Spellcasting Feats

[Yunru]

By the gods, some of these are hard to word.
These were originally part of a campaign setting where each character had a bloodline determined by a d%. The stat bonus would be known, but the effects wouldn't until witnessed.


Spell Fury:
Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells.
Whenever you cast a spell that involves making a ranged attack against a single target, each creature between you and the target must make a Dexterity saving throw or take the same damage as the target.

Spell Surge:
Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells.
When you take this feat, you gain the following effects:

• Whenever you cast a spell that effects a single creature or object, it instead effects every creature or object within a 5 foot radius from the centre of the original creature or object.
• Whenever you cast a spell that effects an area within a radius of a point, that radius increases by 5 feet. If you cast a spell that creates an area of effect with defined dimensions, those dimensions each increase by 5 feet.

Cascade Casting:
Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells.
In addition, When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, treat its effect as if it were cast in a spell slot one level higher.
Also, whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you take 1d6 damage.

Comments and criticisms?

 

[practicalm]

I would consider all of these way too powerful for a feat.

Spell Fury turns every attack spell into an area of effect:Line spell. And increases spell stat
Consider how powerful it would be to turn every arrow attack into this.

Spell Surge adds area effect to single target spells. Dominate person in a crowd? Command?
And giving a stat bonus as well. This is not a half feat.
Consider how power allowing whirlwind attacks all the time with a melee weapon. Now do that at range.

Cascade casting. Again this is not a half feat so having the stat bonus is way too powerful. Every wizard with Broach of Shielding would take this feat. Every abjuration wizard that can get temporary hit points would take this feat. Doing damage to the player does not balance out how powerful this is.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

Spell Fury:
Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells.
Your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma increases by 1, up to a maximum of 20.
In addition, whenever you cast a spell that involves making a ranged attack against a single target, each creature between you and the target must make a Dexterity saving throw or take the same damage as the target.

I would change this instead to allow the character to evenly distribute damage to all creatures in the line. For example, if you had a spell that did 4d8 damage, you could do 1d8 to four targets if they failed the Dex save and the main target could maybe take 1/2 normal or something. (Like you said, it is hard to word the concept... LOL)

Spell Surge:
Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells.
When you take this feat, you gain the following effects:

• Your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma increases by 1, up to a maximum of 20.
• Whenever you cast a spell that effects a single creature or object, it instead effects every creature or object within a 5 foot radius from a point the original creature or object occupies.
• Whenever you cast a spell that effects an area within a radius of a point, that radius increases by 5 feet. If you cast a spell that creates an area of effect with defined dimensions, those dimensions each increase by 5 feet.

Maybe have the spell affect one additional target per point of spell casting modifier? So a +3 Chr for instance would allow the caster to affect up to 3 additional targets?

Cascade Casting:
Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells.
Your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma increases by 1, up to a maximum of 20.
In addition, When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, treat its effect as if it were cast in a spell slot one level higher.
Also, whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you take 1d6 force damage.

I would change this one so that you only take the force damage if you choose to use the feat ability.

With all of these, you could remove the ability score bonus, too.

Hope these ideas help.

 

[Yunru]

Spell Fury turns every attack spell into an area of effect:Line spell. And increases spell stat
Consider how powerful it would be to turn every arrow attack into this.

Spell Surge adds area effect to single target spells. Dominate person in a crowd? Command?
And giving a stat bonus as well. This is not a half feat.
Consider how power allowing whirlwind attacks all the time with a melee weapon. Now do that at range.

These two are mostly supposed to be balanced by how ally unfriendly they are. Or enemy friendly, for beneficial spells.
Dominate person? Better hope there's no-one adjacent who's an ally, healing? Might heal the enemy too, etc.

I... kinda forgot about Broach of Shielding... and Abjuration Wizards.

I would change this instead to allow the character to evenly distribute damage to all creatures in the line. For example, if you had a spell that did 4d8 damage, you could do 1d8 to four targets if they failed the Dex save and the main target could maybe take 1/2 normal or something. (Like you said, it is hard to word the concept... LOL)

Hard to word indeed!

Maybe have the spell affect one additional target per point of spell casting modifier? So a +3 Chr for instance would allow the caster to affect up to 3 additional targets?

That's almost a straight up upgrade though, as you no longer have to worry about allies/enemies also benefiting/getting hit.

I would change this one so that you only take the force damage if you choose to use the feat ability.

Hmm... maybe. Probably an artefact from when they were bloodlines and weren't optional.

With all of these, you could remove the ability score bonus, too.

Yeah, they're also mostly a relic from being bloodlines, where the stat boost was supposed to hint towards the effect.

 

[Blue]

These two are mostly supposed to be balanced by how ally unfriendly they are. Or enemy friendly, for beneficial spells.

But since you control your move and your target, I think that in practice the ally unfriendly / enemy friendly part is greatly reduced.

Line may occasionally get in your way, but Spell Surge just specifies from a point they occupy. if you do it one of the corners of the square you're not hitting all adjacent squares, just three. Easy to control.

Dominate person? Better hope there's no-one adjacent who's an ally,

Why? Dominate person doesn't do anything harmful unless you also spend your action to harm them.

healing? Might heal the enemy too, etc.

If you can't with your move manage to isolate just your target, throw a smaller heal. Over half in-combat heals are to stand up someone who has fallen. The fact that an opponent also gets a few HPs back is a much smaller deal then standing someone up who is fallen. Again, assuming you can't arrange your targeting.

Really, the unfriendliness of these seems minimal in practice.

 

[Yunru]

Hmmm... changed it to be centred on the original, as it wasn't supposed to be so easily avoidable.
Also removed the ASIs.