Spell Focus - Still Worth It?
- Thread starter Methos
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Kalanyr
Explorer
Garboshnik said:
At low levels a fighter's sword does kill opponents in one hit, and at higher levels a full round attack has about as much chance of doing that as a wizards spells, unless he has nothing but save or dies memorized in which case yay for him when he faces a swarm, oh and at those levels there's always the vorpal propert which look at that, does kill opponents in one hit (with no save even). Also the above anology is overly generous to the fighter since I didn't acknowledge that a wizards success chance is halved by standard SR on most opponents of equal CR.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Last I checked, most spells don't kill an opponent with one failed save.
Flaming Sphere. Nope.
Glitterdust. Nope
Web. Nope.
Fireball. Nope.
Hold Person. Not really (especially not in 3.5--you get at least two saves--one of which may be against a coup de grace but that requires excellent timing and positioning and provokes an AoO).
Phantasmal Killer. Nope. Two saves.
Ice Storm. If it kills you, you weren't a challenge.
Poison. It's quite unlikely. (even two failed saves won't kill most N/PCs unless they're dealt damage as well)
Inflict X wounds. Again. . . probably not.
Disintegrate. Not in 3.5 (even if you're a wizard, you stand a reasonable chance of surviving the damage as long as you're unhurt).
Hold Monster. See Hold Person.
Dominate Person/Monster. Nope. And you (generally) get a second save (with a bonus) if the caster tries to turn you against your party).
Horrid Wilting. Nope. One save and then it deals damage. . . which you can probably survive if you're unhurt.
Meteor Swarm. What save?
Wierd. Nope. Two saves.
Cloud Kill. Not much of a chance.
Slow. Nope.
So which spells can kill with one failed save?
Slay Living. Destruction. Finger of Death. Circle of Death (HD limited). Undeath to Death (undead only, HD limited, always against a strong save). Symbol of Death (more properly a trap because of casting time and material components). Plane Shift (arguably this is an abuse of the spell). Wail of the Banshee.
So, four wizard spells starting at 6th level. And four cleric spells starting a 5th level. And most of those spells are blocked by Death Ward. Hardly a large enough percentage to justify the conclusion that wizards generally kill their opponents on every failed save.
Your focus on first level save/vs DC (a best case scenario for wizards' odds since few foes have good saves and almost no foes have SR) in the previous post makes the later focus on the consequences of a few high level spells (which almost never face the same odds of success) look almost disingenuous.
Flaming Sphere. Nope.
Glitterdust. Nope
Web. Nope.
Fireball. Nope.
Hold Person. Not really (especially not in 3.5--you get at least two saves--one of which may be against a coup de grace but that requires excellent timing and positioning and provokes an AoO).
Phantasmal Killer. Nope. Two saves.
Ice Storm. If it kills you, you weren't a challenge.
Poison. It's quite unlikely. (even two failed saves won't kill most N/PCs unless they're dealt damage as well)
Inflict X wounds. Again. . . probably not.
Disintegrate. Not in 3.5 (even if you're a wizard, you stand a reasonable chance of surviving the damage as long as you're unhurt).
Hold Monster. See Hold Person.
Dominate Person/Monster. Nope. And you (generally) get a second save (with a bonus) if the caster tries to turn you against your party).
Horrid Wilting. Nope. One save and then it deals damage. . . which you can probably survive if you're unhurt.
Meteor Swarm. What save?
Wierd. Nope. Two saves.
Cloud Kill. Not much of a chance.
Slow. Nope.
So which spells can kill with one failed save?
Slay Living. Destruction. Finger of Death. Circle of Death (HD limited). Undeath to Death (undead only, HD limited, always against a strong save). Symbol of Death (more properly a trap because of casting time and material components). Plane Shift (arguably this is an abuse of the spell). Wail of the Banshee.
So, four wizard spells starting at 6th level. And four cleric spells starting a 5th level. And most of those spells are blocked by Death Ward. Hardly a large enough percentage to justify the conclusion that wizards generally kill their opponents on every failed save.
