ruleslawyer
Registered User
Grog: Unless you explain why some class abilities being better than feats is a problem, your reaction seems rather knee-jerk. The fact is that lots of class abilities, both for core classes and for PrCs, are "better" than feats, even epic feats. Think about evasion, spellcasting, spell resistance, death attack, turning, divine grace, etc etc. These are all "better" than many epic feats. The point is whether class abilities are balanced against class abilities, not against feats.
IMHO, Improved Metamagic is a fine class feature... if you paid something to get into the class. The problem is that you give up pretty much nothing to become an incantatrix, and gain a lot. An Enhanced Specialization feature like that of the Red Wizard coupled with a spellcasting level hit or two would balance the class nicely, I think.
As to the fireball: Comparing it with DBF was a bad idea, since that spell sucks. (As Shard has noted, WotC seems to think that delaying a spell 1 to 5 rounds is worth an absurd level cost.) The fact is that given the crap save DC of a 3rd-level evocation compared against the Reflex saves of 13th-level rogues and monks (and now rangers), the fireball will do no damage against those characters. Nor will it affect fire-subtype creatures, creatures protected by a (minor) globe of invulnerability, or a smart counterspeller. As to comparison, a better example would be to an Empowered cone of cold cast by a 13th-level wizard. The empowered cone has a save DC two higher than the fireball's and inflicts 13d6 x1.5 damage, for an average of 68.25 hp damage compared with the fireball's 105. Sure, the fireball's doing more damage, but there's an extra class ability involved and the save DC's lower. Now bump these characters to 15th level. The Empowered cone now inflicts 78.75 hp damage. A bit closer, no?
Of course, I do happen to think that stackable Empower + Imp Metamagic is just a problem, both for the incantatrix and epic-level characters in general. I might propose a solution by which multiple uses of the same feat are affected only once. Thus, a double-Empowered, maximized magic missile fired by an incantatrix (or a character with the Improved Metamagic feat) would be 1st (MM) +1 (1st Empower) +2 (2nd Empower) +2 (Maximize) = 6th level. This allows Imp Metamagic to alleviate the heavy hit of the higher-cost metamagic feats while alleviating the stackable Empower problem.
IMHO, Improved Metamagic is a fine class feature... if you paid something to get into the class. The problem is that you give up pretty much nothing to become an incantatrix, and gain a lot. An Enhanced Specialization feature like that of the Red Wizard coupled with a spellcasting level hit or two would balance the class nicely, I think.
As to the fireball: Comparing it with DBF was a bad idea, since that spell sucks. (As Shard has noted, WotC seems to think that delaying a spell 1 to 5 rounds is worth an absurd level cost.) The fact is that given the crap save DC of a 3rd-level evocation compared against the Reflex saves of 13th-level rogues and monks (and now rangers), the fireball will do no damage against those characters. Nor will it affect fire-subtype creatures, creatures protected by a (minor) globe of invulnerability, or a smart counterspeller. As to comparison, a better example would be to an Empowered cone of cold cast by a 13th-level wizard. The empowered cone has a save DC two higher than the fireball's and inflicts 13d6 x1.5 damage, for an average of 68.25 hp damage compared with the fireball's 105. Sure, the fireball's doing more damage, but there's an extra class ability involved and the save DC's lower. Now bump these characters to 15th level. The Empowered cone now inflicts 78.75 hp damage. A bit closer, no?
Of course, I do happen to think that stackable Empower + Imp Metamagic is just a problem, both for the incantatrix and epic-level characters in general. I might propose a solution by which multiple uses of the same feat are affected only once. Thus, a double-Empowered, maximized magic missile fired by an incantatrix (or a character with the Improved Metamagic feat) would be 1st (MM) +1 (1st Empower) +2 (2nd Empower) +2 (Maximize) = 6th level. This allows Imp Metamagic to alleviate the heavy hit of the higher-cost metamagic feats while alleviating the stackable Empower problem.
