One could also quote anchoring and anchoring focus, which have been known to work precisely on other person than the caster.

It has been correctly pointed out - and you already acknowledged - that the "myth" isn't a "myth" depending on game edition. I'll go further and say that on the meta physics level of SR magic "contact to the magician's aura" was certainly not required for focus usage ever since first edition. The whole "aura contact" thing was (and still is) wonky on several levels and regularly causes questions / debates on how far said aura "extends" beyond the physical body's shape and what actually establishes said "contact" between physical focus, aura and astral body of the focus on one side of the equation and the magician's aura on the other side.

And it's actually quite easy to prove you wrong with SR1:

p. 79, SR1, Spell Locks
Spell Locks are power focuses with a Rating of 1 made for a single purpose: to lock a spell onto a target permanently. A magician must attach the focus physically to the target after the spell has succeeded. It can be stuck into a pocket, worn, hung, nailed on, or whatever. The magician who cast the spell need not be the one who attaches the lock, but only a magician can do it. Once in place, the lock maintains the spell automatically drawing power from Astral Space.
There are drawbacks to using spell locks. If a magician removes the lock from a target, the spell is broken. A mundane cannot remove a spell lock, he cannot even touch. It is in another dimension as far as he is concerned. As long as the focus is working, a thread of astral energy connects it to the spell's caster. This can be traced through Astral Space, becoming a material link that makes the caster vulnerable to Ritual Sorcery. Magician's do not leave these things lying around!

The only contact requirement there actually concerns physical bodies, not auras ... with the usual debate about what exactly establishes the physical contact since they can be put in pockets (which introduces a meta-physical concept of "physical contact" that is as flexible as the "part of the target / no part of the target" concept for spell casting). Spell Locks IIRC worked the same in SR2 but I'll spare myself quoting that implementation as well.

=> 3rd Edition with its sustaining focuses certainly was not the "exception". The latter were just relabeled spell locks with four major changes:

1. They explicitly required a Force Rating equal or above the Force Rating of the sustained spell
2. The sustaining focus actually had to be brought into physical contact (not aura contact!) to the physical body / item it was supposed to sustain the spell on prior to the spell being cast
3. physical removal ended the spell but virtually anyone could physically remove the focus, even mundanes.
4. The focus owner had the explicit right to deactivate the focus (with an act of will) at any time with no explicit or implicit requirement for physical (or aura) contact to the focus

The anchoring focus took the concept of spell locks / sustaining focuses even further and most certainly didn't require physical or aura contact to the magician and even the physical contact requirement to an anchored spell's target is not as strict as it was for sustaining focuses: You certainly could put an anchor focus with an anchored directional, LOS-based detection spell (e.g. detect enemy) and a combat spell (manabolt) on a room's floor and the anchor would cast the combat spell against any "enemy" who came into the detection spell's "range", provided LOS existed and the "enemy" was successfully detected.

"another dimension"? Whoa, SR changed a lot since first edition.

Uh. Yeah.

Indeed....

Some of the madmages down here in R&D have toyed with the concept of making a small safehouse into a spell lock to be able to activate it and take advantage of this disappearing into some sort of pocket dimension ability.

However the results to date have been.... messy.

So for now the Bermuda Bandit Bungalows remains elusive.

As I've said before, about the Myth you are correct. That was me working from memory and falling in the "we always played it like that, therefore that's how it worked" trap. For that, I apologize. However, the passage you quoted can be read very differently. There is a bit of an evolution to spell locks as I read them, so bear with me for a moment, please.

For completeness sake, I always read rules with a "specific beats general" approach in mind. All editions of Shadowrun have contained a variation of the "if removed from person, focus deactivates" rule. (The wording actually barely changed from 1st to 4th edition. It's kinda hilarious actually.)

In 1st edition, Spell locks were simply weird. They were powerfoci, but weren't. Whether or not they were bound with a specific spell or not was unclear and they basically teleported into nothingness once bound. Mundanes couldn't even freaking touch them, but any magician of the same tradition could freely deactivate another magician's focus. What deactivation did was equally unclear. Did it turn off the spell but allow for reactivation or did it actually break the spell? No one knows. (most played it in the former way tho. Like the one ring. Now I'm invisible and now I'm not. Now I'm levitating, now I'm not.)

Enter second edition, which was slightly more clear but still wonky. It was now clear that recasting a spell meant rebonding the focus, but still after bonding the spell lock could be freely moved and placed by a magician of the same tradition. However, now they were even invisible to mundanes on top of being untouchable (peasants!). Even cooler still, the creator (and the book is unclear if that means the bonder or the enchanter) can activate and deactivate the thing at will. From the other end of the world. And it was still unclear what that meant.

