Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Marshall 02-22-04, 02:31 AM	I love the ideas for special wizard abilities based on your specialization...but is any one of those abilities worth giving up all four of your bonus feats? Wouldn't they be better as feat selections with Specialist Lvl X as a prereq?
Zaebos 02-22-04, 03:17 AM	I would say reread those Alt Specialist wizards, and compare them to the bonus feat list that a wizard normally gets. In more than a few of those Alternatives, its like they give up their feats on a one to one ratio. I find them perfectly acceptable and will allow them at my table, with the player option to choose those or the default configuration suggested by the PH.
Marshall 02-22-04, 12:38 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos I would say reread those Alt Specialist wizards, and compare them to the bonus feat list that a wizard normally gets. In more than a few of those Alternatives, its like they give up their feats on a one to one ratio. Are you kidding?!? Abjurers - AoP is little more than a Resistance spell and Spontaneous Dispelling is NOT even close to being worth the bonus spells per day(THAT is worth a feat). Conjurors - Uh huh, Augmented Summoning carried two extra times over. Unless something else happens to make Summoning spells viable, nice try. And, again, the Spontaneous is worth ONE feat. Diviner - EA in total would make ONE good feat or two mediocre ones. The Bonus Feat changes are literally nothing and Prescience is worth one feat for each use per day(unfortunately it costs ALL your bonus spells per day) Enchanter - Cohort for Familiar is actually one good trade, Social Prof is BAD(Add five class skills and eventually get a +2 to 4 of them for FOUR FEATS) is anyone THAT stupid, especially for a WIZ whos likely got the points to buy them cross-class? At least Extend Enchantment gives you a LOT of uses, but its still not worth ALL your bonus spells. Evoker - Reusing "Energy Affinity" for a name(MiniH) is a bad idea to start with, and +1 CL for one energy at the cost of your familiar is a weak trade, tho it might actually be worthwhile if you werent planning on having a familiar to start with. ES is flat out a BAH!, just take the darn feat. Overcome Resistance IS flat useless, especially if you have the ES option(or the darn feat) Illusionist - Probably the best options. Chains is iffy. Shadow shaper is probably good, especially late. Mastery is nice, but not worth your bonus spells(Unless you have the "Rat Bastard DM"TM) Necromancer - Minion is perfect, Undead Ap is not worth 4 feats and Enhanced Undead is ONE FEAT not 9 spells/day Transmuter - EA could be useful(at worst its +1DC to all spells). Versatility should be a feat available to ALL wizards. Memory - Whoopee! free Mnemonic Enhancer! I find them perfectly acceptable and will allow them at my table, with the player option to choose those or the default configuration suggested by the PH. And how many of your players are going to be gullible enough to use them.
klyre 02-22-04, 01:16 PM	Originally posted by Marshall And how many of your players are going to be gullible enough to use them. I've already petitioned my DM to allow the Spontaneous summoning variant for my Elven Conjurer. It fits the character's style. His bonus spell per day is almost always used for a Summon spell anyways. Being able to trade any prepared spell for that looks perfectly up his alley. He casts Summon spells as often as a cleric casts cure spells.
stone_dog 02-22-04, 04:00 PM	Originally posted by Marshall And how many of your players are going to be gullible enough to use them. I've never once used a metamagic spell. Neither has ANY of my players. Ever. It is an interesting option, but has never come up in play and the spells as listed have always done just fine. The same thing goes with item creation feats. We are too busy saving the world to get much time in the lab. The only exception is scribe scroll and that is still free. The only bonus spell that wizards get that is of any use is Spell Mastery and I use that almost always for knock and sleep so I can get out of a prison if I have to. Still I have only done that once, instead wanting a skill focus, spell focus or spell penetration, but not getting it since it isn't on the bonus spell list. These options have more flavor and style to them and I would gladly take any given one of them in exchange for a list of feats I have no use for or desire to deal with.
