From:	Brian Moore <mooreb@*****.FAC.COM>
Subject:	Re: effects of multiple power Foci
Date:	Wed, 17 Dec 1997 10:04:49 -0500

David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG> said:
> westln@***.EDU wrote:
> /
> / I am looking for some feedback on the idea of a mage using multiple power
> / foci.
> /
> / Lets say a mage owns and is bonded to two +1 power foci. When he activates
> / both of them does he get a net bonus of +2 or only a +1. I am inclined to
> / rule that only the higher bonus apply. I cannot find anything in the rules
> / that touch on this topic.
>
> I would say no, because I don't want mage's in my game running around
> with a total Power Foci bonus of 10+. Nothing more than GM judgement
> on that one.

If you're looking to limit the total Power Focus bonus, that is
different than disallowing multiple Power Focuses. I can accept
that most GMs would not want mages with huge Magic Pools except
in high Reputation games. Disallowing multiple Power Focuses is
only one way to prevent that. You also have to take into account
Elementals, Spell Focuses, and Familiars. If you disallow
multiple Power Focuses, you'll soon have to disallow combinations
or multiples of all of the above things. Eventually your players
will discover that "He with the Biggest Power Focus WINS," and
your game will spiral out of control with players fighting for
bigger and bigger Power Focuses till they start using Blood Magic
to create Huge Power Focuses, then the Horrors show up and kill
everyone. :-(

OK, maybe not, but you lose something if you set up arbitrary
rules to limit power.

A better solution, IMHO, is to let your mages build up gradually
using multiple or combination Magic Pool enhancements. Start out
using elementals for temporary increases, or small Spell Focuses.
Add in a small Power Focus or Spell Category Focus. When the
little focuses get toasted, let the PCs upgrade to bigger ones.
Add in a familiar after a while. Keep an eye on the total Magic
Pool enhancements your mages regularly use, and try to keep them
at a level you're comfortable with. DEFINITELY let the total
increase as reputation increases.

I can think of one reason to disallow multiple focuses (of any
type) in certain campaigns... An Enchanter can use Enchanting to
reduce the bonding cost of very low Force focuses down to Karma=
1*Force (as per the Grimoire). In that case, a PC can get many
small focuses at a low Karma cost, where bonding a single high
Force focus would be much more expensive. If you as a GM think
that this is "cheating", you might want to figure out some way to
discourage it.

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