Astral Fire

[Aldarc]

Really?

Burning Blizzard: Wizards who use Orbs and therefore have Int and Wis
Dark Fury: Con and Wis are both secondary stats for Wizards, this option is good for someone who uses both staff and orb.
Expanded Spellbook: Wis is again useful for Orb wizards
Raging Storm: Dex/Con is Wand/Staff wizards

Then all of the "quick" feats are based off of dex, including the light blade feats which are good for rogues. All of the armor feats are designed for those with high strength and con, or tanks.

But what about clerics?

Your ass is kind of mule like me thinks. I mean how dare they have any restrictions them crass people... oh wait the rules are full of them. I mean that is the point to rules.

Or do you seriously expect me to believe that you think "no restrictions" means there should be no prerequisite column for Feats at all, and continuing on to the logical extreme that Powers should not be tied to a stat or a class?

I mean that would really be "no restrictions" none of that pesky "Melee Weapon" requirement in a power, no specified stat - you just pick the one you want to use and away you go. Oh and you might as well have all the Skills as Trained - I mean we wouldn't want to restrict your choice of trained skills.

Oh wait I'm being daft now.

The prerequisite on the power damage boosting feats are not the problem people are trying to paint them as, there are advantages to taking a little here and there from a range of stats. 14 Dex is +2 Initiative for example, 14 Cha means you don't need Wis for Will saves, or for Clerics that some of the powers work a little better.

You will find over time that having 1 really strong stat followed by a selection of 13-14 stats is actually beneficial. Aim most powers off the stronger stat and then get the benefits of having those +2s around.

Consider this array;
16 14 13 13 10 10

Put the 16 in your key attribute, the 14 in your secondary and the 13's in your tertiary attributes, and the 10's in your "dump stats"

Humans get 18 in their key attribute, which is great for any class that can use Astral Fire.
Dragonborn 18 in Str or Cha (Great for Paladins with Astral Fire)
Dwarves 18 in Con or Wis (Great for Clerics with Astral Fire)
Eladrin 18 in Dex or Int (Great for Wizards with Astral Fire)
Elves 18 in Dex or Wis (Great for Clerics with Astral Fire)
Half-Elves 18 in Con or Cha (great for Warlocks with Astral Fire...)
Halflings 18 in Dex or Cha (Great for Paladins with Astral Fire...)

Oh wait it was painfully simple to get 2 13 stats... so much for it being an issue.

With 4 stats of 13+ its pretty easy to make sure Con, Wis, Int and Dex all end at 13 by 4th level - giving easy access to all the feats like Astral Fire.

Its an option you have, you don't have to min max your stats, you are not an uber character of doom in a solo cRPG, you are part of a group - the other players should have your back.

But guess what the dump stat is for clerics? Guess what spell descriptor that is in this feat is also featured predominantly in cleric powers?

 

[Cadfan]

Dex isn't necessarily the dump stat for the sort of clerics likely to take Astral Fire. Remember, this feat is for ranged clerics who attack using Wisdom. If you're a melee cleric, you're more likely to want Weapon Focus.

Ranged clerics already have it awfully good. They need Wisdom. And... uh... charisma doesn't hurt?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Exactly, how dare they promise to alleviate restrictions only to put another ones in the place. Why would I want such a trade off. They specifically said that they are changing the -4 penalty for non-proficiency weapons to bonuses because they wanted to REWARD choices instead of punishing other choices. But that's exactly what they are doing with the feat system. "Didn't take 13 in score you have no real need for? Too bad for you "

Well, for one, options not restrictions was the 3e slogan, not the 4e.

However, the idea is to reward taking stuff rather than punish not taking stuff. You are a perfectly good wizard without the +1 damage you get from this feat. You can play the game from 1st to 30th level and never even miss it. However, if you choose to diversify your stats a bit, you get rewarded.

I guess my point is this: What they did isn't really a bad thing by itself, but it also limits character building blocks by a fair amount. Since there are more elegant ways of encouraging diverse characters (ability-score-wise), forgive me for not being overtly happy with their choice of approach.

