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Spell Focus? Is it worth it?
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<blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 261537" data-attributes="member: 3146"><p>My opinion: spell focus is worth it if you concentrate your knowledge on one school which has saves.</p><p></p><p>A wizard who prepares two haste spells and a summon monster III at sixth level (like the wizard I'm currently playing) will not benefit from spell focus. </p><p></p><p>Similarly, a 4th level wizard who prepares a sculpted burning hands, a glitterdust and a flaming sphere in his 2nd level slots will not benefit much from a spell focus feat since it will only effect one of the spells he casts each day.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, a wizard whose loadout looks like this:</p><p>Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile x3</p><p>Glitterdust, Flaming sphere x3</p><p>Haste, Fly, Fireball x2</p><p>will benefit from spell focus evocation.</p><p></p><p>Similarly, a wizard whose spell loadout is:</p><p>Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, Burning Hands x2</p><p>See Invisibility, Blindness/Deafness x2, Enlarged Burning Hands</p><p>Haste, Slow x2</p><p>will benefit significantly from spell focus alteration (also note that he has a rather good selection of fort, reflex, and will save spells).</p><p></p><p>So a wizard who uses a lot of spells from different schools will probably be better served by feats which can effect all his spells (empower spell, spell penetration, etc) or item creation feats. A wizard who uses lots of spells from one school can really benefit from spell focus and greater spell focus in that school.</p><p></p><p>Incidentally, the previous poster was correct. Spell focus and greater spell focus will make much more than a 10% difference in the number of your enemies who make their saving throws.</p><p></p><p>If your normal DC for slow is 16 and your spell focus DC is 18, a fighter with a +3 will save can be expected to save 30% of the time against slow without the spell focus feat and 20% of the time if you have the spell focus feat. Thus he is 33% less likely to save if you take spell focus.</p><p></p><p>Regarding spell focus: Evocation, don't discount it. Evocation spells look very flashy but don't really do a lot of damage at low levels. The average damage of a 6th level fireball is 21--10 if the enemy saves. Now most foes at 6th level will notice 21 points of damage but 10 is less than they expect from an AoO. You'd do more damge with magic missiles. In addition evocation spells have to deal with evasion and elemental resistances. It's very hard to hurt a creature with even Fire Resist 15 if it successfully saves against your fireball. It's impossible to hurt a creature with evasion if it saves against the fireball. Spell focus really helps make evocations effective in these circumstances.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Elder-Basilisk, post: 261537, member: 3146"] My opinion: spell focus is worth it if you concentrate your knowledge on one school which has saves. A wizard who prepares two haste spells and a summon monster III at sixth level (like the wizard I'm currently playing) will not benefit from spell focus. Similarly, a 4th level wizard who prepares a sculpted burning hands, a glitterdust and a flaming sphere in his 2nd level slots will not benefit much from a spell focus feat since it will only effect one of the spells he casts each day. On the other hand, a wizard whose loadout looks like this: Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile x3 Glitterdust, Flaming sphere x3 Haste, Fly, Fireball x2 will benefit from spell focus evocation. Similarly, a wizard whose spell loadout is: Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, Burning Hands x2 See Invisibility, Blindness/Deafness x2, Enlarged Burning Hands Haste, Slow x2 will benefit significantly from spell focus alteration (also note that he has a rather good selection of fort, reflex, and will save spells). So a wizard who uses a lot of spells from different schools will probably be better served by feats which can effect all his spells (empower spell, spell penetration, etc) or item creation feats. A wizard who uses lots of spells from one school can really benefit from spell focus and greater spell focus in that school. Incidentally, the previous poster was correct. Spell focus and greater spell focus will make much more than a 10% difference in the number of your enemies who make their saving throws. If your normal DC for slow is 16 and your spell focus DC is 18, a fighter with a +3 will save can be expected to save 30% of the time against slow without the spell focus feat and 20% of the time if you have the spell focus feat. Thus he is 33% less likely to save if you take spell focus. Regarding spell focus: Evocation, don't discount it. Evocation spells look very flashy but don't really do a lot of damage at low levels. The average damage of a 6th level fireball is 21--10 if the enemy saves. Now most foes at 6th level will notice 21 points of damage but 10 is less than they expect from an AoO. You'd do more damge with magic missiles. In addition evocation spells have to deal with evasion and elemental resistances. It's very hard to hurt a creature with even Fire Resist 15 if it successfully saves against your fireball. It's impossible to hurt a creature with evasion if it saves against the fireball. Spell focus really helps make evocations effective in these circumstances. [/QUOTE]
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Spell Focus? Is it worth it?
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