Hiding an IAF

[greymankle]

I have a gypsy character. His powers are based off of Gypsy magic. His Gypsy sceptor is the IAF for all of these. He is a very flambouyant character. I would like to simulate the old trick of snapping your fingers the sceptor appears in his hand, with a flourish it disappears. Obviously the powers are unavailable without the sceptor in hand.

An indepth search would reveal the hiding place. Would this just be SFX for a concealment roll? It's about a 2 1/2 foot sceptor. So the penalties for that would be kinda high. Fast Draw? Or is this effect so minor it's not even worth spending points on?

The easier answers are the better.

Thanks

[Supreme Serpent]

I'll second the sleight of hand notion as probably the best and easiest way to represent that.

Make sure the GM is OK with your accessible focus "disappearing" so easily, though.

GM: "The villain's making a grab attack on your scepter."

Player: "I sleight of hand it away...made it by 7."

GM: "Ok, there's no target anymore, so I guess he misses."

Player: "Now it's my phase again? I pull it back out and blast him."

GM: "...."

[Hugh Neilson]

The issue here becomes how easy it is for your character to protect his focus from being targeted. If he's basically going to be able to remove the focus from being targeted by most Grabs or other attacks, I'd say buy it down to IIF.

[greymankle]

Well I'm not thinking about for a combat situation. almost all of his offense comes from the sceptor (inobviously) so he needs it out. This is just a cool effect outside or combat. A way he can have both hands free with out setting it down sort of thing. He's very acrobatic/juggler and a performer. I don't want him to have to set it against a wall every time he performs.

Does this clear things up? I think the sleight/concealment will work though. Thanks

[Black Rose]

I think what you have is not, in actuality, an IAF. Depending on how apparent it is that magic is coming from the sceptre - and I think whipping out a sceptre, doing something nifty, then making the sceptre go -poof- is pretty obvious in MY book; I'd make a grab for it, just on principle - I'd say it's actually an OIF. You can tell it's doing something, but you can't casually grab it - near-textbook definition.

[Super Squirrel]

I'll second the sleight of hand notion as probably the best and easiest way to represent that.

Make sure the GM is OK with your accessible focus "disappearing" so easily, though.

GM: "The villain's making a grab attack on your scepter."

Player: "I sleight of hand it away...made it by 7."

GM: "Ok, there's no target anymore, so I guess he misses."

Player: "Now it's my phase again? I pull it back out and blast him."

GM: "...."
No player of mine would be able to sleight of hand a focus away without aborting a phase to do so. :no:

[greymankle]

I think what you have is not, in actuality, an IAF. Depending on how apparent it is that magic is coming from the sceptre - and I think whipping out a sceptre, doing something nifty, then making the sceptre go -poof- is pretty obvious in MY book; I'd make a grab for it, just on principle - I'd say it's actually an OIF. You can tell it's doing something, but you can't casually grab it - near-textbook definition.
I think this is from me not properly explaining myself. I don't want to go into the whole background of my character but the sceptor allows him to use his powers. It isn't a wand where everything shoots out of it. It's just a costume piece. That's why I chose Inobvious. But if enemies ever decide to take it away during combat they could. (accessible)

I wouldn't want to try the sleight of hand tirck in combat. I don't see that working well. And not what i had it mind. i just wanted to know if the SFX of a "finger snap appearance" could be done with just skills or if I needed something else.