[Quatar]

I wonder if picking up Artificing on my Shaman is worth it. Maybe not maxed but 3-4 ranks I can probably squeeze in or pick up soon after game start

The Foci are freaking expensive, being able to craft my own, maybe even making the formula myself, would mean I safe a lot of money.

But while say a Force 2 or 3 Focus seems well within the realm of possibilities, making a Force 6 one seems almost impossible. But I guess I could slowly upgrade my focus every now and then too.

So I don't know. I'm sure other people did the math and all that, and know if it's worth it. Or will you be swimming in Nuyen before long and don't care about 100k spends on a Power Focus anymore?

[ZeldaBravo]

It's not like you have a lot of stuff to spend money for anyway, so...

[Hobbes]

Short answer, No.

Long answer, if you equate 1 Karma to 2,000 Nuyen, how much karma did you spend raising Artificing to save how much Nuyen.  Because even crafting your own Foci there are costs involved.  Lifestyle if nothing else.

Raising a skill to 6 costs 42 Karma.  Did you save 84,000 plus whatever crafting costs? 

[Jack_Spade]

Never pay karma if you can pay NY. You are saving more by investing into negotiation to bring the prices down.

[Quatar]

Here's my thought:

I don't need 6 skills in it, let's say I take 4. That's 20 karma, 16 with Jack of all Trades.

Making a Force 3 Power Focus forumal is a Magic+Arcana (9, 1 day) extended test, that should be easy. Aracna is something every mage should have anyway, so can't count those costs.

Now spending 18 drams of reagants on it, which is... 360 nuyen? A laughable amount really.

Now I make Artificing+Magic [Force] check vs Force + Object Resistance ... which ok, could be quite a bit higher than I first thought. But something made out of cold iron is just a +3 for a total of 6... vs my 10 ... hmm, ok. You should get 1 hit, maybe 2 and with luck 3.

But yes, even Force 3 are probably not as easy as I first thought... which would have saved me 54,000 nuyen.

For shits and giggles, lets see how I'd do on a Force 6 Focus:

Threshold of 36 for the formula. Ok that's tough. Dicepool of 15+ needed I'd say. Not impossible, especially later on (and hey your current +3 Power focus will help ), but not in the beginning

Something from Cold Iron would have a 9 dicepool, that's 2-3 hits on average... lowering my results (even assuming I hit the [Force] limit) down to 4 or 3... Unless I invest a lot more into Artificing I won't even get that. So I suppose to actually end up with a Force 6 focus I need a Force 8 or 9 Formula already, which means Magic 8 or 9 too...

So ok, yes, probably not worth it.

[Tecumseh]

I think you're at the right conclusion that it's not worth it for a traditional shadowrunner. Artificing can be a fun mini-game if you're not trying to optimize your character or if you're running a non-traditional campaign, but in most games it's too karma-intensive. Speaking from long experience, the Awakened are karma-poor and nuyen-rich, so any opportunity you have to spend nuyen to save yourself karma (in this case, by purchasing foci) is almost always a winning proposition.

[Reaver]

The only time it really pays for itself is when going after really high level foci that are almost impossible to find thanks to availability.

But that also means an extremely high investment in karma.... so it really becomes a giant furr-ball of trade offs.

In short, its an "end game" skill, with no value for the average runner who is not in a long term game with the potential of 1000+ karma life span...

(However, if you ARE in a long term game, it can be very useful)

[Whiskeyjack]

Is it used in focus upgrading? Or is that just something you can pay someone else to do?

[Strange]

Is it used in focus upgrading? Or is that just something you can pay someone else to do?

iirc, foci can only be upgraded by the person who originally made it.  So if you bought it, then you have to have the same person upgrade it.  Not sure about the costs, would assume it is just the difference of what it currently is to what you want it to be, i.e. you have a level 3 foci, want to make it a level 4, you pay the price of a level 4 minus the level 3.

[Quatar]

Yes the fact the same person has to do the upgrading, means I can't even make a Force 2 or 3 myself, and then just later pay someone to upgrade it to 6. Would have to start from scratch, and also bind it from scratch, paying karma double and tripple.

Thank you all for your answers, I feel a lot better about skipping Artifice (and Enchanting in general) completely now.

[Jack_Spade]

Well, maybe not completely. The ability to harvest reagents is useful (But there is no reason to invest more than one or two points into it)

[Quatar]

Oh good point, didn't think of that.

[Facemage]

Harvesting skill is alchemy. It is also possible to use it to get some minor bonuses.

[SmilinIrish]

Harvesting skill is alchemy. It is also possible to use it to get some minor bonuses.

Use alchemy to get minor bonuses in what? 

[Facemage]

Create 10 increase intuition preparations (contact trigger, enchanted gloves + biofiber pocket). Every runner in your team can boost their intuition in fight situations.

Other useful buff preparations: deflection, combat sense and increase body.

Later, with power focus you can start to create combat, illusion or manipulation spell preparations (ice sheet, fireball trap and sustained illusion spells (hot potato)).