IOUN stones

[Scion]

At +1 they are a bottom of the barrel, why would I take this except in desperation of something to get a little more flavor into the class. At least toughness has a time when it is pretty useful, with +1 this guy pretty well just doesnt make the cut. Being on par with toughness is about the same as a slap in the face for whoever takes it.

So if a toughness feat would be worth X amount of money (and X is definately below 10k) then spell focus would be around X, probably the same but possibly less since toughness feats stack.

 

[Hardhead]

At +1 they are a bottom of the barrel, why would I take this except in desperation of something to get a little more flavor into the class. At least toughness has a time when it is pretty useful, with +1 this guy pretty well just doesnt make the cut. Being on par with toughness is about the same as a slap in the face for whoever takes it.

So if a toughness feat would be worth X amount of money (and X is definately below 10k) then spell focus would be around X, probably the same but possibly less since toughness feats stack.

Nah, it's great if you specialize in one school heavily. My current character is a Psion Telepath (and we have Psionic Focus errata'd to a +1 to be in line with Spell Focus). I use Telepathy school powers so much, Psionic Focus was a no-brainer to me. It's a lot like Weapon Focus. +1 doesn't seem like a whole lot at first glance, but in practice it ends up helping a *lot*. And I also plan to pick up GPF soon.

Sure, it's not a feat that all wizards should take anymore, but for the true specialist, it's still a great feat.

Plus, two SF feats are required to take the incredibly overpowered Archmage. Making slotless feats too cheap means that the requirements go from costing two feats they may very well not want to spend, to just a couple thousand gold.

 

[Scion]

For now I will ignore the psionics part, spell focus doesnt work for them and the equivalent in psionics may or may not get a change.

Lets focus on the weapon focus example, as it was the one I was going to use anyway if someone made another comment saying that spell focus is ok at +1 and worth a feat (since this discussion is about prices, and monitary value of said feats, this still goes on topic. by definition of one feat is much less powerful than another then the one that is lacking shouldnt cost as much)

For weapon focus a character picks a weapon and gets a +1 in this weapon. For spell focus you pick a school and get a +1 to saves in that school. So far it looks like spell focus is ahead, they get more choices after all.

Now, the wf character will get the bonus every attack, or near to. After all, if you focus in a weapon then you will use it more than any other. Everytime you attack with that weapon you get that +1.

For the spell focus character the same cannot be said. The character will 'not' be throwing a spell every round that from that school that requires a save. Unless of course he wishes to be incredibly polarized to one field. Most schools only deal in one saving through, and even then their are always spells that will give no save, or slots that will be used for buffing or something else.

Even a sorcerer, who picks up many spells, would be nearly out of the game if they stuck to only one school. Unless those spells had some special advantage such as no save allowed. He will have to cast spells outside of this one school eventually.

Failing this however spellcasters have a limited number of slots. Very limited. If you have 40 slots in a day to use (very very high level caster with a very good prime stat) chances of more than 20 of these useing spell focus is not very good. At these levels especially some creatures will be resistant or immune to certain saving throws. See above about schools normally only having one save.

Chances are very good that the fighter will swing more than 40 times in a day. That means 40 chances for the +1 to matter. A caster who throws 40 spells of a single type, that require a save, is fairly ludicrus. Whereas 40 attacks from a fighter might be as little as 5 rounds of full attacking (at 8 attacks/round. 4 from BAB, 3 from various twf chains, one from haste.. or toss in some speed ehancements, whatever)

The numbers have been run on several threads, and by people who are more willing to look up all of the details repeatidly than I am currently. Even at +2 it was never a 'no brainer' but it did tend to actually matter sometimes at +2. It has been said that they made it +1 for fear of the +4 that the two feats were before. Who cares? If +4 is too strong then stop the +4, put in a sidebar in the phb saying that the +4 was abusive and to not use it. As it was the +2 was only sortof worth it, but only barely.

Weapon focus winds up being a 'lot' over the carear of a character. It can even make a noticeable difference. Spell focus at +1 is merely a joke. I'll see if I can find relavent threads, it is hard currently with internet acting up. sorry for not having it posted right now

Furthermore, nerfing a feat because this or that prc is too strong is definately not the way to go! At best a new feat can be made up that does nothing or next to nothing and require that. Or just tone down the prc. As for buying ones way into a prc that seems like a bad idea pretty much all of the time no matter what anyway. Strikes me very similar to getting into prcs that require being able to cast a certain spell and getting a ring of spell storing or ioun stone or imbue with spell and using those to qualify. Those are just abuses waiting to happen, they shouldnt be reflected in costs though, merely in the dm saying it doesnt work.

