Reserve feats in actual play

These questions, and the accompanying poll, are only for those who have used reserve feats in actual play, or at least witnessed them being used in actual play.

Are they of the right power level, do you think, when compared to other options in WotC books that you do consider balanced? Or are some overpowered/underpowered and others fine?


Which ones are over- or underpowered, if any? Please give details.


Also, anything else you've noticed about them, in play?

They seem pretty cool, actually... keeping in line with wotc's push towards more encounters per day. I think anything that keeps the wizard in play longer is a keeper. I don't see a problem.

I think some are underpowered (particularly the damage ones... some require touch attack, and others don't... don't understand, myself).

I jsut don't think they are enough to see play. In combat, I've always got something beter to do than a measly little 4-6d6 damage. Out of combat they can be great to wow locals or scae people, or take care of that door tha theif is not able to get open. Sure it will take a while, but I've got all the time in the world.

But overall they are weak.

They are close enough with the damage to a Warlocks invocations. You are basically giving all arcane classes a comparable ability while retaining their strengths. The non-damage are interesting but are not so imbalancing.

Supernatural ability that does provoke AoE's. Not subject to SR, take the worlock invocations, they are subject to AoE's and SR. The damage feats are overpowered when you look at that. 3-6D every round, where is the balance?

Some are overpowered (Minor Shapeshift, I am looking at you) but on the whole most are just fine.

A lot of it comes down to situation. They all otherwise limit your options in exchange for a renewable payoff, which works out okay.

Edit: Ah, sorry. You asked for details.

Minor Shapeshift is broken, but only if used in a certain way. Works like so - one of the options you can pick is Vigor: gain temporary hit points equal to your HD (not caster level - hit dice). Lasts for a number of rounds equal to the level of the reserved spell, re-using the ability overwrites the temp hp pool (that is - they don't stack, you just renew the buffer).

The problem? It's a swift action to use. So every round without interrupting 99% of the other actions you'll be taking normally (unless you're going out of your way to load up on Swift or Quickened spells), you can stock up with ablative hit points equal to your hit dice.

If it were another kind of action to use (say a standard) it'd be better. At least then there'd be a more tangible cost for making yourself hard to kill. As-is, it's too strong. It's essentially Quickened False Life (a 6th level spell) at will, in exchange for holding a 4th level Polymorph in reserve.

You missed an option in the poll:

What's a reserve feat?

so... what's a reserve feat?

archastrel said:

so... what's a reserve feat?

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They are introduced in Complete mage. Basically as long as you have a certain type of spell prepared you get a minor ability that you can do. For instance the Fiery one gives a small fireball with range of 30, 5ft r, and it does 1d6 damage per spell level of the highest level fire spell you have prepared.

I notice that Storm Bolt does not include any reference to a saving throw for half, unlike Fiery Burst and Winter's Blast. I house-ruled one in, thinking this looked like an oversight, has anyone else dealt with this (or not)?

kaomera said:

I notice that Storm Bolt does not include any reference to a saving throw for half, unlike Fiery Burst and Winter's Blast. I house-ruled one in, thinking this looked like an oversight, has anyone else dealt with this (or not)?

Click to expand...

Yep, our druid in a savage tide campaign has taken this.