Zaebos 02-22-04, 04:44 PM	Originally posted by stone_dog I've never once used a metamagic spell. Neither has ANY of my players. Ever. It is an interesting option, but has never come up in play and the spells as listed have always done just fine. The same thing goes with item creation feats. We are too busy saving the world to get much time in the lab. The only exception is scribe scroll and that is still free. The only bonus spell that wizards get that is of any use is Spell Mastery and I use that almost always for knock and sleep so I can get out of a prison if I have to. Still I have only done that once, instead wanting a skill focus, spell focus or spell penetration, but not getting it since it isn't on the bonus spell list. These options have more flavor and style to them and I would gladly take any given one of them in exchange for a list of feats I have no use for or desire to deal with. Precisely. Those who find no use in metamagic and item creation feats, these alternatives greatly enhance the viability of specialist wizards. Abjurer: Resistance to Energy: Using this variant, I would say that indeed it is worth the familiar cost. In my experiance, the familiar is typically not useful in combat, and only offers the wizard a +3 bonus to a skill, +3 bonus hp's or a +2 bonus to a save, and the feat alertness. Gaining Energy Resistance (casters choice) of 5 + 1/2 caster level is HUGE bonus, especially at later levels. Aura of Protection: For those who don't use item creation or meta magic feats, and want to be an abjurer, this fills the niche very nicely. Gaining a bonus to AC AND SAVES is an extreamly useful thing to do. This is a one for one trade off for the feats since when ever you would gain a bonus feat, you instead gain an aditional use of this ability. Spontaneous Dispelling: To cast a spell spontaneous for a wizard is also a huge bonus. This treads on the underpowered sorcerer's domain so obviously the penalty would be something a little more severe, such as not gaining the extra spell per day. You don't have to prepare Dispell Magic, and you have immediate access to it. TO put this a little more in perspective, it balances this power with the sorcerer. The Sorcerer gains the ability to dispell magic at level 6, not level 5 like the wizard, but in exchange, must spend 4 levels of spells (not three as the sorcerer does (sort of)). A great trade off if you are going to be dispelling a lot of things. Conjurer: Rapid Summoning: You summon creatures much much faster than normal, and no familiar? who cares, you get more hit point reservoirs to help in combat sooner, and you can't be disrupted while unless someone has readied an action against you. Sweet ability if your into summoning. Enhanced Summoning: First, you drop scribe scroll which is fine, most players I know don't bother to scribe their own (but some do, and these who do do not use summoning spells often) in exchange of Augment Summoning. Fair trade off. Next, when someone tries to dispell your creatures (at the expense of your future bonus feats) you gain 2 other abilities that both improve once (a one for one trade off with feats). At 5th and again at 15th you get +2 bonus to the DC of unsummoning your creatures. At 10th and 20th levels you get bonuses to your summoned creature stats that stack with your Augment summoning feat. Huge bonuses here. Spontaneous summoning: Well, again nicely balanced against the sorcerer whos domain it is to spontaneous summon and gives the wizard more freedom in choosing spells. Giving up your extra spells per day is well worth it for this ability. Diviner: Enhanced Awarness: Great if you don't want your familiar, and if you know how to use the spells listed effectively. Bonus feat list: Again, if you don't use metamagic or item creation feats, this new list is a huge boon to the diviner. Presience: Adding your intellegence modifier to your attacks, saves skills and level checks is well worth the cost of extra spells a day, and gaining this to a max of 4 times per day is huge! Now I am not going to go thru the entire list, but I do suggest you REREAD those and take into consideration the balancing factors of each variant. I suspect that those who don't think these variants are balanced or that they are underpowered are expecting to overpower the game instead of balancing it out with other classes. Most players I know rarely take metamagic or item creation feats. To offset this problem at my table, I will probably include the Spontaneous Metamagic Variant/Daily Use system into the game to make meta magic a little more versitile to both sorcerer and wizard classes.
Veomyr 02-22-04, 05:08 PM	I have to agree that some of the variant abilities are worth what you give up. I have yet to find a need for a familiar in a game, so any of the other replacements can't go wrong. Extra feats, thos depend on what kind of character I'm going for, and if I'm able to use the spontaneous metamagic rule variant. If I can, then the metamagic feats generally outweigh the second level of abilities. Extra spells per day, once again depends on what it replaces. For specialists like conjurers, you only become better by losing the bonus spells in place of spontaneously casting a Summon spell. Necromancers and Transmuters are really the olny ones that lose out by going for the high-rating variant ability.
