Spell Perfection in 2E


Homebrew and House Rules


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Spell Perfection
[Bard] [Cleric] [Druid] [Magus] [Oracle] [Rare] [Sorcerer] [Summoner] [Witch] [Wizard]

You're so well practiced with a favored spell that you can now cast it effortlessly.
Prerequisites legendary in Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion (the prerequisite skill must match the chosen spell's tradition)
Benefit Pick one spell you can cast of 3rd-level or lower and that does not heal hit points. The GM may restrict additional spell options at their discretion. The selected spell gains the cantrip trait and can be cast in all ways as a cantrip.

Balanced? Broken? Thoughts?

Grand Lodge

Ravingdork wrote:

Spell Perfection

[Bard] [Cleric] [Druid] [Magus] [Oracle] [Rare] [Sorcerer] [Summoner] [Witch] [Wizard]

You're so well practiced with a favored spell that you can now cast it effortlessly.
Prerequisites legendary in Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion (the prerequisite skill must match the chosen spell's tradition)
Benefit Pick one spell you can cast of 3rd-level or lower and that does not heal hit points. The GM may restrict additional spell options at their discretion. The selected spell gains the cantrip trait and can be cast in all ways as a cantrip.

Balanced? Broken? Thoughts?

Broken. Unlimited casting at highest spell slot, i.e. always heightened. Obsoletes almost all cantrips, and most signature spell abilities.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Unfortunately I don't really know a lot about game balance yet so I can't make any suggestions there.

But I was thinking the following wording might be a little clearer?

Spell Perfection (Feat 15)
[Bard] [Cleric] [Druid] [Magus] [Oracle] [Rare] [Sorcerer] [Summoner] [Witch] [Wizard]

You're so well practiced with a favored spell that you can now cast it effortlessly.
Requirements legendary in the skill related to your spellcasting tradition
Benefit Pick one spell you can cast of 3rd-level or lower without the healing trait and where you are legendary in the skill corresponding to its spellcasting tradition (subject to GM discretion). The selected spell gains the cantrip trait and can be cast in all ways as a cantrip.

I figured that throwing the healing trait in there, instead of the clause about 'healing hit points', a) covers that clause and b) also stops spells like restoration and remove curse/paralysis/disease being selected as a cantrip.

Actually, just thinking about it more and maaaaaybe the incapacitation trait should also be excluded? It feels it might be too powerful to throw out unlimited (potentially) encounter-ending spells that are also auto-heightened.


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Why not just restrict so that the spell never heightens beyond 3rd level? So you can cast fireball at will but it never does more than 6d6. That's still really good because you have an AOE cantrip. But regular cantrips deal more single target damage. Seems worthy of a 18th or 20th class feat.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Definitely needs to not auto-heighten. Haste (7th) as a cantrip is... no. :) Not to mention Charm, Sleep, etc.

If you assume no heightening... There's probably some way to break it with a specific spell, but it's probably alright overall.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Maybe as a focus spell, still super strong though


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Meh, no heightening doesn't really work for me. Have you seen the 1st Edition Spell Perfection?

It was spectacular! But it had to be, because you couldn't get it without being 15th-level first.

I thought this might be a good fix for all those people complaining about vancian casting not letting casters do magic at will.

Sure, it's better than other cantrips, but you only ever get one, and at those high levels, I would certainly hope a feat gets you something better than just another cantrip or signature spell.

Even a level 10 fireball isn't going to come close to comparing to a normal 10th-level spell. It's a well known fact that heightening lower level spells for damage usually isn't better than just using a higher level spell.

But if it's still seems too much, maybe we could add a caveat that it only heightens to your highest spell level -4? Now that I think about it, I probably should also say you can still cast it using your normal spell slots as a non-cantrip. I'm sure that will matter for certain mechanics.

So if you take this as your 16th-level feat, and can cast 8th-level spells, you can essentially do at-will 4th-level fireballs.

Not sure about restricting the heal trait. I mean to stop unlimited healing, but I don't see an issue if someone really wants to make their one big spell "cure disease" or something like that.


