Spellfire Wielder feat - usable?

[jasamcarl]

Ok.......

Warchild, i will agree to disagree, but allow me to make my general position clear, especially in the context of Shard's comment. It is too often the case that balance discussions are pretensed on a certain 'awe' factor at the cinematic flashiness of certain abilities. Spellfire is a case in point. Anyone who wishes to know my specific critique of that feat should search through the archives for the thread dealing with the same issue.

Shard, let me make this as simple as possible; you assertion that balance in campaigns is subjective is right on target, but your claim that their is an alternate system of assessing potency, which you fail to define, is circular and even outright illogical. Perhaps i fail to have the insight that makes spellfire 'apparently' unbalanced, but i will take a guess that it is because of the wild effects that it might have ingame.

I was going to go further with this, but my former posts speak for themselves..jeez....

 

[Shard O'Glase]

How is saying the determiner for a balance in a feat shouldn't be if it unbalances a game, but by comparring it to other feats illogical. This isn't a point system where I can come up with some nice system to say gee everyone spellfire is worth 100 points every other feat is worth 50 points or less see its unbalanced. No, sorry you just have to look at the other feats and compare it.

So jasamcarl let me make this as simple as possible. I don't care about cinematic flashiness, all I care about is what one single feat delivers in abilities, and if that is more than any other feat delivers in abilities. Now I could go down the list of every feat, and show what they did, and then post the entire description of what spell fire does as well. And do some nice comparison and contrast post. But, I really don't think that is necesarry. Think about this spellfire basically can counterspell any spell directed at you for free it doesn't cost them a spell, that in it self could be see as worth more than one feat. Heck mages have to spend a feat just so they can counter spell spells by using a spell from the same school that it and at least one level higher. Then a spell fire wielder can actually use that spell energy, for not one, but two things. Either offensive ranged attacks of decent damage, or decent healing.

 

[jasamcarl]

Uh.....no

The key words here are 'directed at you'. A mage's counterspell can be targeted at ANY spell that is cast during a given battle, while a character with spellfire has to ready an action on the chance someone would target him/her. As it is, counterspell rarely comes in to play during battles because the ability is passive and you subject the party to perhaps another round of combat by not acting while you are readying an action.

Over the course of any given amount of combats on any given amount of days, how many actions would one have to waste to deal a ranged touch attack which carrys with it a save and whose damage potential is either wasted in one round or simply inefficient relative to other spells or even a melee attack...sorry, the combat application of spellfire has been debated before and i believe the consensus for those who have actually PLAYED with it is that in the capacity, even at low levels, it is a bust.....

 

[hong]

Re: Yes, but......

Probably my last post

Liar.

 

[reiella]

Hmm just a few notes (And a good reason why you should never let a spellcaster being permanently hasted if you can avoid it).

Well as telegraphed... Haste. Especially nasty for the mage knowing he's entering a counterspell environment (use the extra partial to ready an action to counterspell, same can hold true for the spellfire feat). Also a big reason why Larloch the Lich with Con should be feared .

That said, it is about as effectively useful as counterspell if you know you're going to be a target for magic. Not going to help you against any spell that has the option of area effect. But hey, at least if you see a Harm coming your way and you win initiative, you're ok. Would be funny for a first level sorceror to be able to effective deabilitate a spellfire wielder by just making him think he's going to cast Magic Missile at him so to get the wielder to ready an action.

More so worried about the sorceror battery situation, but that is really alot of effort and work for a single 'burst' that's effective at later levels.

 

[Soltares]

Clerics also make excellent Spellfire batteries, particularly if they can 'channel' spells into healing or harming magic, as both are single-target spells that are absorbable via Spellfire. At the end of the day, a friendly Cleric could burn any remaining spell slots into the Spellfire Wielding Fighter or Rogue and it won't really affect him unless the party gets jumped while sleeping (in which case the Spellfire Wielder will have to pick up the healing / blasting duties). Rogues are nice, Spellfire Sneak Attacks are fun.

Druids and Wizards are less useful 'charging stations,' since they would not necessarily want to have to restrict their spell selection to spells that a Spellfire Wielder could absorb. When your most effective spell is Color Spray, you don't want to be wasting a slot on Ray of Enfeeblement to charge up spellfire boy.

