Codex HOW TO PLAY Focus

← Back

Focus

Focus is the steadiness of your mind: the reserve you spend on careful work and on a hunter's sharp eye. It never returns on its own. It shows on your HUD once it falls below 70%, turns red below 30%, and blinks when it is nearly gone.

WHAT SPENDS IT

  • Crafting. Every recipe has a set price, steeper the more intricate the work, paid when the piece is finished. A cauldron brew pays once for the whole pot.
  • Mending gear, in proportion to how worn the piece is.
  • Building. It drains for as long as the hammer swings; you need a good reserve to begin, and if it runs dry halfway the work is abandoned (your materials are not lost).
  • The focus look (X), for as long as it is on.
  • Haggling with a trader, and a Shaman's revive, which takes half your Focus.
  • Eating Deathpenny Leaves.

WHAT RESTORES IT

  • Rest. Hold Z and choose to rest; beside a burning campfire it returns twice as fast, and your wounds mend too.
  • A chair. Sitting in a Wood Chair restores it faster than resting on the ground.
  • Sleep. A full sleep in a Bed or Tent refills it entirely.
  • A Spirit Potion restores a great deal; a Shaman Mushroom, a pipe of Swamp Weed or the weed chewed raw, a little.
  • A new life begins with a clear mind.

THE FOCUS LOOK

Press X to steady yourself and look hard at the world. You slow to a walk and your view narrows, but every creature in sight is outlined in the colour of its standing toward you, and names carry further. Skills sharpen it: Bushcrafter shows harvestable plants, True Sight ore veins and the detection rings around warriors (see SNEAKING), Focused dropped loot and containers, Artisan traps, Vigilance creatures behind cover, and Tracker widens the range. A Duelist strikes harder and a Marksman shoots harder while it is on. It needs a little Focus to begin, and breaks off by itself when you run low.

RUNNING LOW

An empty mind costs you nothing in a fight, but it stops the work: without the Focus to pay for it you cannot craft, mend gear, build or haggle. Sit, rest by a fire, or sleep the night through.

GROWING IT

Each point of INTELLIGENCE widens your Focus by 1%, and the Focused skill widens it by half again. Each point of PERCEPTION slows how fast the focus look and building drain it. The Tinker skill halves what mending gear costs.