But, personally, yes I say frag that. One spell's +4 Willpower overwrites the previous spell's +4 Intuition because they're overlapping instances of the same spell even though the bonuses are different.
The reason I disagree with that is that what was likely done as a simplification and small buff of the system, now has turned into a punishment instead, because a player is not given a choice or alternative. Basically you're saying 'Frag you, you'll just have to wait for the Magic book to arrive so you can make custom spells to get past this arbitrary introduction I'm introducing just because I dislike Mages'. That seems like an unfair act which seems purely motivated by anti-mage hate, while not publicly indicating that, thus tainting newcomers their view on what they should use as rules.
Also: What's the benefit? You're basically nerfing the entire spell just to prevent mages from buffing 2 attributes, all because of a single Quality? If you care about that quality so much, why aren't you nerfing that in your houserules, instead of ruining a buff-tactic and buff-builds?
Who says that the specialized versions of the spell should return in a supplement? Kinda defeats the whole point.
Itīs not about "punishing mages", itīs about putting a stop to
- That 20+ Soak dice Benchmark (which would also allow for more reasonable Drain levels)
- Putting a stop to every mage having an almost identical set of "must-have" spells.
TBH, I donīt really think that Focused Concentration is
that overpowered. There are other ways of removing sustaining penalties. The problem is and
always has been the option to add +8 Drain dice with just two (and now, just one) spell. Itīs a no-brainer setup. Itīs the Magicrun equivalent of Attributes A at chargen. Since the previous 4th Edition, every "properly build" mage absolutetely needed to have Increase Willpower, Increase [Drain Attribute], Increase Reflexes, plus the necessary Fokus/Qualites/Spirit loadout to keep it sustained. And itīs this standard "morning routine" buff setup that turned drain into a joke in 5th Edition and lead to the punishing drain levels of 6th Edition, where a mage will likely deal more damage with a Fireball to himself then to its targets.
On the other hand, I
actually like the fact that the versatility of Increase Attribute had been increased by merging the 8 different Spells together - as long as its restricted to one spell per target. Thatīs a fair deal
and also scratches an itch that has been itching since 2 Editions.
How is that "ruining mages"? Talking about hyperbole here. Itīs a legitimate restriction that every other buff spell already has (and thus,
might actually have been RAI after all). It only nerfs one overused tactic, but at the same time, it makes space for more interesting options. It adds an incentive for mages to either use a more diverse self-buff loadout and/or spreading their share managable
Increase Attribute spells over different party members. Hooray for the new versatility! Everyone gets the buff they need! Is that really so unappealing? In fact,
Increase Attribute would still be a must-have even with the added restriction. And if somethingīs a must-have even in its "nerfed" state, thatīs very good sign that said nerf is justified.
