Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Scawire on <05-12-13/1617:50>
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Does a Power Focus add to a mages magic rating. The way I've always played it was the power focus rating would be added directly to the magic rating allowing the spell caster to cast higher force spells well still only doing stun damage. Please let me know.
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A Power Focus adds its Rating in dice towards Magic Tests(except Counterspelling).
Ex: Maya casts Bind at Force 8. Magic+Spellcasting totals at about 11, with her Rating 2 Power Focus adding 2 more dice into pool, increasing her chances of getting more successes during her rolls.
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So it adds dice to the rolls but doesn't add to the magic rating. I've been adding the rating to the magic rating since 2nd edition maybe they changed the system that means I have to rethink alot of my builds then.
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Power Foci add to any tests that involve the Magic attribute. That would include Counterspelling tests, just not the reflexive kind (when you add counterspelling to the resistance test for a spell), only tge active tests to dispel magic.
It does not add directly to the magic attrubute, at least not in 4th edition.
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Ok I hope I can get a DEV to sign in on the ruling because It would damage my ability to play mystic adepts and they are already hard as is to have them work.
I know this is 4th edition but this is what 2nd edition says since I can't find my 3rd edition books right now.
Page 138 main book. " First, they increase a magician's Magic Rating by their Value"
I know that other focuses have changed but I hope this effect doesn't change too.
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... You don't need a dev. There is absolutely no ambiguity here.
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Agreed. There is zero ambiguity here. Power foci do not modify your magic rating, end of story.
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Deckers complain that there is new technology making stuff wireless and a name change, changing the history of a power focus from what the 1st to 3d edition say (how it increases a magicians magic rating) will bother me a bit.
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Regardless, that's the way it is now and has been for the previous 8 years.
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Yeah, a Power Focus isn't gonna do anything for an Adept except help out his Attribute Boost, Masking, Empathic Healing, Enthralling Performance, Motion Sense, Pain Relief or Three-Dimensional Memory Powers (plus any other Magic Tests I may have missed :P).
Power Foci explicitly only add their Force to "all tests where the magician's Magic Attribute is included". Which is to say, Adept's could arguably not be allowed to use them at all.
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Deckers complain that there is new technology making stuff wireless and a name change, changing the history of a power focus from what the 1st to 3d edition say (how it increases a magicians magic rating) will bother me a bit.
Think of it what you will, but that IS the rule.
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Deckers complain that there is new technology making stuff wireless and a name change, changing the history of a power focus from what the 1st to 3d edition say (how it increases a magicians magic rating) will bother me a bit.
With the surge of magic that came with the comet it isn't a changing of the history. Power Foci aren't as powerful as they once were because the overall mana level is higher. Or some similar reasoning, I'm not sure. But magic functions differently in a number of ways in 4th edition, and I'm pretty sure they described it with the surge of the overall mana...
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It still says "Possession of a power focus feeds a magician's Magic directly", it also says. "A power focus adds its force to all tests in which the magician's Magic is included" Why does this not add its force to the level of spell you can cast since that includes the magician's magic? page 200 main book. This to me means it should still do what it did in 1st 2nd and 3rd edition.
I was also talking about a mystic adept earlier not a adept just to clear that up.
I have been playing 4th edition since the beginning and I've always had it increase my magic rating since that is what it has done since I started play since the 2nd edition.
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Because the force you cast at isn't determined by a test. Much like if something adds its rating to all tests involving Body, it doesn't provide extra damage boxes because it doesn't actually add to Body.
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You also don't risking losing magic every time you get seriously injured or if you get treated with first aid without special materials...
There are a number of changes between 3rd edition and 4th.
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But it always did in the past and the full second sentence of the main book page 200 says.
"Possession of a power focus feeds a magician's magic directly, making her efforts more powerful in all forms of magical ability"
It feeds her magic directly and its more powerful in all forms of magical ability, is not the force of a spell a magical ability? I can cast force 3 you can cast force 5 who has the greater "ABILITY"?
That second sentence makes me think it still does what it has always done.
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Every single person on these forums is here to tell you, you are wrong dude. Accept it.
When it says "all forms of magic ability", it means it gives bonus dice to all tests. Why is this so hard for you? Mechanics change, that's the point of new editions. Magicians are just fine, they don't need the full Attribute boost.
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makes you more powerful, increases effectiveness of tests. in all forms of magical ability, Spellcasting, Conjuring, any test that involves Magic.
