And if you do, is it because they are too much?
New spell feats (PEACH)
Arcane Pummel
Your repeated casts of a single spell build energy with each casting.
Prerequisites: Arcane Spellcaster, caster level 10th.
Benefit: If you repeatedly casts the same spell, against the same target, in uninterrupted consecutive rounds, then in each successive round the damage dice increases by one die step (1d4 to 1d6 to 1d8 to 1d10 to 1d12 to 1d20 max). The first time the spell is cast on a target, the spell takes effect as normal. If in the next round, you cast the exact spell on the exact same target, the damage dice increases. This can continue so long you cast the same spell on the same target and the damage dice can increase (max d20). Note that some spells affect a target square or point and not a creature (ex: fireball or lightning bolt). You can use arcane pummel if you target the same place repeatedly as above.
Lace Spell Acid
Your damaging spells are infused with additional acidic power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Evocation spells you cast deal an additional +1d6 acid damage. Evocation spells you cast may be subject to multiple spell laces simultanesouly. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
Lace Spell Cold
Your damaging spells are infused with additional frozen power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Evocation spells you cast deal an additional +1d6 cold damage. Evocation spells you cast may be subject to multiple spell laces simultanesouly. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
Lace Spell Electricity
Your damaging spells are infused with additional lightning power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Evocation spells you cast deal an additional +1d6 electricity damage. Evocation spells you cast may be subject to multiple spell laces simultanesouly. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
Lace Spell Fire
Your damaging spells are infused with additional burning power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Evocation spells you cast deal an additional +1d6 fire damage. Evocation spells you cast may be subject to multiple spell laces simultanesouly. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
How are the Lace feats supposed to interact with magic missile, scorching ray, and flaming sphere/ball lightning? Is it supposed to be an extra +1d6 to the spell as a whole? Per missile or ray? Per target? Per round? Do evocation spells gain the appropriate descripter when the extra damage is applied?
How are the Lace feats supposed to interact with magic missile, scorching ray, and flaming sphere/ball lightning? Is it supposed to be an extra +1d6 to the spell as a whole? Per missile or ray? Per target? Per round? Do evocation spells gain the appropriate descripter when the extra damage is applied?
Well, it was intended to act like a flaming weapon, frost weapon etc... I admit I didn't think about spells that create multiple missiles. I will have to think on that. I'm open to suggestions as well.
To me, Arcane Pummel sounds WAY TOO OVERPOWERED.
For one, damage usually doesn't scale that way (I don't see anything doing d20 damage... On the other hand, it's more varied that below.)
As far as I know, I think it should scale similar to weapons.
1d6-1d8-2d6-3d6-4d6
1d10-2d8-3d8-4d8-6d8
1d12-3d6-4d6-6d6-8d6
Even so, That's a LOT of dice, and frankly, seems way too overpowered. After 5 or so rounds, my magus could be doing an intensified shocking grasp for 10d20 damage. Sounds insane.
Not even sure metamagic would change anything.
The Lace spells, on the other hand, not sure.
To me, Arcane Pummel sounds WAY TOO OVERPOWERED.
After 5 or so rounds, my magus could be doing an intensified shocking grasp for 10d20 damage. Sounds insane.
This is true, that would be a lot of damage. Would anything really live through 5 consecutive pummels?
So, I guess my meta-player questions would be: as a 12th level magus, capable of only casting 5 second level spells, would you only memorize intisified shocking grasps as your 5 spells. Would you give up all your versatility to do that against a single creature? And, would this feat be enough of a trade off for you to consider something like that? Basically, is the hope of a nova enough to trade everything for? And, is the promise of a nova too much to bring to the table?
I think that arcane pummel should cap at 1d12 and affect only hit point damage. Think of arcane pummeled poison or cloudkills. In fact, it probably should only work with instantaneous hp-damaging effects.
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Limiting Arcane Pummel to only increase die size once might be better, as a compromise. Hit the target with a magic missile or scorching ray on round one, and as long as you keep hitting him with the same spell, the followup magic missiles or scorching rays will be d6+1's or d8s.
At most, I'd let it increase one more die size for a third followup round (and all successive rounds), but not allow it to continue increasing afterwards.
If the Lace spells could also change the damage type of the underlying spell, they might be useful for those lacking options like that of the Admixture specialist wizard, although that might be me completely missing the point of them...
Another idea: instead of increasing damage dice it could increase minimum damage on each dice - each casting it would push the minimum number by 1, to a maximum equal to dice.
Cast magic missile once, the minimum is 1 as usuall.
Cast it second time and each dice gets a minimum of 2, cast it third time and the minimum becomes 3. On 4th and each following casting reaches the cap of 4 points per die.
Increased damage die could grow out of control with Maximize Spell or Enlarge Spell.
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Another idea: instead of increasing damage dice it could increase minimum damage on each dice - each casting it would push the minimum number by 1, to a maximum equal to dice.