Then third edition came around and finally turned spell locks into a proper focus and not an "I'm better, peasant" object. They were attuned to one spell as before and you could change the spell by rebonding the focus. However, now you had to recast the spell instead of turning your invisibility on and off. They also finally clarified what deactivating the focus entailed. It ended the spell and you had to recast it.

Finally, fourth edition defined them as a spell category focus and brought them in line with the other foci types. They could now contain any spell of acategory without rebonding and also lost their "must be in contact with target" special rule and with that were brought in line with the usual "in contact with magician" rule.

Where does this all lead? Well, first of all, to illustrate the point that looking at spell locks for the metaphysics of Shadowrun is a really bad idea. The changes made to them were first and foremost balancing issues that simply needed adressing. They started out as basically quickening on crack without the metamagic and with monetary cost and ended up as a new type of focus. They started out as powerfoci, made a detour through "undefined" and ended up as spell category foci (which in turn became spell foci because the later got removed as a foci type).

On the other hand, every edition's spell lock required the thing to be in contact with something. If it was a magician, he could remove or activate/deactivate it freely. If it was a mundane, it couldn't be moved. Specific rules may have been lacking, but the general rule was always there. (P. 79, 137, 190 and 199, for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition respectively. Yes I actually took the books off the shelve. Kinda miss the art style to be honest.)




1. You have to keep the overall changes to force in mind. Prior to third, force was your dice pool and therefore limited itself. Starting with third, sorcery was your dice pool and force arbitrarily chosen, but set your threshold. This change reflects a systemic change above a change to spell locks.
2. This focus always had to be in physical contact to something when activated. The only thing that changed was that in third you had to cast the spell at the same time as placing the focus, while previously, you could cast the spell into the focus first and place the focus later. The active focus always had to be in contact with the target.
3. True. Spell locks were no longer quickening in disguise. However, this was a balance change. Prior to this, a vengeful mage could put a "Decrease Intelligence" spell on an enemy street sam and bacially turn him into a plant most of the time. And he or his mundane friends couldn't do anything about it. They couldn't even see the damn thing. Because he's a peasant, that's why.
[Come to think of it, imagine if Sam had put a control actions spell lock on Jason in Find Your Own Truth. He'd have saved himself a lot of trouble.]
4. True.

I am not entirely opposed to your concept of "body over aura". There are good reasons for it, such as the fact that you could cast invisibility into a spell lock that was duct taped to a drone. There is no aura in sight, yet the spell works. However, there are good reasons against it too. The clothing argument doesn't hold water because if clothing impeded aura's, armor would immunize people to mana spells. (I can't remember where, but there was a writeup on that topic somewhere in the early magic rules. Bottomline: aura's extending beyond clothing because balance.) More importantly however is the fact that a magician's body is immune to mana spells when projecting or the fact that you need foci to be in active before you enter astral space, not after. This makes a very convincing argument for aura over body, because the aura leaves the body during projection. (Rule in 4th, earlier too unless I'm working off ooold house rules again. Kinda tired to check, so 4th).

Anyway, in all fairness sake, I did type up a long thing while very tired to end up saying: "I kinda agree, but want to say x". It probably reads like a bit of a rant. For that, I'm sorry, but I don't want to delete it. So take it with that kind of salt.

Edit: I'd like to add that Spell locks are likely to change again in a future 6th edition, just to fix the "Force 1 + Reagents/Edge" Problem. Not because it plays havoc with SRs metaphysics, but because most GMs go like "Yeah, No, Fuck you". When players try to pull that one, despite it being perfectly legal and seemingly intended by the rules as written. It's a balance issue above all else.

It's not my concept. It's one of the concepts as laid out in the SR magic metaphysics framework that it's actually quite well defined within those meta physics - at least in comparison to other aspects, particularly unlike the "aura contact" concept that to me largely seems to exist more in the mind of players instead of the game rules themselves.



I didn't make a case for "body over aura" instead of "aura contact". I simply question the correctness of "aura contact" actually being the determining factor as you suggested. So my reference to clothing was not much an argument at all. It actually was a reminder about the general lack of a proper definition of "aura contact" within the SR magic metaphysics that would allow determining whether or not "aura contact" is actually established.

