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I was flipping through Dragon Magazine 266 (August 2008), and I found this heroic tier feat:
Sacrifice to Caiphon [Warlock]
Prerequisistes: Con 13, warlock Benefit: When you attack with an encounter power that has targets and you miss all targets, then you can deal damage to yourself equal to the level of the power. If you do, you immediately recover that power.
Essentially, you can make any encounter power reliable by taking a fairly small amount of damage. The feat is not restricted to warlock powers, so a multiclass warlock can use it for his main class powers. This feat seems way more powerful that any other heroic tier feat I've seen.
Does this seem pretty overpowered to anyone else as well? Should it be in a different tier? Is the damage enough to keep this feat balanced? Or is there some mitigating factor that makes this feat weaker than it appears at first glance?
originally, i had the same reaction. But once a took some time to consider it, i was ok with it.
the more targets it has, the less likely it is to be a 100% miss. So in order to actually have a good chance to get the power back, you will be using your AoE power in a less than optimal situation in the first place.
So ya, its a good feat, and I would likely take it. But by no means is it a 'must have'
Cost - a feat slot, and spending one standard action being utterly useless
Benifit - A do over on an AoE encounter power next round.
Enh - I find that encounter powers miss too often for good fun. At-wills you can try again; and most dailies have something happen on a miss. Most encounter powers are an all-or-nothing deal.
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Originally Posted by Rob Balder
I don't mind the text sometimes, the images it shows. / Running from the Ds and Ls, and killing all the Os.
Faded prints and subtle hints and fortune cookie lies. / You never ID all your stuff, until your @ sign dies.
So does the encounter power you use have to have multiple Targets or does one Target count as Targets?
It's pretty clear to me that "targets" means "one or more targets"; I don't think it's restricted to AoE attacks. If it meant "two or more targets", the feat would be nearly useless since most warlock powers only affect a single target.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanArgent
Enh - I find that encounter powers miss too often for good fun. At-wills you can try again; and most dailies have something happen on a miss. Most encounter powers are an all-or-nothing deal.
I agree. Reusing encounter powers at a cost opens some really cool strategic options. My concern is that this feat provides warlocks with powerful combat options that aren't matched by any other class until high levels.
That's a good point - I expect to see more feats to patch this in the future. (Something like, say:
Divine Recuperation
Prerequisite: Divine Character, Wis 15
Benefit: Spend a Healing Surge and instead of the normal benefit recharge up to 2 expended encounter powers. This can only be done once an encounter.
Another way to do it would be something like Veteran's armor.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Balder
I don't mind the text sometimes, the images it shows. / Running from the Ds and Ls, and killing all the Os.
Faded prints and subtle hints and fortune cookie lies. / You never ID all your stuff, until your @ sign dies.
It's definitely powerful. The warlock in our epic campaign uses it almost every encounter. While others are missing with their powers and eventually using At wills, he has much more staying power. Sure, it's a painful hit if he opts to keep a 23rd level power, but Frigid Darkness is only 3rd and gives an enemy an effective -7 to AC and -2 to other defenses for one round.
1) No other class gets anything like it. If everyone had a "trade resource X to keep a missed encounter power" feat available, it'd be fine.
2) There's no clause in there to prevent temporary hit point abuse. The warlock in the epic game is Star + Fey, but if he were Star + Infernal instead the cost for using the feat would be next to nil a lot of the time, especially for lower level powers like Frigid Darkness and Far Realm Phantasm (steals an action from the enemy and gives a fighter a possible combat Challenge attack, as well as lowering Will defense temporarily).
1) No other class gets anything like it. If everyone had a "trade resource X to keep a missed encounter power" feat available, it'd be fine.
2) There's no clause in there to prevent temporary hit point abuse. The warlock in the epic game is Star + Fey, but if he were Star + Infernal instead the cost for using the feat would be next to nil a lot of the time, especially for lower level powers like Frigid Darkness and Far Realm Phantasm (steals an action from the enemy and gives a fighter a possible combat Challenge attack, as well as lowering Will defense temporarily).
You may not even need to worry about temporary hit points. Dreadful Word is a level one power, but it can be spectacularly useful for Starlocks and their parties, helping to ensure that all the nastiest Will-based attacks (like a powered-up Sleep) consistently hit. The cost to activate the Sacrifice and reuse Dreadful Word if it misses is one measly hit point.