 

[Hardhead]

For now I will ignore the psionics part, spell focus doesnt work for them and the equivalent in psionics may or may not get a change.

Lets focus on the weapon focus example, as it was the one I was going to use anyway if someone made another comment saying that spell focus is ok at +1 and worth a feat (since this discussion is about prices, and monitary value of said feats, this still goes on topic. by definition of one feat is much less powerful than another then the one that is lacking shouldnt cost as much)

I agree.

For weapon focus a character picks a weapon and gets a +1 in this weapon. For spell focus you pick a school and get a +1 to saves in that school. So far it looks like spell focus is ahead, they get more choices after all.

Now, the wf character will get the bonus every attack, or near to. After all, if you focus in a weapon then you will use it more than any other. Everytime you attack with that weapon you get that +1.

For the spell focus character the same cannot be said. The character will 'not' be throwing a spell every round that from that school that requires a save. Unless of course he wishes to be incredibly polarized to one field. Most schools only deal in one saving through, and even then their are always spells that will give no save, or slots that will be used for buffing or something else.

Very few spells give no save. As for buffing spells, I would argue that they aren't relevant to the power balance. They are not spells that end up being useful in combat, and so aren't relevant when you're talking about power levels in combat.

Weapon Focus doesn't apply on coup de graces, for instance, for the same reason SF doesn't apply to buffs. They're actions generally used outside of combat that don't require an attack roll/a save. But that doesn't make weapon focus any less powerful in combat.

Even a sorcerer, who picks up many spells, would be nearly out of the game if they stuck to only one school. Unless those spells had some special advantage such as no save allowed. He will have to cast spells outside of this one school eventually.

And a fighter will end up having to grapple or make an opposed trip check or use a weapon he's not focused in eventually, as well.

Failing this however spellcasters have a limited number of slots. Very limited. If you have 40 slots in a day to use (very very high level caster with a very good prime stat) chances of more than 20 of these useing spell focus is not very good. At these levels especially some creatures will be resistant or immune to certain saving throws. See above about schools normally only having one save.

Chances are very good that the fighter will swing more than 40 times in a day. That means 40 chances for the +1 to matter. A caster who throws 40 spells of a single type, that require a save, is fairly ludicrus. Whereas 40 attacks from a fighter might be as little as 5 rounds of full attacking (at 8 attacks/round. 4 from BAB, 3 from various twf chains, one from haste.. or toss in some speed ehancements, whatever)

OTOH, once you're high enough level, the first two are usually gimmes. The WF is wasted on those. Realistically, WF only makes a difference on about half of a 15+ level fighter's attacks.

The numbers have been run on several threads, and by people who are more willing to look up all of the details repeatidly than I am currently. Even at +2 it was never a 'no brainer' but it did tend to actually matter sometimes at +2. It has been said that they made it +1 for fear of the +4 that the two feats were before. Who cares? If +4 is too strong then stop the +4, put in a sidebar in the phb saying that the +4 was abusive and to not use it. As it was the +2 was only sortof worth it, but only barely.

It depends on your assumptions about the wizard, really. If he's casting from a lot of different school, then yeah. But if he's casting from just one, a 10% increase in keeping them from saving was huge.

Weapon focus winds up being a 'lot' over the carear of a character. It can even make a noticeable difference.

You say that like it's rare. IMO, it's one of the best basic feats in the game (basic, as in not the end of a feat chain).

Spell focus at +1 is merely a joke. I'll see if I can find relavent threads, it is hard currently with internet acting up. sorry for not having it posted right now

I can't search the threads. Haven't donated yet.

But without seeing them, I'll agree with their results given the assumption is a wizard that casts from a lot of different schools.

For a heavily specialized wizard, who casts 90% of his combat spells from one school, SF is still good. Is it a great feat? No. But it's a good one.

Furthermore, nerfing a feat because this or that prc is too strong is definately not the way to go! At best a new feat can be made up that does nothing or next to nothing and require that. Or just tone down the prc. As for buying ones way into a prc that seems like a bad idea pretty much all of the time no matter what anyway. Strikes me very similar to getting into prcs that require being able to cast a certain spell and getting a ring of spell storing or ioun stone or imbue with spell and using those to qualify. Those are just abuses waiting to happen, they shouldnt be reflected in costs though, merely in the dm saying it doesnt work.

