The under appreciated expendable spell focus.

I was just checking the enchanting rules and I realised the expendable spell foci that I had long ignored because of expense are actually exceedingly cheep and easy to make yourself.

For example, a enchanter can make intelligence foci at the same time for the cost of a single set of alchemical reagents. The TN to craft a force 4 focus can easily be reduced to 2 buy using hand made telesma and 3 alchemical reagents, as the focus is intended to be discarded it dose not need to be exceedingly pretty or physically strong so making the telesma need not be difficult or expensive, the alchemical reagents can easily come to less than 500nuyen and are easily acquired.

The proses requires an enchanting shop and ether a shamanic lodge or a hermetic library, thee will be expensive but they are persistent and likely useful at other times as well, or sometimes you can rent one.

The base time is 30 days divided buy successes on the enchanting test even with a skill of only 4 it is highly improbable that you would take more than 10 days to craft these.

Having these will allow you to throw an extra 4 dice into spells of the chosen type when you really need to, especially useful would be health, combat and manipulation and they where so cheep and easy to make.

Do many people use these foci or did you like me ignore them on the grounds that 1500 nuyen will almost always be to much to pay for an extra dice.

Edward

Ps to those that want to make money, assuming about 20 days work a month (subject to rolls each month) for an initial outlay of 102000 nuyen (shaman) or 116000 nuyen (hermetic) and a monthly cost no higher than 1000 nuyen + high life style of 10000 nuyen. An enchanter with int 4 and enchanting 4 can produce foci worth 48000 nuyen every month on the open market.

With enchanting 6 and int 6 that becomes 108000nuyen a month and you get Saturday and Sunday off.

I stand by the belief that anybody that dose this kind of behaviour regularly is not a shadow runner and thus not a PC

Well, the only tradeskill thats fairly developed in SR, is so horribly broken that no mage would want to be a runner if he could sell his wares at those prices.

My PC's usually just cut it away and doesn't even dabble in it. If I did, my greed would force me to milk it for everything I could get away with.. So I just close my eyes and pretend its not possible.

However, another guy in my group made, with his initial funds, an enchanting shop, purchased materials, the works, and hammered out a F8 Power Foci and sold the spare orichalcum for a net profit. Only had to pay up the Karma to bind it, and I'm not sure how much of a rebate he got through his skill.

Now THAT, is kinda annoying. Especially when he "shops down" and only uses 4 dice on it, to "keep things balanced", unless his hoop is on the line, in which case he uses it all.

Oh, and yea, naturally its fitted in a hidden toothcompartment for extra munchkin points.

Gawds I look forward to the day the GM wizes up to his tricks and decides someone not trustworthy kicks that 1,6 mio nuyen nugget out of his teeth. Come to think of it, as the party cathes on to that focus, one of them might end up doing it. He only activates it now and then though, so it was pure happenstance that my own character finally figured out how the hell he delivered powerful greatform spirits and spells without ever taking drain.

my character has a nice little enchating shop. Never try selling Orichalcun (well, except for the first time, got the moeny for the shop from a loan shark basically. Sold the first batch to pay him back), but I love expendable spell foci. I usually only carry them on runs where I'm expectig to have to do some serious spell slinging. Always make them in the form of wooden wands cut from redwoods, and color code them ( Red is combat!), and have them in a 'holster'. Gives some extra nice boosts when you need it.

If you're having trouble with players selling off stuff at a high price, especially foci, all you have to do is apply the "Fencing the loot" rules, on p 237-238 BBB. Basically, the fence will never go above 50% of the retail value of the goods. The price can go a lot lower than that, in fact.

But back on topic, I've discovered expendible foci to be a nice, if pricey, ace in the hole. I typically carry ones for my big combat spells, for when I'm cornered and need the edge. They also come in handy for Heal/Treat spells. For most other spells, they're simply not worth the cost.