I like the concept of feat, but find the combination of it and Witchfire a little overpowered (though that may be the feypact additional penalty...)
I'd quite like to see similar feats to for other classes, but I'd fear they would become must have feats (my basic definition of an over powered feat).
I don't think it's overpowered in the "will this break my game" sense.
I do think it is overpowered in the "every Warlock will take this feat" sense. On the other hand, part of the point of the Dragon article seemed to be about fixing the fact that "core" Star Pact Warlocks get kinda screwed. But fixing that through feats means everyone will take those feats.
I've considered houseruling it to 4+level damage or something, just to restrain the low-level awesomeness to where one might have at least a brief second thought about using it.
If starlocks were otherwise a bad choice, and if the feat were only allowed for them, it wouldn't be a problem. But after the article starlocks are among the most powerful warlocks around, and the feat is available to all warlocks, and even multiclass characters.
I'm picturing a fighter / warlock whose powers are all effectively reliable, has huge hit points, and multiple ways to heal himself (including regeneration). He'd never run out of non-at wills until he'd hit with them all at least once.
But this feat only works with Area powers? Or does it work with any power, even single target ones.
Because the description says "if you fail all targets" I assumed it could be only used with area attacks.
The plural is not exclusionary in general english, so I took it to mean it works with any encounter power. He has no area powers, so it would be pointless otherwise.
I don't think it's overpowered in the "will this break my game" sense.
I agree. The feat isn't giving the character anything that he wouldn't already have if the player rolls well. In fact, if the player rolls well, the feat is kind of wasted.
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Originally Posted by bganon
I do think it is overpowered in the "every Warlock will take this feat" sense. On the other hand, part of the point of the Dragon article seemed to be about fixing the fact that "core" Star Pact Warlocks get kinda screwed. But fixing that through feats means everyone will take those feats.
Not only that, I could see characters multiclassing as warlocks for the sole purpose of taking this feat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bganon
I've considered houseruling it to 4+level damage or something, just to restrain the low-level awesomeness to where one might have at least a brief second thought about using it.
I'm currently playing in an RPGA game, so my DM has no choice but to use Sacrifice to Caiphon as is.
I'd definitely make some tweaks to the feat for a home game, though. Maybe:
Increase damage to 5+level or so, like bganon suggested?
Make it a paragon or epic feat?
Restrict its use to once per encounter?
Restrict it to primary class star warlocks?
Change it so you have to spend a healing surge instead of or in addition to the damage?
Increase damage to 5+level or so, like bganon suggested?
Make it a paragon or epic feat?
The first of these is good, the feylock in the game I run uses SoC everytime he misses with Witchfire but any of his higher level encounters he tends to ponder the hp cost on. Maybe I'll go for 5+half level (round down) which should help control it.
i don't know if multiclassing for this feat is such a great deal as it might seem. You essentially get the benefits by paying two feats, 13 Cha, 13 Con, and the loss of any other multiclassing.
A fighter multiclassing into warlock just for Sacrifice to Caiphon can have tons of reliable powers, sure. But Cha is generally a pretty useless stat for fighters (Wis is slightly better as a tertiary) and not many of the warlock powers really mesh well with a fighter build. Fiendish Resilience? Unstoppable is strictly better.
Paladin/warlock is easier, but personally I think that's such a fun combo that I don't mind a little extra awesomeness . The only other class that can really take good advantage of multiclassing into Warlock is the Bard. All other classes struggle at least a bit with MAD, since no other classes use Cha or Con as a primary stat.
On a separate note, if you want the hit point cost of the feat to always be roughly 1/5th of a character's hp for their max level power, 4 or 5 + level is pretty much spot on. Making it half-level will cause the scaling to favor Epic levels (which might be fine, since recovering powers is otherwise more common at Epic anyway).
Last edited by bganon; 14th November 2008 at 04:21 AM..
i don't know if multiclassing for this feat is such a great deal as it might seem. You essentially get the benefits by paying two feats, 13 Cha, 13 Con, and the loss of any other multiclassing.
Actually, the prerequisite is just Con 13. It's pretty easy to get, especially for martial classes.
Now that I think about it, simply bumping up the prerequisites to Con 13 and Cha 13 might prevent abuse of this feat as well.
. The only other class that can really take good advantage of multiclassing into Warlock is the Bard. All other classes struggle at least a bit with MAD, since no other classes use Cha or Con as a primary stat.
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