Again, in the line of my latest posts, here's another magical stuff directly from SR3 translated into SR4.

Disposable focus

Some foci lack the overlasting effects of most foci. Instead, they burn out after only a single use, but allow awakened characters a single, powerful attempt when using magical skills. When using a focus, you may increase either your skill pool or your drain pool, but you cannot use two foci to increase both the skill pool and the drain pool.

Disposable foci come in three different types.

Disposable Spell Foci:

Whenever an awakened character uses a sorcery skill or resist a spell's drain, he may use his disposable foci. He adds the focus rating this his dice pool (this is compatible with the use of other non-disposable foci). Only one disposable focus may be used for a single roll.

Disposable Spirit Foci:

Whenever an awakened character uses a conjuring skill or resist a spirit's drain, he may use his disposable foci. He adds the focus rating this his dice pool (this is compatible with the use of other non-disposable foci). Only one disposable focus may be used for a single roll.

Disposable Power Foci:

Whenever an awakened character uses a magic skill or resist any kind of drain, he may use his disposable foci. He adds the focus rating this his dice pool (this is compatible with the use of other non-disposable foci). Only one disposable focus may be used for a single roll.

Spell Focus: Cost (500 times rating) Availabity (2 times rating)
Spirit Focus: Cost (500 times rating) Availabity (2 times rating)
Power focus: Cost (800 times rating) Availabity (3 times rating)

Disposable foci don't have to be bounded to an awakened character in order to work.

Comments?

I can see a high rank spirit focus being used during binding attempts of high rank spirits...

Rank 10 spirit focus for 20 avail 5000 ? Sure the avail is a bit high, but when you really want to bind something, this would be the thing to use.

this is a hold over from sr3, except that they couldn't stack with other foci (iirc)
Also they only applied to spellcasting.
If you wanted to port those rules intact, that wouldn';t be unbalanced, but allowing a character to add 6 dice to every roll and only have it cost is a little too poewrful imo

Konsaki: Is that such a bad thing?

Maybe a should restrict the disposable focus to either the skill pool OR the drain pool...that means you can bind it, but would you be able to resist drain?

fool: 3000 for everytime you cast a spell is quite a high price to pay...You'll end up losing money at the end of a run most of the time.

Ok, then buying two (2) rank 10 spirit foci for one bind, one drain combo of a super high (R8-12) spirit. I would consider 10,000:nuyen: worth having that heavy firepower on hand.

done...is it more balanced now?

Yes, though I can still see many magic types buying big disposable foci just to bind lower ranked spirits too, like binding rank 6 spirits which a mage could bind but just needs that extra bit of drain protection.

Willpower 6 + Charisma 6 + Spirit Focus (Disposable) 10 = 22 dice to resist drain (yeah this is a little maxed out, but I could go higher)

I would push my character to pull off a higher ranked bind test with that amount of dice backing me. Rank 6 would only have 12 dice (averaging 4 hits), which means around 8 drain to resist. On average 22 dice will have 7 hits, so 1 drain isnt much at all.

I'm not trying to bash you, you have a good idea, but it's going to get exploited easily by a mage who has a good talismonger contact and time on his hands.

perhaps limit the disposable focus to your magic rating?