That's exactly what it does. It adds dice your Magic-related tests. The text is very explicit in what it does.
Note also, that in 4th Edition, your Magic score is no longer Essence + Initiation. It all works differently...
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Give's a bonus to all test
I have a PIXIE his magic rating is 6 he has a power focus of 4 what happens to his concealment test does it give a -6 to perception TEST or a -10 to the TEST?????
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Possession of a power focus feeds a magician's magic directly, making her efforts more powerful in all forms of magical ability
By adding its rating to all tests involving the Magic attribute.
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Give's a bonus to all test
I have a PIXIE his magic rating is 6 he has a power focus of 4 what happens to his concealment test does it give a -6 to perception TEST or a -10 to the TEST?????
considering that Concealment isn't a test... Not to mention that the penalty is to others, not the possessor directly. As we said it doesn't modify the Magic attribute, so the penalty would be equal to the Pixie's Magic Attribute, 6.
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Give's a bonus to all test
I have a PIXIE his magic rating is 6 he has a power focus of 4 what happens to his concealment test does it give a -6 to perception TEST or a -10 to the TEST?????
Your pixie isn't the one making that test, someone else is, so the power focus has no effect. It's pretty straightforward, Scawire. When a character with a bonded power focus makes a test (rolls dice) that includes their Magic attribute, they get some extra dice. That's it. That's still a lot, but that's it.
Yes, it worked different in first, second, and third editions, but so did lots of other stuff. Damage staging changes, initiative rules changed, target numbers changed, damage tracks changed, all kinds of stuff has changed. This is another thing that changed (eight years ago, when fourth edition came out).
Now if you've been using it the other way, and your GM and your fellow players are cool with it -- party on Garth! There's nothing wrong with it as a house rule, if you guys think that magicians need the help. But sitting here and arguing about it isn't going to change the text written on the page.
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Whenever you have to roll dice and the check looks like this; Magic+Skill, you get the force of your focus more dice to the roll. If you don't roll Magic dice, you get no bonus. You are not rolling dice to determine their minus to Perception so the focus has no benefit there. So it's -6.
I really hope you're just being difficult and aren't actually this... eh, difficult.
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It still says " A power Focus adds its force to all tests in which the magician's magic is included" not his test but "all test that include his magic rating."
And if it says it making "her efforts more powerful in all forms of magical ability" why doesn't it add to her ability to cast higher force spells
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I don't see it as only adding to a dice roll but the mages magic directly, and all abilities as sentence 2 says
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Find a sentence that states "Add the rating of the focus to the character's Magic rating". You won't. You're citing descriptive sentences (that is, sentences that describe the mechanic in general terms) to combat the prescriptive sentence (which lay out the exact functioning of the rule) - that just doesn't work.
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also at the end of the "FOCI" section page 199 it says "while power foci boost Magic directly" why should it be assumed that it only boost in dice pool not the magic in the magician?
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Because that is what the prescriptive text states. The descriptive text is not precise enough to establish rules, pure and simple.
And that post from Critias? That's as close to a dev response as you're going to get.
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Because Stone Cold said so!
Stuff changes, it hasn't worked like that for a long time. I don't know what else you want. Critias isn't quite a Dev but he writes for the game and wouldn't deliberately lead you down the wrong path.
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It doesn't matter how you see it. Sorry.
Unless you're the GM I guess. In which case you are free to overpower Magic as much as you want.
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Scawire, what is it you hope to gain from continuing this discussion? Your mind is clearly made up that it works a certain way. If your group agrees, what's the point in sticking around and arguing it? Their opinions are the ones that matter, not ours or that of the book. If you think it should work that way, in your game it works that way. Arguing about it isn't going to change what the book says or what anyone else in this thread thinks, and that's okay, if your group likes to play it that way, that's no problem.
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Every single person on these forums is here to tell you, you are wrong dude. Accept it.
When it says "all forms of magic ability", it means it gives bonus dice to all tests. Why is this so hard for you? Mechanics change, that's the point of new editions. Magicians are just fine, they don't need the full Attribute boost.
It doesn't matter how you see it. Sorry.
Unless you're the GM I guess. In which case you are free to overpower Magic as much as you want.
