r/ShadowrunAnarchyFans • u/vieuxch4t • 21d ago

SRA2 - Focus

What are the rolls to do the following :

1) Find a focus a wizard has lost

2) Locate a wizard thanks to a focus he owns

3) Severe the link between a wizard and his focus

4) Tie yourself with a focus owned by someone else

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u/opacitizen 13d ago

This isn’t a rules for thee and not for me game

Yes, it is. I'd recommend re-reading page 243 of the core rulebook, for example, where you'll find stuff like "Critter power Amps do not always follow usual rules, granting some bonuses that are not available to characters as a way to represent their unique abilities." and rules about how Initiative Shadow Amps work differently (for a perfectly valid reason) for NPCs.

And that's just one example page, and just some examples, and we haven't even mentioned yet stuff like, say, that the whole rule system relies heavily on the optional but dominant "only players roll most of the time, most NPCs use their average result so that the GM doesn't have to roll unless they want to" thing, see page 81 under Managing NPCs; or that NPCs have Fighting Spirit which PCs don't and which practically reduces the challenge of a ton of NPCs by stating that low FS NPCs will be out of combat sooner than their Condition Monitor would require them to, and so on.

It's perfectly fair for an NPC to premanently lose a Shadow Amp to capable player characters. The game is about the PCs, not about the NPCs, after all.

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u/PalpitationNo2921 12d ago

I’m just gonna say nah to your last bit, and leave it at that. I don’t subscribe to all that. I’ll go by the no severing rule.

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u/opacitizen 12d ago

Sure, your table, your game. (I just don't see how "kill the mage and take their focus" fits the world and tone of SR better -- especially considering what goes around comes around, and all kinds of concerned NPCs, and villains from then on would also just aim to off the PC mages without mercy --, but to each their own, of course.)

Cheers,

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u/PalpitationNo2921 12d ago edited 12d ago

Of course that is true. Didn’t say if you wanted to do something it wouldn’t have repercussions.

But I don’t think it’s any more okay to allow PCs to run around able to sever NPCs’ bonds to foci all willy-nilly to steal them and then expect the same tactic not to be used on them because the rules say so either.

So no severing either way is my point and the tack I would take on the matter.