Most times when I play a Wizard or Sorcerer I tend to forego combat and focus on spellcasting so I always end up taking Spell Focus, and now probably Elemental Focus, to supplement my character, but I can't help but think that as far as feats go, this is a little lacking in what it does.
Yes, adding +1 DC is nice and all, but I think it should also add +1 to saves against spells of that school (or elemental in the case of Elemental Focus) from the spell caster with the Feat since it indicates deep study into an area of magic and therefore it would make sense that they would become better able to resist spells of certain type because of that.
I am thinking about houseruling this in the future, so I may even move this into the Houserule board eventually, I am just curious about what you all think about the power of the feat compare to, say, feats like Improved Grapple and Power Attack.
In the 3.x days, Spell Focus granted a +2 bonus to DCs on spells of the selected school....then adding on Greater Spell Focus added another +2. Especially with the proliferation of classes that gave "Spell Power +x" abilities, those bonuses were vastly overpowered. By themselves they weren't horrible, but as soon as they started stacking, problems arose with impossible DCs.
I actually had one of these characters once upon a time...a Transmuter 5/Red Wizard 10, with Spell Power, Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus and his Int modifier, I ended up with save DCs of 28 for 0 level spells of the Transmutation school. DC 34 Fortitude save on Disintegrate.
I'd definitely suggest not increasing the DC increase granted by these feats!
Getting a bonus on saves vs. spells of the same school does not seem out of the question, that seems quite reasonable, IMO.
+2 was only in 3.0, it was changed to +1 in 3.5 because it was way too brutal.
Even with spell focus being 'just' +1 to DC, it's still a strong enough feat that it is common in 3.5 charop caster builds.
Anything strong enough to make the cut in a 3.5 caster build is practically godlike by pathfinder standards.
+2 was only in 3.0, it was changed to +1 in 3.5 because it was way too brutal.
Even with spell focus being 'just' +1 to DC, it's still a strong enough feat that it is common in 3.5 charop caster builds.
Anything strong enough to make the cut in a 3.5 caster build is practically godlike by pathfinder standards.
To be clear it was used a lot in 3.5 charop... because it was often a requirement for the good prestige classes. In and of itself it wasn't much.
That being said I would like to see a bit more stuff that gives an increase to save throw DC's for casters. The monsters can generally ignore most of the save spells at CR (especially at higher levels) so something that gives a boost to DC's would be nice -- it would also help lessen the need for spellcasters intent on affecting enemies with spells having to absolutely maximize their casting stat to have even the chance of affecting the enemy.
Now player class against player class the Save DC's might look fine (so long as you are facing a maximized DC versus the human fighter's will save) -- up until you look at that maximum 34 DC against anything that isn't just a human fighter (i.e. against a paladin's, cleric's, monk's, dwarf's, or anyone else's saving throw bonuses). The save bonuses available for most classes (even the fighter can easily hit a 60% save success rate at level 20 against 9th level spells) means that the wizard that focuses on save throws often have a lot of wasted rounds and wasted spells.
I never suggested bumping them up to +2 as that would be ridiculous. I just think by itself at +1 it seems a bit lacking, but with also adding +1 on saves against that spell school would be a nice boost that makes sense and doesn't overpower the spell. In fact I think it makes a whole lot of sense, and balances it power-wise with some of the combat feats for combat-focused characters.
Also, Darvon, the reason it is taken a lot is because it makes more sense for a Wizard to take it rather than Power Attack or Two-Weapon Fighting, there really aren't a plethora of Feat options dedicated to spellcasters other than the metamagic feats. Most times we just take what we can get.
You're right of course. There was still the occasional build though that took 'greater' even if it wasn't needed as a prereq (focused spellcaster conjuration with all those delicious save vs. suck spells).
Re: Deathcon
I was refering to 3.5 were there was a plethora of alternatives. In core Pathfinder, sure, there's like 2 caster feats so what are you going to do? :)
Yeah at least there is arcane blast now in the APG <eyeroll> great choice of a feat and spell slot there. </sarcasm>
Though I will say it has some use for bards, summoners, and possibly witches.
Yeah at least there is arcane blast now in the APG <eyeroll> great choice of a feat and spell slot there. </sarcasm>
Though I will say it has some use for bards, summoners, and possibly witches.
I have always wanted to see an Improved Counterspell feat tree that would eventually allow a caster who didn't cast a spell in the previous round to counter a spell as a swift action without having to sit there and wait for a spell to be cast, and then hope they have the proper spells to counter it with.
I have always wanted to see an Improved Counterspell feat tree that would eventually allow a caster who didn't cast a spell in the previous round to counter a spell as a swift action without having to sit there and wait for a spell to be cast, and then hope they have the proper spells to counter it with.
Reactive Counterspell (from Player's Guide to Faerûn) does almost that. It lets you counterspell without having readied, but you lose your next turn.
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I have always wanted to see an Improved Counterspell feat tree that would eventually allow a caster who didn't cast a spell in the previous round to counter a spell as a swift action without having to sit there and wait for a spell to be cast, and then hope they have the proper spells to counter it with.Reactive Counterspell (from Player's Guide to Faerûn) does almost that. It lets you counterspell without having readied, but you lose your next turn.
Which is a fair trade, and I suspect that the only reason we haven't seen the feat yet is it's still copyright - not part of the OGL or SRD - and thus paizo can't publish it.
Though they could have probably made it one of the Abjuration variant abilities and gotten away with it. Makes me wonder why they didn't.