Major/Minor Magical Focus and character creation

I haven't had any characters in my Saga that this question has applied to, but am I correct in supposing that the benefits of a Major or Minor Magical Focus apply also to appropriate spells chosen during character creation?

Well it isnt stated in the rules but we ruled it that way. But perhaps we shoudnt have... with this rule your characters get too powerful spells too early in their life. I have seen this as a problem in my saga, so I wouldnt use ths srule interpretation again.

It applies IMO.

Lucius:
That's why one chooses a focus.

A focus is good enough, in my opinion far too good especially in combination with Affinitys, so it doesnt hurt anyone that this virtue doesnt covers any area of possible benefits.

Yes, I also found these too strong and made house rules against overspecialization. That's another issue.
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/what-are-your-house-rules-again/1972/1


I suggest to the moderators to stick a focus and a talisman thread because these topics appear again and again.

Apply focus at character generation, yes.

But weakening it might be a good idea, regardless. Someone suggested cutting the bonus to half the lower Art; I think that's a good idea.

We have always applied the Major or Minor magical focus to any appropriate spell, whether learned at character creation or later in the magus's life. Case in point would be Flawless Magic - would that only apply to spells learned at character creation? Then that to me would seem to be a waste of a virtue.

And although this is not canon by any means, Metacreator asks you whether to apply your focus when you create or learn a spell.

Hrm. Having looked at the ArM FAQ, David Chart notes that other Virtues that affect things like Study Totals, e.g. Elementalist or Secondary Insight, shouldn't increase the amount of exp you have when creating a character unless you want to do it the long way, season by season. So I wonder.

It may be sensible to cap the bonus from the doubled requisite at the level of the main arts.

Cr 10 Ig10 requ. Im7 becomes a sum of 20, not 24.
For the major focus this could be balanced with some extra spell levels that fit the focus.

On the other hand: Pick an affinity for a technic, add puissant Art and just forget about requisites...

So what?
Calculating every little xp would be hard but applying a focus is easy.

I don't see how this would improve things. You're adding complexity and the result of this complexity is that the final character will resemble one produced by the extremely detailed method less well than if you had just stuck to the unmodified rules.

What's your angle here?

Keeping the "requisite" less important than the main arts.

But that given: nobody would want to buy this as a major virtue.

I see

It's still incredibly powerful for spells without requisites. I think that it would still be choosen fairly often.

Right. I forgot about penetration there.