Spell Focus - Still Worth It?

[Paragon249]

Spell Focus is now worthless. Reasons.
A - Saves have a D20 roll added to their base number and spell DC's do not.
B - Not all Spells have saving throws, so even if your a specialist and only cast from youur school, some of your spells are not going to be affected.
C - There is still Spell Resistance, which your DC has no effect on.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I am flabbergasted. If a benefit from one feat is "must-have", then isn't it too good? If the same benefit becomes two feats, it's worthless? A sure sign that a feat is balanced is if you are just as likely to take something else half the time. So far, I think people have rated it so poorly from the backlash of having their cookie taken away.

I think 3.5 spell focus is just fine. Like any +1 bonus, it will help most when the target either needs a really high number to save (making the save near impossible), or a really low one (to give you a better hope of getting any spell through).

Well spell focus was never must have power wise.(heck I've only seen it taken twice in 2 different groups, and god knows how many characters) The only way it was must have is in the way that there just aren't nearly as many magic oriented feats as combat feats so as a wizard with 12 possible feats is likely to take one eventually becuase well most metamagic sucks hard, item creation can be a pain so what else are you going to spend your feats on.

Maybe GSF was too good, personlly I thinkthe problem was there is frequently too big of a discrepency in bad to good saves instead, but still maybe +4 is to good. But a mere +2 to one schools was far from so good it was a must have.

A +1 is worthless crap though. And only may get value is in that metamagic somehow even sucks harder in 3.5, so people may still take it because what other choices do you have for a dedicated spellcaster.

 

[Number47]

Spell Focus is now worthless. Reasons.
A - Saves have a D20 roll added to their base number and spell DC's do not.

Spell DCs have a flat 10 added, but feel free to replace that with a d20 roll.

B - Not all Spells have saving throws, so even if your a specialist and only cast from youur school, some of your spells are not going to be affected.

That has nothing to do with the change to spell focus.

C - There is still Spell Resistance, which your DC has no effect on.

There was always still spell resistance.

 

[Knowledge Sinkhole]

Spell DCs have a flat 10 added, but feel free to replace that with a d20 roll.

That has nothing to do with the change to spell focus.

There was always still spell resistance.

He was illustrating some of the reasons that +1 to DCs is not worth a feat. When it was +2, it was enough to take the feat, even with those disadvantages. Now, this is not the case.

 

[Number47]

He was illustrating some of the reasons that +1 to DCs is not worth a feat. When it was +2, it was enough to take the feat, even with those disadvantages. Now, this is not the case.

He was illustrating them very poorly, and using irrelevant examples. Note (again) that two of those "disadvantages" have nothing to do with the subject at all.

 

[Urbannen]

Spell Focus is still worthwhile, if only because it is so hard to get your spell DCs to a worthwhile level.

If your spellcaster uses a lot of enchantments, illusions, or necromancies, yes, spell focus is still worth it. Anything, anything, to raise those spell DCs.

+5% to a spell DC for one school of magic for one feat does not seem very attractive, of course, but spells are just too easy to save against, especially if your spellcaster is not munchkinised.

 

[Cyraneth]

Well, though I'm not happy about comparing feats either, I must admit that this case calls for it:

The Weapon Focus feat grants a +1 bonus which is relatively often called upon (every combat situation, basically).
The Dodge feat also grants a +1 bonus which is also relatively often called upon (also every combat situation).
The Spell Focus feat now grants the same bonus, but is less often used (only when the wizard cast one of his few and precious spells, provided it is from the chosen school).

My point is that a less used feat should grant a greater benefit than a more used feat. Nobody would pick up a feat that only granted a +1 bonus to attack rolls with double-weapons when scaling tulip hills in Acheron. Had the bonus been +16, or just +8, it might have been a possibility, even though tulip hills are more than rare in Acheron.

Just my 2 cents.

- Cyraneth

 

[Tellerve]

Spell Focus is now worthless. Reasons.
A - Saves have a D20 roll added to their base number and spell DC's do not.
B - Not all Spells have saving throws, so even if your a specialist and only cast from youur school, some of your spells are not going to be affected.
C - There is still Spell Resistance, which your DC has no effect on.

What? These make no sense at all to the argument. People are just upset about loosing a +1, and while I can see some of the arguments for a +2 because of the less used theory, I still am not sold on it.

Tellerve

 

[James McMurray]

A - Saves have a D20 roll added to their base number and spell DC's do not.

The average value of a d20 is 10.5. That means that over the course of time, saving throws tend to have 10.5 added to their base number. Since D&D rounds down, this equates to on average saves having 10 added to their base bonus.

B - Not all Spells have saving throws, so even if your a specialist and only cast from youur school, some of your spells are not going to be affected.

Spells from the schools that Spell Focus is likely to be added to almost universally have saving throws. In addition, nearly all offensive spells either require an attack roll or offer a saving throw. Some spells do both. You can be fairly sure that a caster who invests in Spell Focus will also have several spells to match it.

C - There is still Spell Resistance, which your DC has no effect on.

And it never has. Spell Penetration is still +2, probably because it comes into play even less often than saving throw DCs.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My take on it:

Spell focus is no longer a good feat. In fact, at +1 DC, it's a lousy feat. However, it's still a "must-have" feat for any spellcaster who specializes in one school of magic.

Why is this important? Wizards and sorcerors live or die by their save DCs. A 10th level fireball does an average of 35 points of damage if the save is failed and 17 if the save succeeds. 35 points of damage is signifcant at that level; 17 points of damage usually isn't. It's even worse for wizards using will or fort save spells since foes who make their saves usually experience no ill effect from the spell.

How can a feat that grants +1 to DCs be lousy? Well, to begin with, it will rarely apply to more than 50% of the spells a wizard casts. Let's say a typical 5th level evoker has the following spells prepared:
1. Magic Missile x2, mage Armor, Shield 2. Scorching Ray x2, mirror image, flaming sphere 3. Fireball x2, Slow

This wizard is very focussed on direct damage spells--to the point that some would say he's quite vulnerable if he runs into fire resistant or spell resistant creatures. However, his spell focus feats would still apply only to three out of his 12 spells. Wizards who take fewer spells without saves (magic missile and scorching ray don't have saves yet comprise one third of his spell selection), might be able to get that number up to half.

Now, +1 DC is significant if you're tossing a spell against an opponent's bad save. For an 8th level fighter with a +5 reflex save, the difference between a DC 17 and a DC 18 is about a 13% lower chance of making the save. However, spellcasting characters are rarely afforded the luxury of casting spells against their opponents' weak saves. Usually, they're forced to spend a significant amount of time tossing spells at their foes strong saves. When the foe has a reflex save of +11, the difference between a DC 17 and a DC 18 is about a 6.7% lower chance of making the save. Not nearly so significant.

So, how can a lousy feat still be "Must Have"? For any character focussed on a particular subset of spells, any possible DC increase is necessary. If the evoker isn't to be useless when facing rogues and the enchanter isn't to be useless when facing clerics, he'll need to pump his DCs to the point that +11 reflex doesn't mean automatic success. (And at level 10-12, foes' weak saves will often be +11 so if he's to have any hope of affecting any foes with his lower level save-permitting spells, he'll have to have Spell Focus, GSF, and a high starting int).

Characters can still try to be generalists and get by without spell focus or greater spell focus but with the saving throw boosts given to monsters in 3.5, monsters will usually succeed even in their weak saves. And the difference between a 10% and a 20% chance of effecting a monster is significant.

Spell focus and Greater spell focus no longer make spell casters good--they are able however, to keep them from being utterly worthless.