sudden persist feat

[eamon]

So just to put the DP question in another perspective, you would probably be OK with this feat?

Practiced Warrior Prereq: BAB +6 Benefit: You gain +1 BAB per four character levels, but your total BAB cannot exceed your HD.​

Or not?

I would not be OK with that feat. If you added a requirement for turn undead, and added that you must be able to cast divine power and sacrifice a 4th level spell slot, and added an extra filler feat requirement (such as extend spell), and made the effect dispellable, then, sure, it would be balanced.

The real problem with such a feat is that it applies to those that can't cast divine power. Rogues or Druids with full bab would be able to benefit in addition to their own individual strengths. Persist, however, merely extends one advantage you have in one encounter over all encounters in a day.

 

[eamon]

How about persistent Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (SC:177) on all your party (everyone within 30ft.) every day?

Mike

That's a strong spell. A cleric can cast it and maintain it for one encounter without making it persistent. The two feats would allow that effect to be extended to last the entire day. It's good - but if that's game breaking, then the spell by itself probably is too.

A slightly higher prerequisite might help offset any too-goodness, but I don't think it's broken per se.

 

[moritheil]

Speaking as a DM, I can say for sure that you don't want to allow wraithstrike. If the PC's can use it, I allow it for NPC's too, and persistent wraithstrike might seem powerful when persistent on a PC, but a plain old wraithstrike on a power-attacking dragaon is (potentially) an instant TPK. Indeed persist may make the exploit more obvious, but the problem is in the spells themselves and not persist.

I just tell my players not to feed the DM trash, because the DM comes back with better trash.

I have yet to have a problem with abuse of persistent wraithstrikes.

Wraithstrike, non-persistent, is really like 3E true strike - burning a spell slot to make sure your attacks hit that round. Since spell slots are limited in most fighter/mage builds that rely on this, it's not that big of a deal. Players who use it every round of combat will run out quickly.

 

[Nifft]

I would not be OK with that feat. If you added a requirement for turn undead, and added that you must be able to cast divine power (...)

... because only Clerics should be allowed to have nice things?

Genuinely confused, -- N

 

[moritheil]

... because only Clerics should be allowed to have nice things?

Genuinely confused, -- N

I think the argument is that the cleric is giving up resources as well as using the feat slot in order to get that benefit. That is, 7 daily turning attempts plus a spell slot have to be used to get persistent divine favor - and they have to be used again if it gets dispelled.

That is a way in which the DMM build differs from your proposed feat. Whether or not that is sufficiently different to justify DMM is a different matter.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I would not be OK with that feat. If you added a requirement for turn undead, and added that you must be able to cast divine power and sacrifice a 4th level spell slot, and added an extra filler feat requirement (such as extend spell), and made the effect dispellable, then, sure, it would be balanced.

Wait, you forgot the +6 to strength and +1 hp / caster level.

The real problem with such a feat is that it applies to those that can't cast divine power. Rogues or Druids with full bab would be able to benefit in addition to their own individual strengths.

So, let me paraphrase what you're saying. A rogue or druid that can cast divine power would be broken, but for a cleric, it's not. In any case, does anyone know of the ability (if there is one) to acquire a clerical domain spell without being a cleric? Divine power is also WAR 4.

Persist, however, merely extends one advantage you have in one encounter over all encounters in a day.

Right, except for the "merely" part. Pick a value for the maximum number of encounters per day (and night, i.e. 24 hours). Subtract 1 from that number. That's how many of your highest level spells that this feat grants. (Use maximum because we need to know worst case.)

 

[moritheil]

Now I'm curious. Eamon, how many persistent spells per day would you say it takes for a cleric to become "broken?" It seems to me that even if you find the Sudden Persist feat harmless by itself, what it's really doing in any build that relies on persistent spells is adding another 7 turnings per day to a character with DMM.

A fighter doesn't have that problem nearly as severely.

You say this right after talking about AMFs. How well do your fighters do without magical weapons or armor? I'm guessing not so well, because I've seen fighters get just as hosed as front-line clerics when stuck in AMFs. But maybe I'm wrong. What are they doing for builds that isn't affected by all their gear losing magical properties?

 

[shilsen]

In any case, does anyone know of the ability (if there is one) to acquire a clerical domain spell without being a cleric? Divine power is also WAR 4.

The Arcane Disciple feat (Complete Divine) would do it, adding a domain's spells to your spell list. It is only for arcane casters, however.

 

[eamon]

Sorry, I sorta lost track of this thread. Hoping this isn't thread necromancy, here's my basic reply to the last few posts:

The Sudden Persist feat may need a little tweaking, but is fundamentally less broken than DMM-Persist since it's harder to "pump" that # of turnings per day. DMM-Persist, used without seriously broken things like nightsticks (which also cause trouble for other turn-attempt burning feats), has not caused problems for me yet. I'm not the OP, and would tweak the requirements to fit the PC that suggested such a custom feat. I don't think the requirements posted are sufficient since they allow all sorts of combos which I can't oversee; merely that it's OK in principle, with sufficiently narrow requirements which make it unattractive for other PCs. In particular, it should only apply to clerics, and should cost effectively cost two feats.