Zaebos 02-22-04, 06:33 PM	In the end, it is based wholly upon how the player wants to play their specialist wizard. If the player doesn't want or need metamagic feats, so be it, offer them something that can be useful to the character. The Alternate Specialist Wizard also is by no means a comprehensive list of things you can do for your character, as was suggested either here or in another thread, i can't remember, you could alwasy give the necromancer the ability to rebuke undead at the cost of some other class ability...
klyre 02-22-04, 07:11 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos First, you drop scribe scroll I thought the "no bonus feat" variant only took away the bonuses every 5 levels. To have a wizard not even be able to write a scroll sounds ludicrous.
Zaebos 02-22-04, 07:16 PM	I guess you didnt read what you get instead... Augment Summoning.... An exchange of One feat for Another feat...
Marshall 02-22-04, 08:13 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos Precisely. Those who find no use in metamagic and item creation feats, these alternatives greatly enhance the viability of specialist wizards. If you find no value in IC feats you are playing a LARGELY non-standard game. MM I'd tend to agree, tho adding the splatbook WIZ feats makes those feats much more worthy. Abjurer: Resistance to Energy: Using this variant, I would say that indeed it is worth the familiar cost. In my experiance, the familiar is typically not useful in combat, and only offers the wizard a +3 bonus to a skill, +3 bonus hp's or a +2 bonus to a save, and the feat alertness. Gaining Energy Resistance (casters choice) of 5 + 1/2 caster level is HUGE bonus, especially at later levels. Trade Familiar for bonus fixed second level slot. Losing Proposition. Aura of Protection: For those who don't use item creation or meta magic feats, and want to be an abjurer, this fills the niche very nicely. Gaining a bonus to AC AND SAVES is an extreamly useful thing to do. This is a one for one trade off for the feats since when ever you would gain a bonus feat, you instead gain an aditional use of this ability. No, its a one-shot AC OR saves. And it takes an action to activate. And it only lasts at most one minute. Again, losing proposition. Spontaneous Dispelling: To cast a spell spontaneous for a wizard is also a huge bonus. This treads on the underpowered sorcerer's domain so obviously the penalty would be something a little more severe, such as not gaining the extra spell per day. You don't have to prepare Dispell Magic, and you have immediate access to it. TO put this a little more in perspective, it balances this power with the sorcerer. The Sorcerer gains the ability to dispell magic at level 6, not level 5 like the wizard, but in exchange, must spend 4 levels of spells (not three as the sorcerer does (sort of)). A great trade off if you are going to be dispelling a lot of things. Double penalty, a single spontaneous spell(and DM and GDM are for all intents 1 spell) doesnt hedge on the SOR enough to justify losing 9(+) bonus spells per day(5+ of which could be DM/GDM anyway). When you add in the +1 spell level cost you are stuck with an "I'm Stupid" ability. Conjurer: Rapid Summoning: You summon creatures much much faster than normal, and no familiar? who cares, you get more hit point reservoirs to help in combat sooner, and you can't be disrupted while unless someone has readied an action against you. Sweet ability if your into summoning. Take bad options-make them viable. Useful ability, but the spells should work that way to start with.... Enhanced Summoning: First, you drop scribe scroll which is fine, most players I know don't bother to scribe their own (but some do, and these who do do not use summoning spells often) in exchange of Augment Summoning. Fair trade off. Next, when someone tries to dispell your creatures (at the expense of your future bonus feats) you gain 2 other abilities that both improve once (a one for one trade off with feats). At 5th and again at 15th you get +2 bonus to the DC of unsummoning your creatures. At 10th and 20th levels you get bonuses to your summoned creature stats that stack with your Augment summoning feat. Huge bonuses here. Lose Scribe Scroll? For a Wizard? I'd rest my case right there, but you seem to think the rest of the abilites are valuable...Throw the DC stuff out, Summoned Critters aren't worth dispelling 9 out of 10 times and even if they were, both bonuses together arent worth one feat. That leaves you trading 5 feats for AS,IAS and GAS. 5 for 3 another losing proposition. Spontaneous summoning: Well, again nicely balanced against the sorcerer whos domain it is to spontaneous summon and gives the wizard more freedom in choosing spells. Giving up your extra spells per day is well worth it for this ability. A better option than it was for the Abjurer, but your better off taking the bonus spells and filling all the slots with SMI-IX Diviner: Enhanced Awarness: Great if you don't want your familiar, and if you know how to use the spells listed effectively. For the most part, all those abilites are duplicated better by having a familiar...The Identify option is useful tho... Bonus feat list: Again, if you don't use metamagic or item creation feats, this new list is a huge boon to the diviner. Replace MM feats with SF/II/LR/BF(Why?) and Alertness. At best - Push Presience: Adding your intellegence modifier to your attacks, saves skills and level checks is well worth the cost of extra spells a day, and gaining this to a max of 4 times per day is huge! Not really. Its useful, but TS alone puts it to shame....And its most definitely NOT worth even 1 9th level spell. Now I am not going to go thru the entire list, but I do suggest you REREAD those and take into consideration the balancing factors of each variant. I suspect that those who don't think these variants are balanced or that they are underpowered are expecting to overpower the game instead of balancing it out with other classes. No, I expect them to be worth at least what you give up for them, a handful of the individual abilites would be worth 1 feat, none of the sets are worth 4(or more) and you would have to be a moron to trade your bonus spells for any of that list....
