CW - Arcane Strike feat

Pax said:

Also keep in mind, nothing stops the dragon from forgoing it's normally-advantageous NaturalAttack Progression in favor of an Iterative progression with a single natural weapon. Four bites (five with Haste going), in one round, all of them at +9 to hit and +9d4 damage 'cause the wyrm burns a 9th level spell through the Arcane Strike feat ... ?

That puts you on a trip straight to lovely downtown OUCH-city, my friends. On the Express bus!

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I was under the impression that you can't make multiple attacks per round with a natural weapon, only with manufactured ones? Or have the rules changed without me realising it?

FireLance said:

I was under the impression that you can't make multiple attacks per round with a natural weapon, only with manufactured ones? Or have the rules changed without me realising it?

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No, your right. The only way the dragon could do that is if he had monk levels and even then, he would probably be doing monk unarmed damage, not bite damage. (Rules aren't real clear on that last part.)

Eek! A great feat for almost any arcane caster.... I think not. It's a great feat for Arcane Casters who plan on mixing it up in melee combat with moderate regularity.

The 10 strength wizard with his robes and dagger is better off casting summoning spells or using Acid Arrows or Glitterdust, etc on a Golem or other Magic Resistant creature. If that wizard carries an adamantine greatsword and prepares Tenser's Transformation on a regular basis, it's good for him. Otherwise, he's better off taking Spell Penetration to deal with high spell resistance.

The wizard with fighter levels who uses his spells to make him a fearsome melee combatant, however, will find this feat ideal.

Crothian said:

It's in complete Warrior.

Persoanlly I think it's a great feat for almost any caster. Makes fighting Golems and other creatures that are very diffucult to hurt with magic, a little easier.

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As I read the feat, I think it's a bit too powerful, especially for melee classes that get a small selection of utility spells and other non-combat spells. Basically, one feat completely alters the balance of a class by converting spells that aren't meant to be combat-oriented into combat spells of a sort, that don't require casting times.

I'll use the (apparent) standard of "Is it too powerful?" - Is there ever a situation where, say a Bard (who I have in my game and is wanting the Arcane Strike feat) would opt to not use this feat? I can't imagine an instance where he wouldn't be converting every 4th and 5th level bard spell (of which there aren't any real "attack" spells short of Shadow Evocation) for attack bonuses and extra damage. Especially since his DCs will be lower than an average mage of similar level.

So what I'm considering is this: Make the feat a Standard action to activate, and last 1d4+1 rounds before it needs to be re-activated. You'd still need to burn a spell each round (and while active that would be a free action). You could of course re-activate it after it wears off, and repeat. With it taking a standard action though, there would be circumstances where you would have to decide if you should use it or not.

Anyone think this is going too far? Not far enough?

Or a Wizard relying on ... oh ... Thunderlance. 17th level Wizard, with Thunderlance and Tenser's Transformation both running.

As a 17th level Wizard, you count as having a 27 strength with the thunderlance, and with the tenser's transformation ... the attacks would be at +25/+20/+15/+10, for 2d6+8 damage.

Now throw +9 to hit and +9d4 damage onto that for one round: +34/+29/+24/+19, 2d6+8+9d4 damage for each of those attacks that works. And add another +34 to-hit attack, if the wizard also has haste running. [Edit] In fact, that's a total of +17 to hit and +8 damage, total, as compared to a baseline Fighter(17) wielding a longspear. Not too shabby.[/Edit]

Is it always going to be useful? Of course not. Are there spellcasters that will greatly value it? Absolutely.

One simple idea, off the top of my head, would be Fighter(1)/Sorceror(9)/Eldritch Knight(10). BAB of +15 even without a Tenser's, casts spells as a Sorceror(18), plenty of spell slots per day, and quite possibly caught, every few encounters, without applicable spells while lacking the option to simply withdraw from danger.

Shiver...
My players are going to hate me

ThirdWizard said:

Or a Great Wyrm Red Dragon.

