Reserve Feat - Dimensional Reach

[Dandu]

Well, an Acid Arrow is a physical substance, but it's a glob of acid. Not very "deflectable".

The projectile from Cloud of Knives, on the other hand, is explicitly stated to be a physical knife. That seems deflectable.

The bead of a fireball is a physical object. I won't guess how solid it is, but it explodes on contact at any rate, rendering deflection pointless. If it's firing at you (or rather, your square), it's going to go off either way.

 

[Celebrim]

The question was, do the manifested forms of those spells constitute "objects"? The feat, after all, doesn't say anything about weapons, just objects.

I consider them objects if they have physical substance. Things made of 'force' or 'energy' are not objects, so a magic missile or a ray of enfeeblement or a cone of cold is not an object for this purpose and cannot be usefully manipulated. An arrow made of acid is an object. A spike made of ice, a magically conjured blade, or a magically hurled stone is an object. An ice storm creates a bunch of objects, and though you could manipulate one of them, it would be like killing one individual of a swarm and generally have little or no utility. Likewise, a jet of water is an object, but if it masses a good deal more than gallon of water then pulling substance out of the jet is just a drop in the bucket and doesn't materially effect the consequences of the spell or effect.

The bead of a fireball is a special case. It's not clear from the text whether it is made of matter or energy, but it interacts with physical objects in some fashion (you have to aim to get it through an opening). That makes it sufficiently physical in my opinion to be considered an object. Presumably its that little ball of guano and sulfur that is the material component.

Some objects I'd allow you to catch, effectively deflecting them. You could reasonably catch a spike of ice, a stone, or a magically conjured dagger without injury, effectively deflecting it. I might require some sort of check in some cases if you did not also have a feat like Catch Arrows, to do so without harm - gripping a knife by the blade is generally bad even if it lacks momentum. Some objects if caught, are only intercepted and not deflected. If you catch a glob of acid or the bead of a fireball or similar object, you've controlled what the object hit, but you suffer the full effects of being hit.

 

[Greenfield]

The only reason to "grab" a Fireball, Acid Arrow or any other such spell would be to protect someone else from them. For a low HP character like a Wiz, that means it's pretty much a sacrifice move, an act of suicide.

Good RP perhaps for a strongly Lawful or Good character. My Elf Wiz is CN, however, and not the type to fall on his sword.

What would you consider other good uses for the Feat, aside from the obvious shoplifting applications.

 

[Celebrim]

What would you consider other good uses for the Feat, aside from the obvious shoplifting applications.

Tag team with a fighter that has Improved Disarm.

Pull foozles off of stone platforms so that you can avoid the poison dart traps, and at the very least, trigger any deadman switches at a distance. All similar, 'no, I don't have to walk across the room' actions.

The feat is very weak in my opinion, but at the same time it's abusive in shoplifting situations. Either of those reasons would keep me from approving this feat for my campaign. The increased caster level is probably nicer than anything else you can do with the feat other than rob shop keepers, and if this sort of thing actually existed, shop keepers would never put wares of any sort on display. I rather dislike feats that have such a pervasive impact on the campaign world but so little impact on play.

And on the shoplifting point, I'd definitely require an opposed check to avoid being noticed. I'd probably be so annoyed I'd also rule that the action has obvious V,S components just like a spell and counts a spell of the level of the reserved spell for the purposes of concentration, just because shoplifting annoys me so much.

Honestly, the stunts you are describing are the only things cool enough I can think of to justify this dang thing's existence. I hate the feat from a design standpoint.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Weak or strong, I LIKE the reserve feats.

As for this one, minor TK stuff can be very handy. Locked in the hommlet's gaol? If you can see the keys, they're probably not keeping you in for long.

Want to play the most annoying Kender Mage/thief ever? This is your ticket.

Hate charity but want to appear charitable? Drop coins for blind beggars & take 'em back, no strings attached.

Glutton at the state dinner getting ready to grab the last butter fruit tart? No, he isn't.

 

[Greenfield]

Our group approved the Reserve feats as a block, with some notable exceptions: Several of them allow unlimited use of damage efffects.

Fiery Burst throws mini-fireballs all day, if you have a Fire spell in reserve.
Storm Bolt throws mini lightning bolts the same way, if you have a lightning spell.

And there are others for cold, acid and sonic damage.

We red-lined all of those. We've seen them abused before.

Looking at this one though, it does seem like it's minimally useful, at best. The character has never been played with it, and I may just swap it out for something that will actually come into play.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I like even those.

 

[Celebrim]

Weak or strong, I LIKE the reserve feats.

I like the idea of the reserve feats, I just think they aren't designed very well.

As for this one, minor TK stuff can be very handy. Locked in the hommlet's gaol? If you can see the keys, they're probably not keeping you in for long.

This is a great example of why this feat is useless. Because this does nothing for you that having basic utility spells like mage hand and unseen servant doesn't do. And those spells are infinitely more useful and diverse in their applications and don't cost you a feat and don't require you to keep a spell slot filled. More over, in the average campaign, how often does a locked in the jail scenario occur? Less than once on average I would think. You might go through 5 or 10 campaigns before anything like that happened. And in my campaign, characters are locked in jail not only with the minimal precautions that the medieval jailers would have took, but also with the sort of precautions that people who know that they live in a world of magic would take. So you are certainly not getting out through some simple movie trick. You've not got freedom of your cell. You're feet are in stocks that are chained to the floor. You may have a canque around your neck, or manacles limiting the motion of your hands. You've got no light to see by, so no line of sight. Entrance to the donjon is probably through a hole in the roof, which doesn't really need a fancy lock, just a bolt or two to close it. If they know you are a spellcaster, they probably took a hammer to your fingers and crushed them, and put your tongue in a brank or other restraining device (if they didn't just snip it out), and blindfolded you. And you are probably not in for a term, but awaiting an exorcist to arrive so that they can burn you alive and make sure your spirit isn't around to curse or haunt them. The whole idea that jail is this thing we are going to get out of almost immediately is probably bogus, and if it is a planned scenario (you are supposed to get out) then you don't need a feat to help you do it - it will just happen regardless of how minimal your resources are.

Want to play the most annoying Kender Mage/thief ever? This is your ticket.

Another example of why I would ban this feat.

Hate charity but want to appear charitable? Drop coins for blind beggars & take 'em back, no strings attached.

And another.

Glutton at the state dinner getting ready to grab the last butter fruit tart? No, he isn't.

And another. Those sort of uses don't add much of anything to the game, and they remind me of when in 1e I decided cantrips were so weak that M-U's could cast them at will, and the game was derailed for a few hours while the PC's went around making people belch and fart. Yeah.

 

[Dandu]

Our group approved the Reserve feats as a block, with some notable exceptions: Several of them allow unlimited use of damage efffects.

Fiery Burst throws mini-fireballs all day, if you have a Fire spell in reserve.
Storm Bolt throws mini lightning bolts the same way, if you have a lightning spell.

And there are others for cold, acid and sonic damage.

We red-lined all of those. We've seen them abused before.

I'm of the opinion that, like the Warlock, the unlimited damage is mitigated by low dps. I'm curious what exploit you could pull with unlimited low level damage, as I believe there are many classes which are capable of doing that sort of thing.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because this does nothing for you that having basic utility spells like mage hand and unseen servant doesn't do

...except let you do this 1) at will, 2)ad nauseum 3) without using a spell slot.

Those sort of uses don't add much of anything to the game

I can think of at least one master thespian who would disagree.