a player of my group, playing a winter pixie, raised a question. he compared his spell casting capabilities (and the ability to improve it) to the group’s wizard and commented that the wizard “only has to raise five aspects of his magic” (meaning the elements of evocation) via specializations (or foci) but he needs seven or eight (the example aspects of winter magic I wrote down for him: cold, despair, death, decay,... etc.).
this brings me to following question(s):
can sponsored magic be used with foci/specialization?
if the answer is yes, does he need a focus for each nuance of the winter magic or just one for the whole package as it comes from one source?
and, would he need a specific focus for the ritual parts of the aspect “decay” and one for the evocation possibility of “decay”? or, one for “winter magic, evocation” and one for “winter magic, ritual”?
example: does he need...
a ring of ice wall (evocation focus +2 defensive on ice spells)?
or
a ring of ice wall (+2 defensive on winter magic spells)?
how do you handle that in your games?