Horrido Dumpshockers,

Just a quick question: in our last run i ordered a force 6 power foci and wanted the talismonger to create a custom made special shape (net-like), so that i can either implant it around a bone or put it into carvings on my horns. But he refused with the explanation, that a force 6 focus is too big for such a thing. Now he is doin´t a quite big amulett for me (i had to complain a lot, to avoid getting a big gandalf-like magic-wand). I was a bit surprised, because i never heard of a force to size ratio, but mybe i have overread something?

They say Gandalf had a big staff AND knew how to use it.

That demon of shadow and flame? His ex.


But seriously, your GM may be thinking of the units of radicals reagents or orichalcum needed for making a focus which is equal to the force of the focus, so in this case 6 units.

If I remember right 1 unit of orichalcum weighs 10 grams so not really that big when you are talking metals. The radical reagents will vary in weight depending on their source I suppose or they may be bulkier than nice dense orichalcum.

Still should be able to work something out by just talking to him.

I would say no but for another reason. Technically, you must touch the focus to activate/desactivate a focus. While having in into a bone implemented could be considered as touching it, I would say that it goes against the spirit of the thing.

I would thus say that you can, but you be nearly like dual natured and unable to desactivate it.

Why? If you are in contact with it to activate it, why would you not be in contact with it to deactivate it?

*cough* Frosty *cough*

It needs to be huge to contain it's immense power.



But seriously, the size of the end-product focus is not really defined in the rules, so it's up to your GM.



-k

Tattoo foci are embedded in the skin and can be activated/deactivated.

By extension, why would a foci that's embedded in your horns not be able to do the same?

Now, if the foci the poster is talking about is a weapon foci, that's a whole different discussion.

As I run my game, the end product can pretty much be as big as you want within reason. No, you may not have a foci the size of an atom it the Empire States building. One of my players has a beast summoning focus that's a crows skull with inscriptions made of orichelcium. 3 drams of reagents would probably not fit on a crow's skull but the way I see it is that all the other stuff is used in the preparation of if. Like burning oricelcum sparklers or whatever. Long story short, long as you actually use all the reagents then it DOSNT really matter what the item is.

Oh man. Now I really want to make a troll physadept with his horns being a pair of weapon foci.

Assuming the GM allows it...it would have to be a Minotaur or a changeling Troll with Goring Horns as normal Troll horns aren't weapons.

If you were to headbutt someone with normal Troll horns it's the Unarmed Combat skill.

BTW, many people feel that regardless of Goring horns using the Exotic Weapon skill is still an 'unarmed' attack.
Those same people are split into the you can use things like killing strike/elemental strike because it's 'unarmed' and those people who say you can't use those powers either since it doesn't use Unarmed Combat skill.

But this is a separate question from what the poster asked and so we should get back to that if anyone else has something further to add.

On the subject of foci and size, I've never seen anything to say that size is a required factor in relation to the power of the focus.

Harlequin has one to two dozen pieces of flair that are various sustaining foci ranging in power from 5 to 10, and his rapier is a Force 16 weapon focus.

Frosty's dragon shaped ring is a Force 6 power focus.

Lugh Surehand wears a pinkie ring that's a Force 10 sustaining focus.

Winterhawk's cane is a Force 4 sustaining focus.

It's your GM's game, so ultimately, it's his call.

That said, yeah, by the rules there's no hard limits or definitions for focus size.

If I wanna make my focus the size of a city bus, I'll damn well do it!





-k

Isn't their an old line in the Grimoire or something along that lines?

Rule wise, probably nothing.

Yet *I* would say that the tattoo is imprinted on your skin and you can activate/desactivate it by concentration.

Now hide your focus into your underwears and no, you'd need something more to activate/desactivate.


Which btw doesn't contradicte Frosty's case. She doesn't desactivate the foci.

Says Who?

I don't recall any rules that keep me from enchantin a piece of cyberware into a focus. In terms of balancing, that's pretty much like that net around a bone or a tattoo to me.
Size and such of a focus are purely in the eye of both the GM and the player (though GM veto trumps all, as usual).