Your focus on first level save/vs DC (a best case scenario for wizards' odds since few foes have good saves and almost no foes have SR) in the previous post makes the later focus on the consequences of a few high level spells (which almost never face the same odds of success) look almost disingenuous.
Garboshnik said:
Last edited:
Elder-Basilisk, interesting points about the "no brainerness" of the Spell Focus feat. I disagree with your analysis, but that's cool.
My main point still stands, however: since opinion seems to be evenly split about the power Spell Focus, it's probably a bit more of a balanced feat now.
My main point still stands, however: since opinion seems to be evenly split about the power Spell Focus, it's probably a bit more of a balanced feat now.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
While I still don't agree that Spell Focus is useless, this is something we'll never end up agreeing on...so I have another question along the same lines.
To all of you against the SF change, have you actually PLAYED SF at +1? Or have you simply just house ruled it without even seeing how much of a difference it makes? Statistics can only tell you so much, and from my experience actually playing with it as a +1, I've seen no problem at all...
To all of you against the SF change, have you actually PLAYED SF at +1? Or have you simply just house ruled it without even seeing how much of a difference it makes? Statistics can only tell you so much, and from my experience actually playing with it as a +1, I've seen no problem at all...
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
I've only played one session of 3.5; I don't believe any of the PCs or NPCs in that game had spell focus. Since I play a lot of RPGA living campaigns, I'll be playing a lot of 3.5 in the future though. (Despite my opinion, that it is, over all, an inferior rule-set to the 3.0 rules).
However, I think that the contention that you have to have played with a particular rule in order to know how it will work is misplaced.
In 3.0, for instance, I played a Sor 6/Candle Caster 4/Elemental Savant 4 without spell focus. I didn't need to play him with spell focus to know that spell focus would not be a good choice for that character. Similarly, when I played a Wiz 10/Templar 1/Sacred Exorcist 1, I didn't need to play him with spell focus to know that it wasn't a really good choice for the character. (And I didn't need to play him without the Templar level to know that martial weapon: longsword, weapon focus: Longsword, and the templar level were suboptimal choices for a full-time spellcaster). Similarly, when I play my Living Arcanis clr 5 cohort, I've never tried her without spell focus, but I know that spell focus:enchantment was a good choice, given the style I play her with. And, for my Living Greyhawk Clr 7, not having spell focus is a good choice for the way I play him (having only cast two or three spells with saves in his career).
I've also had to give some thought to how the 3.5 changes will effect all my living campaign characters. It seems pretty clear that the Arcanis cohort won't be able to use the same tactics (since one of her favored spells is removed from her spell list and the other two have been dramatically nerfed--in fact, it's probably better for her to have a lower DC for her Calm Emotions spell now that a threat or attack on any affected character breaks the spell for all of them; in that case, a 50% success rate that allows the party to fight the villains in two encounters of half the difficulty is better than a 60-70% success rate that allows the party to fight a few of them and then a whole bunch). I don't need to play her under the new rules to know that spell focus is no longer a good choice. (Just like I don't need to play a 10 strength human fighter with weapon specialization: small dagger to know that it's a bad idea and I don't need to play a half-orc Sor/Wiz to know that he's a "concept character" who will be much weaker than more optimized characters of the same level).
