Arcane Strike: Broken?

[Remathilis]

Ok, The Arcane Strike feat (CW) allows you (in brief) to sacrfice a spell slot. You then get a +X to hit, xd4 damage, for x rounds. X= spell level sacrificed.

A first level spell: +1 to hit, +1d4 damage, 1 round.
A ninth level spell: +9 to hit, +9d4 damage 9 rounds.

Prereqs: 3rd level spells, +4 Bab. Its a fighter-mages dream-feat. Is it too good? Especially its duration, coupled with a typical F/Ms better bab and multiple attacks?

 

[thompgc]

I thought it only lasted for 1 round, regardless of spell level used

 

[IcyCool]

I thought it only lasted for 1 round, regardless of spell level used

I'm pretty certain that's the case.

 

[Gumby]

Yup, looking at my copy. One round. If you're not looking at it carefully, I can see how you'd think it'd be one round/spell level, but it's clearly not.

If it were multiple rounds, then it'd be a problem. As it is, it would be a case of a fighter class taking non-fighter levels, and then throwing the benefit of those levels away for cheap bonuses. Not that great a feat.

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Burning a Ninth level spell to get +9 to hit and +18 to damage doesn't seem bad (even if it is for 9 rounds). Something about you is going to suck if you're doing that. (AC or HP or To Hit)

Besides you know what you could do with a Ninth level spells slot? Summon a Monolith instead. If you wanna burn a feat so you can beat something up instead rather than bombard it, feel free.

 

[Mort]

No matter how high the spell level, the bonus to hit and damage is for 1 round only. The beginning sentence is confusing, but the example makes this absolutely clear (sacrifice 4th level spell get +4 to hit and +4d4 damage on all melee attacks until your next turn).

The feat is excellent for gish builds but pretty useless for anything else.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Seems like a crap feat, myself. There's loads better feats out there and most spells of any decent level will do more damage on their own than the attack+xd4 is going to deal.

Unless your caster level is really low, and then you're going to get better benefit from that spell slot by plugging a buff into it.

--fje

 

[BadMojo]

Seems like a crap feat, myself. There's loads better feats out there and most spells of any decent level will do more damage on their own than the attack+xd4 is going to deal.

I'm of the same opinion. Originally, I thought it looked pretty nifty. At second glance, in most situations I'd prefer to keep the x level spell over the Arcane Strike damage. Maybe blowing a high level spell and using Arcane Strike in conjunction with Whirlwind Attack would be nice, but then that leaves you Arcane Caster With Low HP surrounded by angry enemies who probably weren't killed by that extra Arcane Strike damage.

I'd spend the feat slot on a Metamagic feat, Battle Caster, etc. There are definitely better options out there for the melee-minded arcane caster.

 

[Sejs]

If you're burning a 9th level spell to get a +9 to hit and +9d4 (avg of 22-23) damage, you fail. I'm pretty sure at that point other high level spellcasters get together and kick you out of the magic club. Revoke your lisence, take away your secret decoder ring, the whole shebang.

 

[frankthedm]

An untyped plus to hit is pretty big in this game last i checked.