Pissed about the reduction of the Spell Focus Feats

[Li Shenron]

+1 or +2 is not really going to change my games much. For the same reason, I really feel I didn't need to change Spell Focus at all, and I liked it to be +2 just because I like even bonuses to d20 rolls, and if I have to be honest I would have liked Weapon Focus to give +2 for the same reason (believe it or not, the only fellow players of mine who took WF took it to qualify for another thing, and both felt the feat was very little).

It's probably true that spells DC have an advantage towards ST.

Spell Focus used to give +2 to 1/8 schools.
GF/LR/IW give +2 to 1/3 saving throws.

Neverthless, a caster can choose which spells to cast and can try to guess which is the worst ST of the target (by casting mind-affecting spells to the heavy-armored foe who looks dumb, and spells with Refl saves to the spellcasters...). A target never chooses which ST to use.

Furthermore, a caster usually has a high score in the ability that affects all her DCs, while it's not usually possible to bump all Constitution, Dexterity AND Wisdom, especially if you have other priorities.

Anyway, I don't welcome the change to SF. It was useful for PCs/NPCs with not-so high casting ability (it's probably a bad habit of mine to try have fun creating chars who are good in something atypical, such as a Wiz with Con 18 or a Cle with Cha 18, at the expense of not immediately putting the 18 on the spellcasting ability). And it was useful for players who were new to the game and didn't really know which feat to take.

It probably depends on the fact that our campaigns have not been shoot'em'up frenzies, but instead very various-not-furious, so we haven't seen min-maxed Sorcerers casting the only "perfect" spell over and over and over and over....
And for every player who could have indulged in PCs with DC 22 Fireballs at 5th, there has always been a DM with NPCs with average Reflex save 22 at 5th, 50% spell failure is definitely not good.

On the overall I think this new SF won't change a thing. The min-maxers will still be able to find the deadly combo from splatbooks which give them DC 40 at 10th, only now it will be 39 (or 38).

 

[Darklone]

When I first read it, I understood it wrong, kinda Spell Focus gives +1 and GSF gives +2 (and stacks).

I would have liked that and will perhaps use it.

In my games, the players tend to face hordes of humans or humanoid enemies instead of single ubermonsters. Therefore, nearly 90% of the monster saves fail.

I don't really care for 5% more or less.

 

[Dr.Dan]

Get rid of?

I think it is a bad change, they should of gotten rid of GSF.

How are they supposed to 'get rid of GSF'? This isn't a new edition; it's a revision of the current eddition. WoTC has stated explicitly that all of the material out there could still be used. So they can't remove anything, they can only edit it and re-release it.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Re: Get rid of?

How are they supposed to 'get rid of GSF'? This isn't a new edition; it's a revision of the current eddition. WoTC has stated explicitly that all of the material out there could still be used. So they can't remove anything, they can only edit it and re-release it.

Okay, then they should have edited Spell Focus to +1, Greater Spell Focus to +2, and added a line at the end of GSF:

Characters who already have Spell Focus gain this feat for free in any schools for which they've taken Spell Focus.

 

[Thels]

Actually, GSF was not in the PHB before. It was in the FRCS, which is optional and doesn't apply to regular DnD. Why they're now including it and therefor trying to balance it is kinda beyond me. I'd rather see it that they stay at +2/+4 and require some mundane feat to be taken 1st or set level requirements for them.

Or maybe like SF gives you a +1 and increases to +2 once you reached level 4 or something like that. then GSF requires level 7 and ups it to +3 and +4 once you got to level 10. They're worth it if you know they'll be better later on.

FRCS already has some cheesy feats anyhow. Take Spellcasting Prodigy for example. That gives a +1 DC for ALL schools and 1 or 2 bonus spells on top of that. If you combine all that silly stuff, of course DC's go through the roof.

I'm not happy with PrC classes improving DC's. Either players will need to take it in order to have a decent DC and then everyone and their brother has to take it or they'll suck, or everyone already has a decent DC and that would make it go through the roof. Just have a PrC that gives SF and GSF for free.

I'd rather just keep SF and GSF to +2/+4 and add Greater IW/LR/GF to balance it out.

 

[Destil]

I don't mind the change too much, but I'd rather just elimnate GSF than force people to use more feats. I'd also like to see a spell focus that helps more for schools that don't rely on save DC.

For now my solution is something like this:

(Greater) Spell Focus:
Benefit: You gain +1 to save DC, Caster Level & Opposed Rolls with a single school of magic. The bonus from Greater Spell Focus and Spell Focus stacks.

Psions can take Power Focus, +2 to save DCs for one dicipline, but not greater power focus. Psionics don't scale with level, and with the d20 roll for the save DC they could use the boost a little more for reliability.

 

[Madfox]

No spellcaster has ever taken the Spell Focus feat in 3 years of playing (in at least 3 different campaigns with numerous rotating PCs in each).

I play in a similar group and I don't know any arcane wizard who did not take spell focus. So clearly, experiences with this feat differ between groups.

 

[BenjaminB]

Has anyone heard official justification for this change? The ability buff spell justification seemed reasonable, but I can't see one for this. I've never used this feat myself, and have never seen anyone use it either... there are just to many feats much much better than it is already.

+1 does seem offbase though- the save bonus feats (Iron Will and whatnot) give you a +2 to your saving throw... seems a 1:1 relationship between the two should be maintained.

-B

 

[Al]

The problem was one that only became apparent using twinked-out characters, prestige classes and feats (GSF). The major issue I have with it is similar to that of dcollins'- the core rules are being rebalanced (underpowered) in order to remedy supplements. The core rules were already balanced, the supplements were not. However, rather than fix the supplements, WotC downgraded the core rules in order to try to bring the supplements into line.

Need statistics? Okay, here goes. We shall use the DMG standard characters- they are benchmark standard characters and should always be used to try to estimate balance, otherwise it devolves into a slanging match of whether the character used is appropriate or not.

Level 1: DC 13 for top spell. Average save (all saves, all classes): +2.24. That's about a 50/50 chance to save.

Level 6: DC 16 for top spell. Average save: +5.45. Again, about a 50/50 chance to save.

Level 11: DC 19 for top spell. Average save: +7.3. Marginally less than 50/50 to save.

Level 16: DC 24 for top spell. Average save: +11.4. About 40/60 chance to save.

Level 20: DC 27 for top spell. Average save: +14.1. Again, about 40/60 chance to save.

At top-level, therefore, the average person has a 40% chance to save against an average spell. Was it particularly broken to reduce that chance to 30% for one school? If a wizard used a given school half of the time (pretty specialised), and it was a save negates type spell (optimal for SF), then he has increased his offensive capabilities by one-eighth at the cost of a feat.

Broken? Hardly. A fighter can increase his offensive capabilities by one-eighth with a feat (Weapon Specialisation, assuming average damage 16 or less- i.e. at most levels) or more under certain circumstances (Whirlwind Attack, Great Cleave).

The point is this, then: is it worth taking a feat, which at its *optimal use* (top level, school taken for half of *all* spells, all of which are save negates, appropriate usage) under the new rules increases effectiveness by 1/16th?

I think not. The new Spell Focus is feeble.

 

[Ravellion]

Has anyone heard official justification for this change? The ability buff spell justification seemed reasonable, but I can't see one for this. I've never used this feat myself, and have never seen anyone use it either... there are just to many feats much much better than it is already.

+1 does seem offbase though- the save bonus feats (Iron Will and whatnot) give you a +2 to your saving throw... seems a 1:1 relationship between the two should be maintained.

-B

It will probably be very close to Ryan Dancey's jsutification near the top of this thread. He was a WotC designer until recently.

Rav