Feats - discussion

[Northman]

I've had a couple of players try. Extend was the main one. A sorcerer used it to extend cat's grace and mage armor. Now extending cat's grace won't make it last all day. It was an okay use of it. But that was it. Everyone else either didn't use the feat they took, or 95% of the time, they just couldn't get themselves to take it over another feat, like you said Em.

These sudden feats get me excited because they make it possible to tweak your spells, maybe only once a day, but they put a card in your pocket that you can pull out when YOU need it.

Now, on the flip side, bad guys will have them too. Respect the spell casters, you never know when they'll pull out their one big bad spell. Perhaps a readied dispell magic is in order...

Oh, and the thought of your party cleric having a sudden maximize he can use on a healing spell during combat is comforting too.

 

[Northman]

I'm thinking after the discussion here that we should put the sudden feats up to a vote. There was no mention of the extra domain spell, so I'm assuming that everyone is fine with that one.

I'll create a vote for the sudden feats.

Wow, it feels like the old days when we discussed and voted on things.

 

[DMEntropy]

I feel that these Sudden feats are not in line with other meta-magic feats if they do not have the prerequisite of the meta-magic feat they are making Sudden.

The first big benefit is thatiIt allows a wizard to cast a meta-magic spell without preparing it ahead of time. This is tremendous flexibility given to spell casters who must normally prepare their spells, and meta-magic feats, ahead of time.

The second big benefit is that the meta-magic spell is cast with no level penalty associated with it. As was pointed out above, this could result in level 1 spell casters casting the equivalent of 4th level spells (maximized 1st level spell).

These feats can be added, but with some limitations in my opinion. I think that these should be:
1. Prerequisites of the meta-magic feat being made sudden.
2. This feat cannot allow a caster to cast a spell that would be beyond his capability with the standard meta-magic feat.

With these changes I think that these feats are acceptable. Without them these feats allow too much power for low level casters.

 

[Emiricol]

I am pretty much undecided on this. While these feats really are more powerful than traditional metamagic feats on the one hand, on the other hand I never have used metamagic feats as a player or DM. Meaning they are underpowered, imho. My biggest issue with them isn't that they are more powerful than the underpowered existing Feats. My biggest issue is that these feats add a lot of flexibility to Wizards, who are very powerful already. However, at once per day I don't think even that is overpowering.

I'd be willing to take a "let's see how it works" approach to these feats, posting them in Round Table Rules for a while before putting them in v2.x of the setting guide or even just leaving them in RTR if they are not open content.

 

[DMEntropy]

Em, I agree with you about the near uselessness of meta-magic feats. I have never taken one with my wizard characters. The changes I am suggesting are to keep the feats consistent with others that are out there.

Consider the Augment Summoning feat. It grants +4 STR and CON to summoned creatures. It has a prerequisite of another feat Spell Focus (Conjuration). This is why I feel that the prerequisite feats must be used to keep the game consistent.

One pattern that I see with the "new feats" advertised in all the supplements put out is that they regularly skirt the rules or give people feats without prerequisites that otherwise they would be forced to take.

 

[Lith]

Quick question;

Would we create a Sudden version of metamagic feats such as Chain, Delay, Energy Admixture, Energy Substitution, Repeat, Persistent, Sculpt, etc..?


The more I think about it the more I think the only change I would make is to have the original feat, as pre-req.

 

[Northman]

I don't know. Wizards only did those. I would guess that they did some play testing and those worked well. Or it could just be that they only wanted to sudden metamagic feats from the PHB.

But yeah, it would just take some thought. The prereqs are the real checks on the feats, that and they are only usable once a day.

But I don't see why not. Let's see how the vote goes.

 

[Emiricol]

Vote was passed. These will be acceptable. I need to add the names and source to the revised how to participate guidebook.

 

[Emiricol]

What book were these from? They should be posted in Round Table Rules, too.

 

[Northman]

The Miniatures Handbook.