Comment on these feats II

[Steven]

I orignally posted this in the wrong area, I made a few adjustments due to input from a few people here on the board, and a few who are not on the board. Please comment on these feats and let me know what you think of them.


POSITIVE WEAPON INFUSION

Pre-Requisite: Channeling Positive Energy Feat, Religion 3 ranks, Ability to Cast 2nd level Divine Spells, Ability to turn undead

Benefit: This changes the damage dealt by the weapon that has been Infused into a temporary conduit for the holy energies of the Positive Material Plane causing the weapon to do Holy Damage for 1 round. Each use of this ability uses 1 of the daily uses of turning undead available to the user.

WEAPON ATTUNEMENT (General/Fighter)

Pre-Requisite: BAB+3, Concentration 3 ranks

Benefit: By taking 1 hour and meditating with a weapon that you are proficient in and succeeding at a Concentration check DC 15 at the end of the hour long period you can attune yourself to the weapon. This provides either a +1 to hit or damage for the next 24 hours that must be chosen before the 1 hour meditation begins. Failing the Concentration Check means that you cannot use this feat again for 24 hours. This bonus stacks with any existing bonus. You may take this feat multiple times each time it applies to a different weapon.


EXPERT FLANKER

Prerequisite: 12+ Int

Benefit: You are a learned Flanker. Anytime you are involved in a flanking situation with a melee weapon you may increase your flanking attack modifier by +2.




CHAOTIC SPELL(Metamagic)

Prerequisite: Chaotic Alignment, ability to memorize 4th level or higher spells.


Benefit: Choosing this feat allows for a character memorize spells that may or may not have a greater effect upon casting it. The caster is able to memorize a number of spells levels equal to 1-6(determined randomly each time the character chooses to memorize a Chaotic Spell) plus the appropriate ability modifier. For each chaotic spell memorized the caster rolls d% and consults the table below. A chaotic spell takes up a spell slot 1 level higher than normal. This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken the character may memorize and additional d6+ the appropriate ability modifier (Int/Wis etc..) number of spells. Example an 11th level Wizard with a 16 Intelligence who took this feat two times would be able to memorize 2d6+6 total spell levels worth of Chaotic Spells.

Die
Roll Effect on Spell

1-20 - Spell 50% reduction in duration and damage (caster does not choose, if there is no duration the damage is reduced ) and any save DC is reduced by 3

21-35 - Spell effectiveness reduced by 25%, any save DC reduced by 1

36-50 - If the first saving throw was a failure the spell allows for another saving throw at the original DC.

51-70 - Spell works normally.

71-90 - Spell DC increased by 1 and damage or duration (caster’s choice, unless spell has a duration that is instantaneous) increased by 25%

91-110 - As 71-90 except DC increased by 3, and both duration and damage increase by 25% (if no duration damage increased by 50%)

111-120 - As 91-110 except spell if spell has a saving throw the victim of the spell must make the save 2 times instead of 1.

121-130 - As 111-120 except spell is not lost from caster’s memory.
131+ - As 91-110 except the spellcaster is affected by spell as well.

Special: If a character who has the Chaotic Spell feat ever becomes a non-chaotic alignment they instantly loose the benefit of this feat. If they later become chaotic again the ability to use this feat returns.

Any comment would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[the Jester]

I orignally posted this in the wrong area, I made a few adjustments due to input from a few people here on the board, and a few who are not on the board. Please comment on these feats and let me know what you think of them.

Hey, welcome, Steven!

I saw your other thread after it was already here in HR... but since this is version 2 I'll post my input here.

POSITIVE WEAPON INFUSION

Pre-Requisite: Channeling Positive Energy Feat, Religion 3 ranks, Ability to Cast 2nd level Divine Spells, Ability to turn undead

Benefit: This changes the damage dealt by the weapon that has been Infused into a temporary conduit for the holy energies of the Positive Material Plane causing the weapon to do Holy Damage for 1 round. Each use of this ability uses 1 of the daily uses of turning undead available to the user.

What's this "Channeling Positive Energy" feat? Are you talking about the clerical class ability? If not, you should post the feat- personally, I'm not too sure about giving channelling to non-clerics at all. Anyhow, I think the prerequisites are pretty decent- and I really like this one. If you don't mind, I think I'll borrow and tweak it.

