Is there a way to stop a focus once it's been activated? For example, SpellSlinger is sustaining an Improved Illusion spell through a focus. MagicFingers recognizes this and decides to stop the sustaining of the spell. In another example, BloodyPulp is swinging a katana weapon focus around and MagicFingers sees that as a potential hazard to his spirits, so he decides to render the focus impotent.

I am wondering if there is a way to render a focus useless temporarily or even permanently. Thanks!

Walk up to him and bitchslap it off his person.

You can counter-spell sustained spells. As for a weapons focus bar some inventive disarm plan not much I can think of by RAW.

You can also attack a focus in astral combat to disrupt (i.e. deactivate) it, as an active focus is dual-natured.

They can use their next complex action to turn it back on, of course.
Still quite effective against a sustained improved initiative spell, though.

I'm also fairly sure there are rules for passing through astral barriers knocking foci off their game.

-DrZaius

Ther's also a Disrupt [Focus] conbat spell in Digital Grimoire.

I forget about that PDF I on it but its contents always slip my mind.

Since astral combat works like physical melee, disarms should be possible.

Yup... that will work!

Generally pretty hard to disarm something that is being worn, though...

Keep the Faith

I really miss grinding spells into focus...

Back in the day (1st and 2nd Ed), you could cast a spell directly into a focus with no resistance and use it like a bomb. Really fun, but it's not in the rules anymore. It was pretty much the only balance from having the mage/shaman have 30 Spell Foci with every Increase (whatever) spell and outrunning/shooting/fighting the street sam.

That is one rule that I DON"T miss at all... There are other balances in place to keep that from happening in 4th Edition...

Keep the Faith

Oh blah...I'm keeping it around as an NPC metamagic (IE/Dragon stuff for now). Bastards in my group are a mage, a hacker, and three friggin' physads (melee, gunkata, and sniper). I personally am looking forward to having someone pop all their foci (and yes, this group will light like the Time Square xmas tree on the astral until they learn Masking) like magically explosive popcorn.

Just a note... Masking does not hide the auras of either spells or Foci... that takes an advanced Metamagic called Extended Masking (which, of course, requires Masking)...and then it will only cover a number of extra auras (Spell /andor Foci equal to your Initiate Grade)... See Page 60 of Street Magic...

Keep the Faith

I liked the old rules for Foci addiction too, which kept you from having too many foci, which was set by your un-foci-augmented magic rating. That has also gone away. As it is, right now the only thing curtailing foci is the karma dump for it, which has gotten cheaper in some cases, and using the SR4A rules, can be much cheaper than actually increasing your magic attribute. Pretty much any mage that doesn't start with a bonded power foci is either doing it for a good RPing reason, or needs to take some more time building their character.

Good news for you! Focus Addiction is still in SR4. Have a look at Street Magic.

-CJ

Not the same thing. Just like how Geasa in 4th Edition are a joke.

I've seen this a couple times so far... and I think there's a mistaken perception. According to the rules: "No magician may bind more foci than her Magic attribute. Regardless of the number of foci a magician may possess, only one focus may add its Force to any single dice pool. The total Force of all bonded foci is capped at the character’s Magic x 5."

Also: "The number of foci you can have active at one time is equal to your Logic."

These sound like pretty good balancing rules to me. For example, one of my charcaters (a fairly new 'runner) Has a Magic rating of 5, and a 3 Logic. He has a Force 2 Power Focus, a Force 3 Sustaining (Health) focus, and a Force 2 Sustaining (Health) Focus. He uses the two sustaining foci to sustain Increased Reflexes and Increased Body. He's run through about a half-dozen game sessions so far and he doesn't seem unbalancing to the party at all.

I suppose if you look strictly at the char's Magic rating, his/her foci potential can seem pretty daunting, but when this is balanced by his/her Logic attribute, things start looking pretty balanced again. Also, these foci are expensive, both in karma and in nuyen.

Just my thoughts, anyway...

And that is why logic based traditions are comparable to charisma and intuition based traditions.

If your really irritable guards with tanks of FABIII. that should liven things up.

The new version of focus addiction is completely different from the previous one. In the older version, if you carried to much foci, it essentially became a crutch. Your magic rating was depreciated, reflecting that you relied too much upon the foci. Essentially, you weren't flexing your magical muscle enough, because you relied on the focus. Like building regular muscle, you use it or you use it.

