I was working on full magician builds and toyed around with the Focused Concentration Quality. What role you want your mage or shaman to have on the team matter here, but assuming you to have some supporting role with your magic in the thick of the action, then that likely involves relying on spellcasting more than alchemy or rituals. Then you will likely have several very useful spells that have sustain (or permanent) durations. Be it health spells to provide boosts of reflexes or attributes or combat sense, or be it illusions of all kinds, detection spells, and a lot of powerful manipulation spells as well, spells with sustain duration play a major role for any decent support spellcaster.

Of course, you will eventually have access to sustaining foci. But these can be hard to get at high rating (costly in both nuyen and karma, and high avail) and they have to be different per spell category. Bonded foci can also complicate things when you want to go unnoticed in the astral, pass through wards, and for avoiding focus addiction and staying under focus limits. Fewer sustaining foci means more of other powerful foci too. Bounded spirits can also sustain spells for you, but for a very short duration at a time, and they too are costly and have to be of the right type for the spell category.

So the bottom line is that Focused Concentration ends being one of the most powerful positive qualities to get as a spellcaster, second maybe only to the very cheap mentor quality. Focused concentration can be taken at a whopping rating 6 (max, for 24 karma, vs 12 karma + nuyen cost for a rating 6 sustaining focus in one spell category only) at chargen, or at rating 5 along with a mentor. It can even be taken at lower levels and it will be worth the karma investment to buy it at higher levels later (costs 8 karma per additional rating of the quality during gameplay). This quality gives amazing flexibility to your mage, who can use any sustain or permanent spell of any school and let the quality hold it at no cost (that's right! back like in the old days, not just reducing from -2 to -1 dice pool modifier).

Well worth the cost and a no-brainer for standard builds, don't you think?

With reagents you might not even need more than one rank. For spells that scale purely on hits force 1 is enough.

I haven't kept up with the dispelling rules, but I'd presume that would make short work of such shenanigans. Perhaps not, though.

-DrZ

This may be true for some spells, even though I'm not a big fan. One problem with very low force spells is that they are a joke to dispel and that they won't go through wards easily. So if you spend resources (reagents or edge) each time you need to cast them, it might end up being costly. The points in the opening post about limits on foci, and needing to have one focus per spell category, masking and so on, still apply if you use a lot of reagents on spells with force 1, which still end up costing money over time.

Also, any spell with an area (!), including a lot of detection spells, barriers and so much more, as well as other spells like increase attribute (very powerful), levitate and other spells that probably will come to mind later, all need a decent force to be really effective.

And in the end, having focused concentration available to use at the same time as your little trick is still well worth the karma points.

Something I noticed the other day, but most of the detection spells are a kind of pain in the ass to use effectively. Okay, you cast a spell... not to detect whatever, but to give the caster a new sense. Additionally the Force of the spell usually acts as a Limit when rolling to use this new sense (which is often contested to boot), so the reagent/edge cheese won't work. In addition, since you have to sustain the spell, you're at a -2 to actually use the new sense unless it's in a sustaining focus (with the attendant issues), or if the mage has Focused Concentration.

I kinda see that if anyone wants to play a more Occult Investigator type of mage who specializes in detection spells, Focused Concentration is almost mandatory.

Focused Concentration is also one of the biggest reasons to not go MysAd, due to the costs of trying to maximize Power Points and Focused Concentration, while at the same time attempting to round out the character.

I agree, although MysAd is an whole other problem altogether -_- And also you can actually get both focused concentration rating 3, mentor spirit, and 6 power points at chargen if you get 25 points of negative qualities, not too crippling. You can reduce to 5 power points initially and get FC5 in order to not pay too much double karma for qualities during gameplay, and spend your first 5 karma on your 6th power point later.

Couple of things: You seemed to have missed the "round out the character" bit. If you're spending all your Karma on power points and FC, you're gonna have some issues you don't get to patch over. Second, the PP for Karma thing is chargen only, you cannot buy that last point later.

Thanks for the precision, good call. My main point here isn't about mystic adepts, however. Maybe it shows that focused concentration is more of a non-mystic full mage advantage?

