Weapon focus and spell damage feats

[Mistwell]

Fighter-types need to spend a feat on their ranged weapon, and a feat on their melee weapon, if they want to cover the types of weapons they are likely to use in an adventure. Spellcasters generally can use only one type, a ranged type of spell.

Fighter-types need to spend feats on their armor, and sometimes need to qualify for those feats using abilities they do not normally need. For example, if a fighter-type wants shield specialization they need a Dex of 15, if they want the pole-arm feat they need a wisdom of 15, if a Ranger wants hide specialization (which is likely) they need a Con of 15 (which is not normally that high a stat if the Ranger is an archer), heavy blade opportunity requires Dex 15, etc..

Overall, I do not it's imbalanced, and I disagree with the characterization that Fighters don't need as many feats to accomplish the same kinds of goals as spell casters, or that spell casters are forced to increase abilities in a way that fighter-types are not. Both need plenty of feats, and both have plenty of feats that use an atypical ability as an entry requirement.

 

[robsenworldaccount]

So from what I can tell

Astral fire
Burning Blizzard
Dark fury

and all their kind are just Weapon focus for spells, but with added suck.

For instance

Why should spellcasters have to spend attributes in non primary stats to get a damage bonus when melee characters don't?

And why should they then only get that bonus to some of their spells?

Is weapon focus (implement) really a bad idea? I can't see how it would be unbalanced to give casters +1/2/3 damage with a single feat.

I thought long and hard about these feats. Like most of you, I want my characters to be good at what they do, and that happened to be magic at the time.

I thought to myself, why not just max int? This way I will get more to hit as well as to damage. Surely this would be better than a feat that is limited to at most two energy types.

Scaling. Look at the bottom of the feat. These feats are much better at later tiers.

I have no grip with the feats Aside from the burning blizzard uses a primary stat, while some of the others dont.

Peace out everyone.

 

[Khanedur]

To underfoot:

Its not game balance that I worry about. Honestly I think that in the name of balance a lot of the game has been beaten into homogeneity. But that's not the point. My problem is that the feats require a tremendous resource drain in both feats and ability score points that martial characters don't have to deal with, All just to get a +damage effect.

And by added suck I mean that both weapon focus and the spell feats have the effect of adding +1/2/3 damage to attacks, But the spell feats only effect some attacks and have prereqs. Thus they are the weapon focus feats with extra cost or "added suck".

 

[bganon]

So you think the game's been "beaten into homogeneity" but in one of the spots where casters are different from weapon-users you want to force some kind of feat-by-feat equivalence?

Casters are Different. Added damage is hard, but they can easily get other feats to do stuff no weapon-user ever can.

 

[Khanedur]

So you think the game's been "beaten into homogeneity" but in one of the spots where casters are different from weapon-users you want to force some kind of feat-by-feat equivalence?

Casters are Different. Added damage is hard, but they can easily get other feats to do stuff no weapon-user ever can.

Added damage being rare would be fine. But added damage costing as much as it does for conditional bonuses borders on being a trap.

And no, I don't think that giving casters a true weapon focus feat for their implements fixes the sameness of a lot of their powers and feats. That issue goes too deep into the structure of the game for me to resolve with a feat change. I'm not even saying I was going to change the feat in any games I play.

All I wanted to know was if there was a compelling reason why it would be broken to have wizards not have to spend ability scores and multiple feats to get what is the same feat melee characters get in a single feat without restriction. So far I haven't seen one.

This game does a lot of things right, and a few things wrong. And a few of the things it does right aren't obvious. I wanted to know if this was one of those.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't see the problem.

4E is a games of bonus compared to 3E is you use the point buy. Most wizards by level 11 will all positive ability mods except maybe STR. And Chances are you DEX, WIS, CHA, and CHA will be above 12 by then. And the feat re too weak to matter until paragon anyway since your damage stinks because you are a wizard.

 

[FadedC]

Speaking from the perspective of a fighter, I can say that currently we have quite a few feats that require us to put attribute points into stats that don't help us all that much. It doesn't seem so unreasonable that a spellcaster would as well.

 

[Habco]

Added damage being rare would be fine. But added damage costing as much as it does for conditional bonuses borders on being a trap.

And no, I don't think that giving casters a true weapon focus feat for their implements fixes the sameness of a lot of their powers and feats. That issue goes too deep into the structure of the game for me to resolve with a feat change. I'm not even saying I was going to change the feat in any games I play.

All I wanted to know was if there was a compelling reason why it would be broken to have wizards not have to spend ability scores and multiple feats to get what is the same feat melee characters get in a single feat without restriction. So far I haven't seen one.

This game does a lot of things right, and a few things wrong. And a few of the things it does right aren't obvious. I wanted to know if this was one of those.

I said earlier potential AF,DF, etc AoEs would have a much better rate of return over single target attacks that a large majority of the martial classes have. I'm not quite so sure though. Now why should that matter if in general martial classes do more damage overall than their non-martial counterparts?

 

[Khanedur]

I said earlier potential AF,DF, etc AoEs would have a much better rate of return over single target attacks that a large majority of the martial classes have. I'm not quite so sure though. Now why should that matter if in general martial classes do more damage overall than their non-martial counterparts?

What you are saying about AoE's are true for the wizard. But less so for the warlock or the cleric. In fact. Looking over the warlock's first few levels, he has significantly less multiple target potential than the ranger. And the ranger has access to weapon focus feats for her attacks.

 

[Nifft]

IMHO the energy damage feats are trying to balance giving a bonus to two damage types. The easy fix would be: make a feat Descriptor Focus, have it apply to exactly one damage type (and never Force), and call it a wash.

Is this balanced wrt/ Weapon Focus? Probably.

Is it less flavorful than giving a mage the ability to specialize in Thunder and Lightning? Not necessarily, since you now allow a mage to specialize in, say, Radiant and Lightning ("I am the blazing brilliance that strikes from the sky!"), or in both Ice and Fire ("There is a song about me!").

Cheers, -- N