Question on Enchanted Items

[JediDresden]

Just want to be clear on the rules.  An enchanted item cannot boost skills or rolls can they, that would be a focus item right?  I want somethng that would boost my defensive magic vs outsiders, and I was looking at the example of Madges Ring in 'Your Story'.

[sinker]

That's a really hard question to answer. From a strictly rules view point, there are no rules stating that you can boost a roll without an aspect (and in that case only by +2 per aspect). However there is an enchanted item that actually does boost a skill roll (Rasheid's ointment), so it's a bit confusing.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Bonuses to Discipline and Conviction for the sake of casting come from Focus items only.  Enchanted items can only duplicate spells.

Now, 'vs outsiders' is a rather unusual way of wording a focus item.  If your caster already has something in the way of evocation, why not have a focus item with a bonus to defensive magic with one of the elements you already use?  That'd be simpler and clearer under the rules.

[JediDresden]

It was a family heirloom I started with and the GM kind of mentioned at the climax, on the fly, that it helped defend me against Outsider magic, just wondering how to actually stat it up.

[sinker]

I don't know why this didn't make sense to me earlier. Magic rolls are exactly the kind of thing that focus items boost, and there are actually rules for narrowing a focus item to make it more effective. Check the focus item section, but you should totally be able to make a focus item that gives you a bonus to defensive magic vs. outsiders (possibly both power and control).

[JediDresden]

Thanks for the info.  I thought as much, but just wanted to check. 

Totally forgot about Rashid's ointment though, thanks for the reminder.

[Michael Sandy]

In the text, if a focus item can only be used to augment a particular spell, it is treated as having an extra item slot worth of power.  So I suppose it is reasonable to give it a similar bonus for augmenting a spell versus a particular target.

So, "Outsiders bane +2 offensive power (whatever your favorite element is) +2 offensive control, only for attacking outsiders" would cost two item slots.

Alternatively, you could make a defensive spell which has an aspect requirement "only versus outsiders" and then an item that only boosts the power of that spell.