You should specify what kind of action it takes to use this- is the channelling to activate it a free action, standard action, move action, or what? I like the idea of it being a standard action to activate it, then it lasts til the end of the character's next round. That gives it a cost and still lets a character get a full attack with it.

I believe the revision is going to have a spell that aligns a weapon. It might be worthwhile to be able to compare the feat to that spell once 3.5 comes out and re-evaluate it then.

WEAPON ATTUNEMENT (General/Fighter)

Pre-Requisite: BAB+3, Concentration 3 ranks

Benefit: By taking 1 hour and meditating with a weapon that you are proficient in and succeeding at a Concentration check DC 15 at the end of the hour long period you can attune yourself to the weapon. This provides either a +1 to hit or damage for the next 24 hours that must be chosen before the 1 hour meditation begins. Failing the Concentration Check means that you cannot use this feat again for 24 hours. This bonus stacks with any existing bonus. You may take this feat multiple times each time it applies to a different weapon.

Seems too much to me. It's more versatile than weapon focus. This smacks more of a prestige class ability to me than a feat.

EXPERT FLANKER

Prerequisite: 12+ Int

Benefit: You are a learned Flanker. Anytime you are involved in a flanking situation with a melee weapon you may increase your flanking attack modifier by +2.

I have an almost identical feat in my campaign, though the prereqs are different (it's part of a Combat Reflexes feat tree). The one thing I'd change here is the prereq. In the DMG they talk about making ability score prerequisites for feats, prestige classes and the like odd numbered (since the even scores are where the bonuses increase, this gives characters a reason to have odd scores). So I'd make the prereq Int 13+.

CHAOTIC SPELL(Metamagic)

Prerequisite: Chaotic Alignment, ability to memorize 4th level or higher spells.

Good so far...

Benefit: Choosing this feat allows for a character memorize spells that may or may not have a greater effect upon casting it. The caster is able to memorize a number of spells levels equal to 1-6(determined randomly each time the character chooses to memorize a Chaotic Spell) plus the appropriate ability modifier. For each chaotic spell memorized the caster rolls d% and consults the table below. A chaotic spell takes up a spell slot 1 level higher than normal. This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken the character may memorize and additional d6+ the appropriate ability modifier (Int/Wis etc..) number of spells. Example an 11th level Wizard with a 16 Intelligence who took this feat two times would be able to memorize 2d6+6 total spell levels worth of Chaotic Spells.

Interesting... so you can't use it on all the spells you want.

Die
Roll Effect on Spell

1-20 - Spell 50% reduction in duration and damage (caster does not choose, if there is no duration the damage is reduced ) and any save DC is reduced by 3

21-35 - Spell effectiveness reduced by 25%, any save DC reduced by 1

36-50 - If the first saving throw was a failure the spell allows for another saving throw at the original DC.

51-70 - Spell works normally.

71-90 - Spell DC increased by 1 and damage or duration (caster’s choice, unless spell has a duration that is instantaneous) increased by 25%

91-110 - As 71-90 except DC increased by 3, and both duration and damage increase by 25% (if no duration damage increased by 50%)

111-120 - As 91-110 except spell if spell has a saving throw the victim of the spell must make the save 2 times instead of 1.

121-130 - As 111-120 except spell is not lost from caster’s memory.
131+ - As 91-110 except the spellcaster is affected by spell as well.

Special: If a character who has the Chaotic Spell feat ever becomes a non-chaotic alignment they instantly loose the benefit of this feat. If they later become chaotic again the ability to use this feat returns.

Hum.. I do love chaos, tell ya what. You should see my story hour (link in sig) if you're into that kind of stuff- and I update several times a week. [/pimp]

Well, first of all, how do you roll higher than 100? What modifies this roll? That's a pivotal question; if a character can roll relatively high consistently (say, he has a +20 to his roll) he can consistently squeeze out extra damage and higher DCs and sometimes he even keeps the spell! That's pretty cool- almost too cool.

However, I think there's an easy way to make it work out: make the spell level increase two levels instead of one for Chaotic spells. That might fix it right there.

My experience- and I have an awful lot of it- with Chaos effects is, some of the time they throw the game's balance off. Some of the time, not most of the time. But they can, if you get someone with uncanny luck.

Anyway, I like this one.

And again, welcome to the boards- they're a generally friendly place!