I agree, here.

 

[Scion]

Good stuff I am going to ramble a bit, I apologize in advance!

Very few spells give no save. As for buffing spells, I would argue that they aren't relevant to the power balance. They are not spells that end up being useful in combat, and so aren't relevant when you're talking about power levels in combat.

I'm afraid you have lost me on this statement Not really sure where you are coming from.. the very definition of 'buff spell' is something that makes you better at something else, almost always combat in d&d. Whether it increases a stat, makes you harder to hit, makes it easier for you to hit others, makes you bigger, tougher, faster, whatever.. they are all combat applicable. Plus they all take up spell slots.

As for few spells having no save I think it all depends on what you are going for. You could pretty easily have a character who was nothing but a buffer/healer/noncombatant. No relavent saves in that category, and at least in 3.0 it was a viable build. There are a lot of touch attack spells that do not grant a save as well, especially in 3.5. (I am mixing and matching I know, bad me, unfortunately I am out of town for the holidays and my books are not here. I will try to check the srd later and view a few schools for save/no save spells) From what I remember about the other comparison thread they said that it averaged out to less than half the total spells had no relavent save, I dont remember how much less than half though. Plus the boards seem to have eaten the whole thread.

Weapon Focus doesn't apply on coup de graces, for instance, for the same reason SF doesn't apply to buffs. They're actions generally used outside of combat that don't require an attack roll/a save. But that doesn't make weapon focus any less powerful in combat.
And a fighter will end up having to grapple or make an opposed trip check or use a weapon he's not focused in eventually, as well.

I like weapon focus, it is just fine as is. It is used incredibly often. Of course it doesnt apply to everything, unless of course you can use that weapon for everything. However, you are still able to use your weapon, if you decide to coup de grace instead then it isnt like the foe was a challenge anyway since they were helpless. If the caster had to use a spell in that situation (not to get the foe helpless, but to kill an already helpless foe) then the caster is already in a huge amount of trouble. Essentially wasting one of their precious spells per day.

OTOH, once you're high enough level, the first two are usually gimmes. The WF is wasted on those. Realistically, WF only makes a difference on about half of a 15+ level fighter's attacks.

If the +1 isnt making a statistical difference at these levels (and by this I assume that you mean the first 2 attacks at least only fail on a 1) then that high of a level character can essentially trade in that +1 for an extra point or two of damage, or an extra point of ac, or can keep it and hit 5% more often with his other x amount of attacks. If he gets 4 attacks in a round, only two of which gain any benefit out of the +1 then the fighter still has TWO attacks that are getting a 5% boost in that round. The spellcaster, if his spell focus is applicable, gets only ONE 5% boost. Net advantage? Fighter, by a landslide.

It depends on your assumptions about the wizard, really. If he's casting from a lot of different school, then yeah. But if he's casting from just one, a 10% increase in keeping them from saving was huge.

From different schools? Nah, my assumption was already that the vast majority of his spells were coming from the same school. Looking over most casters spell lists, even for specialists, I would rarely expect to see even 80% from just that one school, except at lower levels or an incredibly diverse school. Even so, if somehow 100% of your spells are from the same school, and they all require a save, then the fighter will probably still be swinging at least 3x as much. Probably even up to 10x as much if your caster runs out of spells and has to use a crossbow, or even running against creatures resistant/immune to whatever they are trying to do. The resistance is not hard to get to, or even dm fudging, just the way monsters are created.

Evocation is an easy one, a good portion of its spells grant saves, and they are all reflex saves if I recall correctly. These mostly have some energy descriptor or another. Most are save for half or none. If you take this feat then your spells from evocation are 1 dc higher, good stuff. However, anything with a good reflex save, decent energy resistance, evasion, etc will be able to avoid a good portion of your spells to some degree.

All the while the fighter type character will be swinging away several swings for each of your spells, gaining a +1 to each swing while you may only get a +1 once per round. The accumulation of use is just incredible.

If a feat gives me the same bonus, but I am able to take advantage of it say twice as often without even trying very hard then which feat is better? Kneecapping yourself into one school with one save (if the spells even give a save at all) is just not good.

But without seeing them, I'll agree with their results given the assumption is a wizard that casts from a lot of different schools.

For a heavily specialized wizard, who casts 90% of his combat spells from one school, SF is still good. Is it a great feat? No. But it's a good one.

