As it stands, it's a poor choice for any character: +5 damage at level 20. I vote we awesome the hell out of this feat, give it some usefulness along with some coolness.
Here's my proposal:
Arcane Strike
As a standard action, make a melee attack. If the attack hits, you do not roll damage. Instead, make a Spellcraft check. You do damage equal to 1/2 your check result.
When you have a base attack bonus of +4, you do damage equal to your check result. When you have a base attack bonus of +8, you do damage equal to twice your check result. When you have a base attack bonus of +12, you do damage equal to three times your check result. When you have a base attack bonus of +16, you do damage equal to four times your check result.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 1 rank, base attack bonus +1.
This, of course, hasn't been playtested, and I haven't really run the numbers through my head at all. Just a suggestion based on those Diamond Razor Emerald Ruby Mind Slicer things from ToB.
B.T. wrote: As it stands, it's a poor choice for any character: +5 damage at level 20. I vote we awesome the hell out of this feat, give it some usefulness along with some coolness.
True, Arcane Strike is a rather poor choice for a pure caster, but it really begins to shine when you want to play a Gish. With just five caster levels you get a unnamed +2 bonus to damage, same as the Weapon Specialization feat. Ok you loose your swift action but unless you took Dodge or Quicken Spell as a feat you normally won't miss it.
The classic Sorcerer 6/Fighter 4/Eldritch Knight X build would max out at +4 to hit. Imho that sounds pretty useful to me.
B.T. wrote:
Arcane Strike
As a standard action, make a melee attack. If the attack hits, you do not roll damage. Instead, make a Spellcraft check. You do damage equal to 1/2 your check result.
When you have a base attack bonus of +4, you do damage equal to your check result. When you have a base attack bonus of +8, you do damage equal to twice your check result. When you have a base attack bonus of +12, you do damage equal to three times your check result. When you have a base attack bonus of +16, you do damage equal to four times your check result.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 1 rank, base attack bonus +1.
This, of course, hasn't been playtested, and I haven't really run the numbers through my head at all. Just a suggestion based on those Diamond Razor Emerald Ruby Mind Slicer things from ToB.
How is the attack roll calculated? Just plain BAB+Str or do weapon feats and enchantments come into play?
For an all day feature this seems pretty overpowered on first glance.
Just an example:
Sorcerer 1/Fighter 4 with Int 16 could do 1d20+11 damage = 21.5 hp avg
Sorcerer 6/Fighter 4/Eldritch Knight 1 with Int 18 could do (1d20+18)*2 = 57 hp avg
Sorcerer 6/Fighter 4/Eldritch Knight 5 with Int 20 could do (1d20+23)*3 = 100.5 hp avg
Sorcerer 6/Fighter 4/Eldritch Knight 10 with Int 22 could do (1d20+28)*4 = 154 hp avg
Add Spring attack and you have a winner.
Again, hadn't run the numbers, so you're probably right. Maybe drop it to triple damage, or force it to be a full-round action. (I prefer the latter.) No enchantments or anything are factored in--JUST the Spellcraft check.
+5 unnamed damage would be okay on a scythe if crits still worked like they used to (unless I'm missing something), but no monsters are going to care. Also, one would have to be a mad fool NOT to take Quicken Spell.
Tholas wrote: B.T. wrote: As it stands, it's a poor choice for any character: +5 damage at level 20. I vote we awesome the hell out of this feat, give it some usefulness along with some coolness.
True, Arcane Strike is a rather poor choice for a pure caster, but it really begins to shine when you want to play a Gish. With just five caster levels you get a unnamed +2 bonus to damage, same as the Weapon Specialization feat. Ok you loose your swift action but unless you took Dodge or Quicken Spell as a feat you normally won't miss it.
The classic Sorcerer 6/Fighter 4/Eldritch Knight X build would max out at +4 to hit. Imho that sounds pretty useful to me. I like it pretty well with my Dragon Blooded sorcerer. He has a good dexterity and took weapon finesse so his claws do some decent damage now and with 2 attacks/ round at full BAB (albeit the sorcerer's lame BAB but at 6th level it's not too bad yet) he's made a difference in Melee.
Our group doesn't do the whole 15 minutes and out thing so everyone has to pull their weight the whole day.
Psychic_Robot wrote: Again, hadn't run the numbers, so you're probably right. Maybe drop it to triple damage, or force it to be a full-round action. (I prefer the latter.) I'm pretty sure that it would be still too good either way. I have no time to run some numbers but my gut feeling is that the Gish in my above example couldn't do this ammount of damage with normal melee attacks.
Psychic_Robot wrote:
No enchantments or anything are factored in--JUST the Spellcraft check.
It says in your text: "As a standard action, make a melee attack." What is that? Attack with or without a weapon? Against normal or touch AC? Do enchantements and buffs facor in or not? What about the critical range?
A Spellcraft check should be against something, just making a Skill roll and taking it for straight damage(or whatever else unrelated to the skills function) is not a concept I've ever seen in 3.5. How about:
Alternative Arcane Strike wrote:
Make a melee attack as a standard action, if you hit roll a spellcraft check against the targets touch AC of for bonus damage, for every X points you rolled over the targets touch AC you do an extra Y points of damage
X and Y remains to be determined.
Psychic_Robot wrote:
+5 unnamed damage would be okay on a scythe if crits still worked like they used to (unless I'm missing something), but no monsters are going to care. Also, one would have to be a mad fool NOT to take Quicken Spell.
Imho every plus on damage is a good thing, regardeless of the weapons crit multiplier. Quicken Spell is a high level option only and more often than not used to cast two spells in a single round. Also it's use ist stricktly limited, especially for a Gish, if the char wants to have some of his high level slots left at the end of a fight.
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