His problem is that it worked that way through the first three full editions and suddenly doesn't any more. Honestly, it is bull-drek that that alteration was made to Power Focus without a reduction in the cost to bind it or any good explanation for it (and no, claims of supposed "balance" are not sufficient since such is VERY subjective).
As to the comment on losing Magic for things other than Essence loss, such were always optional rules if memory serves.
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Where I come from, the price of consumer goods are generally determined by supply and demand. Has it gotten easier to make foci? And has the number of people wanting them shrank? Those are the primary relevant issues there. And I can't say I know the answers either.
And that wasn't his problem. You'll notice he was debating the meaning of the 4E RAW. It's silly when person-x comes along, asks for input, doesn't like what they receive, and proceed to rail against it even when everyone's saying the same thing. He didn't want objective input. He wanted his view affirmed.
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Where I come from, the price of consumer goods are generally determined by supply and demand. Has it gotten easier to make foci? And has the number of people wanting them shrank? Those are the primary relevant issues there. And I can't say I know the answers either.
And that wasn't his problem. You'll notice he was debating the meaning of the 4E RAW. It's silly when person-x comes along, asks for input, doesn't like what they receive, and proceed to rail against it even when everyone's saying the same thing. He didn't want objective input. He wanted his view affirmed.
Possibly, but he could also have been wanting a GOOD explanation as to why that was changed (and as I said, the "balance" claims aren't good enough for the reason I gave above).
As to cost, I didn't say a word about the monetary cost. That's fine as it is, but without it increasing Magic in the way it did for the previous three editions, the KARMA COST to bind them should have been reduced. (A reduction to x5 or x6 would have been sufficient reduction, but x8 is just ridiculous without that benefit.)
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If you set it up to actually increase your magic score, then the karma to bond it should be increased dramatically. If you have 6 magic, it'll cost 35 karma to get to 7(not including initiation costs). Currently, for 35 karma you can get a rating 4 power focus. Increase magic by 1 or increase it by 4 for 3 less karma? Easy choice, and decidedly uneven.
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If you set it up to actually increase your magic score, then the karma to bond it should be increased dramatically. If you have 6 magic, it'll cost 35 karma to get to 7(not including initiation costs). Currently, for 35 karma you can get a rating 4 power focus. Increase magic by 1 or increase it by 4 for 3 less karma? Easy choice, and decidedly uneven.
No it shouldn't. It cost LESS to bond in Third Edition and it gave that benefit. With the increase in bonding cost (from x5 to x8) it should have kept that benefit or been left at the same bonding cost.
Note- Had thought it was x8 before, but just rechecked my SR3 core book.
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So you're saying that since it did something in a previous edition, it should do the same now? Regardless of whether it's balanced? Or you think that it's fine to buy 6 Magic and a rating 8 Power Focus for total of 14 magic at the cost of 75+64 karma(139 total) as opposed to buying 14 magic which costs 495 karma? Plus 8 initiations.
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Didn't 3rd have rules for burning Karma, such that a lesser amount could actually be more valuable?
Also, actual balance is not subjective.
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So you're saying that since it did something in a previous edition, it should do the same now? Regardless of whether it's balanced? Or you think that it's fine to buy 6 Magic and a rating 8 Power Focus for total of 14 magic at the cost of 75+64 karma(139 total) as opposed to buying 14 magic which costs 495 karma? Plus 8 initiations.
Considering that passing through a Ward would make one lose 8 Magic-Equivalent, yes.
Also, actual balance is not subjective.
"Balance" is and should be always subjective, as the only metric that should ever matter for it is the table one is playing at. In no way should such things be "hard-coded" into the system itself, lest the system turn into a bland and boring game like The-Game-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named.
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Assuming the rating 8 power focus lost the Force x 2 roll vs the mana barrier's rating x 2? Sure. He would temporarily lose the use of it until he activated it using 1.5 seconds of concentration.
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Your point? The point still remains that it is not a sure and permanent thing.
Had there been a good and solid setting reason for it not to do so any more, that would be one thing, but there wasn't, so it should have remained. Period.
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That's not something you can really end with "Period.", since it's just a statement of your opinion going against the game designer's opinions.
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Your point? The point still remains that it is not a sure and permanent thing.
Had there been a good and solid setting reason for it not to do so any more, that would be one thing, but there wasn't, so it should have remained. Period.
Even assuming that your opinion is correct, the fact remains that it did not remain. So when someone asks us how they work -- not how we think they should work, not how they used to work, not how we might want to houserule them into working -- well, we tell them how they work.
