Revising foci

As of the Liber Ka, Slaying the Dragon (partly surviving in Snead's alchemy doc), and Enlightened Magic revisions, foci are no longer necessary for casting spells. Nephilim design their own rituals and procedures through research and preparation. These notes may be considered analogous to foci, so I will treat the two as synonymous (EM only mentions foci twice on p70, 81, but doesn't explain what foci even are). Some house rules for conversion from 1e to LK may be found at this link (an account is required to download the file).

The benefit of using an existing focus or grimoire is that it saves the caster time on designing their own own ritual or procedure (see EM p36-7, 50, 61, 67, 80, 89, 100, LK p61, 86, Snead's Alchemy doc p9, 11, 35, 68-9).  If a sorcerer has cast a spell before (see EM p36-7, 61), an alchemist has been taught a procedure by another alchemist (see EM p67) or has performed any procedure of any circle before (see Snead's Alchemy p35, 68-9), or either type of caster has successfully deciphered a design they didn't write themselves (see EM p61, 100, LK 86, Snead's Alchemy p68-9), then the caster is assumed to have saved/copied the design/focus on hand in their personal grimoire or occult library. Casters cannot memorize entire designs by themselves [but see my upcoming post on inscriptions].

Grimoires are collections of foci (see LK p86, Snead's Alchemy doc p68-9, EM p61, 100). A list of sample grimoires is presented in Nephilim rulebook (p135-8). Some grimoires have special foci with esoteric requirements that provide a bonus to casting or increase parameters. Modifying an existing spell in a grimoire may provide a bonus to the design roll or reduce the time needed compared to designing from scratch, at the GM's discretion (see LK p61).

A rule from the old edition that wasn't fully adapted was deciphering foci and copying/translating foci (see Nephilim rulebook p135). By default in EM, designs apparently don't degrade when copied or translated, but the caster does need a skill roll to fully understand any design they didn't write themselves (EM p61, 100). To recap and adapt: foci may be written in a style, code or language the caster doesn't know, so it must be deciphered before it can be used. Unless you’re using a photocopier, then copying (or translating) a focus by hand will introduce minute errors that accumulate with every new copy of a copy. This inflicts a penalty to the casting roll when using that focus for reference. The value is determined by the GM and kept secret from the player, altho the caster is entitled to rolls to notice potential errors in the focus and correct for it without redesigning the focus from scratch.

I have another suggestion: enchanted items (see EM p20-1, 64-5) might serve as foci. Enchanted items may be examined in order to reverse-engineer the design of their spell, similar to modifying an existing focus (see LK p61), perhaps even substitute for a written design itself. Depending on the GM's discretion, this may allow for a complete design to be transcribed relatively quickly or it may just provide sufficient research material to design the spell by itself (perhaps with a bonus to the design roll, accelerated design time, etc). Inscribed spells [see my upcoming post on that for details] would provide such a benefit.