[Inconnu]

The way i see it, weapon foci do 2 things-
1.They deliver a jolt of magical force/amplify your strength upon hittinh
2.They guide your hand.

As such, a weapon focus gun, while not amplifying damage, would guide  your hand, resulting in you getting a dice pool modifier, but not a +force damge.

Just thinking that this would make this a lot easier for all the cyber-less Magi (The  "proper" plural for mages.)

[KarmaInferno]

Would be a nice houserule, but it's more or less a skill-boosting foci, and there's nothing in SR like that.

Closest thing would be a Sustaining Focus with a skill or attribute boosting spell put into it.

Oddly, though, the opposite kinda does exist - there's technological gear in WAR that gives a spellscaster a bonus to hit with direct line-of-sight spells.


-k

[Mirikon]

Indirect spells, Karma. It gives a bonus for things like Flamethrower or Lightning Ball, not for Stunbolt or Manaball.

[Crash_00]

As far as I'm aware Weapon Foci only add their force to melee attack DPs. I haven't seen anywhere were they directly modify damage at all, they just help you hit the target to begin with.

I think the biggest issue here with a gun (and why it doesn't work at all) is that the gun doesn't actually hit the target at all (unless you're pistol whipping the target, but you can actually make a weapon foci gun it just only is useful for melee attacks with the gun. Note the gun, not attachments to the gun. I recommend a weapon foci bayonet if going this route to be honest). Instead the bullet that the gun fires is hitting the target, and that bullet is seriously deformed/destroyed after the shot (weapon foci don't gain any resistance to damage). In the end, this would leave us with effectively single use weapon foci that cost a ridiculous amount of money, must be bound with karma, and generally aren't worth it. That would be, of course, if the the weapon foci remained active when it left your touch, which they never have.

[Inconnu]

Actually, all it is is a logical weapon focus. Melee increases dicepool and dv, but ranged would only increase dv if a. the bullet was enchanted, and b. it was touching you.

Wait what?
In other words, magic bullets don't work.

However, the gun would be literally guiding your hand.Because it can't amplify your strength or release magical energy into your foe or whatev, it doesn't get the damge boost.
Ps-

um, guys? I'm talking about weapon foci that help you SHOOT THINGS

[Medicineman]

um, guys? I'm talking about weapon foci that help you SHOOT THINGS
but there are NO Weapon Foci for shooting things
If You make a weapon Focus out of a Pistol You could use its Bonus to club someone on the Head but not to shoot him


Hough !
Medicineman

[Critias]

1)  Melee weapon foci don't increase die pool and dv.  They increase die pool, that's it.  I'm not sure if you guys have house ruled weapon foci at your table, or what, but all they do is add their Force to the character's die pool (and ignore Regeneration and ItnW, since they're magical).

2)  No, ranged weapon foci aren't as logical as a melee weapon focus.  It's come up (and has been coming up for over twenty years), and it just doesn't work like that.  Foci only work if you maintain physical contact with them, weapon foci are specifically and clearly stated to only work in melee combat, and so the only sort of gun weapon focus would be one that helps you with Club attacks.

3)  If you'd like to change all that and house rule it so you can have bitchin' weapon focus guns that give you bonus dice, that's fine, but be aware that -- once again -- what you're proposing will potentially throw the balance of power all out of wack.  Part of why current weapon foci aren't a major balance is that, well, they do only work in melee.  You can only use them at a target that's in close, you can only attack with them as a complex action, your opponent generally gets a larger defense pool to get out of the way -- all the things that make melee combat less dangerous than ranged combat applies to weapon foci, so that they don't tend to be earth-shatteringly powerful.  If you let someone start blazing away with a ranged weapon foci, attacking multiple times in a turn, shooting at anything within range, and still raking in a ton of extra dice and ignoring things like Regeneration and ItnW, you've got a real balancing issue on your hands, now.

[Medicineman]

....oO( a Die Pool.... is there also a ...Live Pool ?      )

with a Dance in a Pool
Medicineman

[CitizenJoe]

Couldn't you just make a power focus in the form of a gun, and then tie that magic to adept magic where it give extra skill in shooting skill?  The rounds aren't magical, but it is still a magic gun, usable in the hands of a bound adept.

[Critias]

Couldn't you just make a power focus in the form of a gun, and then tie that magic to adept magic where it give extra skill in shooting skill?  The rounds aren't magical, but it is still a magic gun, usable in the hands of a bound adept.

No.  It just doesn't work that way.  By the laws of magic in the Shadowrun universe, ranged weapon foci just don't work, period.  You could have a gun weapon focus for bashin' heads in, but that's about it.

The closest you can get is to use the Attunement (item) metamagic, which can provide a little extra help on the attack roll...but it doesn't do so in the same was as a focus, and you specifically cannot attune a focus (which tells you their mojo is basically incompatible).

[Inconnu]

Average street sam gets around 20 for shooting things at char gen, easy.
Yet somthing that will only add like 5 dice to a anemic dice pool is going to

throw the balance of power all out of wack. 

Explanations? As far as i can tell, the BEST a magician can get is currently 15 dice(12 from base stats and skills, 3 from someone buffing them with improved agility.)
Adapts are only slightly better, and only with 6 magic/agi and 6 pistols, and using ALL their PP on improved AGI and improved ability (Insert firearm) 3.
So i say to you- Huh?