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OK. Been reading all of the arguments about cost and karma and all that. I think the biggest thing being missed is, IMHO, the value of the Magic attribute between editions.
In all editions Magic is a limiter of the force of the spell you can cast and spirit you can summon.
In all editions it was used for certain astral tests and vs wards.
In older editions it was the radius for area spells. In 4th, based off force
Magic loss was the rule back then, now it's optional much harder to boot.
Also in older editions it was peripherally added to spellcasting rolls (being averaged with 2 other attributes for spell pool). Now you add the entirety of your attribute to all tests.
Magic means more in 4th ed than in earlier editions. Therefore, a power focus is more potent in 4th. Probably why they chose to increase bonding costs and change it's game effect (add directly to Magic). That, and the fact that in older editions, it was very difficult to get spells at a significant force. In 4th, it's nothing to see a force 12 spell.
Regardless, as everyone else has already posted. It is what it is now. Follow the rules as is or make your own up. Either way, peace. :)
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As to cost, I didn't say a word about the monetary cost.
Yep, sorry, missed the "binding" part of your OP.
Regarding the Karma cost to bind, I really don't see what your problem is, other than - "They changed things and I don't like it, because I don't!". Even if your demand for justification beyond this silly thing called balance was legitimate (which it's not - balance is not subjective, a Vanilla release should try to be consistent within itself and balanced with regards to that consistency, people can house-rule away what they don't want), I'm pretty sure others already touched on the reason with the rising Mana, no?
Not only does a Power Focus do the job of 4 other Foci which separately would cost you 75% more Karma than just the Power Focus, it also does the job of a 5th otherwise non-existant Foci in boosting Enchanting. This discount is directly between the "discounts" given by a 3 constituent Skill Group and a 4 constituent Skill Group, while in fact still boosting 6 Skills and exceeding normal Skill augmented maximum levels and generally is just more awesome than any other way to augment any Skills in the game at all for those 2 reasons.
Most characters have 1 Attribute to resist much of the worst of Spells, what can possibly make you think that Magic needs more help? The Magic mechanic is dis-balanced, by definition (on the side of Magic), at it's very core.
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Well sorry if you didn't like my post but I always have used the Power Focus that way and I was trying to put forth my reason why I felt it should work the same as it always did.
Now it is time to ditch the Mystic Adept since they don't work any where near as good as they did back in 3rd edition. You basicly have to always over cast to have an decent effect with your spells
As for a mage being too powerful because of the power focus, each new edition does strip power from mages spell locks become sustaining focus (2nd to 3rd), getting a high level focus is now out of the question for 4th edition. A mage no longer starts at 6 magic at the start. You have to use drugs to lower your -2 dice to sustaining instead of a quality that would do it before. Mystic Adepts with out power focuses working they way they use to are almost a waste of time. Cost of leveling up in now pay for the initiate level then you can pay on top of that for the magic rating.
I would have like it if it became cannon that like a hacked autosoft that the GM decides if it downgrades or not. Since this increase to the magic rating like 1st to 3rd edition is now only a house rule I can see that GM will more then not never use such a rule.
My Mystic Adepts are now a thing of older editions. I didn't look to build a character that had 13 agility, (elf muscle toner 4, genetic optimized agility) 6 (8) automatics with smartlink and the APDS rounds via restricted gear. I personally wanted my Mystic Adept that would hold his own with the rest of the characters out there.
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From what I hear, the entire Magic system has been changed up. So of course Power Focus won't stay the same. Things change and you can't let items stay the same if the mechanics they work with have changed themselves. Hacking has changed and will once more with 5e coming 'round the bend, ware has been changed quite a bit, damage changed and far more, not just the Power Focus. And if things have been tuned down, that's even more reason for the Power Focus as well to have a lessened effect, since it's already usable in the place of many Foci all in once.
If you think it should work the same as before, that's between you and your GM. But the rules are clearly written on this and Power Focus, like so many other things, has gone with the times. The way you'd like it to work likely would completely break the balance, so I can't say I'd disagree with a GM keeping things according to RAW.
That doesn't mean Mystic Adepts aren't doable, it just means you can't be as good as a magician and as good as an adept at the same time.
Just a side note, isn't a Force-6 Stunbolt still just 2P drain? Even at 9 resistance dice that's only 0.17P damage on average.