Please rate Eschew Materials

[smetzger]

Eschew Materials [Metamagic]

REQ: Any other metamagic feat

An eschewed spell can be cast with no material components. Spells without material components or whose material components cost more than 1 gp are not affected by this feat. An eschewed spell uses up a spell slot of the spell’s normal level, modified by any other metamagic feats. Tome and Blood, pg 40.

 

[Voadam]

It is of very limited use since any component it covers is handled by a generic easy to aquire spell component pouch.

If you are captured and have spell mastery it is useful. Or if you want to have a flavor of no components or surprise spells from disguise.

 

[officeronin]

It's cool, which makes it above average. It negates the need for the "spell component pouch", which marks you as a spellcaster every time. Finally, if you have one of those DMs who makes you run around shopping for bat dung, it saves a lot of hassle.

OfficeRonin

 

[Shard O'Glase]

It's weak, but I like it ebcause I think spell components are lame. The big lame thing about this is its a metamagic feat instead of a general feat. So I gave it a 5. Weak, but cool, but not as cool as it should be.

 

[smetzger]

It's weak, but I like it ebcause I think spell components are lame. The big lame thing about this is its a metamagic feat instead of a general feat. So I gave it a 5. Weak, but cool, but not as cool as it should be.

Why should it be a General feat instead of Metamagic?

I don't see how the feat designations make much if any difference in most cases. The only practical difference betweeen metamagic and general is that a Wizard can choose a metamagic feat for a bonus feat but cannot choose a General feat.

 

[Taluron]

The difference between Metamagic and General is that Sorceror's and Bard's require extra time to cast with it.

 

[Benben]

I used to think that it was very good. Then I encountered the Monte Cook Sorcerer variant which pays 1 xp for every 25gp of material component cost.

This made Eschew Materials, with its 1gp limit, far too restrictive. Especially considering the rules governing spell component pouches in 3e.

 

[smetzger]

The difference between Metamagic and General is that Sorceror's and Bard's require extra time to cast with it.

Ah... forgot about that one.

 

[Grendel]

I found it useful for my fighter/wizard, but it was only one of several options.

Casters must have 1 free hand to cast spells, and despite the fact that a small shield or buckler allowed you to hold an item in that hand, my DM ruled that was not sufficient for spell casting purposes.

Quickdraw wouldnt' work unless i had a large supply of weapons I could cycle through since I would have to drop my current weapon to cast (or spend a move equiv to sheath it).

Two handed weapon would have been ideal if a shield wasn't so important for its AC benefit.

This left Eschew Materials, an ideal solution for freedom in spell casting (although somatic components were still problematic).

 

[orbitalfreak]

Voted 4, but would probably be 7-8 if it was [General] instead of [Metamagic]. The utility of the feat is nice, but limited. It's a small bonus to most casters, but works decently for caster/warrior characters. As far as flavour is concerned, it screams "Sorcerer!" to me, but the casting delay would prevent me from taking it as one of my limited Sorcerer feats. Make it [General], and it works very well with Bards (spontaneous casting -> no components -> flavour;; caster/warrior -> utility).