Pissed about the reduction of the Spell Focus Feats

[Zogg]

FreetheSlaves - you are either not reading my posts or just ignoring the logic. Let me break it down into bite-size pieces for you....

EVERY creature in DnD existence has at least 1 good save. Some even have two - and a rare have all three (monk, for example). So worst case scenario, an ignorant fighter needs only to take Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will - I seriously doubt he'll be needing Great Fortitude. With just 2 feats that ignorant fighter receives a +2 to both of his bad saves. Pretty good - and with all those bonus feats a fighter gets I would hardly call those feat choices bad.

A cleric wishes to increase their chances of controlling enemies with their Enchantment school spells. In 3E, the +2DC from Spell Focus helped considerably - it allowed him to keep up with any fighters that took Iron Will. NOW in 3.5E, the fighter has the edge.

Your response "what about heighten spell?" is bunk - that cleric must give up a more powerful spell just to raise the DC. I'd call this a considerable sacrifice just to guarantee that that random action spell succeeds. And by the time a cleric is able to really raise his spell DCs with heighten spell, that fighter sure as hell had better found some items to raise his Will Saves.

In 3.5E, spellcasters stay "one step behind" everyone else's saves. Taking SF should put you one step ahead, not ON PAR with everyone else's saves. It may seem crazy that arguing over a +1 to DCs would cause such strife, but anyone playing a spellcaster will not be wasting feats on the 3.5E Spell Focus.

That's a serious problem.

 

[hong]

FreetheSlaves - you are either not reading my posts or just ignoring the logic. Let me break it down into bite-size pieces for you....

EVERY creature in DnD existence has at least 1 good save. Some even have two - and a rare have all three (monk, for example). So worst case scenario, an ignorant fighter needs only to take Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will - I seriously doubt he'll be needing Great Fortitude.

The character I'm playing in our high-level campaign is multiclassed with two classes giving good Fort saves. Let's just say he has Fort out the wazoo. But I still took Great Fortitude anyway.

And you know what? That Great Fort has saved his butt at least 3 times in the last several sessions. You can never have too good a Fort save, when the instakills start flying around. Thinking "oh, +N is good enough" is just setting yourself up for a fall.

In fact, the last feat I took was Cumbrous Fort, from Savage Species (+6 to one Fort save, but you're staggered for the rest of the encounter). That feat has also saved my butt a couple of times.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Zogg
[quote[EVERY creature in DnD existence has at least 1 good save.[/quote]

Look at the description of an Animated Object again

A cleric wishes to increase their chances of controlling enemies with their Enchantment school spells. In 3E, the +2DC from Spell Focus helped considerably - it allowed him to keep up with any fighters that took Iron Will.

Right. Did it help him against all those monsters in the MM who didn't take Iron Will?

If WotC had given every monster in the MM 3.5 save-boosting feats and hadn't touch Spell Focus, would people be complaining? I think they still would.

What do you think is an acceptable rate of save-or-die spells working against an opponent's weak save?

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I am reading but it doesn't make sense.

EVERY creature in DnD existence has at least 1 good save. Some even have two - and a rare have all three (monk, for example). So worst case scenario, an ignorant fighter needs only to take Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will - I seriously doubt he'll be needing Great Fortitude. With just 2 feats that ignorant fighter receives a +2 to both of his bad saves. Pretty good - and with all those bonus feats a fighter gets I would hardly call those feat choices bad.

The spellcaster never targets good saves if they can help it, they'll summon or buff instead. Bad saves improved by two still fail more than they succeed against the spell focused spellcaster. Those +2 feats don't turn a bad save into good, rather into average.

A cleric wishes to increase their chances of controlling enemies with their Enchantment school spells. In 3E, the +2DC from Spell Focus helped considerably - it allowed him to keep up with any fighters that took Iron Will. NOW in 3.5E, the fighter has the edge.

(Psi)SeveredHead has already answered this. The 3.5 great fort rogue is still going to fear fort saves, no?

Your response "what about heighten spell?" is bunk - that cleric must give up a more powerful spell just to raise the DC. I'd call this a considerable sacrifice just to guarantee that that random action spell succeeds. And by the time a cleric is able to really raise his spell DCs with heighten spell, that fighter sure as hell had better found some items to raise his Will Saves.

Here we have it, I knew you'd agree that heighten is a weak feat choice what with spell focus giving +2. Who chooses heighten over spell focus +2? Noone. Heighten over spell focus +1? Hmm starts to look okay. Both feats together? That looks pretty good.