Expendable spell foci. If I understand it right one has to bond it in order to use it. Offcourse it cost nothing to bond, but it takes some time (which you might not have). If you bond them before hand, you might run into to problems:

• they count towards focus addiction?
• they have to be masked (if you feel secret)
• they have to be synchronized if you want to bring them through a detected ward
• they break if you walk through a ward

I'm not quite sure where expendable foci stand in regards to these points... rating wise.
how much do they count when masking? how much do they count vs wards?

I guess that if they are detected on the astral (inactive... before you bond them), they can be destroyed. Maybe some kind of concealability rating would be in order? concealed on your physical body = concealed on the astral body.


but yes.... they are good to have

Most of those drawbacks only apply when the Focus is Active. Just Bonding it does not make it Active.

You don't have to bond expendable spell foci.

I like the enchanting rules, myself, and to tell you the truth, as a GM i'd actually PREFER a PC making their own foci and stuff rather than buying it. If a PC wants to make a force 8 Power Focus, go for it! I mean, by the book, those things are not easy...keep in mind what 'Virgin Telesma' means....it doesn't mean using a chunk of natural gold, silver, and mercury in the orichalcum, it means going to some mine with a pick, mining the stuff yourself, THEN making the orichalcum, then making yourself the focus with another skill, then doing the other stuff yourself(mining the crystals, etc), and THEN, even with all the Karma reductions, the cost for a First Bonding STILL should be friggin out of this world. And if you don't have it when the focus is finished, and bond right away, it's useless.


If that force 8 focus didn't sink at LEAST 20 or so karma i'd be surprised, even with the cutdowns. and 20 is being generous, it doesn't sound virgin, either.


But because of virgin telesma being such a pain, I'd prolly save that for the big stuff, and just use basic stuff for the expendable spell foci. A TN of 4 isn't that hard to nail.

He began the game with all the raw materials already purchased, including a 100k enchanting facility. Then used the additional Karma granted for a new character when he then used those materials to create the focus.

As its just a tiny bauble of orichalcum, I don't think he has to use any special skill to create the focus.

But as I said, that is just contrary to the nature of the whole idea. If a character in game decides to enchant something, then it will cost them to set the whole deal up. But once they got it, the rules for raw materials splitting into several radicals makes it too easy to make money. - Unless the GM sets his foot down.

It costs no karma and specifies no time. It limits it by being an exclusive action to use.

... ahh.. work's done... sunny day... and back home

with my SR3 in hand I'm quite certan that an expendable spell focus must be bonded before use. This takes however only a single complex action and costs no karma. SR3 p.190: "...require only a single complex action, regardless of force" normaly foci takes force in hours to bond.
It also has to be activeted like any other focus, which takes a simple action.


SR3 p.190
Expendable spell foci.
"Once activeted the Force of the focus can be applied as additional dice....."

I haven't checked errata on this... but think it still stands.

EDIT: argghhh... should have check the errata:

p. 190: Expendable Spell Foci [6]
Add the phrase "to cast" after the phrase "Exclusive Complex Action" in the last sentence of the first paragragh.



so it reqiuers only 1 complex action to cast? ... we're casting foci now.. ok
whatever that means I still hold that it should be bonded (Force hours) and activeted (compl.... simple... free?).

I think the guy who did the errata didn't understand the original idea. What is with the "regardsless of force" ??

The "Bonding" bit states Force hours to bond foci and refers to the list where Expendable Spell Focus is on.
The "Activation" bit is also straight forward, simple action.

...and there are no exceptions mentioned to these in "expendable spell foci"

anyway the GM is always right. I just like to limit them a bit. not to have all mages run around with 6x6 ex spell foci... and use them whenever they cast spells.

Thanks for clearing that up....I guess what I meant to say was 'costs no Karma to bond' . That i was certain. But the 'bonding' process slipped my mind.

Oh, when I was describing the focus, I was talking virgin telesma. Not just general foci...any mage can grab a bunch of readymade material and make a focus...but it's gonna cost hella lot more to bond, and without orichalcum, it's even more.

