Magical focus / magical item

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Yes. So, it comes down to what foci the troupe says are allowable.

It is difficult to see why a focus, say, in "archaic Roman armour" wouldn't apply both when you are casting spells that target "archaic Roman armour" and when you are enchanting "archaic Roman armour" as an item. In fact, if I had a character with this focus I would be pretty annoyed if I couldn't use the focus to enchant some Roman armour with item effects.

Sure, if your focus is "wooden wands" it is much more practical and effective than some other possible foci --- but not all foci need to be equal, and not all foci need to be allowed by the troupe. Certainly, I think that I would argue that "wooden wands" is a Major Focus, whereas "archaic Roman armour" might be a Minor Focus. I could also see an arguement for the troupe stating that "wooden wands" is not allowable as a focus. However, if your troupe allows "wooden wands" as a focus, it is quite clear what having a focus actually does.

22

But let's look at the flip side. Wood is a valid Minor Focus. Why a focus in wooden wands, which is far, far more restrictive than the already existing wood focus? Why not use the wood focus instead? What was the point in making something so restrictive?

Also, it was a reasonable conclusion based on what happens with familiars, too, well before HoH:MC. It is explicit with familiars. It isn't explicit, but it also isn't denied, in other cases. You say "jumping to the conclusion," but you have to jump to some conclusion either way. What makes one more right than the other?

Chris

23

Yes, you classified my opinion well. I'm not sure he left the mess so much as exposed its presence, but yes, I agree with you that a mess was left.

Chris

24

Yeah i noticed your mention of it but i preferred aiming for something which can be used as a single completle object to avoid any ambiguities about when you get the bonus or not(if the gemstone is made part of something else, where do you draw the line then).

Well, more like undecided. There are decent arguments both ways but my basic stance is against it, even if its not the strongest of stances.

Not at all.

Exactly. This is why i think it breaks apart even though otherwise the RAW seems intent on it being allowed.

If anything, i think that if you want a Focus that allows affecting any and all enchantments in a kind of items, i could probably be convinced to change it to "Enchanting wooden wands(or whatever item)", as a Major Focus most likely.
That i would be fine with.
Then you´re moving the item specification down one grade below whats normal for a minor and you add the restriction that its only for enchanting this kind of items, while making it a Major Virtue. That feels like a decent tradeoff compared to other Focii.

25

To be clear with my interpretation you'd get your bonus when enchanting the Roman armor to repair itself, or buckle itself, or grow spikes, or be as hard as diamond, or be as light as a feather, or animate itself, or any other effect that involves the actual armor. You wouldn't get the bonus when enchanting the armor to summon ducks or to transmute ashes into beer or to make people think of cheese, or any other effect that doesn't involve the armor as anything apart from a receptacle to hold the enchantment.

I'd think that if you chose a focus with archaic Roman armour you'd want to create effects that actually involve the armor. If you take a focus in ancient roman armor so you can get bonuses to enchant peering into the mortal mind or curse of Circe then it certainly looks, at least on the surface, like you're being a twink.

26

You have a point in that no situation comes to mind where a wooden wands focus would apply but a wood focus wouldn't. So the only in game benefit you'd get is less grief from your fellow players who might argue about how wood shouldn't be a minor focus regardless of what the book says.

I think that variations in the relative power of magical foci is unavoidable if you've got but two levels to choose from. Look at eh other example minor focus for herbam in the core book: fruiting, not fruit - fruiting. Do you think that wooden wands in more restrictive than that?

Presumably you take a magical focus as a way to define your character rather than as a way to achieve maximum power. You'd take a focus in wooden wands if you wanted to be the wooden wand guy. If you choose wood instead your character would be acting irrationally if he choose to solve problems with only wooden wands because he'd be ignoring his abilities with other wood. If you want to approach everything with the mindset of wooden wands, then a focus in wood isn't as good because the proportion of situations where it behooves you to use wooden wands as opposed to some other wood effect is much smaller. Your character would be hamstringing himself to act as you the player want them to. It would be harder to rationalize as just a fondness.

27

I think "whatever enchant in a wooden wand" is the other pink dot. In both cases, I have no interest in going there. If a friendly Verditius offers me some OP wooden wands, I'll take them though.

28

Yes, its a good house rule. Wooden wand focus is overpowered for 1 point. Is it still a matter of question?

