Spell Mastery?

[darthkilmor]

In the debate with my DM to let me play a wizard kender, we comprimised that I had to take spell mastery for every feat, as I most likely wouldnt be able to keep my hands on a spellbook, and if I Was able to cast spells, then it was only because I knew them intimately. (I also had like a 1in4 chance of just plain screwing the spell up when I cast it, so it worked out ok in the end).

But aside from that instance, yes, its not all that helpful. Maybe if you just said screw it, and gave it to the wizard for free every 4 levels, and it was 5 + int bonus.
Then its handy! Spellbook stays in the library at home, just take a few scrolls for the odd spells you might need, good way to keep your weight down.

But imho the real weakness of the feat comes in the fact that wizards dont get very many bonus feats. Fighters have all kinds of half-useless feats that get taken, because they get lots of bonus feats. wizards should get the same amount of bonus feats, if they can only use them for metamagic, item creation, spell mastery, and spell focus feats, then spell mastery would be a decent option to take. but thats just my 2cents.

 

[Henry]

I would likely take it ONCE for any wizard I played, probably about mid-level. All you need, is three spells: something offensive, something defensive, and something transportative. If you should find yourself in a DM's "Escape from Alcatraz" situation, You can metamagic the HECK out of these three spells, and pretty much cover 75% of your bases. I wouldn't take issue with the DM just because I wound up in a captivity situation, and didn't plan for it.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

It's great for Wizard Bad Guys. Take away their spellbook, take away their spell component pouch, put them in jail. Next morning, where the hell did he go?

As liquidsabre said, you need it to get the Signature Spell feat, which is pretty cool for a Wizard to have. My first 3E character was a Wizard with Spell Mastery (because I never wanted for him to not be able to escape) and Signature Spell: Magic Missile. With the Empower feat (and the fact that you could use it many times on the same casting), I had fun.

AR

 

[Thaniel]

I had a player take Spell Mastery because About half way through the adventure he suicided the character and played a cleric instead. It was just too hard.

The problem is that Spell Mastery is too weak. By the time you need to use it the wizard is so crippled that you might as well suicide and play another class. The best solution I could come up with was to change Spell Mastery so that the first time you take it, you get 3 + Int # of spells and all cantrips. Everytime the wizard advances a level, the 2 free spells she normally gets is added to the Spell Mastery list. Even with that bonus the player refused to play a wizard again.

I have never and would never suicide a character. Maybe that's just me. If I'm in a position where I'd suicide the character, most often I'll just leave the group I'm with.

 

[The Human Target]

I've used it before,but maybe that's because as a DM I've had wizards lose their spellbooks before and dont want to meet a similar fate. Choose spells that have no or very simple spell components (unless you have taken eschew materials). And pick spells that are good for escape,defense,and maybe one for attack. I've chosen shield,mage armor,charm person,invisibility,reduce person, and the like before. I do think the feat is underpowered. Any of the suggestions already mentioned work alright. Might I suggest that the wizard get to master 2+Int bonus spells, and that he can change these spells every time he gains the ability to cast a new level of spells. And I'd like to second that Signiture spell is freaking sweet.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think the big problem is that if you take away a wizard spellbook, it's usually the equivalent of taking away more than half of the character's money, AS WELL AS taking away his core ability.

If it happens to a wizard, he's suddenly a peasant with a neat pet and some more skill points. Even if he has spell mastery, the character has still been, basically, destroyed unless he gets the spellbook back.

And unless the character was killed, then he still has spells memorised, so he can escape and get his spellbook back.

Even if the spellbook was destroyed, unless he's stupid, his primary adventuring spellbook is a boccob's blessed book, and he still has all his core spells (those gained from levelling up) in a backup spellbook. Because they're free to put into the backup and free to copy to the boccob's. All you need to build back up to full is some cash, so you should immediately abuse the standard wizard-get-rich-quick schemes to do so.

And if the DM is in the habit of not giving the wizard enough free time to do that sort of thing, then the wizard cannot recover from the loss, and he should have played a sorceror in the first place.

 

[beaver1024]

I have never and would never suicide a character. Maybe that's just me. If I'm in a position where I'd suicide the character, most often I'll just leave the group I'm with.

It was an "Escape from Alcatraz" adventure. I actually left strong hints for the wizard character it was an escape adventure. The player (and I) just didn't realise how weak Spell Master is and also how weak the wizard is without her spells.

As it was an escape situation, there wasn't any plausible way of introducing a new character without ruining the adventure. So the player had the wizard perform a suicide delaying action and when the wizard died the player rolled up cleric and have him join the party as another escapee. He was enjoying the adventure much more after that.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I've been known to have NPCs steal PC spellbooks, but only when it was appropriate to what was going on (the party teleported out without their wizard because they were in a bad spot, and she got captured and stripped). She didn't have Spell Mastery, though, and managed to escape using only the spells in her head and a bunch of creativity. The "retrieve the spellbook" adventure was actually quite memorable, I'm told.

 

[Li Shenron]

The "retrieve the spellbook" adventure was actually quite memorable, I'm told.

You can use this idea once, at the second time it's already awfully boring.

 

[Craque]

Problem here is, once again, spellbook rules. Wizards MUST take spell mastery or else their entire progression in that class hinges upon one mundane item of low hp and low hardness. As it stands right now, spellbooks are impossible to protect, even the new Complete Arcane offers mostly flavor text in this regard. So although it's a rather poor method of mitigating the loss of a spell book, currently it's the only method, and therefore, necessary.