New Feat Critique

[sheastrom]

I have an idea for a feat and would like some thoughts on it. ie any possible changes, not allowing, etc

Spell critical. Gives caster a 5% chance per cast to crit on the spell. Extends damage and duration by 25%.

Spell improved critical. Gives caster a 10% chance to crit with spell. Extends damage and duration by 50%.

This would work for healers and damge casters both. Was thinking maybe do it on caster level vs spell level to get percentage but thought that would be to cumbersome.

If possible just give me some input on whether this would be a viable feat or not.

Thanks
Shea

 

[Darklone]

Well, you can already crit with spells that use a ranged touch or touch attack... And no, I don't think being able to crit with a fireball is a good idea.

Check out AUs wild talent though.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I think having 1 out of every 20 fireballs doing double damage (or 2 out of every 20 with Improved Critical (spell)) is too much. An option might be for a feat that, instead of Maximizing, offers a chance at Maximizing, but with probabilities.

Something like this . . .

Critical Spell
Prerequisite: Empower Spell
Benefit: Whenever you use a spell that causes damage but does not require an attack roll, you may roll a d20 before you cast the spell. If the result is a natural 20, then each die of damage that's rolled may be rerolled once (i.e. if you roll 5d6 and get three 1s, a 5 and a 6, you can freely reroll the 1s).
Cost: Casting a spell with the Critical metamagic feat adds +1 to the spell's level.

Dave

 

[JimAde]

Well the description doesn't say double damage. It says +25% or +50%. So you're spending two feats to have a 1 in 20 chance of empowering your spell without raising its level. I certainly don't think it's unbalancing. I wouldn't spend two feat slots on it if I were a caster.

If you want to introduce some randomness to your randomness, you could just say that you have to roll every time you cast. On a 20, do 50% more, on a 1, do 1/2. So 10% of the time something funky happens. Remember that using a d20 roll automatically opens you up to things like the Luck domain power, though.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have an idea for a feat and would like some thoughts on it. ie any possible changes, not allowing, etc

Spell critical. Gives caster a 5% chance per cast to crit on the spell. Extends damage and duration by 25%.

Spell improved critical. Gives caster a 10% chance to crit with spell. Extends damage and duration by 50%.

This would work for healers and damge casters both. Was thinking maybe do it on caster level vs spell level to get percentage but thought that would be to cumbersome.

If possible just give me some input on whether this would be a viable feat or not.

Thanks
Shea

The core rules work this way:

- you can crit only with spells which require an attack roll (either touch or ranged)

- if the spells lets you shoot more bolts with one attack (usually included in the standard action to cast) it can crit only with the first bolt, unless specified otherwise; if a single spell allows for several separate attacks (each of which has its own attack roll), each can crit on its own

- critical range is always 20 (5% chance)

- critical multiplier is always x2 and only hp damage, ability damage or level drain are multiplied

You can already improve this with the feat Improved Critical (Ray) for example which would double the crit range to 19 (10% chance). Requirement is very high however (BAB +8) for a wizard.

I thought you might want to keep these rules in mind, so that you can introduce new feats or modifying existing ones to actually improve what already exists.