Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 4410325" data-attributes="member: 29252">Complete Mage, yes.  Of course, what with Complete Arcane and Complete Mage both having stuff not in the other, neither is properly "Complete".  The reserve feats are nice for when you're doing certain things - clearing big hordes of mooks, for instance - but they have a much lower output than the spells needed to power them, so in a "standard" campaign (4 CR = party ECL encounters per day), they're not really worth the feat slots.  There's a couple of exceptions, though.  Most notably:Minor Shapeshift: The Vigor portion is worthwhile - swift action temp HP = your Hit Dice, renewable at whim?  Yes please.Dimensional Jaunt: A very minor version of Dimension Door (that can be powered by dimension door) does not provoke, and has no components - it's a "get out of grapple" card that you can use at whim.  Also good for getting through bars, tight spaces, and across small chasms.  Doors, too, if you cast Invisibility on the door first.Those are the two that are useful for a "standard" wizard in a balanced party under standard encounter rates.  For more specific builds and tricks, there are other useful Complete Mage Reserve Feats:Blade of Force: Useful for Gish builds; it's a swift-action+Damage ability for your weapons.Face Changer: Useful for social caster builds (Unseen Seer, Beguiler, Arcane Trickster, and so on); it's Disguise Self at will as a Su ability - short duration, though, so watch out.Summon Elemental: This is useful for a handful of specific tricks - trap-finding (you can summon a new one at whim, and Earth elementals are heavy enough that they'll find basically all mechanical traps - a Permamencied Arcane Sight will find the rest), and an infinite out-of-combat healing trick with the Magic Item Compendium Vampiric weapon property.Sunlight Eyes: Lets you see normally in any conditions of illumination - better than darkvision, in that it also penetrates magical darkness, and isn't limited to black and white.  Swift-action and only a one round duration, though, so it's incompatible with the more commonly useful Minor Shapeshift - handy for a stealth-based character, or someone who wants to use a lot of darkness spells, however.The ranged Direct-Damage Reserve Feats (Invisible Needle, Acidic Splatter, Fiery Burst, Winter's Blast, Storm Bolt): Are useful for clearing mooks, getting rid of traps the hard-but-reliable way (by physically destroying them - for that, you want as much range as you can get - Fiery Burst starts off the best at 30 feet, but Invisible Needle and Acidic Splatter beat it out after you're working with 7th level spells in reserve), interrupting spellcasters with readied actions, or (in a pinch) tunneling through things like walls and doors with direct damage.  That's about it - and generally, the Fighter can do a better job with a sword or bow.Most the others are flavor items only, that have some very minor use.</blockquote>

Verification