That's why you initiate a couple of times. Pick up some generic metamagic techniques while you're at it; Psychometry and Sensing are always fun.

Focus addiction shouldn't be a problem at all, so long as the total force of the cyberspurs in 2 or less. A player with Astral Sight surge can't, by cannon, become a magician or adept so he'd have no use for the vast majority of foci.

Oh no I can see it now, Ithe Order of the the Sight an initiation group made completely of peoplae with Aura Sight edges. The only thing their magic would let them do is pierce aura's well and make Foci. Oh and quite a few of the more innocous metamagics. Still could be a pain in my keister.

Cyber spurs as weapon focuses, shore but you might want to charge a bit more to reflect the increased difficulty of making them.

On a character with the surge astral sight I don’t know. If he could bond a weapon focus then yes but I didn’t think they could. If so he could only have force 1 before risking focus addiction and burning out at the first failure. I was fairly shore the astral sight surge didn’t make you magical enough to initiate

If he had already lost the essence when he was affected by surg he would still have magic 1. the way it would have to work is I am a samy with cyber spurs, I become magical, I replace the blades on my spurs with weapon foci.

Edward

By the rules it's certainly allowed, but I'd think long and hard before doing it to one of my characters, for the same reason I'm not really hot on arm or head-mounted cyberdecks.

The inaccessability of your weapon focus will in no way subtract from the Evil Villians' need to remove it from you if you're captured. Chop chop.

I'd say that you need to be an actual fully Awakened individual(i.e. adept, aspected magician, full magician) in order to bond foci. As it is, the Astral Sight SURGE trait is strongly worded to suggest that it provides only the bare minimum of magical power needed to perform astral perception. If it permitted initiation, metamagic-learning, the bonding of weapon foci, etc, as well, I would think that the cost would be higher.

Maybe a new SURGE trait, that permits more flexible and advanced degrees of limited magical ability manifestation, would be a good fix for this.

Insofar as cyberspurs as weapon foci go, why not? I think it's actually mentioned as a possibility in canon material. You'll take a lot of hits as far as ease of creation goes, due to the advanced composition of cyberspurs, and upgrades(as well as the ramifications of stress and failure) become much more complicated.

Add the fact that they're never really concealed, since the foci are visible even when the blades themselves are retracted into the forearms, and you have a powerful weapon that is impractical for a number of purposes that non-enchanted cyberspurs excel at. Until you get sufficient Masking to hide them, anyone with astral perception is going to see them almost immediately.

Likewise, if your GM uses tactical astral combat in a bastardly manner, you could power up your spurs to kill a mage only to have the enchantment on them broken(and possibly the spurs themselves destroyed in the process) by a spirit or two the magician had hanging around in the astral.

Focus addiction only kicks in if you exceed twice your magic rating. This sam could have either a single force 2 focus or 2 force 1 foci without taking the focus addiction risk. IIRC, there is a sentence in MitS that explicitly says that cyber implant foci must be enchanted before they are installed. That would seem to indicate that spurs are okay if my memory is working.

Thematically, I've always thought that focus addiction was based upon the growing reliance upon foci to boost one's magical powers. While I can understand a weapon focus being of benefit to the magical capabilities of adepts, how does a weapon focus factor into the magic used by other types of Awakened characters?

It allows them to kick more ass in melee, especially in the astral?

Where are these charms detailed?

Edward

SOTA64.

Got to get that book.

Edward

And for the truely silly weapon foci.. Oral Slasher, laser......

Okay my ruling was:

Yes, he can get them, but he has to enhant them himself from hand made telesma. Since the character has Skill wires we can attempt to locate the chips for B/R Edged Weapon, and B/R Biotech/Cybertechnology. he also had to decide if they would be considered one Focus or two Foci. The advantages being if they were one Focus they would be a little harder to break, but with two foci he'd have a spare. Lastly they could be dikoted if he could figure out a way (in character) to make it part of a ritual and double the karma costs of bonding,

As for focus addiction I have decided weapon Foci have no effect. However you cannot weild more than double your magic rating in weapon foci at a time. If you pick up a level 6 focus and only have magic 2, even after you bond it the weapon will only work at level 4.

Not that I can see a reason to separate weapon foci from other foci but why not allow a magic 2 character to use a weapon focus 6 but risk focus addiction.

Edward

So do you require everyone to forge and enchant their own weapon foci? I don't see much difference between enchanting a Retractable Spur over a Vibro Knife or Telescoping Staff. All three are Highly Processed objects, and that only affects the Enchanting Test itself, not the amount of Karma required.

Now there's a question. If you went and hand-forged the blade to specifications the old fashioned way with hammer, furnace, and tongs, from virgin telesma, would it still be considered highly processed?

This reminds me of a runner who asked if he could spend his "offscreen" time constructing a car that way. He wanted to make it a homunculous body for an ally spirit. I let him because I figured it would take years and wouldn't affect the day-to-day game.

The bugger actually tracked the construction days and resources on his own based on the test results we did. Two years real-time. Finished it, summoned the spirit, bonded it.

Of course, the gaming group broke up a month later due most of us graduating from college and moving away.




-karma

Actually, I'd say that's more like requiring that you have to enchant the sheath of the weapon, too. When it comes down to it, spurs are little more than knives that you can jerk back into your flesh. The mechanisms used for the extension/retraction and housing of them is the only complicated part... the blades themselves are no more complex than any other blades.

Okay, I can see that. The retraction system probably shouldn't count against the OR for enchanting the spurs into a weapon focus. The supporting structures should, however -- just like the handle and pommel on a sword do. And there will be plenty of complex compound metals in the blades themselves, plus plenty of complex plastics in the structure.

Hm. I don't see that so much.