Big part of it, yeah. That <=50 Karma is actually a pretty big add for a full mage; losing 60 percent of that for a mage build hurts.

Yes, if you insist on a mentor spirit then it's very hard to cram into a mystic adept with focused concentration unless you sacrifice an extra PP.

That said, mentor spirits are largely overrated. And don't fit all character concepts well. You get either 0.5PP of pre-chosen adept powers, or +2 dice to a narrow magician skill use. And then +2 dice to a non-magical skill. And you also get a big drawback if RP'ed correctly.

For 5 karma I can get another full PP as a mystic adept or for 5 I can get 0.5PP and a questionable benefit and drawback? Also, it's an option to pay 10karma later for the mentor spirit after play starts but you can't ever buy that last foregone PP.


That said in the official missions SR5 campaign I joined to playtest things for myself. I did go with mystic adept combat mage to get a good handle on how good/bad spells are now (and combat spells in particular)... as well as magic in general. I did go with 6PP(30) and Focused Conccentration 5(20) as the starting karma expenditure. I looked hard at a mentor spirit and decided it wasn't worth it and just grabbed the extra full PP instead.

For those curious... A Magic, B Attributes, C Race, D Skills, E resources. With the BGC in play starting he's rolling 12 -2 = 10 dice on most everything around Chi-town. With 7 edge to back him up when he needs the boost on dice or drain.

You're horribly missing the point: PP and Focused Concentration make it very difficult to fit ANYTHING else in, and that can be a pretty serious issue. Resources E, for example, is typically a poor idea for most Mages (and with no Karma to spend on nuyen could leave you completely and utterly screwed), since it means missing out on Power Foci (I expect a LOT of Edge 3 Human Mages as SR5 goes on).

Building a dedicated full mage with skills E can be done, to an extent. It means you end up with resources and race at C/D. SKills suffer a lot, and you are not too well-rounded at all, but it's definitely doable. It's more or less pointless to have skills at D anyway. Resources C is pretty awesome for foci and all sorts of gadgets you might want, as well as tons of reagents to be used notably on binding spirits. Race C allows you to play perhaps a decently built elf, ork or dwarf, which is fun, or go for the full 7 edge, which is also pretty awesome. So no, I don't think skills C is required, making resources D sort of required and race E. There are other options, at least for full magicians.

As for MysAd builds.. well they're pretty straightforward and boring imo. MysAds are THE chesse archtype right now, I don't really care that much what they need to do to be built efficiently.

mystic adepts don't need focused concentration as much. not that it isn't useful, mind you, but if you can get adept centering you can center those penalties away... eventually, that is (obviously, there are limits, and if there are other penalties present that increases the value of focused concentration as well... not saying FC is *never* good for a mystic adept, i'm just saying that a mystic adept does have other tools available to help deal with it).

but in any event, with 7 edge it's fairly likely you can get by with focused concentration 1 and load the spells that are not force-dependent into it.

(note: contrary to an earlier statement, the force of your spells has no impact whatsoever on your ability to bring them through wards. it's your net hits that determines that. not sure about dispelling, since i'm afb and haven't had to check those rules recently).

Sorry Rhat... but you know not of what you speak here.


Power foci are nice... and I'm definitely going to find one after play starts... but to give an idea the char already has a pile of cash, after starting with about 1000 in the bank. Money is generally the easiest asset to come by, karma is the hardest! I would expect it to take 5 or 6 sessions til I have the money to buy one (as well as getting some other necessities).

Power foci are cheaper now than in prior editions (18k per point instead of 25k, and also cheaper to bond) ... the only hard part is finding one under the availability rules... It's not the cost of a reasonably strong power foci I'm worried about (54k to 72k), it's the karma to bond (18 to 24). The bigger problem in an official missions campaign is actually the availability rules for buying. But even that on a cost/benefit basis is pretty easy to justify... 48 karma for initiation and magic 7 and one more die or 24 karma for 4 more dice on pretty much all magic tests.


