3.5e - Has the Feats system been damaged?

[The Sigil]

Then why do casters need spells per day limitations on damaging spells?

An EXCELLENT question. Here, in approximate order of importance, are the reasons...

Reason 1: Because many of their spells are area-effect spells. You can catch 40 5x5' opponents in your 20' spread fireball. In other words, the 10th level wizard doesn't do, on average, 21 points of damage in a round to the orc horde rushing at him; he does 840 points of damage in a round; meanwhile the 10th level fighter is hacking away for his 10.45 points of damage. However, twenty rounds later, when the wizard is flush out of spells and has to pull his dagger out and wade into melee, the fighter is still doing his 10.45 points of damage. Again, this becomes a balance issue - the wizard can blast more foes at once, but he can't keep up that rate of fire for as long.

Reason 2: The fighter, being involved in melee, has a much bigger chance of being "hit back," thus shortening the effective amount of time he can keep swinging that sword. Remember, it takes on average 4-7 rounds for an equal opponent to bring him down. That means that the fighter CAN'T go on swinging his sword all day... he dies well before he gets to "all day" - so the fighter is not an "unlimited source of continuous damage."

Reason 3: The wizard CAN pull out a sword and put on armor after he runs out of spells... though he won't be quite as effective a combatant as the fighter. It's not like the wizard runs out of spells and then just has to stand around waiting for them to "recharge." The fighter, however, cannot withdraw, shuck his armor, and start launching spells at big groups... it's a trade-off of "phenomenal cosmic powers" for "itty bitty longevity in blasting." After the 10th-level wizard blows through his retinue of fireballs, having inflicted thousands of points of damage, he wades into battle with armor and sword... and will be about as effective as a fighter 1/3 his level (not 1/2 like BAB would suggest, as the Wizard lacks the attack-bonus-boosting magic swords and Feats). That has him doing another 2-3 points of damage per round for the rest of the day. Keep in mind that it takes approximately 160 rounds - or over fifteen minutes - of the fighter and wizard hacking with swords side-by-side for the fighter to make up the "total damage differential" resulting from ONE round of sword vs. fireball against an innumerable horde.

It actually balances beautifully - it's balanced when you're blasting away at a single target - because on average, that target drops in 4-7 rounds, so there's no real danger of running out of spells in a single encounter. And capping the spells per day balances out the ability of the mage to affect multiple opponents at once - where the fights last longer, the mage DOES have to worry about running out of spells - which balances his ability to hit multiple targets at once, thus making his average damage over an entire day of combat against thousands of foes closer to the fighters. I haven't crunched the exact numbers, but an order of magnitude guess - 15 minutes of swordplay per area spell times 40 spells per day for a 20th level wizard tells me that it takes about 10 waking hours of continuous swordplay for the fighter to make up for the spells the wizard can fling... which is pretty close to the normal "8-hour working day" I expect of my characters. (8 hours working, 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours cooking, eating, sharpening swords, and doing other off-camera stuff - total of 24 hours).

--The Sigil

 

[BryonD]

Reason 4:

The Wizard can trade out a wide variety of utility or defense spells.

The fighter can use melee or ranged.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

But the main problem with high save DC's was the save-or-die spells-- which are almost all already nerfed down. They found the problem, and hit it with a big hammer.

I don't find this to be the case. Only Disintegrate and Hold Monster have been nerfed. (Same with Hold Person, but it was such a wussy spell that I don't count it.) I haven't heard any evidence that any other SoD spells have been nerfed.

does power inflation render older material obsolete?

Maybe. There's supposed to be conversion notes.

 

[Numion]

How does that explain the people like me who never took it so aren't losing anyting and yet still say it sucks. You're not a fighter with a gazillion feats where you can take some sub par feats like focus to get the meat of specializaiton.

I would draw the conclusion that DCs aren't that important to you when playing Wizards / Sorcs. Thats OK, really. In my games though every wizard and sorcerer has taken both spell focus feats. I'm not sying that that makes the über, but DCs did get out of control in 3e and this is a good solution.

Funny that you should mention weapon focus as sub-par, but specialization as a good feat. In 3.5e focus is better if you wield a two-handed sword and have the power attack feat (like most fighters tend to do, at least in 3e), because its either +1 to hit OR +2 to damage if you power attack. Spec is always only +2 to damage. Thats worse than focus.

Virtually every other wizard feat in the game was a better choice IMO, because they actually did something. +2 to my dcs of one school or learn how to empower spells, or craft arms and armor etc. It just wasn't that good before, at +1 its a waste of space.

It was good before. Craft Arms and Armor wasn't good, IMO.

 

[Numion]

Would it make any difference if I said I have long felt that weapon focus and dodge were weak at +1?

Well, since Weapon Focus is better than Weapon Spec with two-handed weapons (if you have power attack, which can turn the +1 to hit to +2 to damage), your argument doesn't make much sense. You're basically saying that Weapon Spec is then weak, and thats one of the better feats.

Are saying that all feats are weak?

 

[green slime]

I see almost all of these changes as good changes.

Adding in an Improved Weapon Focus and Improved Weapon Specialisation means that the advantage of being a singleclassed high level fighter actually has benefits. It isn't like than can do all this AND all the other cool fightng feats as well.

I like characters to have abilities that outweigh the effect of the paraphenalia they carry with them. A +2 to damage is almost negliable at high level where you have a +5 sword with energy damage. Loose the sword and the damage output of the character all but disappears.

As to the feats that grant +2/+2 to two skills, stacking with Skill focus +3; I'm for it.

It means that a character that focuses on a skill won't be outclassed merely because bill the dire goat wears an amulet of skill "x" +10. Which in 3e was far too cheap. I seriously hope that these items have been made more expensive, and no longer are regarded as pre-Epic up to a humungous +30!!!

Power Attack, well, I agree with this change as well. See Mike Sullivan's post crunching the maths on this (in some other thread, can't search, I'm afraid).

The only one I'm a bit wary of is Spell Focus. I presume that this is due to it being a requirement for the lethal Archmage and Red Wizard PrCs? I also assume that those classes have had their spell DC enhancement abilities reigned in. But I'll reserve judgement until I see the books.

 

[Spatula]

Re: Re: New Improved Weapon Specialisation and Focus

As for Precise Shot and Improved Feint, I'm more relaxed about, but not much. These are both far more powerful than any equivalents in 3e. Negating all cover and allowing feinting as a move action - I can't recall anything like this tried in 3e before. It may be a dangerous pathway to archers who can completely ignore arrow slits and could make rogues sneak attacking a regular combat feature (guaranteed once a round), both of these were at the powerful end of the spectrum in 3e. I'm wary about seeing them improved.

Improved Feint has been knocking around as a prestige class ability since Sword and Fist. So it's new as a feat available to everyone, but the ability itself is not new.