What say you?

I see no actual issues with it personally; And, in fact, I rather like the idea...

Pretty sure its in the RAW already.

Steal it from SR3. Make sure it's Fair and Balanced™.

While I like the idea from a fluff point, I have two points of concern with it.

1) Isn't a tatto like a no-essence-loss implant ? As in, it becomes part of your own body and isnt a seperate item that can be enchanted ?

2) It might become a nuicance ever time you take some physical damage. "Ok, I got slashed up badly by that sword strike. Now, did that hit a tatto-free part of my skin or is my focus damaged ?" Probably a minor concern as this might be solved with a simple Edge test.

Honestly, I've always thought the implanted Foci idea was overrated. It's still vulnerable from the astral, and if it's inside or a part of you then it makes attacking it, or maybe just grabbing it and trying to leave, a painful experience.

So yeah, no essence loss but YOU can now be attacked from the astral whenever it's active. Sounds like a fair trade-off.

I'm figuring two health foci (full arm sleeve tats) at force 4 and one illusion foci (chest and back tat) at force 5. All runes.

The two health tats primarily for sustaining increase and increase reflexes, the illusion foci for sustaining physical mask.

Oh, that's what you mean. As long as you pay the same price and they follow all the same rules for foci.

Attacking a foci from the Astral just deactivates it. It doesn't damage you and they certainly can't "grab it and run off". Implanted foci just seem smart to me, enchanted cyberware, just enchant a bonescrew or surgical staple if you don't want to lose essence, tattoos and earrings for more superficial ones.

These are very expensive, in both nuyen and karma, why would you ever make them something that can be taken from you easily?

Honestly, if anyone's in a position to take away even my surface possessions, something has already gone horribly wrong. I'd have to be just as helpless as removing implants would require.

It's the same problem as with built in guns.
"DROP IT!" does not work . . so what happens if you don't listen to the nice angry voice telling you to do that?
The owner drops you, for good usually.
Skin-Poket for a Focus is a good idea though.
Also, you're going to make every ward-owner pretty angry pretty fast, if you walk around town.

You don't tell a Mage to drop anything, you need to knock him out and keep him that way or put magecuffs on him. Plus if your foci weren't on at the time of capture there's no way to ever know they were there. Only active foci have an astral presence.

I think it's hilarious that they have on/off switches.

Heh. The skin pocket is actually a really good idea. It'd be an utter bastard to notice - I'd probably give a few extra points on the threshold to detect it. And the idea of the astral being filled with the sound of breaking wards from the bull in the chinashop player is most entertaining.

Why would you break more wards with implanted foci as opposed to carried foci?

You wouldn't. I think he's just saying in general.

I'd only activate mine if I were about to get into a fight, or if I was somewhere where I knew the magical security was nil or shit.

I believe this was a meta-magic in third edition. Has it made its way into 4th yet I don't think so but see no reason why itshould not. I personally like it and can see the Yakuza just goingnuts with it.

Huh.

Why did I never think of this before? Geebuz, I've been playing SR since 1st edition and I honestly never thought of Foci tattoos. I do vaguely remember reading about the metamagic tatoos in 3rd, but wow...

K, this is SOOO going on the Chaos Mage I've been cooking up!

So lets say I have a tattooed power focus 5... what are the chances that someone will make a human skin lampshade out of me?

Those are for anchoring spells, not foci's and are mentioned in the description of anchoring metamagic.

Tattoos as foci sound like a pretty cool idea just like the various implanted jewerly does.

Well it's only 50,000 nuyen, so I'd say about the same chances that someone is murdered for their expensive cyberware. The real pain of power foci is the 8x force karma cost, and the new owner would still need to pay that to bind it.

Biggest problem with skin-foci?
Don't you even dare THINK about upgrading them . .
And do you remember what happens, if the physical component of a focus is damaged?
The focus is destroyed. Now you have such a nice tattoo on the equally nice leg of your equally nice female magician . . and you need to shave your legs to look all sexy.
You cut yourself. Congradulations, there goes your focus! And don't even get me started on Bullets and knives (and Cannons too) going your way in a regular fashion.

HUH?
Power focus is 25k per point of force

ork adept with "HATE" and "LOVE" (or WAR PIG) tattooed on his knuckles as unarmed weapon focus, anyone?

Nah an troll adept with "PITY" and "FOOL" and a mohawk.

