Experimental Metamagic feat.

[Ferret]

Perceived power [metamagic]
Your ability as a spell caster strengthens your spell rather then your intelligence or charisma.
Benefit: Instead of a bonus from your spell casting ability you gain ¼ of your level to your spell DCs.
Special: This can only be purchased at 1st level and thus only apply to one spell casting class.


As far as I can see it should be balance, but I've been known to overlook glaringly obvious details.

 

[Crothian]

I"m not sure how this workd, ability bonus to what?

 

[Stalker0]

So basically a level 1 caster with an 18 int will instead have DC 11 + spell level instead of 14 +?

Even for a 20th level caster, that's only a 15 + spell level dc, that's way underpowered.

 

[FireLance]

This feat would only be useful for paladins, rangers and maybe bards.

For other spellcasters (cleric, druid, sorcerer, wizard), your ability score bonus is likely to be greater than 1/4 your level.

To cast 2nd level spells, you need a spellcasting ability score of at least 12, which implies a bonus of at least +1. A cleric, druid or wizard should have a 12 by 3rd level, and a sorcerer would need a 12 by 4th.

To cast 4th level spells, you need a 14, which implies a +2. A cleric, druid or wizard should have a 14 by 7th level, and a sorcerer by 8th, and so on, until you get to the highest levels of spellcasting ability.

In theory, this feat could be useful if you are 20th level and never increase your spellcasting ability score beyond 19.

By the way, when you use level, are you referring to: character level, class level or caster level? If character level, it could be useful to multiclassed spellcasters who do not improve their spellcasting ability score by much. If spellcaster level, it would be even less useful to paladins and rangers.

 

[Hashmalum]

Perceived power [metamagic]
Your ability as a spell caster strengthens your spell rather then your intelligence or charisma.
Benefit: Instead of a bonus from your spell casting ability you gain ¼ of your level to your spell DCs.
Special: This can only be purchased at 1st level and thus only apply to one spell casting class.


As far as I can see it should be balance, but I've been known to overlook glaringly obvious details.

It's awfully flavorless and metagame-y. Also, it isn't really a metamagic feat at all. The way it's written now, it applies to all of your spells in a certain class--or classes, since it doesn't specify that you actually need any levels in the class chosen, you could always be a human and choose it twice. But then for most people, it isn't worth choosing even once.

 

[Ferret]

Hmm.

Hmm. Good points.

Um, I had meant that it only applies to one class. But it is fundamentally flawed by you needing to have 14 int/wis/cha to get 4th level spells, maybe if that was done away with?