Also, playing with a rule doesn't guarantee that you will know whether or not it's balanced. Using the Living Campaigns as an example again, it seems to me that their Tralian hammer (exotic 2d8 /x4 crit weapon) is balanced in play compared to greatswords, spiked chains, rapiers, and longswords. But that's only because magical PH weapons abound and there aren't even any masterwork tralian hammers to be found. Similarly, because of the way the campaign tends to create encounters (lots of class-leveled humanoid opponents) sleep is a viable spell even for 6th level characters. And the domain that lets you turn undead as if you were three levels higher doesn't seem horribly unbalanced (there don't seem to be many undead). The same is not true in a more monster-heavy environment. Spell Focus, for instance will seem far more useful at +1 in a humanoid centric campaign that features moderate to large sized groups of foes than in a campaign where 60-75% of battles are against monsters and generally features single foes or small groups. (Enchantment specialists will enjoy a similar apparent power boost). And if the campaign is low-magic or cash-poor (preventing cloaks and vests of resistance from being standard equipment for moderate level NPCs), it will seem even more effective relative to what I believe to be the assumed campaign (50-70% of battles against monsters, and an even split between single foe (CR=party level +0-3), small groups, and moderate to large groups). The +1 version of spell focus will also work much better in a rolled or high point buy environment than a 25-32 point buy environment and will work better in an environment with nonstandard races (that give bonusses to spellcasting attributes) than a core-rules only environment. (The reason for this is that it's far easier to justify the opportunity cost of casting a spell with a 40% chance of success (starting spellcasting stat 20 and spellcasting prodigy) than to justify the opportunity cost of casting a spell with a 20-25% chance of success (15 or 16 starting int, no spellcasting prodigy). Playtesting is very much relative to the campaign in which it is playtested. That you haven't encountered a problem in your game doesn't mean that it's a good rule.
It's also worth noting that some problems don't show up until mid or high levels or unless certain combinations are used. I had a 3.0 house rule that clerics spontaneously converted spells to their domain spells instead of to cures/inflicts and it worked just fine for a year and a half. It worked just fine for the War and Healing domain cleric. When I got a Travel and Healing domain cleric and he hit 5th-6th level, however, I discovered that the rule didn't really work very well and dropped it--the ability to give the whole party Fly without having to prepare it (wizard) or select it as your only spell known (sorceror) was rather unbalancing. The revised spell focus looks like a similar problem to me--it will primarily show itself in the weakness of suboptimal (starting int or cha <17) spellcasters starting around 8th level in campaigns that feature a fairly large number of tough single creature and small group monster encounters. In campaigns that favor humanoid encounters or rarely have single-creatures, it won't show up until later. It won't show up at all if your party lacks the kind of spellcaster who would have ever found Spell Focus a good choice.
The importance of statistics and more abstract analysis is that it allows one to predict the results of situations that haven't yet cropped up in play and understand situations that have.
However, I think that the contention that you have to have played with a particular rule in order to know how it will work is misplaced.
In 3.0, for instance, I played a Sor 6/Candle Caster 4/Elemental Savant 4 without spell focus. I didn't need to play him with spell focus to know that spell focus would not be a good choice for that character. Similarly, when I played a Wiz 10/Templar 1/Sacred Exorcist 1, I didn't need to play him with spell focus to know that it wasn't a really good choice for the character. (And I didn't need to play him without the Templar level to know that martial weapon: longsword, weapon focus: Longsword, and the templar level were suboptimal choices for a full-time spellcaster). Similarly, when I play my Living Arcanis clr 5 cohort, I've never tried her without spell focus, but I know that spell focus:enchantment was a good choice, given the style I play her with. And, for my Living Greyhawk Clr 7, not having spell focus is a good choice for the way I play him (having only cast two or three spells with saves in his career).
I've also had to give some thought to how the 3.5 changes will effect all my living campaign characters. It seems pretty clear that the Arcanis cohort won't be able to use the same tactics (since one of her favored spells is removed from her spell list and the other two have been dramatically nerfed--in fact, it's probably better for her to have a lower DC for her Calm Emotions spell now that a threat or attack on any affected character breaks the spell for all of them; in that case, a 50% success rate that allows the party to fight the villains in two encounters of half the difficulty is better than a 60-70% success rate that allows the party to fight a few of them and then a whole bunch). I don't need to play her under the new rules to know that spell focus is no longer a good choice. (Just like I don't need to play a 10 strength human fighter with weapon specialization: small dagger to know that it's a bad idea and I don't need to play a half-orc Sor/Wiz to know that he's a "concept character" who will be much weaker than more optimized characters of the same level).
