Hi all. Long time runner, recent lurker, first-time poster.
Actually, I'd be tempted to have used units of Orichalcum reduce Karma similarly. Back to the roots, or something.
Orichalcum may be "easier" to aquire (for an Enchanter) than an Exotic Ingredient, but still carries the opportunity cost of not selling it, which also equals or exceeds a solid run or 2's income.
Some other ideas (Mainly Earthdawn-inspired, and intended to make magical gear more "upgradeable" instead of having to replace) about Enchanting and Foci i've been thinking about lately, seems on-topic here given the general tone of the title:
- Foci can be bonded partially, in increments of full force points. In this case only the bonded portion of its Force can be used, until more Karma is spent to bond more.
This is based on Earthdawn's Thread Weaving concept where items only unfolded their full power over time and incremental investment of power too. Since Bonding is linear, x Karma per force, this should be no problem mechanically.
- Foci can be "reenchanted" to a higher force. Haven't precisely hammered out the rules in detail yet, thinking along these lines:
>Rewriting the formula should probably be easier than designing a new one from scratch (ie, incorporate the work that went into the old one), thus maybe based on a threshold of (Force difference)^2 instead of newForce^2.
>I *think* normal Focus formulae are reusable to make multiple identical Foci, this should not be the case here as the upgraded formula specifies that specific focus as "Telesma", which is unique. Well, if one comes up with another identical base focus, the same formula could be used to upgrade that one too, I guess.
>The new enchantment process should probably get the full new Force as negative modifier instead of just the difference.
>Probably introduce a new "Magical Telesma" bonus of some magnitude (half old Force?) to make it a bit easier.
>Unsure how to handle Radicals and Orichalcum and such.
I'd probably have the material modifiers that applied in the original enchantment apply again, provided that the difference in force is added for each radical type that applies. This'll be a bit of bookkeeping hassle to remember details of old enchantments though (or GM call what was used, incase on non-player-made Foci)
>Not quite sure about the test, considering to reduce the base threshold of 16 to 8 or so. Also, since the base item is magical, maybe reduce/ignore the object resistance.
> Finalizing the enchantment costs the usual 1 Karma, after that the "new" Force points of the focus are unbound and can be bound as normal (above houserule for partial Focus binding obviously applies)
> Since enchanting stacked foci works based on plain addition of their Force, it should probably be possible to convert a single focus into a stacked focus using this system. Maybe make the formula design harder in some way (full design process, specifying the old focus as Telesma?) to represent the more drastic nature of the alteration.
>Haven't fully compared upgrading to designing from scratch yet, if it comes out as overall easier, that'd be a feature, not a bug. I'd imagine working to keep one's gear in shape as one grows in power a core part of a magician's activities if this rule is in effect. It should be the norm, so no reason to penalize it over creating new Foci.
Comments and suggestions welcome.
(Edit for linebreaks/readability)