Going along with that idea, having the save DC increase by 1 for each followup of the same spell, as the 'lingering energies' make it harder to resist the followups, could make sense as well.
I like Drejk's ideas about raising the damage by 1, and capping at the dice's worth of damage. So a d6 spell used as a pummel would cap on 7th one.
I also like the idea of limiting the feat to affect instaneous evocation spells. That fits with what I had in my mind.
Using Set's idea for DC gave me a third varition to offer as an option. What if pummel just raised caster level each successful time. That would work out to +1d6 damage / +1 DC each time. It would also fix the problem of multiple missiles.
As for the lace spells, what if they worked out as +1d6 damage per 5 caster levels. That would effectively mean that a 20th level caster could take all 4, and lace +16d6 on to a spell in savable additional energy damage. Does that rival the power of 4 metamagic feats in your guys opinion? And, is it cooler to roll more dice or just have a spell maximized?
In case of lace feats I would think about making it scale not with caster level but with spell level, thus it would prevent 1st level spells inflicting 5d6+16d6 points of damage when cast by 20th level caster. Maybe let it inflict +1 points of <energy> damage per spell level (or maybe +2 per spell level). While the first number it is not much in itself, the lace feats are applied to evocation spells without any sacrifice from the caster (aside from spent feat) and applies to every damaging evocation spell cast.
EDIT: Or maybe +1d4 damage per spell level if you really aim for increase of caster damage.
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Magic feats v0.91
Arcane Pummel
Your repeated casts of a single spell build energy with each casting.
Prerequisites: Arcane Spellcaster, caster level 10th.
Benefit: If you repeatedly cast an instantaneous evocation spell, against the same target, in uninterrupted consecutive rounds, then in each successive round, the spell is considered to be cast with a bonus spell DC of 1 and a +1 bonus damage of the same damage type per dice of damage (ex. a fireball would do 1d6 + 1 fire damage per caster level with a save DC 1 higher on a second pummel). An arcane pummel maxes out when the bonus damage equals the base dice of damage (ex: a fireball used in an arcane pummel will max at 1d6 + 6 damage per caster level on the 7th consecutive cast). Note that some spells affect a target point or square and not a creature (ex: fireball or lightning bolt). You can use arcane pummel if you targets the same place repeatedly as above.
Lace Spell Acid
Your damaging spells are infused with additional acidic power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Instantaneous Evocation spells you cast can be laced with additional acidic energy. You may add +2 acid damage per spell level to the spells base damage. A single spells cast can trigger multiple spell laces. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
Lace Spell Cold
Your damaging spells are infused with additional frozen power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Instantaneous Evocation spells you cast can be laced with additional frozen energy. You may add +2 cold damage per spell level to the spells base damage. A single spells cast can trigger multiple spell laces. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
Lace Spell Electricity
Your damaging spells are infused with additional lightning power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Instantaneous Evocation spells you cast can be laced with additional lightning energy. You may add +2 lightning damage per spell level to the spells base damage. A single spells cast can trigger multiple spell laces. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
Lace Spell Fire
Your damaging spells are infused with additional burning power
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcater, caster level 5th.
Benefit: Instantaneous Evocation spells you cast can be laced with additional fire energy. You may add +2 fire damage per spell level to the spells base damage. A single spells cast can trigger multiple spell laces. Spell saves that cause half damage affect this bonus damage as well.
I think v0.91 is ok.
But you should clearly state if you have the choice to deal the additional lace damage or not.
The word may indicates that you have the choice but I would write it down clearly.
In addition you should make clear how it interacts with spells that shoot multiple missiles or such.
For example magic missile: Is the bonus damage divided (if possible) by the number of missiles or does the first missile get all the bonus damage.
To your question: I might take one of your lace spell feats with a caster.
The arcane pummel is not so much to my liking. But the second version is much better than the first. That was way too strong, especially with cantrips. And in my opinion that is the kind of spell such repetition feats should be balanced around, because you can repeat them all day long. With the first version a cantrip would, after some time, have taken down castle walls.
Conceptually, I don't have a problem with lace spells affecting missile spells. However, mechanically, I don't want the laces to linearly increases just because the spells has multiple missiles.
So, I guess I would have to define a new term barrage spells: barrage spells are spells that create mutiple missiles, rays, or blasts from a single casting. Barrage spells include the lowly magic missle and the mighty meteor swarm.
Then, lace spells could affect the first missile in a barrage spell. If multiple laces are added to a barrage spell, then each successive lace affects the next missile in the barrage. That might create some wierdness though because now the laces need an order to affect successive missiles.
Another thought. What about a spellfire lace. +1 damage per spell level, but it is untyped magical energy (raw spell power). It is not subject to energy resistance or absorbace (but the normal spell would be subject to both as appropriate). It would count as magic though for bypassing damage reduction.