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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 825265" data-attributes="member: 4937">Suppose I suggested a new feat:"Supreme Spell (Metamagic)You are a b@d@$$.Prerequisite: At least one metamagic feat and a bad attitude.Benifits: All damage that effects the target from a spell with Supreme Spell feat applied is doubled.  Supreme Spells do not allow saving throws, and have +4 spell penetration.  A Supreme Spell takes up a spell slot of the same level as the spell it is applied too."And someone applied descriptors like broken, cheesy, unbalanced, and 'poorly thought out' to my feat, could I defend my feat with any of the following:"Surpreme Spell is not cheesy because...."It offers a spell caster the ability to use the damage spells in his/her arsenal an intelligent means of doing damage to a wider array of creatures.""what [feat] would a high level wizard with an enhanced intelligence of 24, a knowledge arcana skill of 25 and a knowledge of the planes skill of 25 choose...""This is certainly not a "cheesy" choice, but one made from careful consideration.""Why would anyone characterize this choice as "cheesy", when all it does is provide a caster with the ability to have a greater impact on the success of his/her party?"Well?The reason that 'Supreme Spell' and 'Energy Substitution (Sonic)' are cheesy is that they don't in fact require all that careful of consideration to choose.  Supreme Spell is utterly broken and if available, any spell caster would be silly not to choose it.  It is so utterly broken in fact, that I think most players would feel guilty in taking it where it in fact available and no one would seriously consider introducing such a feat except as an example.Energy Substitution (Sonic) is not nearly so broken, but neither is very careful consideration needed to choose Energy Substitution (Sonic) over say Energy Substitution (Acid) or Energy Substitution (Electricity).  If you are taking Energy Substitution as a feat there is almost no advantage to be gained by taking anything other than Sonic, and much advantage to be gained from Sonic compared to any other possible choice.  Sonic has absolute advantages in how likely it is to effect its target, and how effect it is versus objects and structures.  A quick perusal of the core spells show that sonic spells typically balance the advantages of the sonic energy type by doing less than the normal ammount of damage for a spell of that level.Thus, Energy Substitution (Sonic) is a cheap means of getting around the normal restrictions on sonic damage and gaining additional advantages without paying much of a cost for them.  It is clearly one that is generally taken not for any particular reason having to do with role playing, but as you yourself have confessed for reasons having to do with the particular rules of the game you are playing and to gain advantage during play.  Taking 'Energy Substitution (Sonic' is seen by many to be metatgaming, munchkinish and rules exploitive and thus 'cheesy'. To fix this problem, various suggestions have been made: make at least one other type of ES a prerequisite for ES (sonic), forbid ES (sonic) altogether, force ES (sonic) spells to take up a +1 slot, or reduce the size of dice used by a sonic spell by one step (for instance a 10th level sonic fireball would do 10d4 damage not 10d6).   Once such changes are made, you really do have to carefully consider the utility and purpose of taking sonic versus other choices and you may therefore be coerced into making choices best less on percieved advantages in utility and more on how well such a choice fits the style and personality of your character.And that is the main reason for having balance anyway - to discourage everyone from making the same set of choices and encourage diversity and originality.</blockquote>

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