To me, this sounds like you want a focus for your character that cannot be taken away (a notion which I can fully support, having done so in the past - power focus in a cyberarm compartment). The GM either doesn't seem to like that idea and hence put in a size requirement or has a completely different idea of foci (Gandalf-style wizards with wands versus, say, the Nightwatch books which mostly use hand-sized magic items or smaller).

I even once read about a bellybutton piercing focus for a female shaman... In my opinion, anything flies. Granted, even I would scoff at the idea of enchanted teeth fillings except for mybe a troll or orc. That is from a balancing and style perspective, though. I'd still allow it.
Just up the price a little (miniaturization and enchanting of advanced materials simply is expensive) and make sure the focus, while implanted, is still visible to astral perception. In my opinion, that's enough to keep it balanced.

It also depends on the definition of "touching" a focus to activate it. Fetishes have very strict rules regarding that, as I recall - you have to hold it in one of your hands. Foci lack such a strict definition. So in my book, anything connected to the mage's aura and/or touching the mage's body can be activated. That does include stuff inside the body, just because these are inside the aura as well.

There even is a huge danger to implanted foci - if such a focus catches an imp, it's way hard to get rid of it. It's also harder to ombat focus addiction, in my opinion, since the character has his "drug" with him any our of the day. The idea that nobody can take the focus away swings both ways.

In Harlequin's original story, it's Ehran that implement it (actually, it's only a spell) without Jane Foster noticing it.

Let's say it's a focus. It's Ehran's one and as far as I understand it and hence, it's not Jane that could activate/desactivate it.


Maybe she broke the link later on and re-attuned it. My claim is based on the original story.

Methinks that you are reading too much into it. Ehran cannot pay the Karma Cost of the Focus IN JANE. He cannot Bond it to himself (This is a requirement), because he is not in possession of it. Only she can do so. And if she paid the Karma to bond it (A requirement, after all) then she can activate and deactivate it at will.

Actually in this case Sk8bcn is correct about Ehran paying for it.

The item is originally described as a spell lock (2nd ed stuff) which is basically a souped up sustaining focus except once put in place and activated, and yes even on another body, it maintains the spell in question without any further concentration from the original mage as it creates it own astral link to sustain the magics. This was a forerunner to the Metamagic Quickening which did the same thing but without the need for a physical spell lock to anchor it.

Remember the magic being maintained doesn't need to be friendly to the target, I knew one mage who used one to keep a particular ex as a shapechanged dog for a good week or so before she relented and released him.

However, I never fully got this, since it is always astrally active and Frosty should have noticed something astrally glowing in her own leg, though it may have been further masked by Ehran so she didn't notice it.

Also the thing can act as a material link back to the maker.

If I recall, wasn't it that astral trail is how Harley found Frosty in the first place, so yeah not so great parental planning.


However, I originally brought it up because if you can basically bond a spell lock to someone's bone, it could serve as precedence for bonding other types of foci, although now looking back spell locks were designed to be placed anywhere where foci are a bit more restricted so maybe not.

Ahhh... My mistake then.

As for Foci - If you can bond one to bone (Sustaining Foci) then you can bond one to Bone (Spellcasting/Power Foci). If it works for one, it should also work for another.

I would say that you are neglecting how different magic worked in previous editions. For starters Ehran could have bonded the focus any time prior to the implantation via karma expenditure. Unlike in later Editions there was no inherent demand for a bound focus to stay within the bonded mage's direct possession after the bonding. Spell locks and their successors sustaining foci as well as anchoring foci could and in some cases had to leave the bonding mage's immediate control / possession, e.g. a sustaining focus that made a friend invisible actually had to go with said friend in order to maintain the spell instead of staying with the casting magician.

The only canon problem with said focus would have been that under standard rules Ehran would not have had the ability to activate the focus after it was implanted into Frosty, unless it involved some seriously high grade detection spell as part of an anchor focus that would react to Ehran's thoughts virtually anywhere around the globe. However, Ehran being an Immortal Elf and thus operating under NPC rule of "whatever the story requires" in addition to the "special enchantment" rules?! That certainly leaves more than enough wiggle room for such an implanted focus being bonded and controlled by Ehran, since it becomes a plot device.

