Spell Mastery Revised


Homebrew and House Rules


I have an idea for a different kind of spell mastery feat. I'm thinking of making it grant 3 + Wizard levels worth of known spells.

The reason I'm doing this is to make a version that is useful for all levels. A wizard who takes this feat at first level will be mastering new spells every new wizard level including level 20. It also means that a wizard will probably have mastered spells of many different levels. A wizard who at later levels picks up this feat will hopefully have spell mastery slots that they can afford to pick up some lower level spells. There will be enough slots for every spell level to have at least 2 spells mastered.

The existing feat feels too much of a snap shot in time. If you take it at first level, you will have a bunch of 1st level spells mastered. It wouldn't scale as you leveled up. If you took it at level 5, you would likely master 3rd level spells. Level 11, a bunch of 5th level spells. Because it bestows a number of mastered equal to your intelligence, the amount of spells you have mastered will vary. Not every wizard will have Int of 20.

I'm wondering what you readers think of this revision?


Bump.


You'll likely get better feedback if you move this to homebrew.


Oh sorry. Umm... how do I move a thread?


You flag it as being in the wrong forum (flag button at the top right of eac post),. I flagged it for you.

I would probably change it to be like this:

Quote:

SPELL MASTERY

You have mastered a small handful of spells, and can prepare these spells without referencing your spellbooks at all.

Prerequisite: 1st-level wizard (or Magus or whatever)

Benefit: When you take this feat, you choose 1 spell per spell-level that you can cast (that you know). You can now prepare these spells without referring to your spellbook. Every time a new spell-level becomes available you can choose a spell of that level to add to your list of spells that you can prepare without referring to your spellbook.

At 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter you can choose to swap one chosen spell for another of the same spell-level.

This feat can only be taken once.

Normal: Without this feat, you must use a spellbook to prepare all your spells, except read magic.

In case I didn't make it clear enough, this would basically mean that you have one spell per spell-level that you can prepare without a spellbook. When you level up you get a new one. The ability to swap spells out ever 5 levels means that you can take spells like Daze at lower levels without ending up with a useless spell later on. Since this becomes a scaling feat I thought it appropriate to limit it to only being taken once to avoid cheese.

If you wanted to change the swap spells part to every 4 or every 6 levels or whatever you feel is balanced feel free (obviously), this was just a first draft, so I just picked a number that sounded right.

If you wanted to change it so that it can be taken more than once feel free (again, obviously). I feel like limiting it is a good idea, but you could limit it to 2 or 3 times. You could alternatively keep it at "only taken once", but add an Improved and Greater version.


Thanks for the reply. Been kinda busy. I was also hopping this thread would be moved to the homebrew section by now, but it hasn't.

MrCharisma, your first draft is alright. However, I'm not sure if the needs of a wizard can be covered by only 1 spell per level. Its why I opted for 1 spell per wizard level (about 2 per spell level) and then some.

As for the number of times it can be taken, I was thinking of making a feat that you would only need to pick once. I mean, how many times will a wizard wind up without their spell book? If all goes well, a wizard will venture into a dungeon with their comrades and full selection of prepared spells.

I'm not against this feat from being picked multiple times, but I'm not sure for what they would need them for.


Spell Mastery in most campaigns is a wasted Feat...however if you are running a campaign setting in which you are removed from civilization you may find you have more need to avoid situations like loosing your spell book and getting screwed over. I have seen this feat mostly taken reactively by players who don't trust their DM's to not screw them over, or taken when the DM has warned them in advance this would be a theme in the campaign. More frequently players would just opt for Sorcerers in such campaigns if they knew it was going to be set up like that. Properly built a Sorcerer looks a lot like a wizard and doesn't have the spell book handicap.


Yeah you're right. I have read it before that spell mastery is usually a wasted feat. I tried to counter that by increasing the power of the feat. However, with 1 spell mastered per character level, a sorcerer still has them beat. I only realize that now.

Starting with level 0 on the left, these are the sorcerer spells known. These are the numbers to beat.
9/5/5/4/4/4/3/3/3/3

I suppose I could raise the number of spells a wizard could master with this feat, but that could be a push too far. I think it would better to find some other feature to make this feat work.

I could rule that the wizard automatically masters some spells as a class feature. That way you could get the effect without needing to spend a feat on it.

Mythic adventures has a mythic version of spell mastery on p. 74. With it, any mastered spell could be prepared as a full round action. However, by spending 1 point of mythic power a wizard could fill any number of his open slots with mastered spells, as a full round action.

I'm open to suggestions.

Customer Service Representative

Moved to Homebrew.


One of the thing not to forget when looking at the wizard vs the sorcerer is the simple fact that a wizard can change their spell selection on a more or less as needed basis, where as the player of the sorcerer needs to be damn nearly psychic themselves when choosing their spells. Sorcerers need a lot of flexibility built into their spell list (or magic scrolls, wands, etc that make up for a lack of flexibility) and thus tend not to specialize as often, nor as deeply as their Wizard counterparts. NOTE: I personally never followed this advise and always pointed out that my Sorcerer (or Mage) was there to "blow sh** up!" and the party for the most part just accommodated for this type of build.

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