It is a feat, but good? doubtful. It has its uses, albiet very minor, but in the end they are fairly not effective. Your enchanter type example is an interesting one. Lots of will saves, with save for no effect. So your uses are all or nothing, everything and anything that can give an edge is desperately needed. Being desperate does not a good feat make. Look at toughness, a first level wizard with a con penalty is desperate for hp and has at least a decent chance of taking toughness. I think we will both agree that toughness is a subpar, bottom of the barrel type of feat. This anology seems pretty close to me, it may not to you, it is late and I am trying to make sense.

Even at +2 I felt it was a useful feat, but fairly suboptimal in a lot of ways. Basically it exactly countered the +2 to a save feats, but it didnt do quite as well because you tied yourself to one school as well. So basically 2 drawbacks (costs a feat and only applies to one school which generally only has one save) for one benefit (bonus to dcs of that school) vs 1 penalty (costs a feat) and one benefit (gives a bonus to roughly 1/3 of the saves)

If you have 20 spells in a day, and all 20 are spells of that school with saves then you have no buff spells, you have no contingency plans in case your foes are immune to that save, you are essentially dead in the water at least 1/3 of the time if the dm is being fairly creative in his uses. Plus your fellow players may be a bit upset that you dont do anything except in combat, hard to say on that one though.

The fightertype is constrained to one weapon, but then they nearly always are anyway, it is hard to afford multiple good magic weapons after all.

You cast your 20 spells and get 20 different 5% increases. Some of these wont matter anyway (they only fail on a one, only succeed one a 20), others may be immune (undead or constructs vs your will saves), and then the rest you actually get the bonus on.

Whereas that fighter type generally gets to swing as many times as they can/want in a day. This could be hundreds, but lets just go for 40. 2 swings average for each round the caster was casting. He gets his +1 for each of them though he has similar problems as above. Not mattering (can only hit with a 20 and only miss on a one, although with the only hit on a 20 you could turn the extra point into damage, ac, or something else), immune (this generally does not happen, at the levels where it might happen SR applies to the caster so is mostly a wash), and the rest you get the full bonus on. So in this example way more than double the benefit.. double from the use, but a few extras from being able to turn that point into other uses when needed.

I am just repeating now though ;/ I will try again tomorrow to find that thread.. but it does seem that the boards ate it up. Very unfortunate.

Have a good one though Hope that this helps make some sense from my point of view.

 

[Hardhead]

Good stuff I am going to ramble a bit, I apologize in advance!

No problem.

I'm afraid you have lost me on this statement Not really sure where you are coming from.. the very definition of 'buff spell' is something that makes you better at something else, almost always combat in d&d. Whether it increases a stat, makes you harder to hit, makes it easier for you to hit others, makes you bigger, tougher, faster, whatever.. they are all combat applicable. Plus they all take up spell slots.

What I'm saying is, it doesn't really matter what you do outside combat, when you're talking about the power level of a feat that only works inside combat.

As for few spells having no save I think it all depends on what you are going for. You could pretty easily have a character who was nothing but a buffer/healer/noncombatant. No relavent saves in that category, and at least in 3.0 it was a viable build. There are a lot of touch attack spells that do not grant a save as well, especially in 3.5. (I am mixing and matching I know, bad me, unfortunately I am out of town for the holidays and my books are not here. I will try to check the srd later and view a few schools for save/no save spells)

Yeah, I'll grant you there are a decent number of touch attacks.

From what I remember about the other comparison thread they said that it averaged out to less than half the total spells had no relavent save, I dont remember how much less than half though. Plus the boards seem to have eaten the whole thread.

I like weapon focus, it is just fine as is. It is used incredibly often. Of course it doesnt apply to everything, unless of course you can use that weapon for everything. However, you are still able to use your weapon, if you decide to coup de grace instead then it isnt like the foe was a challenge anyway since they were helpless. If the caster had to use a spell in that situation (not to get the foe helpless, but to kill an already helpless foe) then the caster is already in a huge amount of trouble. Essentially wasting one of their precious spells per day.

Not necessarily, you could catch them with a Fireball that's going to hit some of their still-standing companions anyway.

If the +1 isnt making a statistical difference at these levels (and by this I assume that you mean the first 2 attacks at least only fail on a 1) then that high of a level character can essentially trade in that +1 for an extra point or two of damage, or an extra point of ac, or can keep it and hit 5% more often with his other x amount of attacks.

True.