 

[Steven]

Channeling Positive Energy

That is a reference to the feat in the Kalamar Player's Guide. It allows clerics to use their ability to channel positive (negative if evil) energy to perform a different action than turning undead. Each deity gives a listing of the ability that is gained when this feat is taken. I should have posted it here as well, and will do a better summary of it later when I am at home and not at work. Thanks for the input.

 

[Steven]

As far as getting a result of over 100, I forgot to add that you can add the caster's level to the die roll (if a multi-classed character add only the level from that the class that you are using to memorize chaotic spell)

 

[Al]

Okay then, here goes:

POSITIVE WEAPON INFUSION

No problems with this one.

WEAPON ATTUNEMENT (General/Fighter)

I think that this one is fine as well. It is certainly more useful and versatile than Weapon Focus, but this utility is offset by the prerequisites (effectively requiring the fighter to burn six skill points), a further skill check (on a skill he is highly unlikely to take past the requisite level for any other reason) and then has the proviso of 1 hour meditation time. On the whole, therefore, it looks fine.

EXPERT FLANKER

Fine again, but change the requisite ability to 13, following the rule of odd numbers for feat prereqs.

CHAOTIC SPELL

This one is controversial but I have no problems with it. If one breaks it down carefully, it looks fine. As with any feat testing for balance, we have to take the worst case scenario (i.e. the caster is 20th level). By 20th level, he has a:
15% chance of -1 DC, -25% effectiveness
15% chance of allowing two saving throws
20% chance of the spell working normally
15% chance of +1 DC, +25% effectiveness
15% chance of +3 DC, +50% effectiveness* (*since most damaging spells are instantaneous)
10% chance of +3 DC, +50% effectiveness and forcing two saving throws.
If we cancel the 15% -1 DC and 15% +1 DC, and treat allowing two saving throws as a DC reduction of 2.5, which cancels with half of the 15% of 50% increase, we have the following left:
15% chance of +0.5 DC, +50% effectiveness
10% chance of +3 DC, +50% effectiveness, force two saves.
Therefore, a net average DC increase of around 0.6*, and an average effectiveness increase of roughly 12.5%. A +1 level metamagic increases DC by 1 (heighten) and has useful subsidiary effects or increases effectiveness by 25% (half of an empower). I therefore see no real problem with a +1 level metamagic increasing average DC by 0.6 and effectiveness by 12.5%.

*(assumes the forcing two saves increase effective average DC by around 2.5)

Given that this is at the 'worst-possible-case' scenario (i.e. level 20 and assuming you don't go epic) I see no problem with Chaotic Spell whatsoever.

 

[Ravellion]

I don't know whether yoiu would still look at your old thread, so I give my reply here as well as there:

Strange that so many people missed this (especially since this was in the Rules forum earlier), but you can not flank with a missile weapon. For flanking, you have to 'threaten' an opponent. This is not possible with a missile weapon (except if you use them as melee weapons, -4 nonproficiency penalties for using arrows in such a way aside ). The glossary is unclear about this, but the SRD and the combat chapter are more clear, and the FAQ leaves no doubt.

Second, some of these requisites are even stats (12+). It is tradition, in order to spread the importance of stats to odd numbers a bit, to make all stat prerequisites as odd numbers. Nothing major, I agree, but still a valid complaint.

I think the attune with weapon shouldn't be based on concentration. Rangers have concentration as a class skill, but fighters do not. I think however that if one class should be able to use this it is the fighter. Since the power is limited, I would also make it weapon unspecific. Since to hit is on average far better than damage as wel, it is odd that you give people the choice. I really like the idea of that feat, but I think the execution is flawed - the people who you want to make it usable to have to use a cross class skill or multiclass to achieve the benefits efficiently, while others would be able to pick it up far more quickly than that. Basically, youa re stimulating people to take one level of Ranger or Paladin... something I disapprove of.

 

[ichabod]

These generally look good. As others have said, odd ability prereqs are the norm. I should think expert flanker should have another prereq, like combat reflexes , expertise, or expert tactician.

My main problem is with Chaotic Spell. Cool idea, but I like the first version better. The thing to keep in mind when making house rules is that you don't want them to interrupt the flow of the game. It seems that having a big chart they have to roll on is going to slow things down a bit. Notice that 3E tried to get away from looking up charts in the middle of combat. I would go with the original feat, 60% max/+3, 40% min/-3, no increase in spell slot.