Zaebos 02-22-04, 08:49 PM	Marshall, I do think you need to reexamine those abilities compared to what people genereally play with... Of course everyone is different, but quite frankly, if you can see no benifit in these abilities, then your either blind or ignorant of the benifits. Regardless, mother taught me not to mince words with fools...
Alaina 02-23-04, 12:01 AM	Personally, having played a specialist Transmuter Wizard every Thursday from 6-9:30 for the past 4 months in the Cauldron campaign, I can say that these will come in handy. I think getting a familiar is putting a big bullseye on that creature and at the same time giving yourself an Achilles Heel. I've admittedly have shied away from Scibe Scroll due to the XP/GP costs. Most of the other craft item feats were taken by someone else in the party. Many of the "cast a spell cooler but at taking up a higher level slot" also isn't for me. Anywho. I like the options. QUESTION: any game reason why one could not take more than one variant from each specialist? The quote, "Because each variant requires the loss of an existing ability, you can use more than one of these variants at the same time" suggests this but then I'm not sure what then the line "these variants all follow the normal rules for multiclassing by spcialist wizards" is all about. Again, I'm not looking so much for opinion, as I'm wondering about official game rules that support this. I'm planning on doing both the Enhance Attribute and Spell Versatility abilities and want to see what the legality is as our DM is a newbie.
Zaebos 02-23-04, 12:44 AM	Hard to get into what official game rules are when we are talking variants. I suspect that you could try to convince your DM of modifying specific aspects of each Alternate Wizard Variant, or create a totally new Specialist wizard.
Greyman 02-23-04, 05:08 AM	Yeap, Evokers have the worse varient options.Originally posted by Marshall Evoker - Reusing "Energy Affinity" for a name(MiniH) is a bad idea to start with, and +1 CL for one energy at the cost of your familiar is a weak trade, tho it might actually be worthwhile if you werent planning on having a familiar to start with. ES is flat out a BAH!, just take the darn feat. Overcome Resistance IS flat useless, especially if you have the ES option(or the darn feat)Note that the Energy Affinity feat, from the MiniH, does not allow you to substitute Sonic energy, only Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Fire. It would be a different situation if your campaign includes the Energy Substitution feat, from Tomb and Blood.  Unlike Energy Affinity, that feat does allow you to substitute sonic energy. That feat was lauded as being overpowered because objects take full damage from Sonic energy and almost no creature has Sonic Resistance.  Which is why the revised feat does not allow it. The reasons why they placed the revision in the Miniatures Handbook rather than the 3.5 Player's Handbook, and why they choose to use the name Energy Affitity instead, are unsolved misteries.
Greyman 02-23-04, 05:24 AM	Originally posted by Alaina Anywho. I like the options. QUESTION: any game reason why one could not take more than one variant from each specialist? The quote, "Because each variant requires the loss of an existing ability, you can use more than one of these variants at the same time" suggests this but then I'm not sure what then the line "these variants all follow the normal rules for multiclassing by spcialist wizards" is all about. 1. "Because each variant requires the loss of an existing ability, you can use more than one of these variants at the same time": There are three variants offered for each specialist school. Each variant may be used in place of a different feature. Thus you may opt to use one, two, three, or none, of the offered variants, sacrificing one, two, three, or none of then core features respectively. A transmuter can thus use both Enhanced Attribute and Spell Versitility in place of Summon Familiar and bonus feats. 2. "these variants all follow the normal rules for multiclassing by spcialist wizards": You can not multiclass as a Wizard of two different schools. You cannot be, for instance, a multiclass Transmuter-5/Conjurer-5. Thus you cannot get the two variant abilities (Spell Versitity and Enhanced Summoning) just by sacrificing your bonus feats.
