Collegiate Wizard feat - big boost to diviners?

[Jalkain]

Hi folks,

From the Complete Arcane, the feat Collegiate Wizard doubles the base number of 1st level spells at character creation, gives a +2 bonus to Knowldge(Arcana) checks, and gives you 4 new spells each level, instead of 2.

Pretty impressive, and I for one would certainly take this feat if it was offered to me. I would probably take it with just one extra spell per level, and no additional bonuses! While this suggests it is overpowered generally, I have another more specific concern which relates to specialist wizards, and particularly diviners.

One of the drawbacks of specialising in a school of magic is the fact that you are required to choose one of your two new spells per level from that school. If you are a specialist conjurer, then this perhaps no great hardship, but diviners are actually quite stuck for choice, especially at higher levels. This feat will actually mitigate that drawback quite considerably for the weaker schools.

I feel that under 3.5 Ed, Diviner is already quite an appealing choice, provided your DM rewards use of Divination spells. You can get by easily enough with only one missing school (with Enchantment, Illusion, and Necromancy the main candidates for exclusion), and you get to keep all your standard slots for combat spells, whilst your school slots give you good divination selection as well. Lack of choice for combat spells is the biggest problem for the diviner, and this was considered such a large disadvantage that WotC made this speciality a special case. With this single feat you not only remove the problem, but actually get more choice than other wizards/specialists that don't have the feat.

By way of a quick comparison:

Diviner (with Collegiate Wizard)
- 1 banned school
- 4 new spells per level (say 3 combat plus a divination)
- Doubled base starting number of 1st level spells
- +2 to Knowledge (Arcana) checks


Other Specialist (with Feat X instead)
- 2 banned schools
- 2 new spells per level (say 2 combat)
- Benefits of Feat X

The bottom line question is: how many feats can you think of that, when chosen as Feat X, provide a good balance between the two wizards?

I can see a lot of DMs banning this feat, or at least toning it down considerably...

 

[jodyjohnson]

It's practically a bonus gold feat. Its usefulness depends on the campaign and expecially the loot level and availability of scrolls for scribing.

What the feat buys you:
1st-2nd: 5 spells - 625gp (25gp for the scroll - 100 gp to scribe)
3rd-4th: 4 spells - 1400gp (150gp scroll - 200 to scribe each)
5th-6th: 4 spells - 2700gp (375gp scroll - 300 to scribe each)
7th-8th: 4 spells - 4400gp (700gp scroll - 400 to scribe each)
9th-10th: 4 spells - 6500gp (1125gp scroll - 500 to scribe each)
11th-12th: 4 spells - 9000gp (1650gp scroll - 600 to scribe each)
13th-14th: 4 spells - 11900gp (2275gp scroll - 700 to scribe each)
15th-16th: 4 spells - 15200gp (3000gp scroll - 800 to scribe each)
17th-20th: 8 spells - 29800gp (3825gp scroll - 900 to scribe each)

81525gp saved from buying scrolls and then scribing.
That gets knocked down by a good chunk if you have a Blessed book.

In a 'can't buy scrolls/no time for crafting-scribing' campaign it would be a great deal.

In an 'open book market/crafting friendly' campaign I wouldn't trade a feat slot for what amounts to the savings from taking Craft Wondrous Item or Extraordinary Crafter.

 

[Abstraction]

No books in front of me, but didn't scribing costs get knocked back in 3.5?

 

[jodyjohnson]

No books in front of me, but didn't scribing costs get knocked back in 3.5?

Yes, spells used to take up 2 pages per spell level. They also decreased the time to 24 hours.

SRD:

Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook
Once a wizard understands a new spell, she can record it into her spellbook.
Time: The process takes 24 hours, regardless of the spell’s level.
Space in the Spellbook: A spell takes up one page of the spellbook per spell level. Even a 0-level spell (cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.
Materials and Costs: Materials for writing the spell cost 100 gp per page.
Note that a wizard does not have to pay these costs in time or gold for the spells she gains for free at each new level.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Here's the build if a wizards normally gets spells from another caster or guild:

In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level x 50 gp.