The main problem - for me - with implanted foci however lies with different aspects of the presented meta physics of magic and rules:

1. In an activated state the focus would possess its own astral body (or whatever SR5 likes to call it now) and thus would create situations where one astral body resides within another in cases where the person with the implanted focus turns astrally active as well. This causes certain problems with the basic rules that astral bodies - with the exception of Earth itself - cannot pass through other astral bodies. No proper rule precedence for dealing with this situation.
2. As a magical item with an explicit astral representation an implanted focus that is active becomes a precedence for targeting something with a spell that is implanted into a physical body. Implants can however normally not be targeted individually by spell casting ... particularly not when having Essence costs.
3. No. 2 automatically leads to the question whether or not such an focus implant would/should cause Essence costs. Something that simply cannot be answered with RAW since the lack of rules on that simply cannot be taken as to infer that being allowed by default. Otherwise I could certainly make that rather stupid assertion that any metahuman can fly because the rules do not explicitly deal with metahumans not being able to fly.
4. Even when ignoring No. 1, 2 and 3 you instantly have to deal with how the enclosing aura (while not astrally active) and astral body (while astrally active but not projecting) of the person with such an implant interferes with target acquisition for spell casting purposes while the focus is active

And these are just the basic problem fields I can think of right now without further in-depth analysis.

So - regardless of rules not explicitly stating size requirements for foci - I can certainly see why a GM would want to avoid such pit traps even if rating 6 foci could be created with the size of a needle head.

Also very valid points. Thanks Cochise.

Cochise,

To me,

1. It's occupying a cavity inside the meat body. It's not passing through.

2. It should be able to be targeted if the magician can get line of sight somehow. Maybe there's a reason why it's remained undetected.

3. No Essence loss unless it's written in a book.

4. No idea. It sounds related to 2.

Looks to me like the GM wants it to go away.

Implanted foci should be the realm of double digit initiates. Full stop.

While your personal solutions certainly might work for you, there's a whole lot of things that one could argue about and it would ultimately lead nowhere. For example:

1. The problem isn't about the meat body or a cavity therein. It's all about the astral body of an astrally perceiving mage who has an active implanted focus. There's simply no rule precedence that would create a cavity within the astral body and thus you'd face the astral body of a focus within the astral body of the mage. And that astral body of the focus can come into "existence" (upon activation) after the mage's astral body has established itself (upon activation of astral perception. And while there is well enough precedence for an aura within an aura the same simply cannot be said about an astral body within another.
2. Then you create an explicit disparity between non-magical implants (with and without essence cost) vs. magical implants in terms of valid target acquisition.
3. Based on what consideration? There certainly are implants that cause no Essence loss but all of them provide no discernible game benefits for the character in question. Implants with Essence cost do come with game benefits (making the Essence cost a balancing factor). Now how does the implanted focus compare? It's certainly a game benefit ... particularly if the implant process provides a degree of protection against magical attacks against the focus under certain conditions (see point No. 4 and in part No. 2). So from a balance standpoint your "not unless written in a book" doesn't work too well and since it's not written in any book that a metahuman indeed cannot fly, I could still argue that they indeed can fly "unless written in a book"
4. The question there is: How much of an interference should the engulfing aura / astral body be? The examples and rules for modifiers due to (packed) biomass simply don't work too well there

So don't get me wrong there: I'm not saying that you're incorrect with how you'd deal with the presented problems but - at least to me - the whole thing is way too problematic on various levels of meta-physics and game balance to warrant the hustle of making it available to player characters ... unless the GM is willing of dealing with all ramifications and the players accepting that this might ultimately cause changes to how things work within their game universe. And if I was the GM they'd also have to accept that "what goes around comes around" => NPCs would make use of it too on a more regular basis instead of encounters where something like that is a plot device.

Why? What makes you say that? I am curious. Since you can have foci that are tattoos (Love that by the way), and even Weapon Foci Cyberspurs (did that in 2nd Edition way back, and is still arguably doable in 3rd, 4th and 5th), what is the difference? I really don't see any myself.

Tattoo foci don't bother me: it's obvious that said foci is present, and it makes a good amount of sense. On the other hand, what Ehran did with Frosty's femur isn't just tattoo foci. It's something else, a pretty sophisticated magical device that wasn't readily apparent to anyone alive in the 6th world. Harley found out about it through a bit of sluething, of the sort of sluething an elf who has been nurturing a grudge since the 16th century can do.

