Crafting Foci

[Krico]

I searched through the forums and can't seem to find a post on it since the rules have been updated, so I wanted to see if I understood this right. Judging form what I read in the item crafting section and the explanations of foci, I was wondering if I could create the following foci:

Thaumaturgy foci speced in crafting power, (+1 for a one slot +2 for a two slot etc) to increasing the base power of the items by the bonus? And if this is out it works, would it also apply to potions?

[luminos]

almost, but not quite.  A foci for crafting strength will affect the base strength of the potion, but not how much extra strength they get from using extra slots.  So an enchanted jacket that acts as a 4 shift block without focus items and specializations will act as a 5 strength block if you have a focus item or specialization for crafting strength +1.  If you give that jacket an extra item slot, it becomes a 5 shift effect without crafting strength bonuses, and a 6 shift effect with crafting strength +1.  This does apply to potions.

[Krico]

See that's what I thought based on the way the rules are worded, but that brings up an odd problem of overpowering items. For example, I rolled up a feet in the water focused practitioner with full thaum and 2 levels of refinement. Say I split it out as 2 focus item slots and 8 enchanted item slots, and put my thaum focus as crafting power +1.

I roll up a focus item using both of the focus slots for +2 crafting power bonus (see 278 in Your Story, 5th and 6th paragraphs).

This would mean that I could have both of these.

An item that throws up a power 8 block with 5 uses per session.

An item that throws and evocation style magic attack with 8 shifts of power and 5 uses per session.

This is a feet in the water focused practitioner. That seems a little odd honestly, considering he could basically take an artillery shell and then blow up whatever launched it and still be good to go to continue combat without any real trouble.

[luminos]

There are definitely ways to overpower it, no doubt.  But by the way it is written, your example is correctly using the rules.  Of course, the character that can do that has spent all of his refresh on it, and if the session has more than one or two combat scenes, he'll run out of ammunition. 

The final correction for this, if it is a problem, is for the GM to look at the character when the group is doing character creation, and say "No". 

[Krico]

Ok that works. Thanks.

[EldritchFire]

Remember, thought, that " an  item’s  casting  strength  after all  bonuses  are  totaled  should  never  exceed two  times  the  crafter’s  Lore rating—at  least not without a very good rationale and a ton of baggage," YS280.

-EF

[crusher_bob]

Also, having items that grant you power is basically saying that the GM will take them away some of the time.  Having a character that's useless without his items it probably not that great of an idea.  Of course, plenty of characters can get a real boost from enchanted items without having to rely on them, but he most exploitive characters seem to dump  all their points into them

[DFJunkie]

Also, having items that grant you power is basically saying that the GM will take them away some of the time.

...which is why you take the Thaumonuclear Deathzooka as an aspect silly, that way the GM has to really work to take it away, and has to pay you fate points if he does.

If one of my players actually called something the Thaumonuclear Deathzooka I'd be tempted to allow it.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, that's all legal, but bear in mind the following things:

1. You need to roll (and almost certainly with a skill other than Lore, and thus a max of Good skill) to hit with that Attack Item.That's a powerful attack, but only decent ofdds to hit.

2. The Defense, while awesome for your level, is also breakable. All you need to do to get screwed is for one guy with a few Fate Points to break it and it's down for the entire round. A coordinated enemy group will have their highest Initiative guy do that, and then everyone will shoot you during your round of vulnerability. There's nothing really comparable without magic, though a suit as an Item of Power granting Physical Immunity with a Catch like Silver or Mistletoe is only -3 or -4 Refresh, and that's even better defensively.

3. An evocation specialist at your level of focus can have 5 shift Evocations on offense and 8 shifts on Defense if he wanted, which is again, roughly comparable, though with a bit less endurance and a bit more flexibility (though he'd likely do better with more like 7 on offense and 6 on defense). He's reduced to 5 shifts on both without Items...but you're reduced to basically nothing.

