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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: JediDresden on July 12, 2012, 03:42:37 PM

Title: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: JediDresden on July 12, 2012, 03:42:37 PM

It is kind of a question I have already answered for myself, but I wanted the forum's ideas on the topic as well.  It seems to me enchanted items are handy in some specific cases, but for the most part really kind of weak.  My wizard character has an armored shirt, similar to Harry's duster, that he gets a lot of use out of, but the rest of his enchanted items are pretty limited to spells he could cast.  It seems to me if a character invested more in focus items it would give him more versatility and be less limiting.  I can also see enchanted items be useful in a desperate situation to get out of harms way or a last ditch surprise attack to help you get away.  All this is supposing a fairly run of the mill basic wizard with a lore of 4, not a customized, optimized, and tweaked alchemist/ potion maker build.

Is my rambling musings on the matter correct?

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: JediDresden on July 12, 2012, 04:39:04 PM

Sorry for the double post.
I guess a better question would be how is the best way for a wizard to spend a refinement?

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Sanctaphrax on July 12, 2012, 04:54:17 PM

I don't really understand the question.

They're different things. Which is better depends heavily on what you want.

It also depends on your stats, of course. If you have base Crafting strength 7, then Enchanted Items are pretty awesome. If you have base Crafting strength 2, don't bother.

With Lore 4 and no relevant bonuses, I'd probably favour foci. I'd still likely get an armoured shirt and a potion slot or two, though.

But again, it depends.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Mr. Death on July 12, 2012, 05:02:45 PM

Yeah, one isn't "better" than the other. It depends on what the character's about and what their stats are, as Sanctaphrax said. And how they're being used.

Are the focus items there to boost an already-high stat, or are they there to compensate for a shortcoming in a relevant skill (like Harry's foci are)?

Are the enchanted items last-resorts, or are they the wizard's bread and butter?

Another thing to consider is, no matter how versatile your foci make you, you're still essentially limited to four or five evocations per conflict. An enchanted item might have a single, set use, but once they're set up they're essentially a limited amount of 'free' spells.

A wizard with all four of his starting focus slots in foci has four or five spells before he's out of juice. A wizard with all those slots put into eight enchanted slots may have triple that--and those enchanted items can't cause backlash or fallout.

There are a lot of variables to this, making the initial question a false dichotomy.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Haru on July 12, 2012, 05:32:36 PM

As I see it, enchanted items are not only handy in some specific situations, they can pack a real punch if you know what you are doing.
For one: 1 focus item slot can translate to a 3 uses enchanted item, which will come in real handy in long fights, because it does not use up your mental stress track. Then there is an optional rule, that lets you convert +uses into +power on the fly (or was that a house rule?), so if you need to, you can really bring the pain.

Also, enchanted items can hold thaumaturgy spells, which means you can store spells of elements you don't have in your evocation repertoire and thaumaturgy-only effects like skill replacements to cover some of you shortcomings in other skills.

Focus items are good to cover a gap between conviction and discipline, though I prefer specializations for that, they are more reliable. If you have your casting skills evened out, you can use focus items to boost your casting powers a bit, depending on your preferences.

I think a good mix of focus items + enchanted items + potion slots is the best way to go, if you are not looking for a specialized build. Focus items to boost you signature spells, enchanted items and potions to have a well rounded toolbox/arsenal. If you are going for a specialized build, everything can change again, depending on what you are planning to do.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: GryMor on July 12, 2012, 05:53:02 PM

Offensive control foci and defensive/utility enchanted items/potions easily beat out most other evocation foci. The defense side is enhanced by craft power foci, if you also have thaumaturgy.

Edit: And by utility, I mean something like:
Demon's Blood Talisman - Thaumaturgical Naval gazing maneuver, grants Overcharged and Focused fragile aspects on the wielder.
Really useful if you can make it to craft power 6 (lore 4, spec +1, foci +1 would do it), sure it takes a prepatory action and burns an extra mental stress after the first use of a session, but it can be really handy for making that fireball a bit larger (and thus harder to avoid/easier to hit with) or overpowering a tracking spell to burn through wards.

As an added plus, you occasionally get extra compels from it, and it's more efficient than most evocation maneuvers.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Richard_Chilton on July 12, 2012, 06:37:52 PM

One thing to remember is that an enchanted item can hold a thaumaturgy effect - which means having a thaumaturgy instantly available in a combat situation.

Richard

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: JediDresden on July 12, 2012, 08:10:36 PM

Just FYI - the stats I am using for my character are Conviction and Discipline of 5 and Lore of 4.  My Thaum. specialization is in crafting uses +1 and I have a focus item that gives me a +1 to complexity.  So if I did my math right  - I should be able to make items that are Power 5 effects and usable twice a session.

I don't really need to make up deficits in my casting abilities, however the point of thaumaturgical effects in enchanted items is worth noting.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Haru on July 12, 2012, 08:27:03 PM

One thing you might consider is boosting your crafting complexity to 6, which would allow you to create an item that does 2 maneuver spells to create 2 fragile aspects (evocation does not allow that, but thaumaturgy shouldn't have that problem). You can then tag those 2 aspects in the subsequent exchange for +4 instead of a +2 from a regular maneuver spell. I think that is one of the most powerful uses of an enchanted item and would probably be worth giving up that + use specialization.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: ImpishMortal on July 12, 2012, 10:05:30 PM

Quote from: JediDresden on July 12, 2012, 08:10:36 PM

Just FYI - the stats I am using for my character are Conviction and Discipline of 5 and Lore of 4.  My Thaum. specialization is in crafting uses +1 and I have a focus item that gives me a +1 to complexity.  So if I did my math right  - I should be able to make items that are Power 5 effects and usable twice a session.