Also, playing with a rule doesn't guarantee that you will know whether or not it's balanced. Using the Living Campaigns as an example again, it seems to me that their Tralian hammer (exotic 2d8 /x4 crit weapon) is balanced in play compared to greatswords, spiked chains, rapiers, and longswords. But that's only because magical PH weapons abound and there aren't even any masterwork tralian hammers to be found. Similarly, because of the way the campaign tends to create encounters (lots of class-leveled humanoid opponents) sleep is a viable spell even for 6th level characters. And the domain that lets you turn undead as if you were three levels higher doesn't seem horribly unbalanced (there don't seem to be many undead). The same is not true in a more monster-heavy environment. Spell Focus, for instance will seem far more useful at +1 in a humanoid centric campaign that features moderate to large sized groups of foes than in a campaign where 60-75% of battles are against monsters and generally features single foes or small groups. (Enchantment specialists will enjoy a similar apparent power boost). And if the campaign is low-magic or cash-poor (preventing cloaks and vests of resistance from being standard equipment for moderate level NPCs), it will seem even more effective relative to what I believe to be the assumed campaign (50-70% of battles against monsters, and an even split between single foe (CR=party level +0-3), small groups, and moderate to large groups). The +1 version of spell focus will also work much better in a rolled or high point buy environment than a 25-32 point buy environment and will work better in an environment with nonstandard races (that give bonusses to spellcasting attributes) than a core-rules only environment. (The reason for this is that it's far easier to justify the opportunity cost of casting a spell with a 40% chance of success (starting spellcasting stat 20 and spellcasting prodigy) than to justify the opportunity cost of casting a spell with a 20-25% chance of success (15 or 16 starting int, no spellcasting prodigy). Playtesting is very much relative to the campaign in which it is playtested. That you haven't encountered a problem in your game doesn't mean that it's a good rule.
It's also worth noting that some problems don't show up until mid or high levels or unless certain combinations are used. I had a 3.0 house rule that clerics spontaneously converted spells to their domain spells instead of to cures/inflicts and it worked just fine for a year and a half. It worked just fine for the War and Healing domain cleric. When I got a Travel and Healing domain cleric and he hit 5th-6th level, however, I discovered that the rule didn't really work very well and dropped it--the ability to give the whole party Fly without having to prepare it (wizard) or select it as your only spell known (sorceror) was rather unbalancing. The revised spell focus looks like a similar problem to me--it will primarily show itself in the weakness of suboptimal (starting int or cha <17) spellcasters starting around 8th level in campaigns that feature a fairly large number of tough single creature and small group monster encounters. In campaigns that favor humanoid encounters or rarely have single-creatures, it won't show up until later. It won't show up at all if your party lacks the kind of spellcaster who would have ever found Spell Focus a good choice.
The importance of statistics and more abstract analysis is that it allows one to predict the results of situations that haven't yet cropped up in play and understand situations that have.
Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
Garboshnik
First Post
A fighter will rarely ever kill opponents in one hit unless they are pretty weak (in which case area damage spells rule the house). A full attack will kill weak opponents at high levels. The key word is weak, I doubt he will be able to take out a comparable fighter-type with one full round attack.
On the other hand, if said comparable character (not necessarily a fighter) fails his save against any of the following he's out of the fight at minimum.
-Sleep
-Color Spray
-Tasha's hideous laughter
-Ghoul Touch
-Deep Slumber
-Suggestion
-Fear
-Dominate
-Feeblemind (at least for arcane spellcasters)
-Baleful Polymorph
All that is before 6th level, it gets rougher from there. Yes, these do not you, but if you are asleep/paralyzed/stunned/mind controlled/fleeing/cowering/a squirrel then you're almost as good as dead.
On the other hand, if said comparable character (not necessarily a fighter) fails his save against any of the following he's out of the fight at minimum.
-Sleep
-Color Spray
-Tasha's hideous laughter
-Ghoul Touch
-Deep Slumber
-Suggestion
-Fear
-Dominate
-Feeblemind (at least for arcane spellcasters)
-Baleful Polymorph
All that is before 6th level, it gets rougher from there. Yes, these do not you, but if you are asleep/paralyzed/stunned/mind controlled/fleeing/cowering/a squirrel then you're almost as good as dead.
