci since the spirit would be able to move out of the way far too quickly to actually hit. Astral combat isn't just about hitting things

Astral Forms do not necessarily have the same size, shape, or hardness as their physical counterparts. Foci are not "dual natured" when active, they "have an astral form". A subtle difference, but it means that on the astral plane your sword-shaped spellcasting focus isn't a sword - it's whatever a spellcasting focus looks like to the tradition of the enchanted that made your focus in the first place.

End result: when you slap someone with your focus it has no astral reach and inflicts damage like a "meahuman body" - you do Force/2 astral damage with it. So if you have a low charisma and a high force counterspelling focus, then smacking people with it is probably a fine idea.

-Frank

Where do you get the whole "metahuman body" part out of this?

I like Frank's idea. It makes it useful at times, and maintains the feel of magic.

I think Frank gave me the answer i was fishing for. haha. Now i know what to tell my players.