[Crash_00]

It would increase the clubs skill since that's the only way you hit anything with the gun. Guns don't hit people when you're shooting (unless you're launching guns out of a potato cannon at people).

Explanations? As far as i can tell, the BEST a magician can get is currently 15 dice(12 from base stats and skills, 3 from someone buffing them with improved agility.)
Adapts are only slightly better, and only with 6 magic/agi and 6 pistols, and using ALL their PP on improved AGI and improved ability (Insert firearm) 3.
So i say to you- Huh?

Mages can still use Smartlink. Mages can still use ware. A mage can get just as high of shooting as a street sam when you get down to it (Muscle Toner 4 is less than 1 essence at basic grade). The only thing that hits them hard are IP boosting augs and that's what Improved Reflexes and a sustaining foci is for. The bottom line here is that a mage can do everything a street sam can do, plus magic, plus weapon foci (so a dedicated combat mage can end up with AGI 5(9), Blades at 6(7), Personalized Grip, and Weapon Focus 4 for 21 dice an lose one point of magic for the agility aug and Reflex Recorder). It probably isn't worth it for them, but they can do it.

Adepts are the balance point here. It's more powerful because they can also get Improved Ability. Losing one point of magic for 4 agi is a great deal compared to the .75 PP per level (1.5 each for the three over natrual max). So look at AGI 5(9), Blades at 6(9), Personalized Grip, and Weapon Focus 4 will end up at 23 dice. That's a lot of dice, but let's look a bit further. If you open it up to guns instead, toss a smartlink in there as well and it becomes 25, aim a few times and it become 28. This is all without min/maxing at all (I've gotten characters shooting in the low 30's without adding weapon foci into the equation).

This is all just by the dice, but there is not reason to make Adepts gain even higher DPs than they can now at shooting when they can already out shoot a Street Sam if geared for it. There is no reason to make magi be able to just toss nuyen into a pool to be able to shoot as well as a cyber sniper.

The real issue isn't the DP though. It's that Weapon Foci bypass immunities and the like,

[Critias]

Average street sam gets around 20 for shooting things at char gen, easy.
Yet somthing that will only add like 5 dice to a anemic dice pool is going to

throw the balance of power all out of wack. 

Explanations? As far as i can tell, the BEST a magician can get is currently 15 dice(12 from base stats and skills, 3 from someone buffing them with improved agility.)
Adapts are only slightly better, and only with 6 magic/agi and 6 pistols, and using ALL their PP on improved AGI and improved ability (Insert firearm) 3.
So i say to you- Huh?

I already offered some explanations above, and Crash_00 offered some more below.  I'd also just like to point out that any mage can shoot a gun much better than any street samurai can cast Manabolt.  Do they need spellcasting and also top-tier shooting ability, too?  I'm as big a fan of characters who embrace that this is a classless system as anyone.  I'm as big a fan of magical characters who are capable in the mundane world as anyone.  But I don't think what we need are house rules to make them more capable...especially not when it means they'd be more capable than the hardcore street samurai.

Anything a street sammie can do to augment his pool of dice, a mage (or adept, for that matter) can also do.  Muscle Toner?  Reflex Recorders?  These are things that'll add combat dice that are already pretty Essence-friendly, and if you throw enough money at them, they just get more Essence-friendly.  And mages can take them just as easily as anyone else can, if they decide that 4-5 extra dice with a gun is worth 1 die with a spell.  And, heck, anyone that wants it can get a smartlink program installed in some glasses or a pair of contacts, nowadays, there's 2 dice everyone should have.

Giving mages access to all of that is -- in my humble opinion -- pretty awesome.  It introduces choices to the game, that let you design the character you want to play, but with a cost attached. 

But giving mages access to all of that, and then also giving them magical gun-foci (which have been explicitly stated not to work that way, several times, over four editions now), so that they're just plain better at shooting than a dedicated street samurai?  No.  That's when you fly in the face of the canon universe and force balance issues to crop up -- just like when you introduce a .79 pistol or mini-grenade bullets that use Chunky Salsa inside your target.

So -- once again -- if you want to do that in your home game, knock yourself out.  House rule to your heart's content, sling a hojillion dice, play the soundtrack to Saints Row in the background, and have a good time.  Just be aware that what you're doing would seriously upset the balance of power in a canon game, and don't be surprised that people keep telling you so.

[Inconnu]

 huh?

How is having stat and skill at 9 not min-maxing?
Also, i think i already pointed out that they would not bypass immunities...
What weapon foci do in the first place is guid your hand. They also bypass immunities.

ALL THE RANGED WEAPON FOCUS DOES IS GUIDE YOUR HAND.

Literally. All. Oh, and it lets you down when a enemy mage decides to destroy it.

[KarmaInferno]

All a melee weapon focus does is guide your hand, too.

It's been a hard rule since 1st edition came out in 1989 that foci cannot affect ranged non-magical attacks. Period. It's part of the setting, the same way that "no teleport magic" and "no resurrection spells" are.

However, here's a SR4-legal way to do it:

Buy an appropriate Sustaining Focus and cast Analyze Device, Increase Agility, or Enhance Aim into it. Boom, you now have bonus dice to operate that weapon. From the spell, not the foci.

Alternately, an Adept with an Infusion Focus (Improve Ability <weapon skill>) and the appropriate metamagic can get a dice boost, but again that's the adept ability doing it, not the focus.

Foci cannot directly affect non-magical ranged attacks, but spells and adept powers can.


-k