Kalanyr
Explorer
-Sleep -> Doesn't work on critters with more than 4 HD (18 hp average) I think a lowlevel crit will kill that critter and it don't even get a save.
-Color Spray -> HD limited again
-Tasha's hideous laughter -> can't remember what this one does
-Ghoul Touch -> Requires a class with d4 HD to wander into melee, thats a good choice.
-Deep Slumber -> HD Limited again
-Suggestion -> Can't kill directly nor does it grant control
-Fear -> Run's away not exactly gonna die from running
-Dominate -> Yay about the only spell here that a high level wizard can use to take down a fighter in 1 round, when the fighter who is of equal level can take the wizard down in 1 round with a FRA.
-Feeblemind (at least for arcane spellcasters) -> Yes because a FRA won't kill an arcane spellcaster
-Baleful Polymorph -> This is targetted at the Fort Save, its kinda unlikely to work on fighters and spellcasters are dead from a whole pile of things that just do plain damage at this level.
-Color Spray -> HD limited again
-Tasha's hideous laughter -> can't remember what this one does
-Ghoul Touch -> Requires a class with d4 HD to wander into melee, thats a good choice.
-Deep Slumber -> HD Limited again
-Suggestion -> Can't kill directly nor does it grant control
-Fear -> Run's away not exactly gonna die from running
-Dominate -> Yay about the only spell here that a high level wizard can use to take down a fighter in 1 round, when the fighter who is of equal level can take the wizard down in 1 round with a FRA.
-Feeblemind (at least for arcane spellcasters) -> Yes because a FRA won't kill an arcane spellcaster
-Baleful Polymorph -> This is targetted at the Fort Save, its kinda unlikely to work on fighters and spellcasters are dead from a whole pile of things that just do plain damage at this level.
You are comparing a wizard casting a spell (standard action) and most spells are non-touch versus a fighter getting all his attacks (full-round action) and he is already within melee range.
A wizard should never, ever let a fighter (or similarly brutish monster) get a FRA unless the wizard has prepared extensive defenses (stoneskin, displacement, contingency, etc). On the other hand, most of the time a fighter can do little to nothing to stop a wizard targetting them with a spell, as line of sight is all they need.
But just like you can't gauge a monster's relative power by dueling it with another monsters, neither can you with character classes.
Weapon Focus is better than Spell Focus, hands-down. But Weapon Focus is more than just a feat, for fighters it is practically a class ability. The same with Weapon Specialization, its more than just a feat, its a class ability (like Track for rangers). If there was a very good feat that was called "Spell Specialization" and required Wiz4 or Sor4 it would still be nowhere near as good as weapon specialization, they are 2 different attack forms.
Elder-Basilisk has given extensive analysis over the reduced Spell Focus (and I think it relates to reduced DCs in general) and I agree with his results. However, in my experience, arcane spellcasters always started with a 17 or 18, always took Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus and frequently would be tossing spells that monsters had a 20-30% chance of passing (like Polymorph). Its not much fun having a random encounter dragon go down on Initiative Count 14 of round 1 to 1 spell.
While I feel bad that it hurts spellcasters who dont have the best stats or who dont have access to magic "stores" where they can immediately purchase the next best spellcasting attribute item, I think it will make my games more enjoyable. It still is a good feat if DCs are your bag, it gives you another 5% chance of the spell going off. I think the horse might have been beaten too much - for instance if you still play with 3.0 haste but nerf down the foci, then your game will be more balanced.
Technik
A wizard should never, ever let a fighter (or similarly brutish monster) get a FRA unless the wizard has prepared extensive defenses (stoneskin, displacement, contingency, etc). On the other hand, most of the time a fighter can do little to nothing to stop a wizard targetting them with a spell, as line of sight is all they need.
But just like you can't gauge a monster's relative power by dueling it with another monsters, neither can you with character classes.