Archtyrant Terevoth 02-23-04, 07:18 AM	UA had some cool ideas, like the bloodlines and specialist wizards, but a lot of them are very underpowered unfortunately. Most of the wizard options suck for the most part IMO. Though I think that with a little revision they could really add a lot of flavor to specialist wizards, who come off very dry in standard 3.0 and 3.5
Count Arioch the 28th 02-23-04, 09:18 AM	Originally posted by Marshall Enchanter - Cohort for Familiar is actually one good trade, Social Prof is BAD(Add five class skills and eventually get a +2 to 4 of them for FOUR FEATS) is anyone THAT stupid, especially for a WIZ whos likely got the points to buy them cross-class? Although I more or less agree with you, I gotta say one thing: You give up 4 feats for the class skills. You get the equivalent of 4 feats back (Skill focus for 4 class skills.). It is balanced perfectly. Furthermore, even if you do buy them cross class, that means you will suckl at them. Period. You will maybe be decent at diplomacy at level 18 if you buy it cross class. Also, I might add that even though I agree with you on most points, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. the ones we don't like are not nearly as weak as you are making them out to be. Exaggeration might influence idiots, but most people prefer cold, emotionless logic instead of flaming rants.
Alaina 02-23-04, 09:39 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos Hard to get into what official game rules are when we are talking variants. Hmm. Good point. OK, let me go with this: "Assuming the Specialist Wizard variants found in UA are considered 'kosher' is there anything in the core rules or a rule in UA why someone could not substitute wizard abilities to gain all 3 variants from one school of magic?" Originally posted by Greyman 1. "Because each variant requires the loss of an existing ability, you can use more than one of these variants at the same time": A transmuter can thus use both Enhanced Attribute and Spell Versitility in place of Summon Familiar and bonus feats. Well see, that's taken slightly out of context. The next line goes on to talk about how magic works in your campaign, implying that the above was intended for the DM to have different Abjurers/Necromancers/etc, not for the player like me who wants to have a crazy-ass Transmuter. Someone else with a smaller brain & smaller :censored::censored::censored::censored: :censored: could easily read the same sentence and see "more than one variants at the same time" as being you can have Abjurers with Resistance to Energy and Abjurers with Aura of Protection and Abjurers with Spontaneous Dispelling all running around abjuring the night away. Not that you can have one abjurer with all 3. See what I mean with the language being unclear? The examples given also don't have any "multiple substitution." Don't get me wrong Greyman- I wanna be able to do this and think its perfectly balanced in a :censored::censored::censored:-for-tat way, its just not clear that its 'official.' Maybe I should follow a "Don't ask/Don't tell policy" and just go with it anyway. ;) p.s. I can't believe they censored t-i-t p.p.s. I can believe they'd censor p-e-n-i-s although thats a :censored::censored::censored::censored: ed up thing to do. ;)
Marshall 02-23-04, 02:46 PM	Originally posted by Zaebos Marshall, I do think you need to reexamine those abilities compared to what people genereally play with... Of course everyone is different, but quite frankly, if you can see no benifit in these abilities, then your either blind or ignorant of the benifits. No, you give up much more than you get back. Thats the point. Take that whole list of abilities and make them feats with a Prereq of Illusionist Lvl X and you have viable abilities. Make them trade all your bonus feats for this slate of abilities and it requires a moron to go for the choice. Since Familiar is, at best, a break even ability, any option to trade it is going to appeal to a large number of players. OTOH, the trade spells list is completely useless. Those spells are worth a feat EACH, especially since you get them as soon as you can cast that level. The BEST of that list of options is worth maybe 3-4 feats, if you believe that every use is worth one feat. Not a good trade, and not one that many players are going to invest in. Regardless, mother taught me not to mince words with fools... Talk to yourself alot, huh? :D
Marshall 02-23-04, 02:59 PM	Originally posted by Count Arioch the 28th Although I more or less agree with you, I gotta say one thing: You give up 4 feats for the class skills. You get the equivalent of 4 feats back (Skill focus for 4 class skills.). It is balanced perfectly. Skill Focus is +3. Tho you could say that the feat is "Add one skill to your class skill list and get a +2 bonus to it"(That would be a GOOD feat) The point of balance is whether you consider SF taken 4 times to be equal to 4 MM/IC/WIZ feats. Instead of say just adding the above feat to their list. Furthermore, even if you do buy them cross class, that means you will suckl at them. Period. You will maybe be decent at diplomacy at level 18 if you buy it cross class. True. The option makes a fairly good Bard out of the Enchanter. Also, I might add that even though I agree with you on most points, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. the ones we don't like are not nearly as weak as you are making them out to be. Exaggeration might influence idiots, but most people prefer cold, emotionless logic instead of flaming rants. My bad, my apologies. But if youre going to do something like this, do it right