1st-2nd: 5 spells - 750gp (50gp - 100 gp to scribe)
3rd-4th: 4 spells - 1200gp (100gp - 200 to scribe each)
5th-6th: 4 spells - 1800gp (150gp - 300 to scribe each)
7th-8th: 4 spells - 2400gp (200gp - 400 to scribe each)
9th-10th: 4 spells - 3000gp (250gp scroll - 500 to scribe each)
11th-12th: 4 spells - 3600gp (300gp scroll - 600 to scribe each)
13th-14th: 4 spells - 4200gp (350gp scroll - 700 to scribe each)
15th-16th: 4 spells - 4800gp (400gp scroll - 800 to scribe each)
17th-20th: 8 spells - 10800gp (450gp scroll - 900 to scribe each)

Only 32550gp saved from copying from the guild or another's spellbook. Here the Blessed book saves you 2/3 of that.

In this setting the feat might only save you 10850gp at 20th which is not worth it at all.

Campaign dependent value.

 

[Jalkain]

Here's the build if a wizards normally gets spells from another caster or guild:

snip

Only 32550gp saved from copying from the guild or another's spellbook. Here the Blessed book saves you 2/3 of that.

In this setting the feat might only save you 10850gp at 20th which is not worth it at all.

Campaign dependent value.

Well, I don't know how many campaigns allow that kind of freedom. Mine seem to occupy the middle ground; maybe a poll would be in order. However, it's difficult to calculate the benefits of having extra spells on hand imediately upon gaining a level. Not just when you get back to the guild HQ, or when you can find a wizard to trade the relevant spells, but immediately. Even if obtaining the spells was easy, you would still need to spend time scibing them all. I know from my own experience that sometimes that's a trivial consideration, while other times it's a matter of life or death.

But any case, the focus of my example was chosen carefully to avoid such campaign dependent issues. If spells were freely available, then the diviner would probably have to be barred from two schools, same as everyone else, simply to maintain balance, unless it was felt that having to allocate bonus school slots to divination magic was a terrible disadvantage in itself (some would, no doubt!). I'm assuming that the default 3.5 Ed school specialisation penalties are valid, in which case it's fair to assume that new spells aren't too easy to come by. In other words, I'm assuming that a major disadvantage of choosing to specialise in divination is the reduced number of combat spells in your spellbook.

 

[Corlon]

seems pretty balanced to me *shrug*

 

[Veregon]

I've always been under the impression that when you gain a level in a prestige class you don't gain 2 spells in your spellbook as this is listed as a Wizard class feature. I've recently been told that on this board it's been discussed to death and that there is a sage advice that says this is not true. Can anyone point me to a definitive WoTC answer on this? It seems pretty clear to me since in the PHB it specifically says when you gain a Wizard level you get 2 spells, not when you gain a caster level.

Even if that is true, the Collegiate Wizard feat also specifically says you gain the 4 spells when you gain a level in Wizard, so interpreting that as written would limit the usefulness of the feat considering many characters only take 5 levels of Wizard before heading off into prestige class land.

 

[Felix]

Yeah, I thought it would be a must-take feat too...

...but that's because I have a DM who has one tighter than a snare drum when it comes to getting spells to scribe. So yeah, totally campaign dependent.

 

[irdeggman]

All right, I give up. I've searched my copy of Complete Arcane several times and have yet to find it. What page is it on?

I have found the following feats; extra slot (gain an extra spell slot), extra spell (learn an extra spell - prerequisite caster level 3) and several that grant an assortment of spell-like abilities (1/day)

Never mind - I found it (sidebar on page 181).

Yeah if made generally available it would definitely be unbalancing, but since it is specifically designed to be incorporated into campaigns where there are colleges of sorcery - it could work. But it is very out of whack with the other feats I mentioned earlier. Very tricky for a DM to incorporate - which is why it is an optional feat and not generally available.