It would be a good general rule. This variant is better for rulebooks.

29

I tend to agree with the armour examples put forward by Erik Tyrrell

However, I am not so sure if this would apply to other fields, najmely wands.

Wands are famous for doing stuff that does NOT affect them directly. A wand is generally used to project bolts and projectiles, and to control things at a distance. I would be hard pressed to prevent a player with a focus in wands not get a bonus casting a version of unseen porter or lifting the dangling puppet with his wand. It is one of the paradigmatic uses of wands in the setting, after all. To me those are MUCH more "classical" uses for the focus than casting piercing shaft of wood on the wand itself (and the later is something that IS explictly covered by the focus).

Xavi

30

If you have a magical focus in a material or object type, when does the benefit apply to enchanting items?
A. if the effect you are instilling creates, targets or, changes something into an example of your focus then the benefit applies. This includes all effects instilled in an example of the focus with range personal.
B. when instilling effect into an example of the focus which do not meet A. but which do receive a form bonus when your focus is specifically used. Verditus runes do not count. Eg. a magus with a focus in wood would not get the focus benefit when enchanting a wooden wand with pilum of fire but one with a wooden wand focus would. However, the wood focused magus would get the benefit when enchanting an oak steering oar to protect against storms where the wand specialist would not.

How about that?

31

Surely it does not help that, after saying that a minor focus should be slightly narrower than one TeFo combination, almost every example given is of a very small part of a Form, with no reference to the Technique at all. Yet this has a radically different effect:

A minor magical focus in a particular type of object is all an enchanter need to guarantee that every object he makes will benefit from it, but is only rarely useful to a spell caster. It does not matter how narrow the object, for the enchanter it is enough that it exists (assuming that the focus does apply when enchanting, no matter the effect)
On the other hand, the right minor magical focus in a TeFo (creating fire, healing, dispelling) can make a spell caster very potent but is only moderately useful to an enchanter, because those TeFo don't match actual objects, and because while a spell caster can often afford to learn a number of variations on his favorite effect, an enchanter has to make every enchantment count and can't afford duplicates.

What really annoys me in this situation is that there is no incentive for an enchanter to take a major magical focus. Why should he need a major magical focus in metal when he can have a minor magical focus in iron wands ? At most it adds a few extra points of shape or material bonus here and there, but Inventive Genius does that far better, and a Verditius would use Philosophiae anyway to get around it...

Personally, I would tend to house rule against applying a magical focus to ever effect enchanted in an object matching the focus, because in the hands of the wrong Verditius this is just a license to apply it to everything.

32

As a side note, a focus in Ash wood can be a minor focus (we have had this IMS), but "wood" in general is definitively a Major focus IMS. Too broad and certainly Waaaay over the "single Te+Fo combo subset" guideline

Xavi

33

Wood is listed as a minor focus example on page ArM 46 However trees are listed as a Major focus on the preceding chart. What I can only conclude from that is that a focus in wood doesn't cover living trees as a target. Like a focus in iron might not cover iron ore.

I generally stick to lab totals only being increased if the effect targets the material directly. So wooden staff that transforms into a snake could benefit from a focus in wood, staffs, or snakes. (all of which I consider minor focuses though snake is right on the bubble)

I would also consider allowing a focus to be applied to a lab total if the focus related to a shape or material bonus the item makes use of. For instance if you had a focus in wands any effect that controls things at a distance that you build into a wand gets a bonus from your magical focus. But thats about as far as I would go.

I also tend to think that focuses like wooden wands, iron swords or ancient armor are a little to specific even for minor focuses.

34

To me Iron should be over all iron forms and states.
But you have right, specilly because the example of Minor Focus by Mythic Blood of Hughes is very abroad: Arms and armour... very clear and important.
On taht i can imagine that the Muto Terram Focus to Hermetic Alchemists can be changed to one of Alchemic Reagents.

35

I think people are forgetting some of the obvious disadvantages of focusing on an object for the purpose of enchanting said object, from the perspective of game-play powers.

1.) Disarming spells are very low level and easy to use. A magus can be forced to drop his/her talisman with relative ease.

2.) Other items are NOT protected by Parma. A spell that destroys swords/iron can wreck a major investment in time and vis with little trouble. This makes Verditus magi egg-shells carrying sledge hammers. Yes, those wands are powerful. But a very low level, non resisted Re or Pe Herbam leaves him utterly defenseless.