[Krico]

As a side note, I'd just like to say, no I'm not trying to min/max much with this char. I'm actually trying to avoid it a bit. I came up with the concept, then reading through the rules about how it would work and started getting afraid of it being overpowered. You guys are doing well to aleviate that fear for the most part though.

Remember, thought, that " an  item’s  casting  strength  after all  bonuses  are  totaled  should  never  exceed two  times  the  crafter’s  Lore rating—at  least not without a very good rationale and a ton of baggage," YS280.

-EF

That's not hard. The build for this char is 2 2 2 2 with Lore and Discipline as the high stats, meaning base Lore is 4. Crafting spec and +2 foci would put the base power at 7 and could technically go to 8.

Also, having items that grant you power is basically saying that the GM will take them away some of the time.  Having a character that's useless without his items it probably not that great of an idea.  Of course, plenty of characters can get a real boost from enchanted items without having to rely on them, but he most exploitive characters seem to dump  all their points into them

Actually the concept for this char was meant to be focused on alchemy/items (thus focused practitioner template rather then sorcerer despite technically qualifying to being called a sorcerer, meaning this char is really somewhere in-between the two). The main point though was for the items to make him SOMEWHAT useful in combat (the character basically saying something along the lines of I don't wanna/can't learn evocation but I don't want to be helpless if crap goes down) where having full thaum makes him much more useful out of it. Though I do have to say I did think about the idea that they could get taken away, which helps balance the idea a bit. I'm just to used to thinking in terms of Harry who has issues using evo without his foci. XD

...which is why you take the Thaumonuclear Deathzooka as an aspect silly, that way the GM has to really work to take it away, and has to pay you fate points if he does.

If one of my players actually called something the Thaumonuclear Deathzooka I'd be tempted to allow it.

Welp, I know what my last aspect is going to be. XD

Yeah, that's all legal, but bear in mind the following things:

1. You need to roll (and almost certainly with a skill other than Lore, and thus a max of Good skill) to hit with that Attack Item.That's a powerful attack, but only decent ofdds to hit.

2. The Defense, while awesome for your level, is also breakable. All you need to do to get screwed is for one guy with a few Fate Points to break it and it's down for the entire round. A coordinated enemy group will have their highest Initiative guy do that, and then everyone will shoot you during your round of vulnerability. There's nothing really comparable without magic, though a suit as an Item of Power granting Physical Immunity with a Catch like Silver or Mistletoe is only -3 or -4 Refresh, and that's even better defensively.

3. An evocation specialist at your level of focus can have 5 shift Evocations on offense and 8 shifts on Defense if he wanted, which is again, roughly comparable, though with a bit less endurance and a bit more flexibility (though he'd likely do better with more like 7 on offense and 6 on defense). He's reduced to 5 shifts on both without Items...but you're reduced to basically nothing.

1. Not any worse then evocation as you can use discipline to roll for item accuracy just like evo. I'm rolling on a 4 disc so unless I'm trying to hit something silly like a six inch tall pixie on top of a building or something it shouldn't be much of an issue.

2. Noted. I actually hadn't thought of that. Given enough rolls, one of them is going to get through...not to mention at five uses if they focus on me I'll be in trouble, but hopefully with he way the party is built that won't happen...hopefully. XD

3. This is really the point that tells me I was other thinking the over-powered part. As long as others can do something comparable I don't have as much of an issue with it.

Thanks for the ideas guys.

Honestly just for versatility's sake I would probably not have the items listed. 2 potion slots, 2 for an offensive, 2 for defensive, and 2 for something that throws an aspect on opponents that we can tag to capture someone and/or run away.

[Deadmanwalking]

1. True, but Evocation gets Specialization bonuses, which make a big difference.

2. Yeah, it's got a bit of a weak spot there, but it's still awesome.

3. Yeah. On offense it's pretty easy to get an attack/weapon combo of 9-12 (though you need to get optimized to get stuff towards the end there). On defense, it's a bit harder, but getting a 5 or so plus some Inhuman Tougness is pretty doable, and if not quite comparable, on all the time.