Weapon Focus is better than Spell Focus, hands-down. But Weapon Focus is more than just a feat, for fighters it is practically a class ability. The same with Weapon Specialization, its more than just a feat, its a class ability (like Track for rangers). If there was a very good feat that was called "Spell Specialization" and required Wiz4 or Sor4 it would still be nowhere near as good as weapon specialization, they are 2 different attack forms.
Elder-Basilisk has given extensive analysis over the reduced Spell Focus (and I think it relates to reduced DCs in general) and I agree with his results. However, in my experience, arcane spellcasters always started with a 17 or 18, always took Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus and frequently would be tossing spells that monsters had a 20-30% chance of passing (like Polymorph). Its not much fun having a random encounter dragon go down on Initiative Count 14 of round 1 to 1 spell.
While I feel bad that it hurts spellcasters who dont have the best stats or who dont have access to magic "stores" where they can immediately purchase the next best spellcasting attribute item, I think it will make my games more enjoyable. It still is a good feat if DCs are your bag, it gives you another 5% chance of the spell going off. I think the horse might have been beaten too much - for instance if you still play with 3.0 haste but nerf down the foci, then your game will be more balanced.
Technik
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Garboshnik said:
This is a common misconception but is still a misconception. (As is the idea that area damage rules against foes which can be killed in one hit).
A pretty good (but not extraordinary) offensively focussed fighter will regularly take down significant (although not incredibly dangerous in their own right) foes with one (or two hits). A fighter optimized to the degree that specialist wizards whose specialties allow saves (IMO) need to be in order to be effective will sometimes take down comparable foes with a full-round attack.
(The Pretty Good fighter: Bbn 2/Ftr 4, Weapon specialization Falchion, power attack, etc., starting strength 16, gauntlets of ogre power, +2 falchion, Heroism (from a friendly wiz or sor). Raging Atk: +11/+6 (+6 str, +1 weapon focus, +2 weapon, +2 heroism, +6 BAB, -6 power attack) for 2d4+25, (avg 30), crits 18-20 for an average of 60 points of damage. The Hyper-optimized fighter: Bbn 2/Ftr 4, Weapon specialization Greatsword, power attack, etc, starting strength 19 or 20 (half-orc or wood elf), gauntlets of ogre power, heroism (from a friendly wiz or sor). Raging Atk: +13/+8 for 2d6+28 (average 35), crits 19-20 for an average of 70 points of damage).
Trolls are a reasonably typical CR 5 creature and either one of these fighters will drop a troll on a typical crit or a typical FAA. (Give the hyper-optimized guy an extra attack somehow or other (combat reflexes+reach weapon, expert tactician, haste, etc) and he's likely to take down a CR 7 dire bear in a single FAA.
Now, for humanoid opponents, Fighter 4s would not be unreasonable opponents for a group of 6th level characters. The typical non dwarf, non-gnome, and non-hobgoblin NPC Ftr 4 (non-elite array) has 26 hp. (The elite array would get 30 hp). These characters are actually quite likely to single-hit the fighter 4s. (The hyper-optimized guy will single-hit them even when he isn't raging and +11 is still quite a reasonable attack bonus (especially since most DMs wouldn't want to hand out a suit of masterwork fullplate for each bad guy killed so their AC is more likely to be 17-18 than 20-22)).
The characters described probably have 49-61 hp and ACs of 18-22 themselves, so it's quite possible that they would even kill carbon copies of themselves in a single FAA
At higher levels, things don't change nearly as much as you might think. (At level 12, Mr Hyperoptimized (now Bbn 4/Ftr8 with Greater Weapon Focus, Improved Critical +3 weapon, and a +6 belt of giant strength; everything else as above) can have Raging (and power attacking for 10) Atk: +18/+13/+8 for 2d6+43 (average 50 per hit), crits 17-20 for an average of 100 points of damage). That may not single-round a collossal scorpion but it'll take out quite a few creatures, monsters and characters at that level.
Defensively focussed fighters and two weapon fighters (since they can't use power attack in the same way) of course won't dish out the same kind of damage--then again they aren't nearly so vulnerable.