In 3.5E, spellcasters stay "one step behind" everyone else's saves. Taking SF should put you one step ahead, not ON PAR with everyone else's saves. It may seem crazy that arguing over a +1 to DCs would cause such strife, but anyone playing a spellcaster will not be wasting feats on the 3.5E Spell Focus.

Nup, don't believe that at all. My analysis on page 1 showed that spellcasters (without spell focus) have a creeping advantage. The items of resistance give a defender the advantage but lose out dramatically when superior ability scores are taken into account.

The real test will be the wait and see in our games. I know that my npc's will still take these feats and I believe the spellcasters will too.

But this is enough from me, this is getting tedious.

 

[Grog]

The fighter's attack bonus goes up, and his opponent's AC goes up. His damage goes up... and his opponent's hit points go up.

The wizard's save DC goes up, his opponent's saving throws go up. His spells get nastier (eg Dominate Monster is nastier than Hold Monster) so his opponents get special resistances (eg SR).

That's exactly my point - if his opponents keep getting resistances/immunities to his spells (such as SR), then the wizard's spells really haven't gotten any nastier. And IME a fighter getting totally shut down by high AC is a lot rarer than a wizard getting totally shut down by high SR.

Yes, and the titan is an outsider with three good saves and SR. It's obvious that some challenges will be harder on the wizard than the fighter, and vice versa.

IME most creatures, even at high CR, have a poor save, and the wizard will defeat a creature a lot more than 12.7% of the time with a single spell.

But how many creatures have a poor Fort save? Because that's the only save where a failure is guaranteed to end the encounter with one spell. Will save spells can sometimes end the encounter (although with Hold getting nerfed, that will probably become less common). Reflex save spells almost never end the encounter in one shot.

IME very few monsters in the MM have poor Fort saves. And when you add SR into the equation, things look even worse for the wizard. Maybe the titan isn't the best example, but creatures with SR are quite common at high CRs.

 

[Grog]

The entire point is that a wizard who doesn't take Spell Penetration shouldn't have all that great a chance of lobbing spells at a spell-resistant foe. The titan's SR is one of its principal defenses. It's a CR 21 monster. If you're a 20th-level wizard without Spell Penetration facing a CR 21 outsider, you'd better be aware that fewer than half the spells you cast are going to get through. That's how the system works. Complaining that wizards have no chance of affecting the titan with direct-damage spells misses the point that, unless you're reasonably optimized (ONE feat! Count it!) to deal with an SR creature, you're not supposed to be throwing spells at it.

The problem, as I've said, is that SR is increasingly common in higher CR foes. Let's look at the monsters CR 14-21 with SR:

Astral Deva
Hezrou
Trumpet Archon
Glabrezu
Nalfeshnee
Pit Fiend
Planetar
Marilith
Balor
Formian Queen
Solar
Tarrasque
Titan
And 45 dragons of various colors and ages.

Now, the CR 14-21 monsters without SR:

3 hydras
3 nightcrawlers

Only six out of the 64 monsters in the MM in the CR 14-21 range don't have SR. Less than 10%. So when you say that a wizard without Spell Penetration deserves what he gets in combat a spell-resistant creature, you're saying that a wizard deserves what he gets in combat with almost every monster of a CR equal to his level from level 14 up. And if they run into an enemy with a higher CR, it's even worse.

Since the SR of monsters seems to be increasing in 3.5E, it looks like there's a distinct possibility that wizards and sorcerors are going to have to take SP and GSP in order to stay viable at high levels.

Moreover, wizards have a really nice advantage; they don't need to expose themselves to damage in order to deal it.

That's true against some foes. However, as levels and CRs increase, the wizard's foes gain access to more and more combat options than simply slugging it out with the fighters in meele.

 

[Grog]

Nup, I don't buy this sixteen feats (14 actually because divination has only detect thoughts). The reality is that the wizard will primarily use one school where the bulk of their favourite spells are.

They don't always have this option. A Spell Focus in Enchantment isn't going to do a wizard a bit of good when the party encounters undead. A Spell Focus in Evocation is going to be much less useful when the party encounters foes with evasion or elemental resistances/immunities. Wizards can't always use spells from their favorite school.

Here we have it, I knew you'd agree that heighten is a weak feat choice what with spell focus giving +2. Who chooses heighten over spell focus +2? Noone.

Again, Spell Focus only applies to one school, while Heighten Spell applies to all schools. And the two are not mutually exclusive options, so I'm not really sure what your point is.