Count Arioch the 28th 02-23-04, 03:51 PM	That's cool. We all get emotional at times, I really cannot slam someone for getting over ranty, I mean, I'm Count Arioch, ranting is a bit of my trademark. http://www.angelfire.com/va/vannad/beholder_biggrin.gif
Zaebos 02-23-04, 06:00 PM	I really don't see any variant here giving up any kind of power. If your a specialist wizard who isn't playing with item creation feats, metamagic feats, familiars and the like, then these variants are for you. Seriously, I would say about 50% of the specialist wizards that come through my group either dont use the feats as often as they should or utilize their familiars at all. I see nothing wrong with taking 1, 2 or all three variants per specialsit variant whilst giving up the requisite benifits as well.
Marshall 02-24-04, 03:30 AM	Originally posted by Zaebos I really don't see any variant here giving up any kind of power. If your a specialist wizard who isn't playing with item creation feats, metamagic feats, familiars and the like, then these variants are for you. Seriously, I would say about 50% of the specialist wizards that come through my group either dont use the feats as often as they should or utilize their familiars at all. I see nothing wrong with taking 1, 2 or all three variants per specialsit variant whilst giving up the requisite benifits as well. Be serious, If your're willing to give up your bonus spells per day then why are you playing a specialist? Think about it this way, Would you spend all of your Bonus Feats on Sudden Energy Substitution? Do you really think its fair to force someone too or should it just be an option? And since its already and option, why are you wasting space in this book on an ability thats available to ALL Wizards and now calling it a special ability for Evokers? Is it really that powerful an ability to spend a(4) feat(s) to gain one(4) spell(s) known? Even if its a spell from an opposition school? Is it that really that "special" an ability that only Transmuters get to do it (and HAVE TO do it 4 times to do it once)? And does it even make sense as a Transmutation ability? Most of these options are feats, not chains of related special abilities. At least the Illusionist and Necromancers lists are clever, if a little underpowered.
Alaina 02-24-04, 09:55 AM	Bear in mind these are all opinions, but I've been playing a wizard awhile for a awhile now, from sucky 1st all the way to 7th. This week we're in the Underdark trying to rescue this crazy dwarf, and we opened glyphed door only to find an evil temple to Biddlipoop and 4 Kuo-toan whips who lightning-bolted us. Anywho. Point is I've been doing it and can comment on the playability of things. First off, lower-level wizards are weak, weak, weak. They need to specialize to get an extra spell slot. Giving up this spell slot (or the corresponding spell points if you use that system) is just plain wacky. {George Bush Sr. voice} "Not gonna do it...Wouldn't be prudent." Having a familiar sounds cool, until you do the math and figure out their hit points and AC. Even with booster spells or the Improved Familiar feat, they're just too weak to be worth the gains. So dumping that for another ability makes sense to me. The metamagic feats are a little trickier. Basically having to use higher level slots to make lower level spells cool hasn't been that playable since I'm too low, but I'm not sure its worth the trade for the higher level spells of the same level. The options presented in UA that allow these feats to have more flexibility changes that a bit, yet I still think you're fine with your extra spells from specializing. So I'd switch this with the variant too, depending on the trade. In my case of transmutation, I get to have a spell that normally isn't from my school be part of my school. While that may sound silly to get one spell in place of feats, one of my prohibited schools is Abjuration (the other is Enchantment), so using this variant gets me back Dispel Magic. Not bad in place of feats that I don't already use.
Marshall 02-24-04, 02:58 PM	Originally posted by Alaina While that may sound silly to get one spell in place of feats, one of my prohibited schools is Abjuration (the other is Enchantment), so using this variant gets me back Dispel Magic. Not bad in place of feats that I don't already use. "Know Spell" is a feat from T&B. For some reason it prevents you from taking a spell from an opposition school, meaning no WIZ will EVER take it. The UA Transmuter special lets you take the spell from the opposition school but forces you to take the feat 4 times way to restrictive.