Why not forge the blades themselves, nothing else, just in the exact shape the old manufactured blades were, complete with attachment holes and everything. Just the metal blade and nothing else. Heck, do it the hard way with non-powered hand tools.

Then you enchant it by itself normally.

Then you go and attach all the mechanical bits that make it a cyberspur. As long as they're not directly affecting the structure of the enchanted blade in any way, they shouldn't be a problem.

Or are you saying that if you stuck a piece of tape or clamped a ring to a katana weapon focus it'd stop working?


-karma

That's all the uber-razors are ... replacement blades. I see no reason for enchanting the entire retracting mechanism, of even the clamps that attach the blades to said mechanism. The blades themselves would fall under the OR of their composition. Dikoted polycarbonite unobtainium blades would be harder to enchant than the more mundane choice.

Well, like I said, I agree that it would actually be pretty dumb for the retraction/extension system to count, since it doesn't really have anything to do with how the spurs work in combat. The way the blades are attached to your body does matter, though.

To say that enchanting a replacement blade and then attaching it to a human body would allow you to use that blade as a Weapon Focus Cyberspur is like saying that you could enchant a dagger-blade as a Weapon Focus and then weld it into a long shaft and it would work as a Weapon Focus Spear. I would absolutely not allow that in my games.

Also note that "Alloys" count as OR 8/Manufactured High-Tech Objects and Materials. Steels are alloys. Weapon-grade steels are a heck of a lot more complex, more high-tech, and have seen a lot more manufacturing than the examples of OR 5/Manufactured Low-Tech Objects (leather & brick, for example). You could use low-tech materials (like the cold iron I mentioned), but that should absolutely get you some penalties compared to the high-tech Cyberspurs.

There are cyber upgrades to Razors (and I believe Spurs) in canon that are solely based on replacing a better blade in the mechanism. Why could this 'better blade' not be enchanted like any normal weapon before being attached (which, IIRC, does not even require major surgery)?

[edit] As for actual attachment, Essence has been paid for the whole mechanism, so it is already connected mystically to the character's aura.

I never made any specific claims as to OR. The blades could be constructed from any number of alloys, with a variable amount of orichalcum included to help in enchanting, but so can any melee weapon. That isn't the point. There is no reason to restrict cyber-implant weapons more than any other Melee type in regards to being considered Foci.

I had a big reply ... but it died.

I don't know where you get tthat I have a problem with a high OR. I don't ... there are always ways to bring down the Enchantment TN.

In the end, my argument is that the entire mechanism (blades and all) is already paid for with Essence. In the long run though, it makes no difference to the TN if you enchant the blades or the whole thing. In my opinion though, it's like saying that one would have to enchant his entire arm if he had a Cyberarm with Spurs implanted.

I just don't get the house ruling to begin with. It always comes across odd when a GM comes up with contorted rules and reasoning to discourage something he doesn't like. I'd rather a GM simply tell me he doesn't like the idea behind it and ask me to come up with something more appropriate in his take of the setting.

As it stands, the house rules just don't make a lot of sense. Compared to a lot of weapons, Spurs are pretty simple and straight-forward weapons. The weirdness with increased Karma and having to forge and enchant them yourself is just plain weird.

hmm orichalcum weapon focus 6 spurs on an adept with IA cyber implant combat and an appropriate martial art to give him Close compbat with spurs add ambidex 8 and muscle aug
the ork from hell

Weapon foci all have orichalcum, in case anyone forgot.

Well I have always envisioned the blade as seperate piece that can be removed in case of broken spurs. besides why use a motor when myomer works so much better.

the reason for my convulted ruling was that he is barely magical.

Would you make him pay more for a non cyber weapon focus because he is barley magical?

Personally if I was going to do it I would use the compressed fibre composite blades with the di-coat option. True its OR 10 and no question about it but I just need to find a good tails monger to make it for me it will take the full month. 2 successes would be to much to ask.

I would not consider the dagger weapon focus pound to a stave to be a pole arm weapon focus because it’s a different type of weapon. What do you think of these scenarios.

1 I have had this katana weapon focus for several years and the binding on the grip is warn. I replace it.

2 My combat knife weapon focus falls 3 storeys, I retrieve it but the plastic grip is shattered. I replace the grip with a new one.

3 To celebrate my kills I tie a not of cloth to my combat axe weapon focus from everybody I kill with it.

4 The above combat axe had 5 such strips of cloth when I enchanted it. In the corse of combat they were out and fall off.

5 In a heated exchange my combat axe weapon focus is badly chipped. I grind the chip out restoring a sharp edge. What if I weld appropriate material into the chip to restore it to its original form.

6 The di-coat on my katana weapon focus wears out. I strip of the grip and handle and send it to be recoated and reassemble it.

7 While my katana weapon focus is being receiving its new coat of diamond I loos the original binding (the house it was in blew up say) I obtain a new handle for it.

8 In a heated exchange an opponent severs the haft on my combat axe. I affix a new handle.

9 My long spear haft breaks about 2 feet off. Rather than fixing it I decide to modify it to be a short spear

10 The binding that holds the spear head to the haft on my weapon focus wears out. I retrieve the haft and head and rebind them

11 My spear weapon focus is left in a building that burns down the haft is completely consumed but after the fire burns out I retrieve the head undamaged.

12Dose it mater wether the spear was di-coated tungsten with a plassteel shaft or stone and wood virgin telesma.

13 There was a bo staff beside the spear. It was completely consumed. That one is gone.

Edward

9 and 11) They are destroyed. But I'd allow a discount in bonding karma. In 9) you can straight away rebond the spear as a weapon focus and rebond it normally(as opposed to first bonding). Same for 11) after you attach a new shaft, you may bond as normal.