One thing that SR5 got right is it's no longer a stupidly urgent thing to min/max a char to buy the power focus in chargen (possibly restricted quality)... just to save you from needing to spend 16 or 32 karma to bind it later instead of 2 or 4BP to bond it. Now the cost is always in karma and always the same whether done in chargen or not.


Jaid:
Adept centering doesn't work like you think it does.

Adept centering only works on physical or combat skills. It won't allow you to ignore a sustaining penalty while you cast another spell or use a non-combat skill like perception/assensing/driving/decking/etc.

And yes the force of a spell does affect if it comes through a ward or not... ignoring your comments about pushing through a ward shouldn't set off alarm bells (I disagree and the rules are unclear on that point I think we both agree). Read the section immediately following... if you roll and barely make it through the ward with yourself. Every spell and magical item on you is pushed through the ward with you. It needs to fight the ward on it's own (Force of ward vs Force of effect). (Astral Intersections, p316)

If you push through a ward with an alchemical preparation the preparation may very well be spoiled and dispelled by the ward. Similarly if you have 1 rank in focused concentration and an edge cast spell sustained by it... it may drop if you barely press through.

Remember wards don't physically stop you... they can't support your weight if you stand on them or anything of the like. The ward is more like a mental thing... a line in the sand your kind of mentally compelled not to cross. That doesn't mean the troll can't pick you up and force you through it... you just may very well end up unconscious when he does and the ward wins the opposed test.

And while you're trying to get that power focus, the guy who started with one gets to save towards a Centering Focus, or a Counterspelling Focus, or a Sustaining Focus, while being a better mage. I do know of what I speak here. And Resources E without Karma conversion means you actually miss out on VITAL things for any character, not just mage stuff - things like a not-terrible fake SIN, for example.

To go through a ward, you are limited by the number of active foci and spells you have on. Focused concentration doesn't take any slot, while each focus and spell does, requiring one more net hit for each of those. If you don't play tricks on the force of your spell, you can also just decide to drop a spell and recast it, if drain is low for it. But yeah, the force doesn't in itself affect going through the barrier, but it affects the cost of recasting (edge, reagents).

Yes Rhat... so lets turn the chargen around then....

Lets say I had gone with priority e race... then what... end up with about 50 or 60k in resources... enough for the starting focus but not the karma to bind it... And you end up with a human with 3 edge.

That's assuming you bump up skills to pri c. I guess you could go with Pri C resouces but then again... exactly what are you getting as a mage that you need that much? I suggest you actually take a look at the focus prices in the core book... they're damned cheap now compared to before.


Instead I have priority c race... in my case human with 7 edge (almost a Mr Lucky... first time I've ever tried that character type... it is very nice with the speed at which edge refreshes)... instead of always getting an extra 2 or 3 dice... I can get 7 with exploding 6's when I need it. Also I'm not running smack into the borked magic addiction rules in SR5.


Instead I have a force 5 sustaining focus built into me which doesn't care about school of magic, doesn't care about magic addiction. I want to sustain an illusion no problem... I want to protect my group against the enemy mage with a mana barrier for 'counterspelling' no problem. Detection spell... or even simply covering up that dumpstatted charisma with a force 5 increase Cha to cha1(5) while I wander around town... no problem.


If that hypothetical powermage of yours wants to get the same benefit... he needs to spend twice as much karma 40 instead of 20 to reach focused concentration 5... 8 karma at a time. Quite frankly, just like the OP states... focused concentration is a great quality from older editions. It's well worth buying in chargen if you have the karma. It'll cost you 10 karma to bond a force 5 spell sustaining foci for a single type of spell... or 20 for the quality which works with any spell you know. Tough one...

In fact, after play starts... if you're setup to resist magic addiction ad infinitum... you're better off buying sustaining foci maybe. 8 karma per point... is enough to bind 4 different sustaining foci... one for each school.. possibly running you afoul of the limit on bonded/active foci. Of course then you need to worry about the no more foci bound than your magic (and total force of magic x 5). But sustaining 4 spells at once as opposed to one is obviously a much better deal. (only 20k per force 5 spell sustaining focus).