Your reference to armor / clothing acting as an immunization against mana based spells - to me - is not so much a question of "aura contact" but rather "spell targeting requirements" where you manipulate mana at a specific location and SR magic using a (often blurred) concept of "is part of the target" vs. "is not part of the target" in order to determine whether or not the overall target can be targeted with a certain spell. The most obvious example of such discrepancies are indirect illusion spells and telekinetic manipulation spells:

1. A person under the mana-based indirect illusion spell of "Invisibility" turns "invisible" for observers who do not achieve spell resistance. This includes all carried clothing and gear at the time of the spell's casting because they are considered as "being part of target" on an abstract (metaphysical) level. Now the interesting parts here are:
   
   1. The person under spell later on picks up a gun. Now for spell casting purposes of a new spell the gun would be part of the target. But as far as the original spell - which by definition of SR magic is "not intelligent" - is concerned that gun is not part of the original target and thus should not become "invisible" to beholders that failed their spell resistance. Things get totally wonky if the picked up item is small enough to be put in / under gear that the "invisible" person originally wore.
   2. In case that the person under the spell puts down gear or involuntarily loses things the standard assumption would be that these items are no longer part of the overall target and subsequently become visible again. But what about cases where the person under the spell picks up such an item that was originally part of the spell's effect.
2. The (physical) Levitation spell when targeted at a person seems to automatically include all worn clothing / gear. There's no indication that the spell only targets the personal and the rest is just moved due to its physical attachment to the person. Now the interesting part here is that in this situation the spell targeting works by again making a difference between "part of the target" vs. "not part of the target" ... but that differentiation can rather arbitrarily change depending on what the caster wants to achieve: A caster is now allowed to target a handheld weapon (or other visible gear) as separate entities when trying to levitate things.

~erm~ No?! A magician's physical body is not immune to mana spells while projecting. Any mana-based spell that is cast against the physical body only has to fulfill spell targeting requirements (mainly being on the same plane and having LOS or touch). Effects caused by a spell against the physical body will even affect the astral body of the projecting magician, explicitly so for damage and healing and any other effect by inference of the former effects.

Sidenote: The damage and healing transfer between physical and astral body actually makes one phenomenon described for a particular situation while projecting strictly impossible. The (SR3) rules say that should the physical body of a projecting mage die the projecting mage is able to stay in his projected state for the remainder of the time limit set by his Essence value. Now the bug in that rule is quite obvious:

"Death" in SR(3) always occurs based on some form of damage and the subsequent marking off on the condition monitor. So if the physical body suffers any form of D level damage that damage automatically transfers to the astral body as well. But whenever an astral body of a projecting mage suffers D level stun damage the astral body is explicitly disrupted from astral space while D level physical damage would render him unconscious at least (makes you wonder why he isn't disrupted by physical damage) and doesn't even look at the "instant death" situation with a condition monitor where even over flow is marked off. Subsequently the whole "gonna haunt you for X hours" idea was "cool" but is virtually impossible by the nature of the actual rules and what they establish as meta-physics for projection.



This again has nothing to do with "aura contact". Actually, by (SR3)RAW the only focus type that requires an activation prior to entering astral space is the sustaining focus due to the "no exclusive magic action during projection" rule. For SR3 there's only one thing that - by implication - could demand an activation prior to astral projection: The description that astral bodies of foci and fetishes do travel with the mage. Now the problem there is that astral bodies for foci only come into "physical" existence while the focus is active but technically a fetish doesn't even have one and more importantly: There's no rule definition for any such activation of fetishes prior to usage. And that doesn't even touch the subject of taking away an activated focus from an astrally projecting mage ... like during astral combat with the disarm combat option that - strictly speaking - would deactivate a weapon focus and leave us with the question where the focus goes within the astral world.



I certainly won't go into details on where and how SR4 rules screwed up on the whole "Astral Space" meta-physics and the presentation of associated rules but as before: Your convincing argument of "aura over body" fails with regards to the point where healing - including magic spells - can be used on the physical body to heal the shared damage states. Additionally, under SR3 the aura of the physical body actually never left the body during projection, neither explicitly nor by implication.



No harm done



Just as with the initial question concerning focus sizes and their feasibility as implants: The responsible developers are not doing us favors with not thinking over and describing the metaphysics of SR magic with enough detail and additionally not looking at the balance ramifications of rather basic game elements. Of course "it's magic" can serve as an excuse for pretty much everything but that particular guideline should be limited to "plot devices" instead of popping up on such a regular basis.

...Coming back to the original poster's question,

Hmmm, well, it could simply the limitiation of the actual foci designer - they might not have the skill to make it smaller (or lacks the necessary artistry, etc, to make it "work" in the size/form desired.) It could also be a good point for the GM to drop hints that his current contact is great at amulets, but frankly, is a bit limited and the player might want to do a bit of looking about to find the desired outcome.

Or take enchanting and jewellry-making:)

Implanted foci in the form of Weapon Foci have been cannon since 3rd. Although if I was GM'ing the mage, I don't think that a Dikoted razor spur would really fit the feel of the character, but eh, they paid for the karma and the essence and the magic loss, so it's legit, just a bit meh.


-Tir:)

I never came across it before, so I attributed it to you. My bad. Also, we really need to limit the scope of this in terms of edition... .