Now, specifically:

Now I'm curious. Eamon, how many persistent spells per day would you say it takes for a cleric to become "broken?" It seems to me that even if you find the Sudden Persist feat harmless by itself, what it's really doing in any build that relies on persistent spells is adding another 7 turnings per day to a character with DMM.

My analysis depends on Sudden persist effectively consuming 2 feat slots. Of course, it shares some with DMM-Persist, so that Sudden Persist would be somewhat better than Extra Turning. A different prerequisite, not extend spell, would fix this. If it costs 2 feats, as it should, it's fine. A different prerequisite would for instance be sudden Extend. (And as to AMF's which you mention later in the post, sure a fighter is hosed too, but less than a Divine-Power dependent Cleric. In any case, it's dispel which is more at issue, being more common).

Wait, you forgot the +6 to strength and +1 hp / caster level.

The BAB bonus is the biggest part of divine power, which is why I focussed on it. The hitpoints aren't much more useful when persisted than when not (they can't be healed between encounters). The strength bonus doesn't stack with many things, but is of course useful. However, it's unlikely to tip the cleric over the border of being stronger than the fighter, who will have some other source of strength enhancement, especially as levels rise. Infiniti2000 also mentions other classes (ab)using such a feat, I summarize my objections to that at the end of this post.

Right, except for the "merely" part. Pick a value for the maximum number of encounters per day (and night, i.e. 24 hours). Subtract 1 from that number. That's how many of your highest level spells that this feat grants. (Use maximum because we need to know worst case.)

I find the power creep differential between 1/day and 1/encounter to be small. And persist doesn't persist just anything, there's a small selection of spells to choose from.

... because only Clerics should be allowed to have nice things?
Genuinely confused, -- N

I'll summarize why only clerics can have this particular nice thing at the end of the post.

I just tell my players not to feed the DM trash, because the DM comes back with better trash.
I have yet to have a problem with abuse of persistent wraithstrikes.

Wraithstrike is one of those spells worst in the hand of a two-handed power-attacker, which doesn't need any more boosting as is. It's definitely more powerful when used against PC's than when by them, but still, I'd keep it far away from any game I'm in if possible. It's worse than save-or-die, since you usually don't get a save, and many people don't have a defense against it (or don't have that defense "on" until it's too late) - and it's easily lethal in many cases. And wraithstrike+powerattack gets worse at higher levels.

As to why only a cleric should use Sudden Persist: I don't have a problem with boosting other classes, but Sudden Persist simply adds the least risk to a cleric. DMM clerics have been persisting for a while, and the errata's have fixed many egregarious problem spells. The remaining persistable spells for the cleric aren't that brilliant. Righteous Wrath of the Faithful is one of the better ones, as is Divine Power. Other classes haven't had that vetting. A druid using the Bite of... spells is scary. Perhaps other classes would be balanced, I'm just more sure that a cleric is, since I've seen that in play, and it wasn't overshadowing the rest of the party.

Similarly, only a cleric should be able to use Divine Power since the cleric's had that ability for a while, and it's not horribly broken when used with other cleric abilities. Allowing a rogue to have full BAB might be much more serious (in combination with the other Divine Power bonuses).

Basically, Sudden Persist mostly just extends a powerful ability, which the cleric can sustain for one encounter, for potentially several. Since the cleric can only persist 1 such spell, this doesn't overturn the basic limitation of the cleric that his spell slots run out (esp. as a buffing cleric), and it doesn't grant him things within an encounter that he couldn't have otherwise. Notably, the good persistable spells all last at least for 1 round/level which means there aren't any spells (AFAIK) that are more powerful within the encounter. And, a single spell is too little to allow the cleric to simple circumvent bufing entirely (he'll still need to buff to approach a fighter, slowing him down at the start of an encounter). That means that this feat ameliorates but does problematically remove the clerics inherent limitations. Finally, this is all much less balance-changing than Quicken spell, since a cleric busy slogging it out (which is what persist is mostly good for), isn't casting other spells. Unless they're quickened, that's actually quite game-changing. If you're a spell-slinging cleric, DMM-quicken is much much more attractive than extend +persist. As a matter of fact, I think DMM-Quicken is simply better all around, but that's just my opinion.

So really, this comes down to that persist just isn't that broken when you can't use it often, especially for a cleric.

 

[Nifft]

I have no idea how you're able to justify telling a Cleric (with the Luck or Trickery domain) he can have a nice Persistent greater invisibility via mislead, but telling a Sorcerer or Wizard he can't. Same with fire shield (Fire or Sun) or repulsion.

Divine power comes up early because it's the "Now I'm A Fighter!" spell, and thus it's the spell that is most obviously trampling on another class's shtick -- not because it's the most optimal use of a 4th level slot.

Cheers, -- N