Similarly rather than a power focus... it's an option to go for say a 'combat spell' focus instead... if the goal is to build a focused combat mage as opposed to playtesting everything. Far cheater and faster to obtain than the big focus.


Chrome Head:
Actually you're not directly limited by how many active spells & foci you have.

You make the check... you go right through and bring a handful of extra items with you for free if you roll well.

Items not getting a 'free pass' are subjected to the "astral intersection" forced through a ward rules and may deactivate or become junk (in the case of a alchemical preparation... or sustained spell). Remember a ward is a 'mana' effect.. it works on the mind... it provides no physical force. A ward is not a physical barrier spell. A dual-natured ward is simply a mana barrier present on both the physical and astral planes. A ward cannot hold you up or exert any kind of physical force.


Actually, since our troll used to lead the way in a prior edition I used to toss a force 12 spell on him... merely so he acted as a magical wrecking ball. He'd walk through a ward and not realize it was there. The spell at force 12 would roll 24 dice vs 2x the force of the ward (rarely over 8)... and demolish it (the ward collapses)... leaving the rest of us behind no trouble except having alerted the wards creator... (which was normally a foregone conclusion anyhow if the GM gave us no way to assense the creator and sleaze our ways through with masking).

In case you missed it, my point was that getting full PP and FC has serious drawbacks - not having the karma to bind foci is very much a part of that. In any case, there's a certain tipping point of magic rolls where 3 dice from a power focus is better than 7 Edge, and I'd wager that most characters built to be mages will be blowing way past that tipping point. Also, my hypothetical mage isn't a Mystic Adept, but a standard Mage, and thus doesn't spend the 30 Karma on PP in the first place - opening up a lot of options, even when keeping FC. And yes, if you're looking for the bonus with one sort of spell, the specific focus is cheaper - but for most mages the flexibility of applying that power focus to all 5 schools, to spirits, and to preparations is gonna be well worth it (Spellcasting foci are not good for preparations, which is another advantage to a Power focus - it effectively replaces 15 Spirit Foci, 6 Spell Foci, and 2 Alchemical Foci, and is actually a superior replacement to those spirit foci since it will cover spirits outside your tradition). A magician with a varied toolbox is far better off with a power focus than a spellcasting focus.

Uh... what? Force caps the hits (not net hits) possible on the Spellcasting roll. You cast at F1, you can only have 1 hit.

Not sure where you're going with this.

Low force spells and foci are not directly limiting, as in they won't prevent you from going through, but they may break down. All right, we agree. That's a limiting factor, even though you can still pass. My point about there being a cost that doesn't apply as much to focused concentration stands. If you have to bond your focus again, then you'd have been better off with FC instead. And that's just one of the many benefits I've stated to using focused concentration. Thanks for bringing nuance to it.

You seem to argue a lot, but I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is.

and reagents allow you to set the limit to the number of drams of reagents you expend instead of the force of the spell.

so for example a force 1 spell that you expend 5 drams of reagents on has a limit of 5.

Or the use of edge. You spend edge and you don't need to waste a bunch of drams of reagants. Reagants are great if you have low edge and a ton of money... but if you're short on cash, edge works better (in that it doesn't just raise the limit it eliminates it completely and gives you more exploding dice to roll).

I rather liked that trick in fact... Cast a very subtle spell at force 1 (spellcasting 6 minus force 1 = threshold 5 to notice it being cast at all). Then use edge. Toss 12 + 7 edg -2 BGC == 17 exploding dice on the test... with the minimum 2 drain.


Chrome Head:
I misunderstood your point. We do agree. I thought you were saying something else in your initial point. Mea culpa & apologies.

I thought you were saying all those active magical extras set the threshold you needed to roll on the opposed test with the ward. You either made the threshold and went through cleanly or not.

As for the rest... I tend to believe things resolve the most quickly through conflict.

How much does a dram of "reagents" (does SR5 go into any more detail about their nature?) cost?

20 nuyen.

and it's basically the same as hunting for enchanting materials in any prior edition. they're just called reagents now.