Yes actually. At least in second edition, it does. This may never have been the intended effect, but by the metaphysics of SR, its how it worked.

"The next step beyond astral perception is actual projection, in which the magician's aura "separates" from his body and is able to move about freely and independently for some time.
[...]
While in trance, the magician's body is dead to the world;
[...]
Until the aura returns, the physical body is comatose." (P. 146, SR2 Core)

"The reason has to do with how a spell works. As a spell is being cast, the magician's senses are opened up partially to the astral place. The magician, because of the working of the astral forces that power the spell, is able to see the aura of the target. This allows him to align or synchronize his aura with that of the target, permitting the astral energy shaped by the caster to leap between them, through astral space, much as a spark of electricity jumps between two properly polarized points.
[...]
The line of sight restriction is still a powerful one for these types of spells. if the target's aura cannot be seen, it cannot be hit. Some frightening possibilities are circumvented because a living aura radiates a short distance from the being: enemies in sealed combat armor, with no part of the body showing, can still be attacked because the aura extends past the armor." (P. 149 SR2 Core)

If you combine those two rules, one says that the Aura leaves the body, the other that the Aura is a requirement for Mana Spells to work. Hence, a projecting Magician's body is immune to Mana Spells.

SR3 established the concept of the Astral Form instead of the Aura leaving the body, but in second, that's how it worked. As a side note, the book actually mentions the healing effect between physical body and projected magician as an "occult phenomenon". Which kinda translates into "Yeah, we know it doesn't fit, but we don't want to separate condition monitors for projecting magician's because balance." In my opinion. You are right that it is wonky in terms of the metaphysics of the world.

I would venture the guess that the understanding of aura contact stems directly from the above understanding of how magic works. Through contact to auras. I do see your point about invisibility. However, I see that less of a metaphysical problem and more as one of terminology. Mana Invisibility shouldn't be called that because it really has nothing to do with "seeing" in that sense and everything with perceiving. I always understood it as a sort of "someone else's problem defense" from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. People actually see you fine, they just don't register you. That's why it doesn't work on technological stuff.
While the example of the gun or smaller objects is every bit as wonky as you say, this is true for each and every RPG ever. Invisibility is sort of the staple concept of "its magic" because it is something that we, in the real world, cannot do. We know it involves breaking the light but we don't know hot to achieve that or the properties that such a way would entail. Hence we "wing" it.

I do see why you would question the aura implication of focus activation though. After rereading some of the previous editions, the only hard rules I can find require "close proximity" to the magician or target's body. As I said before, I guess that combined with the fact that auras radiate beyond clothing lead to the conclusion that foci required auras.

I guess I deserved getting the part about targeting in 2nd Ed thrown against me there ~g~ That's what happens when you think about what creates a specific picture in player's minds and then forget to mention where they get it from. I'll give you that one could take this as the basis for the magician's physical body indeed being "immune" to mana-based spells while projecting (as well as an indicator for focus usage being dependent on auras in the general case as well). However, this part about spell casting certainly doesn't establish "aura contact" (as opposed to [subconscious] visibility of auras) as the deciding factor for focus usage. Furthermore ...



... that "occult phenomenon" automatically creates one of those exceptions that leads to a point where the rule about targeting mana-based spells based on a subconscious perception of the target's aura turns into a general case and the physical body of a projecting mage turns into the special case that goes counter the general case.



You're looking at the wrong part of the dilemma I tried to point out with the Invisibility spell. To me it was never a case of improper terminology because I quite well understood what an "illusion" is with regards to seeing or not seeing things. For me it was all about the relation of items "being part of a larger target" in one situation and then "no longer being part of a larger target" in the next with regards to targeting and successfully casting a spell against that "larger target"... as well as "never having been part of the larger target" and "being re-introduced into that larger target" while said "larger target" is under the spell's effect. Neither "aura contact" nor "physical / body contact" as concepts are sufficient to determine if and what is supposed to happen there. The "best" concept there (which still doesn't provide answers for everything) is "part of an (abstract) entity that serves as target at the time of the spell being cast".



Actually the way it was described in SR prior to SR4 (where they literally made Improved Invisibility bend light after the [bad] German translation of SR3 had done the same) it worked pretty well simply because it was an (indirect) illusion spell that pretty much worked like the SEP field generator from Hitchhiker's guide. While the mana-based version simply removed the undesired picture within the individual observer's mind the physical one created a different sensory input on the sensors of observers that "see" things ... where "seeing" is again more of an abstract and over-arching concept than a physical description of how physics phenomena like electromagnetic waves are turned into some form of signal that creates the "visuals".



So my conclusion with regards to a potential SR6 is: They should clear the house there