Feat at an earlier level

[Urklore]

One of the feats in the Book of Eldritch Might III has a preq of caster level 10+. I have a player who wanted to know if he could snag this earlier by using feats to help with the caster level preq. Something like each feat he uses lowers the preq by 2 levels. So at 1st level as a human, he would spend two feats to lower the pre to caster level 6+ and the like, then at level 3 another feat to being it down to caster level 4+ which he could then snag easily. What does everyone else think? 1 feat for each 2 levels reduced?

We have spell penetration that gives you +2 to caster rolls, the old Spell Specialization use to give you +2DC, and even the monster feat of Ability Specilization gives you +2DC. So 2 levels per feat spend seems balanced with other feat. However, should this be higher, maybe 3 levels of the preq reduced per feat spent as the character cannot actually use the feat for anyhting other than reducing a preq?

 

[The Souljourner]

Just don't. Feats have prereqs for a reason. They're there because they're too good to get earlier. Make him wait til 10th.

-The Souljourner

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

What does the feat in question do?

(btw, Urklore, you should change your sig )

TS

 

[Urklore]

Not sure if I can post the feat here from Mont'e book and get in trouble, But basically it allows you to take a magic item and absorb it into your body and treat it as a spell-like ability. Now, before you say 'holy monty haul', there is some game balance:

1- You need to spend XP equal to the item's GP cost and you cannot fuse with armor, weapons, potions, or scrolls. Obvious items that gain no benefit from being fused like figurines of wonderous powers, dust of tracelessness, robe of climbing, etc cannot be fused either.

2- You need to make a DC20 + (Item's caster level) Spellcraft roll. You fail, the item is destroyed ALONG with the XP. So if you saved 11250xp and used it to absorb that wand of fireballs so you could have a 50-charge wand of fireball spell-like ability at 6th level, you lose it all if you fail the roll.

Feat in question is called 'Fuse with Item', Page 45 of The Book of Eldritch Might III.
preq: Cha 19+, caster level 10+


I am thinking of allowing my player to use his feats to decrease the preq by 2 levels per feat he sacrifices. He IS willing to sacrifice his hard earn feats which are rare to come by.

Just was trying to see what everyone else felt if 2 reduced levels per feat spent was balanced enough.

 

[CyberSpyder]

...is he going to have 19 Cha at 4th level, as well?

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

18 original Cha +1 at 4th level = 19 charisma.

The Spellcraft check is pretty limiting

a DC of 25 is one of the lowest the character will have to beat.

At 4th level, the character will probably have a Spellcraft check modifier of 7 (ranks) + 3 (Skill Focus) + 3 (generous on the Int) for a total of +13, so he'll probably have around 50% chance of missing his roll.

Wait, forget the Skill Focus part since he won't have any feats to spare. So his modifier is +10, so he needs a roll of 15 or more to succeed (30%)

Lets take the fireball wand example. If the character wants to absord said fireball wand, he'll have to have accumulated 6000XP (min for 4th level) + 11250XP (cash value of a 3rd-level-spell wand) = 17250XP. If he had decided to level up, he'd be 6th by now.

Now, the person in question has a 70% of missing his roll, losing his XP, and staying 2 levels behind every other character.

For a wand of Cure Light Wounds, the character will have a 50% chance of losing 750XP, which is not too bad of a gamble. Would a 4th level character that has a chance to cast Cure Light Wounds 50 times as a spell like ability be unbalancing? Would it be if the spell was Mage Armor? Magic Missile? True Strike?

I don't think so.

Then there's the other side of the picture: the character can lose a lot with this, if he tries fusing with magic items when his chance of success isn't too good. A 4-th level party doesn't have that many magic items to spare, a 4th level character doesn't have that much XP to spare either! I think, with a few bad rolls, the character could rapidly fall behind his comrades.

One of the reason the prerequisite was for Level 10+, IMO, must have been that at that level, you'll have 1) a very good chance at success for some items, 2) XP to spare and 3) magic items to spare (especially if you can also make them).

IMO, there's quite a little danger here of letting the character proceed as resquested.

TS

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The danger is irrelevant. If the ability is unbalanced at that level (which Monte thinks it is, hence the Caster Level 10+ prerequisite,) then the fact that he may fail is completely beside the point.

Why?

Because if he succeeds, he has a power that is out of line with his level. And if he fails, he simply allows his PC to die and rolls up another character...then tries again.

You could use the same logic (he might fail) to justify allowing a 1st-level character to draw from the Deck of Many Things. After all, he might be Imprisoned on a distant plane! But the truth of the matter is that, regardless of consequences, success (such as 50,000xp, for the Deck,) is unbalancing.

It's the same with the feat from BoEMIII. It has a level requirement because Monte thinks the power itself isn't balanced until then. Just because he could fail to gain the power doesn't make the power any less unbalanced at low levels.

 

[Number47]

By 3rd level he can lower the requirement to 4th level, by 4th he can have the charisma. He cannot actually take the feat until 6th, though.

Quite frankly, I think the feat sounds pretty lousy for lower levels. Let him take a level-lowering feat once, to make him happy. Then he only has to wait until 8th.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

The danger is irrelevant [...]

I totally agree. Getting the power sooner could be (and probably is) unbalancing AND the character could get himself in trouble (falling behind). Two reasons NOT to let him get the feat sooner than he should.

TS

 

[Sanackranib]

what about allowing the player to take the feat sooner when he has feats available like say 9th level but recieving no BENIFIT until he reached the prerec level?