Penetrating Damage (metamagic feat)

[Cheiromancer]

Penetrating Damage: Your spells affect creatures who are normally resistant to energy attacks.
benefit: You may use a higher level spell slot to cast a spell. For every +1 to spell level, your spell bypasses 20 points of energy resistance. This does not overcome immunity to forms of energy, such as granted by Protection from Elements.

According to my calculations, this should be a good (but not broken) feat. Whaddya think?

 

[Crothian]

I think bypassing 20 points is way to much. Perhaps 10, but even that may be too high.

 

[the Jester]

I'd say it's a little much. I'd make every +1 level bypass 10 points of resistance, personally, but I'd wanna see it playtested before I allowed it at all. Not sure I like the idea, it doesn't really make sense to me. For instance, what makes my fireball more dangerous to a vrock (fire resistance 20) than to the wizard who summoned him?

 

[Anubis]

I get it.

The developers goes on a thought that resistance is actually like a shield, and this feat penetrates that shield.

The rest of us consider such resistances innate because of design.

I see the conflict. The spell essentially does more damage to creatures with resistance.

Basically decide based on how many levels the amopunt of damage counts as.

 

[Destil]

One one hand, going through 20 resistance is quite a bit...

On the other hand an elemental substution could easly completly circumvent energy resistance, or potentialy even double damage (Fireball -> Iceball vs. a Fire Giant)...

Really, I'd make it work like spell penetraion, and simply let the caster ignore 5-10 points of resistance and count that as "used", since resistance resets every round. So for instance if you cast a fireball that would deal 20 damage to something with fire resistance 20 you would deal 5-10 damage AND you would have nullified it's energy resistance until the next round.

 

[da chicken]

Not a very useful feat, IMO. I can either use Energy Substitution or Empower Spell, and those are more useful overall. I also don't really care for the flavor. I mean, don't Heighten Spell and Empower Spell already have similar results? Maybe it's just me.... And you now have to figure out how it interacts with protection from elements, and that's kind of a bear in and of itself.

Still, +1 for 10 seems best. +2 for anything short of everything just isn't worth it at all (Empower), but more than 10 for +1 and I think you render Energy Resistance totally pointless.

 

[Cheiromancer]

"bypassing 20 points is way too much"

"Not a very useful feat"

What do you guys think of the sure striking enchantment? It is +1 enchantment and overcomes non-epic DR. Some people dislike it because it renders DR totally useless, and other people would prefer a real +1 on their weapon. I think this feat is kind of like that.

 

[da chicken]

"bypassing 20 points is way too much"

"Not a very useful feat"

What do you guys think of the sure striking enchantment? It is +1 enchantment and overcomes non-epic DR. Some people dislike it because it renders DR totally useless, and other people would prefer a real +1 on their weapon. I think this feat is kind of like that.

Don't get me wrong, I think one sure sign a feat is balanced is when some people hate it or would never consider taking it. To me, any balanced version of this feat would be superceded by other metamagic feats.

As far as sure striking, I don't see that as much of a problem. Probably because I would rather have a +3 weapon than a +2 sure striker. Greater magic weapon is fairly common.

The real problem is that you're introducing a completely new mechanic (overcoming energy resistance) and nobody can predict what the effects of that mechanic will be until you playtest it.

And again, you still have to determine how the feat interacts with spells like protection from elements, and you should state how it works /wrt immunities.

 

[Crothian]

I think it would be a fine feat at 10 per additional spell level increase, instead of 20.

 

[Cheiromancer]

And again, you still have to determine how the feat interacts with spells like protection from elements, and you should state how it works /wrt immunities.

It does not overcome immunity to forms of energy, such as granted by Protection from Elements. Last sentence of the benefit description.

The basic idea is that this feat is to energy resistance as sure striking is to damage resistance. Maybe I should rename it "sure damaging?"

I took sure-striking as giving a +4 increase to a weapon's plus, for purposes of overcoming damage resistance ONLY. The cost of sure striking is +1.

I based the effect of the +1 to spell level by seeing what the real damage increase would be by increasing the spell level by +4, but with the extra damage applying to energy resistance only.

A double empowered Fireball was my base spell. It deals an extra 35 points of damage, or 17.5 extra if the critter saves. If the critter fails the save on a 3 or less, this averages at least +20 damage.

So the +1 spell level "sure damaging" effectively does an extra 20 points of damage for the purpose of overcoming energy resistance.

Since energy substition: sonic evades most energy resistances/immunities without increasing the spell level at all, I can't see this feat as unbalanced. It doesn't help against immune creatures, and it is hindered by unusually high resistances.

I'm willing to consider the feat overcoming only 10 points of energy resistance, but I'm curious what the reasoning would be behind that decision.