I had a situation in my last game where the party magician was Astrally perceiving and had two foci active, a Force 4 power focus and a Force 3 health sustaining focus. Two spirits came after him in the Astral, and as soon as his action came up he shifted his perception back to physical so the spirits had to materialize. However, I decided that they would attack his foci, then materialize. I just handled it as if they got hit they deactivated, but are there any rules for this? He couldn't see the attack (since he wasn't astrally perceiving), and his defense test failed, but would the spirit actually do damage to the focus and possibly break it (causing much anguish to the mage) or would the astral form just go away for a bit?

Sortof. Digital Grimoire has a spell called Disrupt [Focus] that gives guidelines for damage to foci. It's not an ideal situation. We're hoping to clear that up in the future.

I am surprised that's not covered by 4th ed. 2nd and 3rd both had rather complex rules for that.

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Double Post

There is a lot of contention on the forums about this very topic...

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Aye, it basically boils down to whether or not it's "fair" to cost the character's Karma when they choose to leave their shiny new foci defenseless.

Personally I figure that since we are told that foci are dual natured constructs and that dual natured constructs can be attacked in Astral Combat, then when foci are attacked they should go "pop" and be no-more.

i can second that. and there aren't so many ways of "one-shot-killing" a focus. so the mage has at least the possibilty to deactivate his shiny stuff and look for what's going on.

the thing about "ruining karma" till is a bit ... tricky.

In my opinion, the worst one could do to a Focus on the Astral Plane (if attacking its astral form is viable) is deactivate it.

Bye
Thanee

When it happened to me (Focus destroyed in Astral) it was not that big a deal... Yes it was expensive to replace (and I never did), it was a Force 6 Weapon Focus, but by that time (I had over 200 Karma by then) I really did not need the Focus, which is why it went away (according to my GM)... And I really agreed with the GM, so null Perspiration...

If it is done for a reason, then I have no real issue with it... if it is because the GM is being a Prick, then it is a whole different ballgame...

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The focus itself cannot be destroyed from the astral. There the astral reflection of it can be destroyed, which is tantamount to deactivating it. To destroy the focus, the attacker must deal with the device itself, on the physical plane.

Reactivating the focus can be simple if the character is in contact with the focus. But if the character has projected and traveled away from her meat body and material focus, then she has to get back home before she can reactivate it. So under certain circumstances, deactivating a focus can be a real problem for the owner.

Maybe i'm in the minority heree but i do allow the destruction of focus and the grounding of spells through foci in my 4th edition game. Of course evidently i'm in the minority, and certainly not one shared by the design crew that maybe, just maybe, magic use should have a downside and not be the infinite win game and path to ultimate power.

I agree with grounding, always liked that it was possible. I just don't think defeating a Focus on the Astral should destroy it (or the binding). That's too easy.

Bye
Thanee

Damn I hated grounding. I like the simplified system. Astral vs astral, physical vs physical, next to no crossover. Saves me a few headaches. Now clean up the casting through electronics and fiber optic garbage and I'll be happy. Cause damn I hate fiber optic casting.

Can't cast through Electronics... Only optic or Fiber-optic...

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Aye but I think Ayeohx wants a clear cut line drawn in the sand of "only what you can see with your eyes", which wouldn't actually be that bad of an idea, it would make any Mage that didn't get cybereyes even stupider than they already are though.

This may be very true indeed...

Though you could get the qualities for Thermo and Lowlight and stay pure... only 10 points or so...

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True but then you've pretty much used up all of your Quality points for very little gain, not to mention that with a ban on optics, scopes wouldn't work either so the only way you'd ever get vision mag is with cybereyes.

What Ban on Optics? From what I remember, Typical Scopes (not all, but most) are optical...

Oh, Wait... You are talking about Ayeohx banning them? At that point, then yeah, only Cybereyes... But then, OPtical magnification is mostly irrelevant for spellcasting anyway, as LOS is LOS, you do not have to actually identify your target, just see it... even at two miles and flat terrain, with little cover or concealment you can SEE a walking person... Try it sometime, you would be surprised... of course, any contours over that distance may provide spots where you would not be able to observe, but that would be true even if you had a good scope or binoculars...

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Aye, I don't disagree per say, but since vision mods apply to spellcasting mere LOS isn't really enough as being able to "see" someone at a distance will still induce severe dicepool modifiers to the Mage's spellcasting pool.

That is true... but at any real distance, the target will really get no awareness of the impending spell, so losing a few dice for range and vision penalties isn't all that bad in the long run... (No body dodges the Power/Mana Bolt after all)

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Indeed! Sorry for not being clear Tymeaus. I don't understand why you can't cast through your nightvision goggles but you can nail some guy 10 stories below you with the weak ass fiber optic crap. It was some "magic can do it too!" crap for building security that was poorly thought out. Ever since, what was it, the Security Handbook, magic has been suffering from this LoS/fiberoptic clusterfuck. It doesn't make any sense and they've tried rehashing LoS and magical casting just to accomodate fiber casting every since. I'm a stickler for rules and continuity but I'd be fine looking the other way while they rip this crap out of the system. And no, none of this crap about "If you don't like it don't use it". New players will see it and ask questions and I don't want to explain the above. Rant-mode is never a good way to start a gaming session.

Anyhow, sorry for the thread hijack. As for targeting active foci, they are considered dual natured, right? I don't like the idea of destroying foci but disrupting them seems fine.

