When looking at the various Foci, it appears that a Power Focus is the equivalent to at least 20 Foci!

Effectively, it is 5 Spellcasting Foci (one for each category), 5 Summoning Foci (one for each of the 5 categories of Spirits for the user's tradition), a Banishing Foci for all types of Spirits, and a boost to any other test where Magic is rolled.

You get all of this for only twice the cost of a Spellcasting or Summoning Focus. Doesn't that seem like too good of a deal?

I'm considering removing the Power Focus from the game so that the other types of Foci have some value. Is there any good reason not to remove th Power Focus? My only other option is to make it terribly expensive (like 100,000 per rating or more) to make the other foci look somewhat attractive.

I believe it has the highest bonding costs and is only available at force 2 to begin play. If you ask me the sustaining focus is the more broken of the two.

well see i believe the power foci are more clearly seen on the astral plane as they are more powerful.

The power focus is fine as is. It's like saying "Get rid of bioware so that cyberware can mean something again." Not every possible option in the book has to be the best one.

I would still make power foci more pricey, or more addictive...

mmm... where were my addiction houserules?

Cheers

Max

Saying a Force 2 power focus is "better" than a Force 3 spellcasting focus is like saying a Panther Cannon is "better" than a Predator, or that a Banshee is "better" than a Westwind. Different things are better at different times, and I can think of plenty of starting mages who'd prefer three extra dice on the type of spell they cast all the time to two extra dice on everything. I can also think of plenty of starting mages who'd prefer to have that 12BP for something else.

Whenever you mathematically model something you necessarily abstract away certain parts of it. If you follow this kind of reasoning you abstract away subtleties and complexities of the game and replace character generation with a set of simultaneous equation problems.

Elitist roleplayer "doing it for fun" nonsense aside, maybe you should just change the 1-BP-per-force-point bit, rather than messing with power foci in-game? Maybe the standard karma cost, divided by two or three, depending on how many starting foci you really want?

power foci cannot be used for drain resistance, iirc.

spell foci and spirit foci can.

banishing is garbage anyways, most of the time, so why should you care if it improves those tests?

also, you may only apply the bonus from one focus to any given pool at any time... having both a spellcasting focus and a power focus allows you to boost your spellcasting pool, and also to boost your drain resistance.

generally speaking though, the ability to boost drain resistance or spellcasting pool as needed is a very nice ability, and is ultimately the bigger limit on spellcasting and especially summoning. you don't summon/bind force 12 spirits regularly, not because you don't have enough dicepool to succeed, but because there is a very real and not nearly small enough chance to get turned into goo by the drain.

You used to be able to "withhold" dice from casting the spell to apply them to drain, meaning you effectively could apply Power Focus dice to the drain test, albeit indirectly. I don't have my books with me, am I just remembering something from SR3?

Where does having a power foci stop you from using regular foci at the same time?
Now sure at the start a power foci is a good deal over other foci.

But you might hold onto the rating 3 foci of another type long after you've gotten a power focui above rating 2.


Case in point, Mage A has power foci rating 2 from char gen. Which he will dump as soon as he gets power foci above 2.


Mage B has spellcasting foci rating 3 for the healing spell. To counter the various penalties for healing outdoors and heavily cyberware characters.

While it it is possible Mage B will seek out a higher rating spellcasting foci for his healing magic. Its more likely he will seek out a power foci, however after getting it his spellcasting foci is still useful.
While mage A can only sell his old foci for around 25% its value.

You see what I'm saying

frankly, if you're considering buying and binding one focus during chargen, and another after, and one of those two is a power focus... do the power focus at chargen. the simple fact that it's 2 BP in chargen, and a ton of karma outside of chargen, should be enough to make the decision fairly obvious, imo.

So Power Foci are good and players want to buy them. I'm not getting the problem here. Some options are better than others.

And other posters have given examples of why characters might want to get a different focus, so that's fine. They will exist.

I'd like to throw in my two cents about this whooooole shpiel.

This is a game.

Any GM worth his salt is going to adapt to the players. So, if a starting mage has only five dice for casting spells, they aren't going to go up agianst many magical threats. If a player throws 32 dice for spellcasting, the GM is going to adapt and send them up against an Elven ghost team with reflecting and a bunch of other stuff. Remember, the GM doesn't have to play by the rules, let alone the character creation rules. If you abuse power foci, so can he.