Boo! you stole my pun!
Furthermore, Weapon-Foci have to come in the form of a Weapon made into a Focus.
OK, you COULD argue that Adept-Fists are weapons . . Especially on Orks and Trolls.
But why would you even do that?
There's adept-powers that completely replicate weapon focus with his own body.

for the extra dice ofcource.

That's what you have improved ability"punching stuff" for. You DO have improved ability"punching stuff" right? O.o

"fool ofcouce i have that power"
but that is limitied to 3 dice and the bonus from weapon foci is in top of that.

Right,
I was thinking of anchoring not foci. In which case pretty interesting idea.

And totaly Canon.
One of Frostys Legbones is enchanted.

Well, perhaps not as a tattoo, but in the case of making a piece of cyber a foci (or any other essence paid object) then by RAW it is consider a part of the character. So yes, attacking an active essence paid foci can damage the person, but only until the foci is disrupted. After all, if you made your cyberarm into a foci then the arm is duel natured while active and subject to attack, just the same as if a spirit punched the arm when the character is astrally perceiving. It's a considered an intrinsic part of them and it is on the astral.

Likewise if you made your gun into a foci then it can be knocked from your hands in the physical realm from the astral while it is active. While attacking a foci directly definitely does deactivate it, it is not necessarily the only thing that happens. Regular combat rules apply to astral combat per p193 SR4A, so attacking a part of a person's body can cause them damage, weapons can be disarmed, etc.

The tattoo in this case isn't essence paid, so your game can decide what it likes in it's case. Me, it makes sense to me that some things still become a part of you even without essence drops, such as tattoos, but I can see the point in an argument for not playing it that way.


As for tattoo magic in SR4, there is some mention of it in Vice I think, but I don't think there are any mechanics associated with it (or anywhere else in that book, not it's intention).

Tattoos actually heal really well. And the fact that it's a blob of ink should make it more resistant to something that would be considered "damage." I'd say unless you cut out a big chunk of the tat that it would still retain it's power. Take enough scars or bullets and the force might drop down a notch?

Well... That is what the Silky Skin Treatrment is for...
Remove those scars, and restore the look of your tattoos at the same time I always say...

Then wait till you have extended masking

I don't see what you're basing this on, from what I can see attacking a focus' astral form doesn't even damage the focus. it just disrupts it. If I manabolt your magic wand focus' astral presence it does not get destroyed, it just turns off. And this makes sense since the focus isn't a living thing, and mana spells cannot damage non-living things it just "kills" the astral form a focus creates when you turn it on. Hence why Digital Grimoire has a special spell to both disrupt the focus and impose a "cool down" on it while it "heals" the damage, because otherwise a magician can just turn it right back on.

I don't even know if you can knock things away from people, we had this discussion when someone was talking about making his car into a focus, going astral with it and ramming some poor dual natured guy. I don't think there's any momentum in a plane where you can go from 0 to 6,000 kph instantly, with a thought.

In any case, even if you can damage a person by targeting their implanted commlink focus, I don't really see that as a vulnerability considering you'll have your astral perception (or projection) going actively fighting this astral entity so it could just as easily hit you directly.

Regarding killing you for our power focus, yep you're right it'd be 125,000 nuyen, but that's still up there with things like synaptic boosters or move by wire systems. I think what generally dissuades the muggers for trying for a payday is that anyone who has something like this is a badass way out of their league.

No, you could not ground out since SR3.
Attacking a Focus only hurts the focus, and nothing more.

Basing it on SR4A p 193 astral combat rules and that essence paid pieces of cyber/bio/whatever are considered a part of the person's whole. Otherwise mages couldn't use cybereyes to spell target LOS spells. It's more then just a focus once it has been essence paid, it's also a part of the character at that point. Making this object that is a part of yourself duel natured means that you are putting a part of yourself on the astral. When the character isn't on the astral this one part still is, so long as it's still duel natured.


There was GOING to be some new rules on this in a book that got scrapped, but yea, I think once apon a time we were going to see rule about running people over in the astral. Sadly that magic source book won't see the light of day anymore if I recall correctly. Shame because it sounded like there were some neat tricks in it.


This in a nutshell. It doesn't really come up for any mage that's acting smart. It's just a vulnerability that exists if the mage ignores the astral, and few who do live long. Also, this only applies to essence paid objects and mages tend to not use those quite as much. Honestly, the whole thing likely won't ever come up in 98% of games.