Update: After studying up a bit more I don't know. I guess you can affect an active foci from astral. So my question is what exactly do astral entities hit when they attack dual-natured entities? Are they attacking their spirits as in the case of projecting mages? I suppose they are since it's not physically manifesting, correct? uhg... getting a candy bar while you guys clear this up for me.

Update #2: When spirits are "killed" aren't they just disrupted and sent back to the metaplanes? Isn't that the same thing that happens when they are pushed through barriers? So, using that logic, wouldn't it be okay to assume that when a foci is "'disrupted" is just deactivates in the same way as when it's pushed through a barrier? I know I'm reaching here but it seems like a compromise that everyone could deal with.

Ayeohx the rules really don't say either way, although personally I figure that if attacking a mage's astral form causes real damage to the body then attacking the foci's astral form should also cause real damage to the foci in the same manner.

Tymeaus Jalynsfein if we were playing in a "world class dicepool" game I'd have no choice other than to agree, but at reasonable dicepools it doesn't take all that large of a modifier to really screw the mage over.

No Problems... Though I don't really have a problem with the Fiber-optic magical security system... The gist is that Electronic medium does not give you access to their aura, while fiber-optic does, as you are still seeing the original natural light with your own sensorium... with electronics, it is artificially generated...

as for teh Foci, you are attacking its astral signature... now, normally magic cannot cross barriers... ie, you cannot cast a spell on the astral and have it affect something on the physical as teh astral barrier prevents this... unfortunately, when you are discussing dual-natured beings and "equipment" this rull no longer applies as tehy exist on both planes... there is no barrier at that point, which is why teh Mage can cast into astral space if he is perceiving... now, when doing so, from either direction, the target takes physical damage... so it makes sense that if you target a physical object from astral space that is dual natured, you will damage the aura (Mage has to cast a Mana Spell in Astral Space) and potentially destroy it... Same rules as applied to Mages astrally perceiving... if he is hit by a Mana Bolt, he takes PHYSICAL damage... What is Good for the Goose, is Good for the Gander...

Does this screw a magically active character with Foci that is incapable of Astrally Perceiving (Adepts, Mystic Adepts and Aspected Mages without Astral Perception)? Of course it does, that is the price you pay to give uyp access to the Astral Realms...

Not everyone agrees of course, and your mileage may vary...

Keep the Faith

When spirits are "killed" aren't they just disrupted and sent back to the metaplanes? Isn't that the same thing that happens when they are pushed through barriers? So, using that logic, wouldn't it be okay to assume that when a foci is "'disrupted" is just deactivates in the same way as when it's pushed through a barrier? I know I'm reaching here but it seems like a compromise that everyone could deal with.

Spirits are not native, nor are they really made up of material from our space... they use magic to assume a form that can interact with our reality, but in the end, they are from a different reality, they cannot be killed in our reality, and so are sent back to their own reality (Where they CAN be killed if you so chose to pursue it)...

Disrupting a Foci (pushing it through an astral barrier or using the spell in the Digital Grimoire) is very different from actaully "Damaging" its intrinsic aura... that is what a Damaging Spell would do, Damage it's aura... now foci are pretty resilient, if you cannot destroy it in a pass, it regenerates to full capabilities/"Health" track... and I have even seen instances in games where the GM assumed that the magic actually fought back (it did so in SR2), so the attack roll was opposed, much like counterstrike worked in SR2/3... whomever won scored damage against the other... I actually liked this as it made destroying Foci somehwat of a challenge, and had the potential to actually hurt/kill the attacker if they misjudged the foci's power level...

as I said, not everyone likes this option...

Keep the Faith

Naw, because using that logic when an astrally projecting Mage is killed then he should simply be "disrupted" and sent back to his body until his buddies get the smelling salts.

Even extra mellow Ravor (Yep a certain pretty young lady and I are set to move beyond merely flirting back and forth at her work, or would be if there weren't a few minor issues that need dealt with first, oh well, tis only a few short months.) has a problem with your purposed compromise as it isn't really an issue for a mage to simply reactivate said focus and at that point you might as well declare them as unattackable in the first place.

I love the ability to attack foci from astral space... but that is just me...

Keep the Faith Extra Mello Ravor...

Congrats...

Hmm... that's some pretty decent reasoning there, Tymeaus. Barriers don't permanently break when you attack them though, do they? Don't they just regen the turn after or something? And you mentioned the foci regen but when? Do they regen like barriers? I'm just trying to find what they are most akin to so I can apply similiar logic. If they just are not similiar to anything else and there are no rules that say if they are destroyed or not then I think I prefer simply deactivating them. I'd like to add a house rule that says they are down for an hour or so after an attack but I'm trying to keep rule changes and extensive house rules at bay for now.

If I remember correctly once broken by actual attacks barriers remain broken, but I'm feeling too lazy to double check that at the moment.

And thanks Tymeaus Jalynsfein.

Ok, I decided that I wasn't feeling quite that lazy after all, so here's the skinny as I understand it after doing a quick skim, the section on Mana Barriers are rather vague by itself, but it does specifically say that with the exception of regenning Mana Barriers are to be treated as normal physical Barriers are so I would guess that means we are supposed to use the same rules to destroy them and once destroyed they are gone forever.

Exactly, once they have been destroyed, tehy remain destroyed... if, for whatever reason, the barrier is not destroyed, at the end of the Combat turn in which it is damaged, it regenerates to full capacity...

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And to tie it back to the topic on hand it seems to me that using the same rules should make foci tough enough that actually destroying one should be relatively rare but possible if a Mage is unable to defend against Astral Threats.

Sounds reasonable to me...

Me Too...

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