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rushlight said:

I'll use the (apparent) standard of "Is it too powerful?" - Is there ever a situation where, say a Bard (who I have in my game and is wanting the Arcane Strike feat) would opt to not use this feat? I can't imagine an instance where he wouldn't be converting every 4th and 5th level bard spell (of which there aren't any real "attack" spells short of Shadow Evocation) for attack bonuses and extra damage. Especially since his DCs will be lower than an average mage of similar level.

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That's funny, I have no problem imagining many instances where the bard wouldn't convert spells to attack bonusses.

1. It doesn't look like a deadly fight and he expects more fights later. Bards don't have an awful lot of spell slots; they might well want to keep magic available for later. Obviously this is more of an issue if you're playing Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil than if you're playing Return to the Drawing Room of Mathilda Kaufman but all limited use abilities have a tendency to become unbalanced when the party expects to be able to unload everything they've got if there ever should be a combat encounter.

2. For the melee focussed bard, Dimension Door, Freedom of Movement, Greater Invisibility, Cure Critical Wounds, (all Brd 4), Greater Dispel Magic, Greater Heroism, and Summon Monster V are all rather useful spells. So are Eyebite, Hero's Feast, Greater Shout, and Otto's Irresistable Dance at 6th level. It's not hard to imagine a situation where one of the above spells would be far more useful than +4 to hit and +4d4 damage.

3. For the battle (but not melee-focussed) bard, there is also
4: Shout, Hold Monster, Dominate Person, 5: Mind Fog, Shadow Evocation, Song of Discord, Mass Suggestion, and 6: Find the Path (OK, it's not combat but it's still very very useful), Mass Cure Moderate Wounds, and Project Image. It's not hard to imagine a situation where I'd rather have one of those spells than a bonus to hit and damage.

So what I'm considering is this: Make the feat a Standard action to activate, and last 1d4+1 rounds before it needs to be re-activated. You'd still need to burn a spell each round (and while active that would be a free action). You could of course re-activate it after it wears off, and repeat. With it taking a standard action though, there would be circumstances where you would have to decide if you should use it or not.

Anyone think this is going too far? Not far enough?

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I wouldn't touch that feat with a 10 foot pole. Standard actions are far too valuable to waste activating a feat that I might or might not find advantageous to use sometime next round (potentially, it could be over in 2 rounds--leaving only one round of use). Heck, right now, my fighter/wizard/Eldritch Knight (1/10/1)--the kind of melee focussed arcanist that the feat is ideal for--would hesitate before using the feat. +5 to hit and +5d4 to damage can be quite useful. On the other hand, a quickened ray or enfeeblement or a feeblemind is also quite useful. If he does the one, he won't have the other available. He would take the feat without a second thought (so long Still Spell, I'll just live with spell failure or without armor). However, he wouldn't always use it.

On the other hand, he'd never use your version of the feat. The standard action activation really kills it for him. (Most of his battles are halfway over by the end of the first round).

It also appears to me that this feat is useful against creatures with Spell Resistance. I see nothing in the feat that would allow a creature to use spell resistance against the arcane strike.

That may not seem like a big deal, but you can get an extra d4 of damage per spell level without checking for SR. That's pretty nice, I'd say.

Mark

Taren Seeker said:

The original feat in Dragon magazine added d6 damage per level instead of d4. If you find that the spell slot cost is not worth the bonus damage (if you don't have PA for instance) then you may want to consider using the original version.

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The original feat in Dragon magazine added +2 to hit and +1d6 damage per spell level spent. But it only affected your next attack, IIRC.

The CW version grants +1 to hit and +1d4 damage per spell level spent but boosts all attacks that round.

I think they are both good feats.

I'm wondering if there isn't a different abuse of this particular feat that has not been mentioned. The feat is a free action to activate. What stops you from using all of your spells if you want to? Free action, unnamed bonus, limit of bonus of your BAB per use. What am I missing here?