Taran, I'm grateful. That kind of detail was exactly the sort of help I needed. I really appreciate your creative solutions, and your illustrations for how you performed the calculations.

I have a player with Seelie magic fascinated with creating an item that will give a bonus to attaching Aspects offensively. I suggested a +1 foci, offense, maneuver. But given that maneuver spells take a +3 shift, she's wanting to give herself a bigger bonus. And that's where I get lost in the math, no matter how many times I read it.

Can she dump three focus points into just this particular focus, seelie magic, offense, maneuver, and get a +3? Or does it take more points to get there? (or to =2 -- she could take =2).

Alternatively, is there a way to create an Item of Power that would allow her to tag aspects offensively? I don't see any examples that come anywhere close to doing that.