I'm a little confused how the Bonded Tome ability works with respect to Focus Powers.
What does it mean that the occultist has to "Split" it's Mental focus. Does that mean he can only have on Implement activated at a time?
How does that work if he has 9 Mental Focus and only puts 4 in one implement, can he switch to a different one later?
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A tome eater only has one implement, his bonded book. The book counts as an implement for all the schools he knows. However, he must split his mental focus between the schools.
Let’s take a first level tome eater with an Int of +4. Let’s say he chose abjuration and conjuration as his two schools of magic. He can’t just say “I have 5 points of focus in my book so I count as having 5 points in each school.” He has to split them. Say, two in conjuration and three in abjuration.
If he chooses to invest two in conjuration and keep 3 generic, he can’t put those three generic into abjuration until the next day.
A tome eater only has one implement, his bonded book. The book counts as an implement for all the schools he knows. However, he must split his mental focus between the schools.
Let’s take a first level tome eater with an Int of +4. Let’s say he chose abjuration and conjuration as his two schools of magic. He can’t just say “I have 5 points of focus in my book so I count as having 5 points in each school.” He has to split them. Say, two in conjuration and three in abjuration.
If he chooses to invest two in conjuration and keep 3 generic, he can’t put those three generic into abjuration until the next day.
Thanks for the clarification. It’s better than I thought it was. I thought he can only have points in one implement school at a time.
It is my understanding that the wording of the ability that it actually prevents the tome eater from reserving any mental focus as general… “she must split her mental focus among the schools she knows”, is non optional language as opposed to the original wording of the mental focus ability, which just uses the optional “can” and not the mandatory “must”. The wording has the additional implication that you might not be allowed to leave any schools you know at 0 focus on any day.
You have only one implement, it serves for all schools you have unlocked, and must have all your mental focus assigned to it and split among the schools you know. How you split it is still up to you but it must be split.
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That's kind of a stretch, Chell. That interpretation makes the word "must" do some heavy lifting that isn't immediately obvious and isn't directly related to what it is referencing.
The bonded tome starts as an implement for any two schools of magic at 1st level, and it gains access to additional schools of magic at 2nd, 10th, 14th, and 18th levels, granting the tome eater access to base focus powers and resonant powers accordingly. The tome eater’s bonded tome serves as her implement component to cast occultist spells of all schools she knows. However, she must split her mental focus among the schools she knows for the purpose of determining resonant powers and using focus powers, even though she possesses only one physical item as an implement. Once per day as part of casting an occultist spell, a tome eater can expend 1 point of mental focus tied to the appropriate school to increase the spell’s caster level by 1 or increase the spell’s DC by 1. A tome eater can enhance a spell in this manner one additional time per day at 6th level, and another time per day for every 5 occultist levels she possesses beyond 6th. This ability alters implements, mental focus, spellcasting, and implement mastery.
The key sentence is
However, she must split her mental focus among the schools she knows for the purpose of determining resonant powers and using focus powers, even though she possesses only one physical item as an implement.
The interpretation depends on where you put the emphasis. I see "she must split her mental focus among the schools she knows for the purpose of determining resonant powers and using focus powers. . ." as clarifying that you don't get to put focus points into "the book" and claim that counts as all schools.
If I changed the "must" to "can" in that sentence, then the word gymnasts would claim they had the option to just put points into the book and get all schools.
RAW, yeah, I guess it could be debatable though I disagree with your reading. But RAI it's a stretch to say they wouldn't have explicitly written it. If they really wanted to take away the ability to save generic focus, it wouldn't be much more text. Just add at the end:
The tome eater may not save generic focus inside her own body.