[ddgon]

Ok, First question is about substained spells. Dose the -2 affect all of your actions or only magical ones? because -2 really hampers any buffs you are trying to cast. It is supost to be -2 to all Magic actions?

Second question is how exactly do the Increase (stat) spell work? say you have a Log of 5 and cast Increase Log to up it. Is the force of the spell the total you want? So force 10 and you can keep up to 6 hits? or is it force 4 because that is how much you wan to increase it by? If it is the first, then you can rarly to never use a focus to sustain that type of spell, as they need to be really high focus.

wanted to up my Drain stat... but thinking now the increase has to be more then 2 or I didn't gain anything.

[The Key of E]

Yes, the -2 affects all actions (except drain resist, I think?). Two ways to mitigate this are to take some Psyche which reduces the penalty to -1, or if your tradition lets you summon Spirits of Man, you can summon one of those with Innate Spell [give it one of your spells] and ask it to cast the spell on you and sustain it. Or you can pick up some Sustaining Foci, of course.

For the Increase Attribute spells, the minimum Force needs to be what your attribute is at already. So if your Willpower is 5, you'll need to cast Increase Attribute (Willpower) of at least Force 5. Then I think the maximum increase is limited by your Augmented Maximum. So unless you're a Dwarf, you couldn't raise Willpower above 9.

[Thrass]

drain resist (and damage resist for examples matter) aren't actions and thus are not affected by the -2 penalty

[ddgon]

ahh cool.

I thought the attrabute spells worked diffrently. I thought it was Forces = the max number you want to augment the stats by. So force 4 to improve it by 4, with 4 being the max hits you can accept for it. The -2 makes buff spells very hard to use without focuses or spirts forced to do it for you. And you can't get a focus high enough to help with your better stats

[Mantis]

Unless you are trying to buff up a troll or ork with high body and strength, you can easily get foci of high enough force to sustain buffing spells. Though with the limit on Increase Attribute spells being the Augmented Maximum (9 for all stats for a human), in some cases you are better off looking for other ways to help out.
Combat Senses and Deflection spells both help stop you from getting hit in the first place, don't have a limit except the force you cast them at and stack with everything else that helps you avoid getting hit. In this game, not getting hit is usually a much wiser choice than trying to buff up and soak damage.

[The Key of E]

ahh cool.

I thought the attrabute spells worked diffrently. I thought it was Forces = the max number you want to augment the stats by. So force 4 to improve it by 4, with 4 being the max hits you can accept for it. The -2 makes buff spells very hard to use without focuses or spirts forced to do it for you. And you can't get a focus high enough to help with your better stats

What you say is true of all spells: the maximum number of hits you can roll is limited by the Force of the spell (unless you spend Edge on the Spellcasting roll). The Attribute spells have the added restriction I mentioned before of the Force must be as high as the Attribute is already.

Examples: if your Willpower was 3 then you must cast the spell at Force 3 or higher. If you cast the spell at Force 3, the highest you could get your Will is 6. If Will was 4 and you cast a Force 4 spell, the highest you could get is 8. If your Will was 5 and you cast a Force 5 spell, the highest you could get is 9, instead of 10 (assuming you're not a dwarf). You can cast the spell at a higher Force (say Force 5 when your Will is 4) but you are still limited by the Augmented Max.

But yes, overall the -2 makes it very hard to buff yourself. Those spells are good for buffing team-mates, though, as long as the Force you cast it at is as high as their base attribute (so buffing Strength or Body on a Troll is useless). You said you wanted to improve your Drain resist. It shouldn't be too terribly hard to get a Sustaining Focus for that: a Force 5 in character generation is only 20 BP (5 for Restricted Gear quality, 10 to purchase it, 5 to bond it). That should max you out at 9, assuming that you start out at 4 or 5.

EDIT: Or to save BP, just getting a Force 3 sustaining Focus would be cheaper (6 to purchase it, 3 to bond it, no Restricted Gear quality). If you start at Willpower 5 you can increase that to 8 with the sustaining focus. You'll probably want a second Force 3 sustaining focus to use for Improved Reflexes.

Another way to buff yourself would be to take a Possession tradition (Street Magic). This means that instead of summoning spirits who can manifest in the physical, you summon spirits to possess existing bodies. You have the spirit possess you and its stats are added to yours for the duration.

[Reaver]

In regards to possession:

Check with your GM first. Some flat out disallow possession mages for a host of reasons (not going to get into it here)

Also, some take the augmented max cap very seriously... Meaning that even with possession meta magics, you are still capped at your base racial maximums (9 for humans)

[Black Sheep]

Also, some take the augmented max cap very seriously... Meaning that even with possession meta magics, you are still capped at your base racial maximums (9 for humans)

The FAQ does specify this is the case, but as things always are with the FAQ, not every GM uses, recognizes, or even knows about it.

I was playing in a game not long ago where none of us realized this was the case, so we were all pretty soured on the Possession traditions as a result. Didn't know about this particular part of the FAQ until well after that game was dead and buried, but it is a nice limiting factor.