3.) Powerful spells can be learned fairly easily, at least one a season. They'll get more powerful over time, and are free from the perspective of vis. Powerful enchanted items are powerfully expensive. It also takes at least two seasons to make each one, with +1 season (min) for each. That's a HUGE investment in time.

Another thing, the rules are pretty clear that foci DO apply where the foci is the SUBJECT of laboratory activities: For example, in HoH: Mystery Cults (Merinita) pg. 89, we see that "Merinitae.... might take a Major Magical Focus with Familiars, which applies to all spells and laboratory activities that effect familiars...."

So, if foci apply to the subject of the laboratory activity here, why would enchantment be different? It makes very little sense, absent some clear contradiction in the rules to the contrary.

Besides, plot wise, the Confraternity of Roland having a focus in swords for the purpose of enchanting swords (as they are the premiere sword enchanters of the world) makes a heck of a lot more sense than the previously mentioned interpretation of them summoning temporary swords and using sword effects, treating swords, which they view as the focus of their artistic and spiritual efforts, as throw away tools.

From a character perspective and a plot perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

36

Not quite. Note that Parma Magica will make effects stop at your clothes, not just your body. Otherwise, yes, these are good points.

It was generally agreed a while ago on the board that, although it's a Major Magical Focus, it really should be a Minor Magical Focus. This is because it generally has less breadth than a focus that covers your type of familiar.

Chris

37

One more advantage to standard formulaics:

If you learn a formulaic spell early on, say when the arts involved are at 10 each (for a level 30 spell), that spell will get more useful over time, as your arts improve.

No such luck for items, however. Once made, its that way forever. Unless you had to let it expire to make it powerful enough to be worth having. To keep up with more conventional magi for the go-to combat spells, magi who rely on items will constantly need to reinvent their main weapons every 10-20 years, just to keep up, with a massive cost in vis and time.

For example. Once our troupe was preparing to assault an Infernalist strong hold. The other characters learned a new spell which stayed with them for the rest of the game. Mine made a wand of Demon's Eternal Oblivion which, absent vis, was a charged item with a 7 year expiry date. In order to keep up in strength, my character had to invest time and vis, including time to get the vis, to create a permanent wand to combat demons later on, while the others studied the arts or adventured.

That's a lot of xp in the count.

Early in a saga when vis is scarce, an item-oriented character is far, far less powerful than spell-oriented characters. This only reverses late in a saga, when characters have arts high enough to make strong effects with high penetration possible, in terms of raw talent and raw resources required.

"Enchant Casting Tools" can help somewhat, but these are only useful for low level spells and, despite some misunderstandings, material foci only apply to figuring out the lab-total to calculate available points for bonuses, NOT the casting total of spells cast when using that tool.

Another thing I should mention as a potential balancer: In our rules Items cannot use arcane connections to boost penetration, unless the range is specified as arcane connection or their is an arcane connection built in to the device.

38

One major advantage of items though:
You can give them to a companion (or even a grog) and so add your power to the battle, without having to go within miles of direct danger!

39

Agree with Erick Tyrell, who also put forth very clear exemples on how such foci may be useful even while being pure corebook about them, although I also think the (IMO bad) intent of the focus was for it to apply to everything enchanted within, which clearly contradicts the "minor focus < Te + Fo" rule.
It also makes the "material" foci way better than non-material ones, since, aside from the normal range of a focus, they'd also apply to any "Te+Fo, so long as it's enchanted into the item".

As a HR, I thus use the "apply the focus to any effect enchanted in the item, if it matches the item's shape and/or material bonus", but that's all. Oh, and you don't get to double with the foci acting as normal: A focus thus is either in "Swords" (allowing all the cool effects Erick Tyrell described) or in "Enchanting Swords", but not both.

Agreed, although, with the aforementionned HR, it means the focus is thus broader than just a focus is wands, since it benefits from shape and material.

40

So, most effects to affect stuff at range greater than Touch enchanted in wands would get the focus. Either spells to control wands at a distance, shot pilums of fire, cause a heart attack, cause bound, cause an animal to panic, make you dance merrily or turn a room pitch black. Still pretty open, but less open than "any effect instilled in a wand", yup :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Xavi