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I've never played 1E, only looked through D&D 3.5, and played 4E/5E, and now Pathfinder 2E, so I don't have a frame of reference for Spell Perfection. I'm trying to come at it from a 2E balance perspective. A 3rd level fireball is a powerful cantrip. No other cantrip does 20ft AOE damage. If you hit at least two targets in the blast, then you're dealing more damage than a single target regular cantrip. If you're hitting three or more enemies, then you're really dealing a lot of damage. Its much better than a normal cantrip.

Besides damage spells like Fireball, that means you have things like Slow or 3rd level Fear at will, which is really good! I think keeping the spells from heightening is necessary for balance sake.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Thanks for your input fanatic66. I've been doing some number crunching and comparisons and am starting to come around on the balance issues.

As I've said, I don't mind this feat being a power boost over cantrips, but I'm beginning to realize that it is many, many times more powerful.

Also, here is the original Spell Perfection feat for easy reference.

If you've played 3.5, and understand the metamagic subsystem, then you should have a pretty good idea of just how incredible this feat is.


Honestly, I think you can just make it this:

Quote:

Level 15.

Requirement: Master in your spell tradition skill.
Pick 1 spell that you can cast. You may add the effects of a metamagic feat you have to this spell without spending an action.

Optional additional benefit: When you get Legendary in your spell tradition skill, increase the effects of feats that give a numerical bonus to some aspect of the spell by 1.

Optional requirement: Have 3 metamagic feats.


Ravingdork wrote:

Thanks for your input fanatic66. I've been doing some number crunching and comparisons and am starting to come around on the balance issues.

As I've said, I don't mind this feat being a power boost over cantrips, but I'm beginning to realize that it is many, many times more powerful.

Also, here is the original Spell Perfection feat for easy reference.

If you've played 3.5, and understand the metamagic subsystem, then you should have a pretty good idea of just how incredible this feat is.

Ah, that's a cool feat. Why not make the feat more similar to its 1E counterpart? Choose a spell, and you can apply one metamagic to it without spending an extra action?

Then your feat could be called "Signature Spell" and lets you turn any 3rd level or lower spell into a cantrip for you except it doesn't auto-heighten past 3rd level. Signature Spell feat is still a big power boost as you pointed out. Fireball/Lightning Bolt give you AOE cantrips that out damage regular cantrips as long you hit 2 enemies in the AOE. Debuffs like Slow/3rd level Fear at will are super good. Buffs like Haste and Heroism at will are also excellent (constant heroism on all the whole part all the time!!!). It would have to be a 18th or 20th class level feat I think.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Ravingdork wrote:
Even a level 10 fireball isn't going to come close to comparing to a normal 10th-level spell. It's a well known fact that heightening lower level spells for damage usually isn't better than just using a higher level spell.

The problem here is the disconnect in utility between heightened damage spells and heightened buff/debuff spells.

Being able to cast Fireball on-level as a cantrip is pretty powerful - but it doesn't even come close to something like Haste, where the party wizard can just say "I'm gonna cast Haste once every minute so the entire party is permanently hasted".

Or Charm, which will become game breaking around 7th level when the party wizard just starts Charming every random person around town they meet effectively permanently... at then at 15th level they are Charming 10 people/round and you have to figure out what to do about them having entire towns under their thrall.

This is also going to be very breaking for spells that get their entire function from being heightened, with a prime contender being Dispel Magic.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Let's compare it to a 20th level feat.

PFS StandardBloodline Conduit Single ActionFeat 20
MetamagicSorcerer
Source Core Rulebook pg. 201 1.1
Frequency once per minute
Your inborn magical nature lets you redirect ambient energies to fuel your spells. If your next action is to Cast a Spell of 5th level or lower that has no duration, you don’t expend the spell’s slot when you cast it.

This is the closest thing to your feat. It is 20th level, once per minute, and stops at 5th level. Being able to use that for different spells doesn't really make up for all this. 5th level spells just aren't that valuable a resource at that level compared to unlimited heightened top level spells.

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