Like 20 nuyen or something, its petty cash. It would take something like 100 + dispells, ward crashes to make up the difference in cost between a force 1 and force 4 sustaining focus, and that's just the nuyen. While I think mages overall are fairly balanced this edition there are a few nuggets here and there that are just broken and this is one of them.

Which is just horrible, in my opinion...

Yeah I'm not sure how I feel about this myself. What would break if we house rule that reagents can't be used to increase the limit on spellcasting? Or say you can't use more reagents than F+2 for example? I haven't figured out entirely why they put it in, or why it's not limited in some way.

Personally, for spells, I prefer the Limit equal to Force. Full Stop. ONLY breakable by spending Edge.

Yeah, ok but I wonder what possibly unforeseen effects this has on the game. What is undesirable with this change? Which is sort of equivalent to why did they put it in?

Agreed, particularly with reagents being unbelievably cheap, even considering they're expendable. A dram, as a unit, is either 1/8 or 1/16 of an ounce, depending on which system you're using. Being extremely inexpensive, extremely lightweight, and extremely useful, there's really no reason why any mage worth his reagents wouldn't be toting around at least a couple hundred drams; enough to make the "expending resources" angle basically irrelevant.

I have two ideas: either make reagents much more expensive (500 or 1,000 nuyen per dram), or restrict their use severely. Maybe only allow them for ritual spellcasting?

Why would it have any unforeseen effects. That was exactly how it was structured in SR4A, with its strict delineation of Stun/Physical Drain... The undesirable part is the customization of Effect... I can now cast a Force 12 Spell with Stun only damage, because I can GUARANTEE that the Drain is no longer Physical by spending Reagents. Or worse yet, I can now Reliably Cast a Force 1 Spell with a Drain of 2 (who cares if it is Physical at that point) that causes horrific Damage... Horrible design principle.

Just started a new topic to discuss this as I think we're on to something.

I'm just interested to hear the other side of things. I'm with you 100%, but I might not be as dogmatic

If you're expending reagants you're basically tossing grenades. And that gets costly fast. Really I don't see the point in it if you're not using 5 or 6 drams worth (at $100 or 120 a pop. Which is far more costly than even APDS which comes at 10 rounds for that much).

Really the only reason I see to do it is
1. It may be worth the money if you need low drain.
2. It is subtle... the perception check threshold to notice magic is (Spellcasting - Force). So 5 threshold is tough for most people to make.

Biggest Drawback:
1. It is hits (and by extension net hits only)
2. Force dependent effects aren't enhanced. So many spells lose a lot of effectiveness if force is skimped on.


TJ:
Actually you can't guarantee that drain is stun or physical. If you get/use more hits than your magic the spell is physical drain. If I cast at force one and edge and get 8 successes on magic 6... The drain is physical... the only good part is that the drain is probably only 2P since the force is so low. But once again force dependent aspects of the spell are only force 1 so not that good. This only works well for affects where I care mainly about net hits and force does nothing (or next to nothing).

I think the best designed spells in SR5 have two elements...
1. a good scaling effect based on net hits
2. a good scaling effect based on force

Matter of fact, you can guarantee the former. It is possible to cast a Force 12 Fireball but use Reagents to set the Limit to 6, thus ensuring that Drain will not be physical.

Look at how many nuyen you save from a force 1 to force 4 sustaining focus, how many drams would you need to make up that cost? Add in you can then easily have 3 force 1 sustaining focusses all trucking at force 4 effects and it only hits your addiciton chart at force 3, still room for a force 3 power focus on a magic 6 character. While some spells need a high base force, notably the improve attribute ones, you still have room to boost a dump stat with this and other spells like combat sense, improved reflexes and improved invisibility. And while they are easier to dispel its only 3 dice easier so its not like it is a huge swing. It can be abused hard, and things that cause the GM to drop the hammer of the gods on the player to set him straight should be fixed in the rules when they can be IMO.

1 don't like removing the unpredictability of drain when you overcast and I don't like sustianing focuis abuse.