Spell Focus

[Ahglock]

Charisma completely governs force of will.

Frankly, if you're using Charisma in any other sense, you're using it against the grain of the last 3 decades of DND.

Its not looks, its not charm. Its force of personality, and always has been.

Ari, I think, or it might have been Keith Baker, described it perfectly a few months ago.

The dark brooding stranger that attracts all the stares is a high a charisma as the old farmer who everybody listens too.. Charisma is a measure of your ability to influence others.

The person who nobody notices has a low Charisma. The key whose face is a mess of scares, is rude, and dominates a room? He has a high Charisma.

Charisma is a perfect ability to match a Wizards ability to use his force of will to impose a condition upon something.

I'd say force of personality and force of will are two different things.

Also considering the orb implement reduces save DCs with wisdom it seems a bit inconsistent to have a feat that does the same thing require chr.

 

[VannATLC]

Force of Will and Force of Personality, in my RL experience, are synonymous.

And while I'll cede the Orb, it is also the function of the orb to do that channeling.

 

[Cadfan]

Cha doesn't govern force of will any more than Wis does. And unlike Cha, Wizards actually use Wis. Wis 13 would have been the far more sensible requirement for the feat. Instead, Control Wizards are forced to get both Wis (for orb mastery) and Cha (for spell focus). Since those attributes overlap for Will defense, it is redundant and a waste of points.

Are you suggesting that feat design doesn't always take into account your desire to optimize an extra point of will save? What shock! I may have vapors!

Odds are this feat is functioning exactly the way it is intended. It provides a neat bonus for wizards with a minimal charisma score.

Considering how few feats there are for spellcasters, yes, I feel "some compulsion" to pick up every single one. Unless you want to get a bunch of general feats, there really isn't any other option.

I think you are, in fact, expected to take general feats. That's why they're "general."

This situation is no different from fighters in 3e needing intelligence to get the combat expertise chain, even though there weren't enough fighter feats to fill all your feat slots in the core rules without using general feats.

 

[kerbarian]

As others have mentioned, the cha 13 requirement seems fair given that the feat is so powerful. What bugs me about all of these otherwise-useless-stat requirements for feats is that it means you have to do careful long-term planning from the moment you create your character.

I had been hoping that 4E would be more forgiving in that sense, so that players wouldn't suffer long-term consequences for sub-optimal choices early in their characters' development. Retraining definitely helps, but not with stats, and stats have to be planned very carefully to meet feat requirements.

For example, I've been planning a wizard, and every single starting stat point and increase from leveling have to be balanced perfectly. Eladrin stat bonuses give:

Str 8
Con 13
Dex 11+2
Int 18+2
Wis 12
Cha 10

Strength is a dump stat here, but none of the others are. Con 13 and Dex 13 are used immediately for Raging Storm, and the Dex 13, with one bump, allows Arcane Reach at level 11. Int, of course, starts and stays maxxed -- no feats are worth having -1 attack and -1 damage to every power. Wis 12 allows for Expanded Spellbook and Initiate of the Faith after the first bump. Cha gets one bump and hits 13 for Spell Focus at level 21 -- I couldn't find a way to get it to 13 by level 11, and the "save ends" effects at epic seem to matter a lot more than those at paragon.

 

[1of3]

Huh, what do you mean? I meant you get an extra hit point compared to a Con of 12. At 1st level only, of course.

(pg. 152, but true for any class, you get X + your Con score as starting hit points)

Cheers, LT.

Which is dumb. Because when you are about to create higher level characters you have to follow the level progression. That is a waste of time and thinking.

Furthermore strange things happen. Assume a player wants to create a new character at higher levels. For characters that were played through all their career the player had to decide whether to increase Con at first level or a cool stat. Now the player with his brand new character is wise to say: "Of course, I took Con at first level!"

Considering then that both problems were eliminated in other parts of the game (skills and magic items) I just find it hard to believe that the WotC staff would have such a hick-up.

 

[kerbarian]

Furthermore strange things happen. Assume a player wants to create a new character at higher levels. For characters that were played through all their career the player had to decide whether to increase Con at first level or a cool stat. Now the player with his brand new character is wise to say: "Of course, I took Con at first level!"

Actually, this isn't a problem -- you get the extra hp when you increase Con later as well. It's mentioned in the section on hit points under "Gaining Levels", p.27.

 

[1of3]

Thanks. My faith is restored.

 

[SoulStorm]

The 13 Charisma requirement is if anything generous. A Wizard can achieve a 28 Wisdom by 30th level, a 30 Wisdom with the Demigod destiny. That's a -11 or -12 to saving throws vs. a creature once per encounter with the spell focus feat. Now I'm not certain of this, but I have read the saving throw entry and I didn't notice anything about a natural 20 being an auto save. This means that once per encounter, a wizard can automatically take any non elite/solo creature out of the fight for the entire encounter. With a 30 Wisdom, an elite only saves on a roll of 20, and even a solo monster needs a 17 or better to save. This is crazy powerful. A Wizard is still a very scary foe in 4th edition, well, at least if the wizard uses an orb.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Charisma completely governs force of will.

Frankly, if you're using Charisma in any other sense, you're using it against the grain of the last 3 decades of DND.

That's just not true. In 3.0 and 3.5, Wisdom, not Charisma, determined your Will saving throw. In 4e, either attribute determines your Will defense. Force of will is not and never has been the exclusive province of Charisma.

Charisma is a perfect ability to match a Wizards ability to use his force of will to impose a condition upon something.

Nothing in the feat's description indicates that force of will has anything at all to do with it. It gives your enemies a penalty to saves against your spells. How that happens can be explained in any number of ways, force of will being only one option.

It's also worth noting that Wizard magic has always been based upon knowledge, understanding and methodology. Force of personality/will was the Sorcerer's way of doing magic, not the Wizard's. And it still is, hence the reason Intelligence, not Charisma, is the primary attribute for every Wizard spell.