A question of how many foci can a spellcaster 'stack' use at one time simultaneously. This is excluding active sustaining foci.
Example, can a spellcaster use a specific spell focus, spell category focus and expendable spell focus on one spell at the same time?
Or multiple expendable spell foci on a single spell/ spells cast within the same complex action?
Required to set a precedent.
Thank you all in advance.

Punchen Judas, a friend of mine, and I came into this problem the same, except more about Expendables. As far as I can tell, there is no limit to the TYPES of foci, if they are all applicable, but we concluded that only ONE of each type could be used. Why? Well consider the implications of it, starting with Character Generation.

1. A rating 8 Power Foci from Character Generation is 840000. Well within availability limits AND the money limits, but not the rating limit. Now, lets turn that into TWO F4 Power Foci, same price, bonding, and even Foci addiction problems. HOWEVER its under the rating limit. Perhaps small, but still a problem.

2. Subject John has Magic 6. In his possession he has a Rating 4 Power Foci, a Rating 6 Power Foci, and a Rating 2 Power foci. Foci addiction anyone? While a person with a rating 12 Power foci would have to turn his off immediately, and be left without a foci, Mister John simply turns off 'two points' and he's behind that line again and still packing 10 extra dice. Lets take this a step farther, Magician Bob has /12/ Rating /1/ Power foci. Same costs, obviously more common than a R12 PF, and if he ever goes below 7 Magic, just turn off one foci.


I could probably list more scenarios, but these are what I consider 'bad reason for allowing it'.

There are a couple of limitations:

1) p. 85, SR4 "The total Force of all bonded foci is limited to five times the character's Magic attribute."

So if, for example, you had the Astral Sight Edge (5 pts) and Magic 1, you could only bond up to five Force of foci - one Force 5 focus or five Force 1 foci, etc.

2) p.190, SR4 "No magician may bind more foci than her Magic attribute."

So, if you are a starting magician with Magic 6, you could bind up to 30 (6 x 5) Force worth of foci, but no more than six foci in total.

3) p.190, SR4 "Regardless of the number of foci a magician may possess, only one focus may add its Force to any single dice pool."

So, if you have five Force 1 power foci, you could only draw on one at a time. If you had five Force 1 spellcasting foci of different types (Combat, Detection, Health, Illusion, Manipulation), you could draw on whichever focus was needed.

3) p.190, SR4 "Regardless of the number of foci a magician may possess, only one focus may add its Force to any single dice pool."

Shit, I must have missed that rule.

But yet, I remember examples of mages useing both Power Foci and Expendable Foci, or Spell foci, ect. 1:1 Focus:Pool ratio?

Thanks for the replies.
It would seem that sr4 has the key to sr3 question. Novel.

A power focus is 6/72 hours. However, power foci are still capped by the rating limit, meaning a character couldn't have one higher than Force 6 out of chargen. Weapon foci are a flat 8/72 hours.

~J

It should be added that this appears to be the desired result, since as I mentioned foci don't have their Availability scale with Force, nor does their cost scale in a non-linear fashion. Only at chargen does it make a difference whether one gets one force n focus or two force n/2 foci. Well, that and when testing for item destruction and soforth.

~J

I now have to consider the potential for abuse by both myself and my players unless I house rule in accordance with the implication of SR4 or SR3.
The former is the conservative option, I think, leading to a more balanced field. The latter leads to a more artistic use of powers that while more vivid and intricate could be unbalancing.
Decisions, decisions

I prefer sr2's. have all you want active... but the more you have active the more likely someone will throw a hellblast down it and fry you and your group. Muhahahahahahaahaha

Not that you even need active foci to be vulnerable to astral grounding. All that the hostile mage needs to do is summon a Force: 1 elemental, follow it in the Astral plane until it reaches its target, have it manifest, then ground a spell through it. Great way to kill a room full of people from the Astral plane.

I wasn't clear, I guess. I was talking about SR2, with the grounding rules. And yeah, stuff like that probably is why they got rid of it.

Indeed. It's the first really good reason I've seen against it, and it's so compelling that I don't have an answer. I'm not sure there is one.

~J

Grounding: Why real mages don't miss Spell Locks too much.