Spellfire--Is it too powerful?

[Henry]

And do you have the title of that book, Henry? Sounds interesting.

I hate to say it because it sounds smart-alecky, but the book is named "Spellfire." It was written by Ed Greenwood, sometime in the Mid-1980's.

Have you compared it with other feats? It far outstrips them.

I don't know - Comparing it to other feats that are first level-only, I'd rather have Spellcasting prodigy, Educated, or Arcane Schooling than Spellfire.

If it was broken down into multiple feats (one for absorbing, one for blasting and one for healing), then it might be of the same sort of level as the average feat, but as is, it's just way too good.

Uneven feats are not of concern to me, because they already are: Improved initiative is more useful than dodge, and dodge is weaker than Weapon Focus.

The feat also has a pretty hefty requirement for those who think it unbalanced, so I'm not too worried about it. Now if it were portrayed as in the novel Spellfire, I'd be concerned - Shandril was lobbing that stuff around like water from a firehose!

 

[ThirdWizard]

Remember that, as per the FRCS sidebar (written by Ed Greenwood), Spellfire is actually much more common occurance in the Realms than is realized. The Spellfire Wielders who get all the attention in the books do so because they're high level spellfire wielders (probably with the PrC).

The feat isn't really as powerful as it first seems. If you're having someone "charge" you every day then that's spells they can't cast that day, so if anything happens they're weakened. In a campaign where you have lots of time between encounters, its more powerful than a campaign where you go days of encounters. Also, buying a wand to charge the Spellfire seems good at first, but then that takes money which might be better off used for the actual spells in the wand.

Overall its good at low levels (since you won't be having many encounters/day), at mid levels becomes okay (you'll probably equal the damage of a fireball with one blast), and at high levels is barely noticable.

 

[Toras]

Spellfire as a feat is fine, that in and of itself isn't the problem. Spellfire comes with its own handy caps, and is either a neat trick occasionally, or the focus of someones character and then they become like an evoker only sorceror.
We have an Epic Spellfire in our party. He has 5 levels of Soceror, 5 levels of Incantrix, and then 13 levels of spellfire wielder. He is a scary suminabatch. He has currently a Con of 34 due to an epic +12 item, and other such. When you combine this with Epic Spellfire weilding and the class. He can blow any 1 thing to dust. The Damage is impressive, but he is essentially Black mage from 8-bit theater, a one shot or two shot wonder.

But this is the Broken epic party, so that shouldn't really suprise anyone. The closest one to normal is the Wujen/Archmage. Add the Samurai (with Supreme Cleave), the Rogue/Wizard who sneak attacks with sonic arrows (from a Staff of the Magi no less) for tons of damage, The Cleric of Baccus with Timestop as one of his Domain abilities, the geomancer/bloodmage who is just bizarre, and my character the monk of Flying Kick,Circle Kick (whirlwind attacks anyone), and Bracers of Relentless might). None of it is against the rules, though I for my part was bit munched.
Fortunately, we just bump up the level of encounters and things work out.

 

[Hypersmurf]

... and my character the monk of Flying Kick,Circle Kick (whirlwind attacks anyone)...

You know Circle Kick stops at two, right?

You make one attack, and if it hits, you get one more attack, and that's the end of your round. It doesn't keep going like Great Cleave.

-Hyp.

 

[kreynolds]

For those interested, I figure that Spellfire probably carries a Level Adjustment of about +4, if you want to apply such a thing (which I do). Actually, its a little bit lower than that (a high 3), to accout for the cost of having it take up one of your feats, but it doesn't drop it enough to warrant a decrease to 3, IMO. I figured this based on the cost of a continuous and slotless spell turning magic item, which would run about 728,000gp. You don't get that kind of wealth until 20th-level, and I figure, on average, wealth represents (if equiped properly) about a fifth of a characters power at each level.

Also, that price is almost 15 times the price of a rod of absorption, so I figure that more than enough accounts for the ability to use spellfire as an attack, much in the same way that a rod of absorption can be used to cast prepared spells for free.

EDIT: You know...I forgot about the requirement of readying an action, as well as the Con limit. Bah. Drop that 4 down to an easy 3.

 

[kreynolds]

Incidentally, anybody ever wonder why this damn thing has a Reflex save?! Irritating.

 

[Darklone]

Incidentally, anybody ever wonder why this damn thing has a Reflex save?! Irritating.

I do expect this will be dropped in a 3.5 revision.

 

[kreynolds]

I do expect this will be dropped in a 3.5 revision.

So do I. Hell, the save DC itself is also mucked up, IMO. I think the DC should be 10 + half hit die + Con or Cha modifier.

 

[Andrewd0]

Spellfire is overpowered as a feat. Yes, some feats are better than others, but there are no feats that let characters absorb spells as much as they like and spit out 8d6 (typically the minimum Con a character will have) damage spells at level 1, or anything even close to that. It may not break the game, especially at higher levels, but it quite simply *is* overpowered by any logical standard (as I'm sure it is meant to be).

The fact that it turns out to be a little less powerful than it seems in the novel doesn't change this fact.

That said, when I deal with spellfire in 3e I just convert it from 2e (which is more powerful and true to the fiction).

-Andrew

 

[Andrewd0]

Oh, and in reply to the first post (purpose of the thread), spellfire is more powerful than any other feat (aside perhaps from a few silly ones you might find in netbooks or particularly unbalanced "splat" books), but whether or not it is *too* powerful is entirely up to the DM and the way the game is meant to go.

It requires DM approval both because of its power and because of the inherent complications it creates in a FR campaign.