No, nothing more when the focus is just a focus. When the focus is something that is another object governed by it's own set of rules then those rules also apply, it's just for most things those rules mean nothing on the astral. For instance, making a gun into a focus. It can still shoot bullets because making it into a focus did not negate the existing rules on it being a firearm. Likewise, if a cyberarm is made into a focus it does not stop being a cyberarm and applicable to it's own set of rules. Since damaging an essence paid object can damage the person, then damaging that same thing on the astral can damage the person.

Tagz, I don't dispute your logic, but a lot of people are going to run into a problem as it goes into a lot of fluff things not specifically spelled out in the fourth edition rules.

It sounds like there's a problem here: does an astral actually damage a focus, or not? If not, it doesn't matter if the focus is part of your body. If so, then the question remains to be considered.

No you cant damage a foci, only distrupt it.

Exactly.
And since SR3, NOTHING you do on the astral can affect meat space . .

So, it doesn't matter at all to talk about 'becoming dual-natured' or whatever. Done.

Well, not really. Once again, that's what happens to a focus that is just a focus. We're talking about a case where it's more then just a focus, it's an essence paid item. If the attack is made by something that causes damage then it should cause damage to things that can take damage, and anything paid in essence can.

Also, Stahlseele, I would direct you to ANOTHER form of construct on the astral known as Alechera. Additionally, mana storms are cases where "regions where raw and chaotic mana actually leaks into the physical world, causing spontaneous elemental and illusory manifestations". Spirit materialization, inhabitation, possession, etc are all powers used in the astral that have physical world effects. Your statement that nothing on the astral can effect the physical is not quite true. There are some specific, rare, or unusual circumstances where the astral does have an effect on the physical.
Also, consider I didn't say that the attack suddenly jumped into the physical world, it's a case of attacking a target like a astrally perceiving character, the character still feels the pain on the physical world despite the attack being on the astral because they are duel natured.


Now, funny thing is, in all this I found an actual argument against my interpretation that nobody here has mentioned that actually is a good argument against my case. And that is a separation of astral forms. Foci have an astral form. Projectors and Perceivers have one. Spirits have one. Anything duel natured has one. What happens when a single object or thing is governed by TWO forms? Does it merge? Are they separate? Can two different forms occupy the same location at the same time in astral space considering forms are substantial on the astral? If someone can provide a proper argument here I may concede this one, but I'm of the mindset that the forms would become permanently merged in this case as the object is becoming a part of the whole and the forms are also a part of that whole of being. I don't think there is a definitive RAW answer to this but I'd love to hear some opinions.

I still don't see how an implanted focus opens your body to damage. The focus alone wouldn't take damage, and your body alone wouldn't take damage. An implanted focus does not make you Dual-Natured, Astrally-Percieving, etc., unless the rules say so. It would be an instance of a side effect being vastly larger than the main effect, and not something to be simply interpreted into reality.

Your main premise is that something new and wildly different is the result, and I'm not convinced to grant that, is all.

Essence or not, you cannot target a physical object (the Essence paid whatever) from the Astral... and if you are physical already, there is no reason to target something paid with essence... you can already target the meat as it is...

As for the Astral Forms argument, I was under the impression that it went without saying...

I think you're pushing it a tad too far : if focus where that fragile, weapon focus would be worthless : nick the blade on an opponent's bone and 'poof' a gone focus. And forget about notches on the handle to count kills. Same for jewelry, a mere scratch would ruin them...

The tatoo getting sliced in hals with a sword is another matter, but I'd think something as minute as a shaving cut won't be enough to ruin the focus.

Whilst I would agree that something small like a nick or a small cut it unlikly to disrupt a focus I would say that taking physical damage to the area of the tatt (heaven forbid its fire / acid damage) would proberbly cause some issues.

But more worrying to me would be any situation where you are captured, having the enermy skin you to make sure you dont have access to some of your more fun abilities is nasty.

Also something that has come up in one of my runs the mage might not be allowed to go some places if they have a weapons and focus at the door lock up ( we actually had this issue at a Johnson meet, The place was pretty high class and had a secure lock up for weapons and such much like a cloakroom nowdays)

Say hello to the Masking metamagic.

Extended Masking anyways...