But, really, when you get down to it, I'd much trather have a lvl 3 sustaining focus (sustaining Increased Reflexes) than a lvl 2 power focus (Mage with street sam's initiative without penalties to my dice pool? count me in!) but I'm sure there are some mages who wouldn't. It all depends on what you are going for.

Lastly, there is something to be said for higher-lvl foci (even if they are "less usefull") versus lower level. They are more powerful, and thus harder to damage. If I see a mage going bazonkers, I'm gonna astrally percieve, see what kinda foci he has, and blast the bejesus out of them. And a lvl 3 spell foci is harder to damage than a lvl 2 power foci.


If you are STILL unsure, then use this rule (if it's not already a rule. Some of the Foci rules make my head spin.)
Spell foci can increase the maximum number of hits, whereas Power foci cannot.

This way a power focus cannot make you hit any harder, just a better chance of hitting as hard as you can. A spell focus can make you hit harder.

i don't think power foci are too useful because i almost never see anyone complaining about them. it's just raw power, after all, which is easy enough for most GMs to deal with. what i see people complaining about, when they compain, are sustaining foci, because with a sustaining focus, you can pull some really clever tricks that many GMs will have a hard time dealing with.

In order to make full use of this versatility, the PC has to diversify his spell list. In a game that rewards specialisation, the player has to weigh the versatility of the power focus versus the cost efficiency of specialisation.

Most PCs I've seen have 2-3 categories of spells, but with 1 spell category having the majority of the spells. Specialise in 1 spell category and splash 1-2 spells for utility.

I'm probably going to take the following steps:
1) Triple the cost of the Power Foci to rating x 75,000 .
2) Increase the bonding cost by +50% to rating x 12 Karma.
3) I will not allow Foci to be bound with BPS, only with Karma. I will be giving starting characters an allocation of Karma in addition to their BPs.

This should keep the Power Focus viable while increasing the proportionate appeal fo the other Foci types.

Nice defensive tone there, buddy.

Drop the personal attacks please.

Okay children, both of you time out and take a breather.

Yes, power foci are inherently more powerful than other foci, in as much that they modify more tests than any other-and there is a reason for that. They are more expensive, harder to find, and more costly to bond than other foci.

I'm not going to hit y'all with heavy math or anything, but for a character-PC or NPC-that has limited resources, a power focus is not always the most economical or powerful choice, especially for mystic adepts and aspected magicians. For a mystic adept that only has Spellcasting Skill, a spellcasting focus might make more sense-especially if she can purchase a higher-Force spellcasting focus for the same price (in nuyen and karma) as a low-level power focus. This is especially true at character generation, when there are decided limits on availability and funds.

For a better comparison of the costs, compare how much it would take to improve a character's Magic compared to the cost of purchasing an equivalent power focus-provided you play an Awakened character that can increase your Magic (a character with the Astral Sight Positive Quality, for example, cannot increase their Magic.)

Now I will say that the 1 BP per Force Point costs are chargen are dumb and I don't use them. But from the standpoint of dvanced characters, or people who have to pay the standard bonding costs during chargen - the Power Focus compares pretty well with the Binding Focus.

A Binding or Spellcasting focus can be used to resist drain, and a Power Foicus cannot. That's a huge difference, considering that Drain is the limitting concern on how big a spirit you can conjure or how big a spell you can cast.

Or to put it another way: if you get +3 dice on your spellcasting test, you'll get about 1 extra hit that will make your manabolt do one more damage box. If you get +3 dice on your Drain Resistance, you'll suffer about one less drain, allowing you to safely cast your spell two Force higher - inflicting 2 more boxes of damage.

It isn't just that the other Foci cost slightly less and affect a much more limited pool - the dice they provide are actually better within their limited contexts.

-Frank

For me, given that the Power Focus is the largest surge of raw power for a magician, I usually make them more addictive for the awakened. While the others are, in their own areas equally as powerful, and moreso in some cases, I just don't know if they have the pure rush of energy. But that is simply my interpretation. In general the foci addiction rules are there to lower the abuse level, use them. Don't let them walk around all day with a level 3 increase reflexes spell in their sustaining foci without possible addiction tests. Same with the power focus, if they keep it activated all the time if they are ever caught without it they could easily go thru withdrawl and even suffer a crisis of faith (yay for geasa!)

Except that there is no karma during char creation, which means you stymie all forms of foci, especially the more useful ones and higher rating ones which will take several runs to be able to bond and lock the mage off from other useful things like say... spells, saving up for initiating, skills, etc.