That sort of device? Yeah, you can't build that without some real hefty initiation into secrets that existed thousands of years ago. And where ya gonna get that, huh?

Enchanting some cyber spurs? Meh, that's childs play. Well, not really, it should require a really good magician to pull off, given the complexity of the item, but it makes sense.

What Ehran did on the other hand was a completely different deal. It wasn't just a simple sustaining focus, though that would be something hard(though not impossible), but a focus that sustained multiple detection spells(the idea that one poster had, that it could detect ehran's thoughts isn't preposterous), as well as being perfectly attuned to Frosty's aura that it was indistinguishable. No one knew it was there, other than Ehran and Harley. That's some serious mojo, ya dig? Not something you can pull off with your buddies who practice proto-germanic paganism. Lodges are cool, but Ehran and Harley are from a completely different lodge, a lodge comparable to Dunkie and the west of the WizWorms. It's not exactly stuff you can pull off.

As much as I understand the OP's GM not wanting an implanted focus, for most reasons seen here, his take on power focus being big is really a house rule that's contradicting part of the fluff and the universe, and has very poor justification with SR's magic.

That said, I see no valid reason to refuse an implanted focus. I think Cochise nailed down the real lack of rules here. It shouldn't, IMHO, cost essence, since anything like a pacemaker, few nails or metal femur head you get after an accident never did, and it's been said repeatedly that foci could take almost any form. The real problem is tackled with astral form collision. That needs a call and discussion within the gaming group.

Mine would be that the focus astral form always protrude from it's owner astral form or aura when activated, let's say at the closest place from its implantation (femur head would appear at the ankle, teeth would look like a tusk, etc.). An aura reading test on the focus owner would probably apply to the focus too when not active (I'm not sure, this could make implanted focus quite useless somehow).

With this call, the only point of such a focus is if you are in a situation where the enemy wants to deprive you of your magical powers without outright killing you. In this case, the only point of such a focus is that mundane won't see it. So okay, you get away with it if mundanes strip you naked and take of all your jewelry. Now let's think of the fate of the guy whose power focus was active and witnessed by a mage when he was caught. Will NPC choose tedious surgery to carefully remove the net on this tibia?

She's not mage at this point of the plotline. She's just a corporate secretaire.

Ehran did desactivated it so that Harlequin couldn't follow that link (though there's a logic flaw in that).

And the story says that Ehran is wrong because Harlequin already did find Janet before (probably through the genetical-file stored in Sylvan's system from the first scenario of Harlequin -but this is personnal interpretation-).

Anyways, interesting thread overall.

Tongue-piercings as foci are perfectly fine within the rules. If an activated focus in the astrally active body of its owner would cause problems, these would cause the same problems too. But piercings don't cause problems, because if they did, it would be mentioned in the rule-part that explicitly allows them as foci.
From this we can deduce that "the astral body of a focus within the astral body of the mage" is possible without problems.

I'd object to that claim for two reasons:

• Different Editions treated that "differently" in terms of actually making explicit reference to such piercing-based foci.
• Regardless of which Edition actually made the particular reference the whole thing is still not described to a satisfactory degree as part of the overall meta-physics of SR-magic. I dare saying that whoever made the reference actually never thought about the ramifications beyond "cool idea".

That kind of inference is actually not permittable from a logic standpoint.



Subsequently your deduction is in fact a conclusion drawn from a false assertion which is logically "true" but not necessarily "right".

The problem here is that you try to use experiences you have from the real physical world ("One solid object can't be at the same place another solid object already is"), and then try to apply it to the astral plane of a fictional universe. But its a magic realm, it uses completely different laws of nature, and all we know about how it works, is what is stated in the rules.
We can try to deduce from the (sparse) descriptions we are given on how the astral plane works, but if our deductions contradict other points that the rules clearly state, then the rules win and not our derivations.

Here a quote from SR5 Basic book page 319 (since SR5 seems to be the most referenced in this thread)

No further descriptions how having the focus active hinders you while on astral perception. Here would have been the place to mentin problems that arise from using the piercing option. So at least in SR5 the problems you were worried about do not exist. One astral object inside another? Astral plane does not care.

