APG - Intensified Spell feat

[ziltmilt]

I had a player ask about this feat in conjunction with the Ray of Enfeeblement spell, and here's my reply. Can you guys tell me if you think my reasoning on this is correct?

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After a first read, here's how I would handle that. Note what this feat is doing: any level dependent damage has it's maximum effect increased by 5 levels. Ray of Enfeeblement yields an effect of 1d6 STR damage and +1 STR damage per 2 caster levels, up to a +5. So you hit the maximum STR damage at level 10. What this feat should do, from what I can tell, is increase that +5 ceiling to a +7 or +8. At 10 caster levels, you'd do +5 STR damage. With this feat, at 15 caster levels (10 + 5), you'd do +7.5 (15/2) STR damage.

However, if you're a 12th level caster, with this feat, you'd only do +6. You still have to have the max levels in order to get the most benefit from this feat, in the case of this particular spell anyway.

The feat's wording is a little tricky, since it says 'damage dice'. But, what it's referring to is anything in the randomized damage that's level dependent.

[meatrace]

No dice (pun intended) sorry but it only increases the cap on actual dice of damage. Spells like fireball, lightning bolt, cone of cold, burning hands I suppose. Spells that do multiple dice of DAMAGE and that damage is specifically x/level. I don't even think it would effect Magic Missile.

Ray of Enfeeblement does not do damage, even Str damage, it inflicts a penalty.

[Are]

Ray of Enfeeblement doesn't deal damage at all (it provides a STR penalty, it doesn't deal STR damage). So, Intensified Spell doesn't do anything for a Ray of Enfeeblement.

So, let's instead use Fireball. Fireball deals 1d6 damage per caster level, up to 10d6. If it is Intensified, the maximum would increase to 15d6, but if you were 12th level, the maximum you could deal would be 12d6.

[james maissen]

ziltmilt wrote:

I had a player ask about this feat in conjunction with the Ray of Enfeeblement spell, and here's my reply. Can you guys tell me if you think my reasoning on this is correct?

RAW as others have said, 'no dice'.

However, if you, as the DM, wish to expand the feat to in essence extend caps like this for more spells then more power to you.

In all honesty I think that metamagic 'feats' like this and heighten should be an intrinsic part of casting a spell at a higher level and not require feats at all. But that's way into house rule territory.

A smaller step into it would be as you describe, just make sure that spells that are already at the top of the curve for their level (or beyond it) don't get propagated even further via this feat (things like scorching ray being able to deal 12d6 as a 2nd level spell, etc).

Otherwise you should be fine,

James

[ziltmilt]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies! Yes, I completely missed the distinction between a penalty and damage.

I am curious, though, James why you think a feat shouldn't be necessary to increase the cap on damage. If a spell description specifically says that the damage has a hard limit, then you'd just rule that using up a higher spell slot would allow that maximum to be exceeded?

[james maissen]

ziltmilt wrote:

I am curious, though, James why you think a feat shouldn't be necessary to increase the cap on damage. If a spell description specifically says that the damage has a hard limit, then you'd just rule that using up a higher spell slot would allow that maximum to be exceeded?

The cap on dice is based on the level of the spell. Its nothing intrinsic to the spell itself, rather its just based on the level of the spell. I know 3e even had a table for such caps based on cleric/wizard and level for creating your own spells. I would simply apply that more dynamically.

Likewise if you toss out a 3rd level spell with a 4th level slot, then give it the save DC of a 4th level spell. Why not? If you are burning a 4th level slot for charm person, say.. when a comparable spell is charm monster the later already does far more in terms of target and duration.

Now just to be sure, this is over into house rules rather than RAW. But just like a few other things (fractional BABs/saves for multiclassing) I think that they make good house rules.

I don't think there should be a feat tax for a good number of things and this would be one place that I would remove it.

-James