Well to be fair HappyDaze did say that he was giving his characters some Karma to spend during Char-Gen, although I don't think he mentioned hoe much.

Can't see any more problems with Power Foci than say Steel Lynx with Assult Rifle.

Don't mind me. I'm just coming into this thread to warm my hands by the fire for a little while....

Seriously, there are good points on all sides. There's no need for people to get all aggressive with each other. If you read from the beginning, you could try and trace the origins of who first was snide to who and how it progressed from there. But ultimately you end up losing track of things and it's just people sniping at each other unproductively and no-one outside of it cares how it began. Everyone should chill before we end up with another pointlessly locked thread.

edited. getting soft, i guess.

I'm with mfb on this one.

It's not that he's arguing that they're not more powerful than other options at creation (point for point) its just that they're self-limiting: their availability limits the max ratings you can take at creation and their BP and nuyen cost tie up a significant amount of BPs which in turn can't be spent on other things. It's a trade-off, even if it seems unbalanced to you. Power foci are the magic equivalent of the high-end reflex enhancer bioware and cyberware in this respect; in most campaigns you're definitely better off picking it up at creation than saving up for a later implant because they're potentially more "useful" than most of the other 'ware available - is that a problem in your game?

I am also one for friendlier posts...

Now, I would like to very politely point you out towards this thread which discussed some crunchier addiction rules: Addiction thread

Then, If uncomfortable with power focus abuse, you can enforce such addiction rules, IIRC, we have decided then and there that foci had an addiction threshold of force/2, perhaps power foci could get their full force as a threshold, yes?


However, I have to declare that I haven't personally experienced any problems with foci so far, considering that I believe mages have to spend their money somehow and that the 3 spellcasting characters I have in my 3 groups are too busy playing the game to abuse anything. Good roleplaying goes a long way towards keeping the game balance.

One of the casters is a mage from the IOND, her power focus is a talisman made in the shape of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. It is a force 2 power focus and the was given to her by the order. She is now supposed to complete a quest for the order so they would teach her the mysteries of initiation. She wants to become an initiate in order to advance in the order. She is also trying to get a sustaining focus.

Another caster is a dwarf shaman, he bought his power focus from a chinese talismonger who looks exactly like the mystical goods shopkeeper in Gremlins. His power focus is called the "Head of Lo Pan" , It is in the shape of a shriveled human head and hangs in his belt by the head's hair. The head of Lo Pan is supposed to be the vessel that holds the angry spirit of an old chinese mage who was punished for his arrogance and now has to serve lesser men. That focus was special as it could be upgraded like cyberware by simply paying the monetary difference, rebonding the focus and paying the talismonger an extra fee to loose some the mystical ties that bind Lo Pan's will. The character in question has felt the presence of the lingering will of Lo Pan when he uses his focus so he is cautious. It is currently a Force 2 Power Focus and I doubt the character will risk upgrading it so far without becoming much more powerful himself. Never were there any rules or rolls mentioned as what would happen if lo pan got too powerful, just fluff and description of weird somatic effects.

Third character is a voodoo houngan and did not want a power focus. His focus of choice was a level 4 banishing focus that he could buy at a small discount from some friendly amazonian indians when he was there for a run we warmly named "Anaconda". Now the runners did stage a coup against their corporate bosses and aborted their mission while in the middle of the jungle. They also saved a Telestrian mole who was in their expedition and could get some money from that corp too.
The focus is a walking cane of black wood with a wooden skull on top, and it is known that the inside the stick there is an old human leg bone that used to belong to one of the tribe's medicine men -somehow spirits find that presence scary. This character follows Ghede and is now fighting a personal war against shedim spirits which he considers "abominations". His focus also proved invaluable fighting some angry nature spirits in the jungle and is expected to see much action again now that the group is travelling to the Yucatan's conflict zone (we are playing in 2062)

The players playing these characters and the other players of these groups have all been quite content so far and no one has ever complained about nobody abusing anything. Foci are quite similar to some cyber/bio pieces. The samurai need those it is much simpler to get them in character creation than in game, you only need to have a good supporting story to make it fun instead of "just another power focus" or "I happened to get Synaptic Accel 2"

Cheers,

Max

Edited in response to faster posters

If I don't take the Magician Quality, Is the Power Foci Too Useful to me?