A Question About Power Foci

[sinker]

Hey, just wondering if anyone else had noticed this. I was making a character today and I was creating her Foci when I decided to look at the spellcasting system in general. It's been a couple of months since my last game and I thought I'd make sure I remembered it all right. I was looking at evocation when I realized that it never mentions power foci. It states that the mental stress taken is equal to one plus the amount of power exceeding one's conviction. It makes no mention whatsoever of power foci. It then goes on to state that to control the spell you roll discipline plus any bonuses from control foci. It specifically mentions foci in the control section but makes no other mention at all. I can't even find any mention of power foci other than that in the item creation section of the thaumaturgy chapter. What's your guys' take on this? Accedental omission? Do the power foci do something else I didn't notice?

[babel2uk]

Using a focus item will give you at least a +1
bonus either to Conviction (making it safer to
summon one more shift of power) or Discipline
(making it easier to control the spell).

From page 256 of Your Story - the section on Focus Items

[Papa Gruff]

As I understand it, a power focus enables the wizard to cast spells with more power then his conviction skill would allow him. This means that with a conviction of Great (+4) and a focus of power fire offensive (+2) he can cast spells up to Fantastic (+6) without the extra stress that is involved in overcasting the spell.

Effectively that means that the wizard can dish out more high energized spells than he ordinarily would be able too. The book describes this under the section about the evocation power (YW 180) I think:

Specialization. Full Evocation grants the ability
to specialize in one form of Evocation magic,
usually by focusing on a particular known
element (such as Harry’s predilection for
fire). This specialization can take one of two
forms—either a power bonus, increasing the
caster’s Conviction score by one for any spell
of that element, or a control bonus, increasing
the caster’s Discipline roll to control the spell
by one. One or the other must be chosen,
though the specialization does not need to
be defined at the time the ability is taken.
Additional specializations covering different
areas of Evocation may be taken by use of the
Refinement ability (page 182).

Hope that clears it up.

Gruff.

[sinker]

It just seemed odd that the item creation section was the only place power foci are mentioned, especially when in the evocation section (Pg 250) it specifically excludes them, but not other foci.

3. Decide how many shifts of power you want
to put into the spell. You take mental stress
for calling up power—the minimum is one
point of mental stress. The cost increases
if you reach for power greater than your
Conviction, inflicting additional mental
stress equal to the difference (so a spell with
power three higher than your Conviction
would inflict 4 points of mental stress).
4. Make a Discipline roll to cast the spell. The
difficulty is equal to the amount of power
you’ve called on. The roll is modified by the
presence of any focus items you may have,
and whatever aspects you want to invoke.

[Papa Gruff]

I can see why this might be a little odd, but when you doing something as complex as a RPG rulebook you usually are not able to give examples for every single mechanic. You have to rely on your readers to take an example for the one thing and adapt it to the other thing. Makes perfect sense to me ...

[babel2uk]

It just seemed odd that the item creation section was the only place power foci are mentioned, especially when in the evocation section (Pg 250) it specifically excludes them, but not other foci.

I agree with Papa Gruff. Two things to bear in mind... Firstly the section on page 250 is just a summary which is expanded by what follows. The second is that that there is no roll for a power foci to modify, it just adds it's rating on to your conviction for the purposes of working out how much power you can safely summon. I think that the only reason control foci are mentioned in that summary is that they directly affect a dice roll. Maybe they should be mentioned on page 250 just for clarity, but possibly the writers (struggling to edit the word count) thought that was a little redundant because it's covered later on in the Evocation section, as well as in the crafting section of Thaumaturgy, and the description of Evocation within the Supernatural Powers chapter.

[sinker]

It's actually not covered later on in the evocation section or in the powers section. The quote you were using earlier is in reference to the specializations that full evocators receive, not focus items. Like I said originally it is only ever mentioned the once in the item crafting section, but now I'm just being argumentative. If you can't tell I'm a bit of a rules lawyer. I'm glad that everyone else has interpreted it in much the same way as I had long ago (before I looked at the specific wording).

[babel2uk]

Not to be argumentative (I think you're attributing Papa Gruff's original posting to me - and I thought when I read it, that doesn't answer the question being asked!)... but the quote I gave above is from a section specifically titled Focus Items which is in the Evocation section of the book! (page 256)

You're correct I had mis-remembered the Evocation description in the Powers section as explaining more than it did. But it does point you towards the Thaumaturgy section on Crafting Items for an explanation of what the Focus Items do in game mechanic terms.

[Papa Gruff]

It's actually not covered later on in the evocation section or in the powers section. The quote you were using earlier is in reference to the specializations that full evocators receive, not focus items. Like I said originally it is only ever mentioned the once in the item crafting section, but now I'm just being argumentative. If you can't tell I'm a bit of a rules lawyer. I'm glad that everyone else has interpreted it in much the same way as I had long ago (before I looked at the specific wording).

Your point is correct and well taken. Yet the quote is still valid, as the power specialization and the the power focus give a bonus to the same thing and work exactly the same. They raise the possible power level of spells that you can cast without overcasting. It is simply not necessary to cover the power bonus on focus items to a great extend, as the general idea of power bonus has been covered elsewhere in the book.

Don't overcomplicated things sinker. In general this is not a system of rules. It is more a system of story telling. I admit it takes some getting used to if you come from systems like Shadowrun or D&D...  

[toturi]

I admit it takes some getting used to if you come from systems like Shadowrun or D&D...  

I never thought I'd see Shadowrun be lumped together with the cancer-causing game.

[Papa Gruff]

I never thought I'd see Shadowrun be lumped together with the cancer-causing game.

I apologize *g*

[sinker]

I started playing free-form oral games with no dice and no rules, but I'm also a member of a very large and very competitive Italian family so I have an eye for detail and a burning desire to be "Right". I'd love to continue arguing but my question has been answered so I'll hold my inner lawyer at bay. Thanks guys.
Of note we really ought to make a list of stuff that needs errata, cause this is not the first ambiguity I've bumped into...