Zaebos 02-24-04, 06:28 PM	Im confused here as to the IQ drop in this forum. your not just giving up bonus spells you know. Your getting stuff in return which, in my opinion, are balanced enough with each thing you give up. Think about it this way, Would you spend all of your Bonus Feats on Sudden Energy Substitution Yes, yes I would... if that is how I wanted my character to be, then obviously, yes. No question. Perfect ability if your fighting creatures with energy resistances. Immunity to fire? Here comes an acid ball. (Just as an aside, the way i read the abjurerer spontaneous dispelling is that you get bonus spells up to 5th, but after that, you don't)
bolobaby 02-26-04, 12:26 AM	Um... I didn't read all the text in every post, but from what I saw, an important point might have been missed: The second variant - that is, the one where you give up bonus feats for being a wizard - is actually quite good if you plan on playing a PrC heavy character that gives "+1 existing spellcaster level." You see, if you are playing that type of character, then you probably won't get many of those bonus feats anyway but you'll still increase in caster level. So you just have to weigh whether or not the low-end portion of that variant is good enough to give up maybe one or two feats.
Marshall 02-26-04, 02:12 AM	Originally posted by bolobaby Um... I didn't read all the text in every post, but from what I saw, an important point might have been missed: The second variant - that is, the one where you give up bonus feats for being a wizard - is actually quite good if you plan on playing a PrC heavy character that gives "+1 existing spellcaster level." Thats a good point. It eliminates the high end cost, but you still get the low end benefits. Take Alainas Transmuter frex, trading only the 5th level feat for Dispel Magic and then entering a PrC that gives other benefits in place of the WIZ feats makes the option much more appealing. Same goes for Enchanters, 5 class skills and a +2 bonus to one is much better if you dont have to trade 3 more feats for 3 more +2's. OTOH, the Necro and Illusionist lose out on the high ends of their options and the Conjurer is stuck with his 5th lvl less than half-feat. The Evoker just gets his 5th lvl feat selected for him.
Chidgey 02-26-04, 08:18 AM	>I guess you didnt read what you get instead... >Augment Summoning.... >An exchange of One feat for Another feat... Actually its better than that as you don't need to buy Spell Focus before you buy Augment Summoning. If you want Scribe Scroll then use the feat you would have used to meet the prerequisite for Augment Summoning on it.
Marshall 02-26-04, 01:51 PM	Originally posted by Chidgey Actually its better than that as you don't need to buy Spell Focus before you buy Augment Summoning. If you want Scribe Scroll then use the feat you would have used to meet the prerequisite for Augment Summoning on it. You know. I never noticed that. Its unnecessary, too. It actually gives the conjure options a small benefit as long as you dont later buy SF(C). If you go PrC then the choice is +1 DC or +2 Dispel resistance.
Cathon 02-26-04, 04:36 PM	If you ask me item creation feats are pretty mediocre feats. That's right you get a feat that allows you to save money by spending experience points! Now if you are on a lower magic world where magic isn't for sale in most big cities, it makes more sense, but otherwise you aren't buying all those magic weapons and armor, so you aren't in bad shape money wise, and if you buy them, you don't need to keep everyone hanging around while you putter in your laboratory for a week. Don't get me wrong, if that's your concept for your character, that's fine, but I just don't see saving money as that strong a result for spending a feat. Metamagic feats are more powerful, but somewhat of a bother. They make the already annoying work of tracking your memorized spells even harder. If you can use them spontaneously they are nice, but otherwise they are a bit of a bother. (I'll exclude Quicken from that blanket statement, as they will likely be in your SOP list from the start. Likewise if you are a fighter mage, than you might put everything as a still spell, and the bookkeeping isn't any more difficult.) But honestly, the most important part is roleplaying (remember that?). If your character concept doesn't fit with item creation, then bonus item creations are actually detrimental. The intro text talks about placing these variants right alongside standard schools, so the player would have a choice in the matter, and have roleplaying hooks as well. Maybe the school in the main metropolis has the standard item and metamagic emphasis, but the one Cyrus the Strange founded is more about truly becoming at one with the magic. These are tools for building unique worlds, and anything that helps establish your world is a good thing.