Obv I will discuss with troupe, but wanted to test the hive-mind’s opinion:
Would a focus in “Tools” be Minor or Major?
You will have to define more precisely than just a word to prevent “funny interpretation” (= abuse). For example, a weapon could be considered the tool of fighter.
So “tools” as items to perform a craft would help prevent such abuse. As you said, to be clarified and discuss with your troupe. One behaviour that I, as ST, despise, is when I agreed on something, then the players, a few sessions later, pull such kind of trick, which devolved into lengthy discussion, derailing completely the story.
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At first glance it feels like a small portion of terram objects. As just stated above, it’s important with Foci to define a few limits, even if it seems obvious initially.
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makes sense, it was intended to be tools for craftspeople.
Some canon examples might help
Minor Magical Focus (Swords) HoH:MC p.121
Minor Magical Focus (Wooden Wands) - HoH:MC p.122
Focus tend to be pushed into major when you start to poke into multiple forms. Do you intend on the focus applying to tools made of wood? Animal? Human Bones?
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My favorite question for Magical Focus is the enchanting aspect. This is particularly important for a ‘Tools’ focus. Does the focus care about the item being enchanted, or just the effect? It clearly applies to an enchanted saw to remain always sharp… but what about a woodsaw enchanted to shoot fireballs and transform it’s holder into malleable ice?
This feels like an obvious ‘yes’, especially with the cannon mMF(Swords). But.. what about the canonical MMF (Metals)?
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Healing covers multiple forms and is minor, so yes I was considering covering multiple forms.
Healing is already a specific activity that applies to living things which is quite restricted. It is a CrCoAnHe with maybe some rare cases in Vim
Tools in its widest definitions would apply to all Techniques and a specific subsection of An,Te,Co & He. As such it is too wide for even a MMF. You could narrow it down to “Destroying Tools” or “Controlling Tools” or a specific tool set such as “Hammers” or “Knives”
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I think it would also encompass herbam and even animal objects. But still only a small portion of possible objects.
As others have said tools is incredibly broad. I would say you would need to at an absolute minimum, restrict it to something like one-use tools.
I have a companion who coincidentially uses a war hammer. A hammer is a tool a smith uses, so my MMF affects it. Um… No!
Never, ever grants any focus to enchantment where the effect is not related to the focus itself. I played a Verditius with Major magical focus: ring (as in jewelry, not target), and it was utterly broken. As a Major magical focus. There was absolutely no reason not to craft a magical item using a ring as support, making lesser enchanted item trivial even for mid-level effect (20-30) once my magi had time to become a decent generalist.
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I think it could be minor as long as the magic worked on the “tool-nature" of the tool. Create or summon hammer, yes. Hurl hammer, no. ReTe(He) to make a hammer hammer in nails unaided, yes (with a Finesse roll). Use hammer in a fight, no. Fly by standing on a flying chisel, no.
A lot of what you can do with a tool you can do unaided with magic, reducing the value of the focus.
If you want it to include anything you do to anything that can be a tool, yes, that's definitely major.