The fact that the author may not have thought it through, isn't a big problem, since its fictional magic.
A 300 Nuyen grenade that contains hundred thousands Nuyens worth of monowire, thats a problem because we know the laws of market economy.
But we dont know the laws of a fictional astral plane.

Why wouldn't they? When my Cyberlogician was caught they took him into surgery and stripped him of almost all of his ware. Sucked, to be sure, but it gave me the chance to re-aspect his ware when he got out.

You'll notice I didn't say they wouldn't ^^ . My question is more about the "likelihood" that they'll do it. I'm trying to assess the advantages of having an implanted focus, with my call. Well, the advantage is that mundane won't detect it if you're naked. The disadvantage is that aware enemies wanting to steal it might use some gruesome method. They don't have to. But they'll have a shorter and easier time than going real precise surgery. Just that

Well yes, that is indeed true. Just looking at the steps some Shadowrunners at my table take in that regard. Gruesome is a polite word in those circumstances.

Well, indeed, it's pretty rare that NPCs actually extract bone lacing through Ray Bradbury's skeleton short story method. PCs don't have this kind of delicacy. Makes one wonder.

In my view, if you swallow something and it comes out the other side, it was never a part of your body. If you implant a compartment, things in that compartment are not a part of your body, nor your astral form when astrally perceiving.

But you may not be implanting a compartment. You may be wrapping the femur with a fine titanium mesh that is a Focus. It is not in a separate compartment, but it is attached to your bone. While I see no issues with this, apparently others do.

Errr, aren't focus in your pocket able to be activated at will any more?

Oh, yes. I get that. My thoughts are that something that physically displaces your real body can be said to not occupy it's astral form either. I can definitely see how people wouldn't agree with my interpretation.

Of course, the Object Resistance of something like that would be 9, no?

It's not about activating, but whether they can actually be there in the first place while you're astrally perceiving.

Well, in theory, all Foci Attuned to you (and on your person) are present in the Astral (when projecting at least), should you desire them to be.

Errr, I remember that a focus in your pocket was in contact with your astral form and could be activated at will even if it didn't contact your body. So I don't see why something in your stomach wouldn't, or something in a bone compartment wouldn't.

Precisely.

Incorrect. I'm applying a phenomenon of two astrally active entities in one place under the explicit systematic premise that with the exception of Earth's astral body such bodies cannot pass through each other and the state of being engulfed by another astral body being a subset of that particular state.



Which actually was precisely my point: Without explicit rules on a level that provides a general description of the involved meta physical laws there's only what rules explicitly state. One particular "rule" suggests that it should not be possible while - depending on Edition - one reference might suggest otherwise. No final verdict possible that could be generalized to a degree that can be considered a "save assumption".



So that leaves us with "undecided" ... which for "whatever reason" was my initial verdict




Try to find the rules on passing of active astral entities through each other in SR5. It might turn out to be "fun".



Sorry, but "it's magic" is no carte blanche for inconsistent meta physics on rule level. I'll leave considerations of how "big" that problem is up to personal discretion.



We do know the the laws on the fictional astral plane as "good" as the game framework explains it. If that explanation is lacking we're facing "requires house ruling" territory where the GM has to consider the ramifications of his decision. Again something that I have already said.

One request: Please refrain from any further assumptions on which particular considerations I used as part of my explanations like you did with your first sentence in your last post. Because that is bound to turn into bad attempts of using non-existent clairvoyant powers that will cause this conversation to end up as something where you start fighting me on an "ad hominem" level.

Actually, that's a myth created by the Shadowrun Novels, where mages duct tape spell locks to drones to make them invisible. By the rules, foci have always required direct contact to the magician's aura since first edition.

This point cannot be stressed enough. The Harlequin books outright say that neither Ehran nor Harlequin adhere to the rules in any way, shape or form. In the world, they simply use a different, way more "advanced" kind of magic to accomplish their goals. In terms of game mechanics they are GM Fiat. Using them as an example for anything in the SR world is a bad idea because more than any other character, they are literally the exceptions to the rules.

Maybe in first edition, but not since. In SR3, for sure a sustaining focus had to be with the target of certain spells, which could be someone else than the caster.

You're right, my bad. I double checked and third actually has that exception. First and second handled spell locks as objects that could be bound to others but always had to be in contact with the aura of the owner (which was also the target).

ninjaed