Demon-possessed PCs (Darkblade-type setup) - Now with Demonhost Template!

[Tedronai]

If you disallow both Enchanted Items AND Foci, you'll have to compensate them for that loss, somehow, and I'm not sure what would be fair.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

I'd say you could have Foci if you bought Magic seperately from the Modular Abilities. Getting Channeling:Hellfire for 1 Form Point seems a bit too powerful, though.

[Tedronai]

Getting Channeling:Hellfire for 1 Form Point seems a bit too powerful, though.

I agree.
However, paying 2 points for Channeling (Hellfire or otherwise) without gaining the Focus slots would be too punitive.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

Maybe you could allow Foci as physical manifestations of the Demon? Like you don't have them when you don't have magic, but can summon/create them when you do? Kinda flavoured like the Blackstaff-summoning in Changes. I'd say it wuld take a full action, with a difficulty roll of some kind, and possibly a point of Mental Stress. Maybe Lore, against the difficulty of the number of Focus slots it would use. One could, of course, accept Sponsor Debt to aid in this. I'd also say that you'd have to lock down the Focus before creation, as normal - no switching them on the fly or between summonings!

That said, summonable Foci seems a little powerful, although I suppose taking an action to summon them, taking a point of Mental Stress and having to make a difficulty Roll would mitigate that. It would also make the Foci be a decent investment, which I like. This template is all about 'power for a price', after all. THey would, obviously, dissolve if you got rid of Magic, or, if you wanted to make them last a little longer, at the end of the scene.

[Tedronai]

The price paid for the availability of Foci is included in the price for the spellcasting Power itself.
I like the flavour of manifesting physical traits of the demon to aid in channeling the magic that it provides, though.

Not having your Foci available is already just a Compel, and Compels are not themselves bad things (you get paid for them, after all).  These Foci-replacements simply would not be viable targets for such Compels (though they'd likely be magnets for other Compels, such as your demon-possessed nature becoming rather clearly evident, even to the uninitiated).

At most, I'd call manifesting your 'Foci' a supplemental action with no other cost or roll.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

Sure, one could do that. Remeber, though, that the Demonhost has Human Guise. Whenever they use their powers at all it's obvious - stuff like all their veins turning black, skin turning the colour of ash, etc. I'd say one couldn't summon foci at the same time as reshuffling one's powers as well.

[Sanctaphrax]

I like the template.

Not sure why to bother with this summonable focus stuff, though. Why not let people make foci normally, but not have them work when the spellcasting Powers are unavailable?

As for spellcasting, it's not really very impressive unless you have the skills. So I wouldn't worry about the balance of Modular Evocation.

Thaumaturgy's another matter, though. Since it's not useful in combat, it does not conflict with other Power options.

Can you think of a situation where Evocation + Thaumaturgy is better than Modular Abilities 3, buying Evocation or Thaumaturgy whenever you want them?

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

I like the template.

Not sure why to bother with this summonable focus stuff, though. Why not let people make foci normally, but not have them work when the spellcasting Powers are unavailable?

As for spellcasting, it's not really very impressive unless you have the skills. So I wouldn't worry about the balance of Modular Evocation.

Thaumaturgy's another matter, though. Since it's not useful in combat, it does not conflict with other Power options.

Can you think of a situation where Evocation + Thaumaturgy is better than Modular Abilities 3, buying Evocation or Thaumaturgy whenever you want them?

Well, since one can't take evocation or thaumaturgy under the modualr abilities, this shouldn't be aporblem. You're only allowed Channeling.

They're better in the fact that you have them all the time, and I'd rule that using them without sponsoring would not break the Human Guise. If you got them under modular abilities, using them would break the guise. It takes a full action to change your abilities, which means you can't make rollable supplementary actions (like spellcasting).