And if you have full Thaumaturgy with a Crafting strength specialty, you can have 6 shift effects on all three of the effects you list, which is more reasonable, and still pretty cool.

[Belial666]

1) You can make a 8-shift item that gives a "simple effect" called Tower of Iron Will. It is a Discipline 6 effect for 3 rounds. It can be used both defensively vs mental attacks and offensively to help with aiming items.

2) A focused Practitioner with Thaumaturgy (Crafting Frequency +1 and Crafting Power Focus +2), Refinement 2 ( Crafting Power Specialization +2, 4 item slots), has 4 items at power 8, 2 uses/day. If you can justify Thaumaturgy being given by some sort of Item of Power such as a Book of Shadows, you could add 8 more items.

3) If an enchanted item runs out of uses in a session, if wielded by a practitioner, he may make additional uses anyway by taking one point of mental stress per use. So your items don't really run out any faster than normal magic; you can fuel 8-shift blasts via an item with some stress in every fight.

[CableRouter]

The Defense, while awesome for your level, is also breakable. All you need to do to get screwed is for one guy with a few Fate Points to break it and it's down for the entire round. A coordinated enemy group will have their highest Initiative guy do that, and then everyone will shoot you during your round of vulnerability.

"Defensive items (ones that provide armor or a block, for example) often consume a use at the time of defense and don't require a separate action to activate. (YS 280)"  He can go right on using it to defend himself, even if it goes down a couple of times per round, until it runs out of uses and keep right on using it to defend himself until he runs out of mental stress to keep powering it with and then a couple times more if he needs to use his mild and moderate consequences to activate it a couple more times rather than let everyone dogpile him.

[Deadmanwalking]

1) You can make a 8-shift item that gives a "simple effect" called Tower of Iron Will. It is a Discipline 6 effect for 3 rounds. It can be used both defensively vs mental attacks and offensively to help with aiming items.

No you cannot. You could do something that did either one of those two things but not both. Check out Hyperawareness, which can duplicate Alertness...for Initiative only. You can duplicate a particular Trapping, not an entire skill, and even that's debatable, because it gives Power in effect, not Control...so using one to get an attack effect is very iffy.

2) A focused Practitioner with Thaumaturgy (Crafting Frequency +1 and Crafting Power Focus +2), Refinement 2 ( Crafting Power Specialization +2, 4 item slots), has 4 items at power 8, 2 uses/day. If you can justify Thaumaturgy being given by some sort of Item of Power such as a Book of Shadows, you could add 8 more items.

True...and?

3) If an enchanted item runs out of uses in a session, if wielded by a practitioner, he may make additional uses anyway by taking one point of mental stress per use. So your items don't really run out any faster than normal magic; you can fuel 8-shift blasts via an item with some stress in every fight.

That's very true. It runs out faster than mundane attacks, though.

"Defensive items (ones that provide armor or a block, for example) often consume a use at the time of defense and don't require a separate action to activate. (YS 280)"  He can go right on using it to defend himself, even if it goes down a couple of times per round, until it runs out of uses and keep right on using it to defend himself until he runs out of mental stress to keep powering it with and then a couple times more if he needs to use his mild and moderate consequences to activate it a couple more times rather than let everyone dogpile him.

That's really debatable. They aren't an action to use, but I certainly wouldn't let you use them multiple times per round since that just feels wrong. I'm not sure there are even any provisos.

Alternately, if you do allow multiple uses a turn, then with any concentration of fire at all they'll burn through his uses damn quick.

[crusher_bob]

I was under the impression that blocks created by enchanted items lasted the whole exchange (just like regular evocation blocks) and that you could also use evocation to extend the effect if you wanted to, just like any other evocation block. 

In addition, (I think) if your (enchanted item) block was overcome, you could use the enchanted item again to generate a new block against following attacks.