And wizards shouldn't have to take Heighten Spell and use higher level slots in order to stay effective.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'd rather they have given Spell focus +1 DC and GSF +3 DC total, but the way they worked it is fine for me.

 

[Al]

Nup, I don't buy this sixteen feats (14 actually because divination has only detect thoughts). The reality is that the wizard will primarily use one school where the bulk of their favourite spells are.

In fairness, it was a flippant rebuttal to a flippant argument. I fully accept that those wizards geared towards a certain school, especially those with specialisations or Spell Focus, are going to take a disproportionate amount of spells from their school. However, even being generous, I'd only put it at one half. A specialist Enchanter (who gets the most out of SF because of the save negates nature of his spells) will still take spells which target Fort and Reflex saves. He will use buff spells. He will still have utility spells (knock, teleport, tongues etc.). He will still need defensive combat spells (displacement, mirror image, wall of force). Ergo, I'd say one half maximum would be the most reasonable estimate of a specialist's school memorisation- and even that sacrifices a huge amount of versatility.

Luckstones and Ioun stones are more expensive and give smaller bonuses than cloaks of resistance

Both of them combined cost less than one-third of a +5 Tome of Intelligence. They also give bonuses in other areas (checks and skills; attacks, checks and skills).

noone would take heighten spell would they

Wrong on two levels. Firstly, Heighten Spell was never taken because it was weak. There are very few instances where lower-level spells can be optimised through Heightening more than they could through other metamagic feats (e.g. Empowered Fireball is usually better than Heightened Fireball) or by substitution for higher levelled spells (e.g. Hold Monster is better than Heightened Hold Person). Secondly, since HS would stack with SF/GSF, high DCs actually make HS more useful. The effective incremental power of raising an opponent's 'to save' number from 14 to 16 is more than that of raising it from 10 to 12.

Sorry, I never had such characters with a shopping list of "must have" magic items.

Not even wizards? Not even wizards, who are always assumed to have as many Int-boosting items that they grab? Not even wizards who buy Int-boosting items at three times the cost of everyone else's save-boosting items? If wizards have a 'shopping list' of DC boosters, then other PCs should be buying save boosters. A save booster, to the average fighter, is probably going to be more useful in the long run than upgrading to the next + of armour.

they don't need to expose themselves to damage in order to deal it

Common misconception. When fighting intelligent and mobile opponents, increasingly likely at higher levels, they realise that the best way to shut down an enemy's threat as quick as possible is to target the wizards. After all, they do comparable damage to the fighters, and have fewer hit points. Leaving wizards at the back for several rounds is poor tactics on the part of the enemies.

If WotC had given every monster in the MM 3.5 save-boosting feats and hadn't touch Spell Focus, would people be complaining

Good argument, but Grog has already pointed out that they circumvented the need for the save-boosters by giving nearly every high CR monster SR instead. A high SR is far more effective than a humble save-booster, even against wizards with Spell Penetration.

 

[nikolai]

Hi all,

I think there's another arguement against the +1 Spell Focus, other than comparing spell success rates (which is all pretty hypothetical since it depends on the spell selection vs. monster mix which it's hard to take into account).

Characters on average have four encounters with a Encounter Level equal to their level before they rest and recharge their spells, after resting three times they go up a level (these are the DMG defaults). So a character will cast three lots of prepared spells before rising a level and spell focus increases the chance of spell with a saving throw from a given school "working" by +5%.

It might be possible to argue that this benefit is so marginal as to be redundant.

If you have a 1st level wizard they'll cast c. 6 spells before becoming 2nd level. Even if these are all sleep, Spell Focus (Enchantment) is going to make no difference.

At 5th level you've got c. 27 spells before rising a level. So you'd expect Spell Focus to make a difference once, if twenty of these spells were all the same school and all allowed saves.

At 10th level you've got c. 60 spells a level. So it possibly becomes reasonable to assume that Spell Focus might work once, since a third of a casters spell being of the same school and allowing saving throws is at least plausible.

I think is sensible to assume that taking Spell Focus just won't make much of a difference to your character's life, even if you do deliberately stack up spells with saves of a particular school. Other feats are far more worth it.

At higher levels things also become a little more complicated, you have spell resistance reducing the chance of spells working but you also have the fact that low level spells (like burning hands) have such a low chance of beating opponents saves that it's not worth using them for this purpose, since it just wastes an action. It's much better to use the slots for defensive and utility magic.

The maths change with different classes and assumptions, but I think it's a credible point.

yours,

nikolai.