My dog shaman always used expendable foci exclusive for combat spells, but that was SR2, the rules were a bit different then. He was a sight to behold when someone went after a team mate.

Grrrr. Bow Wow Wow! BOOOOOM!

so how many exp spell foci can you use at once? Is it possible to activate two in one round, and then use them both in a casting the next?

The only limit is the character's Intelligence. A character can have a number of Foci up to his intelligence (of any kind) active at any one time. Of course, if the combined Force of all active Foci is more than twice his Magic Attribute, then he is facing Focus Addiction.

one could interpet the phrase with "exclusive complex action to cast" as a limit the number that can be used.

I've always ruled that only one expendable focus per casting is allowed, unless you are stacking two different kinds of spells I suppose.

Can I get a rules ninja to check that out as I am at work and not in possession of my massive SR library..

Ahh, no book here again but I am guessing, if a spell is exclusive...you can't stack...cos to stack, you need to cast TWO spells...and if it's exclusive, that's ALL you can do that round, is cast that spell.

But again, rules ninja would be nice.

Ah yes, exclusive action to cast the spell once the focus is active. Hmmmm, the timing seems a bit off.

Depending on how you interpret the Exclusive Complex Action, you can have more than 1 expendable spell focus or you can have only 1.

How do I interpret the Exclusive Complex Action? I see it that as long as you are casting a spell through a expendable spell focus, you spend an Exclusive Complex Action to do it. It does not matter how many expendable spell foci you have.

However, if you interpret it to mean for every expendable spell focus you use, you are required to use an Exclusive Complex Action, then you can only use 1 for each spell.

Maybe it is exclusive so that it can not be used to augment a spell cast into a sustaining focus (another exclusive action).

Well, that is certainly possible, but I can't see why you would need to limit that.

Here is how that is broken(IMO): I take the spell as exclusively cast with a fetish, I can never cast the spell into a focus now. I don't think so, but the rules seem to differ.

The 'Fetish' limitation isn't considered 'exclusive' though. If you took a spell with the 'Exclusive' limitation, you could never cast it into a Sustaining Focus.

Personally, I've always played it that the Expendible spell Foci do not require an action to activate, as that is included in the Exclusive Complex Action it takes to cast a spell with the focus. Similarly, it does not take an Exclusive action to cast a spell using extra dice from a Power or Spell Category Focus, but you have to activate them beforehand, I see the activation of the Expendible Spell Focus as part and parcel of the spell being cast with it. The focus is only good once, and if you're using other foci at the time the sneaky bastards can hit you with Focus Addiction before you even know it, so I see this as fairly balanced. You can't use one of these to cast a spell into a Sustaining Focus (since that would also be an exclusive action. You can use either the sustaining focus or the Expendible focus, but not one to augment the other, where a Power or Spell Category focus would be completely fine here).

The best thing about Expendibles is that they are cheap (on the pockets and in the Karma) compared to the other Foci, you can buy them in bulk, and they can provide a very much needed boost of power for some of the more important spells.

I actually run a Combat Sorceress who uses these things all the time, and is so far the only one in the group to have anything to do with them. A Force 8 Expendible for a Ritual Sustaining of an Enhanced Aim spell goes a loooong way, and when healing that damn Street Sam who can't seem to stay out of the way of the bullets, an Expendible Health Focus is rediculously handy. The only problem I run into is that in combat she usually has a Force 6 Armor and a Foce 3 Inc. Reflexes + 3 both in sustaining foci, so any expendible over Force 3 puts her in Focus Addiction range (which isn't quite as bad as the six doses of Kamikaze she's got in her pocket 'just in case', but close).

I believe that the rules suggest it's an Exclusive Complex Action to cast a spell using Expendible Foci. You do not need to activate them prior to using them.

You can use as many as you like for one spell (assuming they're of the correct type), but keep focus addiction rules in mind. Also, I don't have a problem with using as many as you'd like since the cost adds up quite a bit for that one spell cast.