If he gets 4 attacks in a round, only two of which gain any benefit out of the +1 then the fighter still has TWO attacks that are getting a 5% boost in that round. The spellcaster, if his spell focus is applicable, gets only ONE 5% boost. Net advantage? Fighter, by a landslide.

Not necessarily. There will be plenty of rounds when the fighter has to move before he attacks, only getting it once. And there will be plenty of rounds the wizard/sorcerer is dropping a Fireball or a Cone of Cold, and getting multple 5% bonuses against different people saving.

From different schools? Nah, my assumption was already that the vast majority of his spells were coming from the same school. Looking over most casters spell lists, even for specialists, I would rarely expect to see even 80% from just that one school, except at lower levels or an incredibly diverse school. Even so, if somehow 100% of your spells are from the same school, and they all require a save, then the fighter will probably still be swinging at least 3x as much. Probably even up to 10x as much if your caster runs out of spells and has to use a crossbow, or even running against creatures resistant/immune to whatever they are trying to do. The resistance is not hard to get to, or even dm fudging, just the way monsters are created.

Evocation is an easy one, a good portion of its spells grant saves, and they are all reflex saves if I recall correctly. These mostly have some energy descriptor or another. Most are save for half or none. If you take this feat then your spells from evocation are 1 dc higher, good stuff. However, anything with a good reflex save, decent energy resistance, evasion, etc will be able to avoid a good portion of your spells to some degree.

All the while the fighter type character will be swinging away several swings for each of your spells, gaining a +1 to each swing while you may only get a +1 once per round. The accumulation of use is just incredible.

If a feat gives me the same bonus, but I am able to take advantage of it say twice as often without even trying very hard then which feat is better? Kneecapping yourself into one school with one save (if the spells even give a save at all) is just not good.

Again, I disagree. I've found most NPCs will try to avoid being full-round-attacked at later levels (unless they're also fighter-types, and want to return the favor). A fighter is lucky if half of his attacks are full-rounders. Most of the time, he gets a 5% increase once.

In contrast, a wizard is throwing out area of effect spells left and right by then, hitting multiple opponents every round.

It is a feat, but good? doubtful. It has its uses, albiet very minor, but in the end they are fairly not effective. Your enchanter type example is an interesting one. Lots of will saves, with save for no effect. So your uses are all or nothing, everything and anything that can give an edge is desperately needed. Being desperate does not a good feat make. Look at toughness, a first level wizard with a con penalty is desperate for hp and has at least a decent chance of taking toughness. I think we will both agree that toughness is a subpar, bottom of the barrel type of feat. This anology seems pretty close to me, it may not to you, it is late and I am trying to make sense.

Even at +2 I felt it was a useful feat, but fairly suboptimal in a lot of ways. Basically it exactly countered the +2 to a save feats, but it didnt do quite as well because you tied yourself to one school as well. So basically 2 drawbacks (costs a feat and only applies to one school which generally only has one save) for one benefit (bonus to dcs of that school) vs 1 penalty (costs a feat) and one benefit (gives a bonus to roughly 1/3 of the saves)

If you have 20 spells in a day, and all 20 are spells of that school with saves then you have no buff spells, you have no contingency plans in case your foes are immune to that save, you are essentially dead in the water at least 1/3 of the time if the dm is being fairly creative in his uses. Plus your fellow players may be a bit upset that you dont do anything except in combat, hard to say on that one though.

The fightertype is constrained to one weapon, but then they nearly always are anyway, it is hard to afford multiple good magic weapons after all.

You cast your 20 spells and get 20 different 5% increases. Some of these wont matter anyway (they only fail on a one, only succeed one a 20), others may be immune (undead or constructs vs your will saves), and then the rest you actually get the bonus on.

Whereas that fighter type generally gets to swing as many times as they can/want in a day. This could be hundreds, but lets just go for 40. 2 swings average for each round the caster was casting. He gets his +1 for each of them though he has similar problems as above. Not mattering (can only hit with a 20 and only miss on a one, although with the only hit on a 20 you could turn the extra point into damage, ac, or something else), immune (this generally does not happen, at the levels where it might happen SR applies to the caster so is mostly a wash), and the rest you get the full bonus on. So in this example way more than double the benefit.. double from the use, but a few extras from being able to turn that point into other uses when needed.

I am just repeating now though ;/ I will try again tomorrow to find that thread.. but it does seem that the boards ate it up. Very unfortunate.

Have a good one though Hope that this helps make some sense from my point of view.

I understand your point of view. I guiess we'll have to just agree to disagree.