I don't really need to make up deficits in my casting abilities, however the point of thaumaturgical effects in enchanted items is worth noting.

Actually it should be thrice per session. Exchanging one point of power or using an additional enchanted item slot grants an additional two uses. ;)

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: EdgeOfDreams on July 12, 2012, 11:11:59 PM

Quote from: ImpishMortal on July 12, 2012, 10:05:30 PM

Actually it should be thrice per session. Exchanging one point of power or using an additional enchanted item slot grants an additional two uses. ;)

Strangely enough, that's not quite right. I believe an extra slot gets you two extra uses, but reducing the power to increase uses only gets you a one-to-one trade in. I'm not quite sure why it was written that way, but it's there in the book for you to see.  Also, a crafting specialization of +1 frequency only increases uses by 1, not 2.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: JediDresden on July 12, 2012, 11:24:00 PM

Good point.  Maybe I will change that specialization to complexity and not uses. That is kind of a rip off for those who specialize.   Hmm... Thinking.... Thinking...

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: GryMor on July 12, 2012, 11:50:29 PM

Frequency spec is mostly a secondary spec to support power +2.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: ways and means on July 12, 2012, 11:54:17 PM

Freq-Spec + Power Spec (and/or focus) together multiply out into awesome.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Chrono on July 13, 2012, 01:47:02 PM

Potion slots. A good spell aster can always use more potion slots.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: JediDresden on July 13, 2012, 01:59:37 PM

@ ways and means - Can you explain further, I think I understand - just want to make sure.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: ways and means on July 13, 2012, 02:52:38 PM

Quote from: JediDresden on July 13, 2012, 01:59:37 PM

@ ways and means - Can you explain further, I think I understand - just want to make sure.

Normally Each enchanted item slot = 1x lore shifts
Say Lore = 5
You get 5 shifts of effect

Now Say you have a +5 Power focus item (or Spec) towards item power.
Each Enchanted item slot = 1x10 shifts of effect = 10

Now say you also have a +5 frequency focus (or Spec) as well.
Each Enchanted Item slot = 6x10 shifts or 60 shifts.   

This is very refresh intensive but at higher refresh (submerged) you can have 72 (12 enchanted items with 6 uses) uses of 10 shift effects a session.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Haru on July 13, 2012, 04:20:30 PM

Quote from: ways and means on July 13, 2012, 02:52:38 PM

This is very refresh intensive but at higher refresh (submerged) you can have 72 (12 enchanted items with 6 uses) uses of 10 shift effects a session.

Even at lower refresh, you can mix and match your bonuses to drastically increase the effects.

Going from JediDresden's Lore 4 standard wizard, we have 1 specialization and 1 focus items free and we can take 2 points of refresh worth of refinement to work with.

We can start with 2 enchanted items at power 10 (4 Lore +1 specialization + 5 focus items) and 1 use per session. While 10 shifts is pretty powerful, 2 uses is not really that much. On the other hand, they can always be used again by spending mental stress.

Now we can go an take 2 focus item slots away. 1 we will put into another pair of enchanted items, the other one will be a crafting frequency focus. This brings us to 4 enchanted items at power 8 (4+1+3) with 2 uses each. Now 8 shifts is still pretty powerful, and the big difference is, you have 8 uses. And you have 4 different rotelike spells, so you can mix it up a bit, take different types of spells to be prepared for a lot of things.
You could even reduce the power on a few of them, if they don't need to be that powerful, and trade them in for even more uses per session. For example the 2 maneuver spell I mentioned above would only need 6 shifts, so you could have 1 enchanted item that does this 4 times per session with this model.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: Lamech on July 14, 2012, 06:15:33 AM

I always thought that enchanted items make good navel gazing mines, and good defenses, while focus items are good for offensive control, and getting 5 on thuramaturgy control. So both have their uses.

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: FishStampede on July 15, 2012, 02:49:38 PM

Well, it also depends...Asheville spoilers ahoy:

(click to show/hide)

I have a major villain who is an almost council-level talent. He has the Sight, he has Wizard's Constitution, and has pushed himself into monster-level negative refresh with Refinement. For whatever reason though he has a mental block that prevents him from doing Evocation. He doesn't even have Channeling. He just can't do fast-twitch magic.

As such, he's shored up his weakness by crafting a lot of single or limited use enchanted items or potions. He has a pipe that can produce a thick smoke screen for escapes, a mojo bag sewn into his tweed jacket that gives him three uses of armor, and a few satchels of Graveyard Dirt that can act as a powerful attack (8 shifts of damage due to Lore, Aspect, Lawbreaker, and a Strength focus), and maybe some others if I'm feeling nasty.

For him, focus items are certainly useful and he has one (a hoodoo bible) to aid in his summoning efforts, but he's basically using enchanted items to shore up his major weakness. I may be wrong, but in the case of a spellcaster without Channeling, I think enchanted items are more useful

Title: Re: Which is better - Enchanted items or Focus Items?
Post by: InFerrumVeritas on July 15, 2012, 04:29:16 PM

Like has been stated: Enchanted items can contain Thaumaturgy effects.  These are really the only reliable way to use them in combat.

A 5 shift Thaumaturgy effect can be quite effective. 

My players use them often to run away.