Why does it limit characters? Instead of one option, you take another. Instead of +1 damage with fire spells, you get 2 extra healing surges or 3 extra languages.

 

[Nifft]

But what about clerics?

But guess what the dump stat is for clerics? Guess what spell descriptor that is in this feat is also featured predominantly in cleric powers?

Elf Cleric.

Cheers, -- N

 

[balard]

Why your cleric has Wis as a high attribute? And Charisma(or Strength)? Than why he can't have high Dex for Astral Fire?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

But what about clerics?

There's a bunch of Channel Divinity feats as well as a bunch of general and weapon feats that are good for Clerics. The primary purpose of all of the above feats is for Wizards to use them. One of them does have a side effect that it is good for Clerics. And it's perfectly attainable by simply putting only a 14 into your wisdom and being a race with +2 wisdom. Having a 16 in your primary stat isn't that bad.

But guess what the dump stat is for clerics? Guess what spell descriptor that is in this feat is also featured predominantly in cleric powers?

Int? Tell me its Int!

Oh, you are talking about Dex. Well, at least amongst Int and Dex, it is the more useful one for Clerics. Plus, if you have a good enough Dex, you could wear light armor and maybe get a better AC.

 

[Sitara]

Astral Fire is insanely good for draognborn paladins who choose fire as their breath weapon.

It boosts their breath weapon + their radiant powers, and the damage goes up every tier. It then stacks with dragonbron frenzy, weapon focus, power attack, etc etc.

Not a bad feat at all.

 

[Rystil Arden]

There's a bunch of Channel Divinity feats as well as a bunch of general and weapon feats that are good for Clerics. The primary purpose of all of the above feats is for Wizards to use them. One of them does have a side effect that it is good for Clerics. And it's perfectly attainable by simply putting only a 14 into your wisdom and being a race with +2 wisdom. Having a 16 in your primary stat isn't that bad.

Int? Tell me its Int!

Oh, you are talking about Dex. Well, at least amongst Int and Dex, it is the more useful one for Clerics. Plus, if you have a good enough Dex, you could wear light armor and maybe get a better AC.

You can only ever take at most one Channel Divinity feat because they all have different deities as prerequisites. Also, the Wisdom Cleric who would want Astral Fire will gain no benefit from weapon feats. Wisdom Cleric is one of the two sub-builds of Cleric.

 

[Aldarc]

Elf Cleric.

Cheers, -- N

Useful for only one race of cleric? Joy.

There's a bunch of Channel Divinity feats as well as a bunch of general and weapon feats that are good for Clerics.

A cleric of a specific deity only gets value of one of those channel divinity feats, and the general and weapon feats do not improve the casting of the cleric, which is the issue.

The primary purpose of all of the above feats is for Wizards to use them. One of them does have a side effect that it is good for Clerics.

But one of the reasons why Astral Fire is desirable is because there is an incredible lack of feats to improve cleric casting. Almost all of them were designed in some ways for wizards.

 

[Cadfan]

The logic behind the dex prereq for astral fire probably went like this:

1. This is a feat for wizards.
2. Wizards who want this feat will be using Dexterity for their wands.
3. So dex 13 is a good prereq, since we want to reward secondary stats.
4. We need one more prereq to match the other magical damage feats.
5. Clerics will want this one too.
6. So lets make Cha the other prereq, and reward their secondary stats.
7. This makes sense, you need force of will to create your magical effects, then dexterity to aim it. It matches our general setup for secondary stats and magic.
8. And now both classes have to step a little outside their normal role to get it. A 13 isn't hard.
9. But if they don't want it that bad, its not like it will hurt them to skip it.

And for the record, cleric feats vastly outnumber wizard feats. At least, they do if you count channel divinity. And they had to put those in there because there are cleric fans who will hunt down the designers and smother them in their sleep if deity choice doesn't have mechanical results. Clerics actually get more text in the feat section than any other class, I believe.