The new version of foci addiction is basically "I like my foci. My own, my precious" blah blah blah. Seriously weaker. As .... Ol' Scratch... mentioned, Geasa have also been changed a lot. There were some changes in 4th edition magic that I liked (not have to buy up spell ranks in force. That sucked) There were some things that I hated (I still miss grounding too). I've played a number of mages, so I have a pretty good idea of where their strengths and weaknesses are. Like a lot of others, I also remember some of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities they had by design, and I miss them. Magic should be dangerous (IMO) and a lot of its inherent danger has been removed. I personally do not like that.

Foci have only gotten better. Costs in karma have gone down. Cost in money have gone down. Their vulnerabilities have gone down. To balance that, they made high force foci harder to design and build, and they removed a few. Not enough of a fix IMO.I would say the easiest way to reign in some of those problems the OP has with foci is to bring back some of those goodies. Its not canon, but it was.

I like that last phrase... very suggestive.

As to money costs... everything in SR4 is cheaper as compared to earlier editions. It used to be that you could get up to 1 Million in starting funds... now you can only get (without qualities) a quarter of that.


Just a thought here, but maybe magic is supposed to be getting easier to use--the mana curve is on the rise, after all. It's the same in other areas of the Fourth World. Look at the Matrix, for example. "Back in the day" you used to have Deckers and Riggers. These were highly specialized 'runners, like mages generally are. Now, however, a 'runner can outfit himself with some fairly basic equipment, spend some karma on the appropriate skills, and you have yourself a competent hacker who never really had to specialize. Heck, the Matrix is becoming so "easy to use" (from one perspective) that it's now possible for some folk to use it without any equipment at all (Technomancers)!

Even the use of cyberware is becoming easier to install... anyone remember what a Move-By-Wire rating 3 system used to cost in both nuyen and Essence. By comparrison, the modern MBW system is downright affordable (175K... I'm honestly not sure how much Essence the old version took, but the modern version takes 5)!

I like the IC perspective. I honestly chalk it up to the sad trend of video games getting easier these days (Contra FTW). Too many games where you can save mid level or die an infinite number of times ( looking at you Force Unleashed). I think streamlining has led to some things being a little too easy as they got rid of some of the rules for the sake of speed. My opinion.

In this I disagree... Very little functional difference, in my opinion, between Geasa in 3rd and 4th... and actually, 4th eliminated the "I will just take a Geas so I do not lose a point of Magic because of Augmentation" thing, which was all sorts of broken in my opinion

Keep the Faith

I have never had a need to go past my logic in focuses. Yeah they are cheaper and easier this edition, but they are still damn expensive in money and sometimes karma.

Take a logic 3. Power focus and 2 sustaining focuses, that seems fairly solid to me and actually overpowered in my book. Sure they are obvious but initiation is absurdly cheap so if you want to get focuses initiative a few times and take masking and extended masking. Now you have 4 passes all the time, have +4 dice to all your mojo and I don't know +4 reaction or something, or maybe you have a centering focus and drain is a total non-issue for you. I guess yeah theoretically I might need more than 3 focuses but it comes up a heck of a lot less often and a lot later in the game than I need more than 3 spirits. Add in that logic is a virtually dead stat for everything else you might do unlike intuition and charisma and the logic traditions fall a little flat IMO. And heck the one small thing it has Arcana people constantly try to change to magic.

I think they should have kept grounding just modify it a bit so it is not something players abuse with spirits etc. It kept a fairly hard limit on focuses, and yes focus addiction was much harsher in previous editions and helped keep focuses in check.

Counter spell the sustained spell, and mana-static the weapon focus.

Pretty sure its an 'optional rule', and one I wouldn't bother with. It doesn't make much sense in terms of any form of explanation for how you actually become addicted to it.

I really liked that however. To be honest I'm not sure why I DON'T lose magic for having an arm hacked off, but I do for putting a cyber one in its place, when we've shown you decrease psychological stress, and increase mental health with prosthetics that allow for sensory feedback from the amputated limb.

And that is a very good thing.
At least they got cyberware prices down to a reasonable level.

I don't know it makes enough sense to me for the why. It just isn't much of a penalty once you are. Sure maybe twice willpower would of made more sense, but using magic makes enough sense and it can grow with the campaign.