Eschew Materials??

[Cabral]

The problem with standard issue Eschew Materials and Wand replacements is that "I love the smell of bat guano in the morning. Smells like ... victory!" kind of loses it's flavor ... or something

 

[rbrt_spade]

Well you know that you need guano for fireballs . Personally I think that it is a usefull feat if you get into a rough time with rust monsters or where you lose all of your gear. Sorcerers should definitly take this feat.

 

[Jack Simth]

This IMO is the reason to get Eschew Materials. Combined with Still spell, it's a must have if you're expecting to get grappled. Of course, any competent mage should have dim door prepared and any competent cleric or druid should have freedom of movement, so it's not as useful as it's first made out. The fact is that it's a common houserule to give out Eschew Materials for free (to just sorcerers if not everyone).

Level dependant; a Wizard can't prepare Dimension Door until at least 7th level (ditto for Clerics and Druids; and even then, only about two or three per day until higher levels; Sorcerors can't have it on their list until at least 8th), and it's possible a specialist might give up Conjouration. What's a 5th level Wizard to do when grappled?

 

[Infiniti2000]

What's a 5th level Wizard to do when grappled?

Grease his'self up like he'sa goin' dancin' inna strip club.

 

[Jack Simth]

Grease his'self up like he'sa goin' dancin' inna strip club.

Umm.... that only really works beforehand:

Components: V, S, M

No Somatic components in a grapple, so it's a minimum of a 2nd level spell slot (unless, for some odd reason, he's got a metamagic rod of still spell, lesser) and he has to take that full-round action to retrieve the material components....

 

[Storyteller01]

I'm middle ground on this one. We don't Rp the spellcasters buying cheap components, but they are a target for smart NPC's (captured, target of the story, etc). I've only had one player take the feat, but we house rule that common materials can be replaced with similar materials. Gives the trapped spellcasters their 'MacGyver' moment.

 

[Stalker0]

If you go by Tome and Blood rules, negating the material component of a spell raises the spellcraft DC to identify it by 5

 

[Sledge]

I'm also in the camp of give it away for free.

 

[the Jester]

Are there perhaps styles of play in which the feat means more?

This is it exactly. For example, I'm currently running a low-magic, low-wealth game (the party is 6th level and has a couple magic arrows and a scroll and maybe 1200 gp between them all). The wizard has Eschew Materials because 1 gp is a lot of money to him.

 

[The Edge]

In my games sorcs get this free right away (but only for their sorc spells, no multiclassing mischief here). The sorc description tells about their innate nature and how they accidentaly cause strange effects when young; how are they going to do this if they have to be holding an onion (or whatever) at the time they get angry, scared, have that dream etc.

In general I've never actually much liked the misc spell components, an example I've used before is...

The party hurry into the final chamber to stop 'evil wizard dude' before he can finish his 'dastardly deed'. He turns and grins.

Evil Wiz Dude "Prepare to meet you gods fools"

He puts his hand into a pouch and draws from it...a piece of bat dung coated in a dust smelling of sulphur *snip* and holds it menaceingly towards the heroes.

PC "Eh?"


Just kinda sounds a bit stupid hmm? Any wizard has to be carrieing a bag full of bizare objects, leaves, bug leg, bits of metal, tiny statues etc. Its just rather lame.


*sniped bit - fire ball components i think - oops, should realy have read the middle part of the thread
This has already been said a dozen times*