Bear in mind that unless you truly enjoy punishing your players for your DM decision to allow this feat into the game, tossing endless Red Wizards / Cult of the Dragon / whatever members at the party because of the Spellfire Wielder is hardly fair to the people who *don't* have the Feat. Essentially they are getting punished, and possibly killed, by encounters designed to 'balance' a Feat that you chose to allow in the game.

Balance it however you like, but bear in mind that some players will get good and sick of being jumped because of this single player and his special uber-Feat.

It becomes the 'Elric' disadvantage. To punish you for something good (Stormbringer), we are going to kill off everyone around you.

Now that I think about it, Theseus had this disadvantage long before Elric, and it made the Greek gods look like the assassin who kills 25 innocent bystanders trying to shoot Inspector Clouseau...

 

[Darkness]

... gold elf bladesinger (me),... Everyone is just almost completely balanced, with me being the weakest.

Are you using the bladesinger errata from the Tome & Blood Web Enhancement?

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Re: Uh.....no

The key words here are 'directed at you'. A mage's counterspell can be targeted at ANY spell that is cast during a given battle, while a character with spellfire has to ready an action on the chance someone would target him/her. As it is, counterspell rarely comes in to play during battles because the ability is passive and you subject the party to perhaps another round of combat by not acting while you are readying an action.

Over the course of any given amount of combats on any given amount of days, how many actions would one have to waste to deal a ranged touch attack which carrys with it a save and whose damage potential is either wasted in one round or simply inefficient relative to other spells or even a melee attack...sorry, the combat application of spellfire has been debated before and i believe the consensus for those who have actually PLAYED with it is that in the capacity, even at low levels, it is a bust.....

Note those key words were in my post. It's not like I missed them. Yes, it only effects spells directed at you. But, it is giving the counterspell ability to classes who normally don't even have that option at all vs any spell, and it doesn't cost them a spell to do it. It just costs the action that counterspelling costs a spellcaster. Whether it has amazing combat potential or not, isn't the point. This is a feat, not a long feat chain, not a class, just a feat. By merely giving the ability to counterspell certain spells without the cost of a spell, you have already made it more than powerful enough to be a feat. Look at other feats, actually look at them don't just play a spellfire wielder and note that gee he didn't have much more effect on combat than anyone else, cause gee that's nice that a single feat didn't overpower the abilities of entire classes. Other feats give fairly minor abilities. Look at the feat in FR that gives you the all powerful ability to cast a whopping 3 cantrips a day, that is what feats should deliver. If they deliver much more than that and they are too powerful for a feat.

 

[jasamcarl]

Correction....

Other feats have minor abilities that see FAR more use in combat...Again, your standard is meaningless because it gives no indication of IN GAME performance... yes you get an ability that mage's get for free, abeit a far more limited one; BUT THAT IS A FREAKIN WEAK ABILITY TO BEGIN WITH!!! You are really hung up on the flashiness of the effect aren't you? Other feats appear more mundane, but are actually of far greater use...

Besides which, comparing individual feats is a useless endeavor because though their stat effect may be minor, in game they compliment other feats to a far greater degree..spellfire should be compared to one shot feats such as Improved Initiative or combat reflexes...any clue as to which is actually more efficient?

 

[Renshai]

I don't make comparisons between each and every feat. Each feat's usefulness is subjective to the situation in which it might be used. In a combat-light roleplay heavy game the dodge feat isn't near as useful as Skill Focus (diplomacy) or feats like Silver Palm.

People's reviews of each minute detail of where a bonus might be gained where someone may or may not have sacrificed the appropriate amount of power for attaining it sent me over the edge laughing. Do you really sit around making this comparisons? Why do this when you could just be playing and enjoying the game.?

On a personal note. I've used many of these feats/classes and the result did not cause one difference in game play. Not one. Power levels and usefulness of abilities is always subjective to the game that is run, and the Dungeon Master's ability to create challenges (roleplaying and mechanic wise) .

The feats in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebook where designed and reviewed by the same exact people that brought you the Core Books as well as the Class Builder books. People just can't seem to let go of their view that anything that originates from a Forgotten Realms has to be unbalanced.


Ren