When "just magic" isn't enough (magic feats)

[gunnar11]

Hey guys!
At home today I thought: Metamagics isn't enough really.
What if we can alter the effects individually?
(And if this is succesful I would alter them to fit clerics also)

So here's the list:

Magicborn
You have an affinity for magic, allowing it to remain potent longer than usual.

Prerequisites:
Ability to cast spells
Benefits:
Your spells last twice as long
Drawbacks:
Spells used on you last twice as long



Offensive Magic
You have devoted yourself to the more aggresive ways of magic, enabling you to do more damage, but also neglecting your defences

Prerequisites:
Arcane Casting ability
Benefits:
Your spells deal twice the damage on foes
Drawbacks:
Spells used on you deal twice the damage




Defensive Magic
You have devoted yourself to the more calm aspects of magic, enabling you to defend yourself better agains magic, but also cutting your offensive casting power in half

Prerequisites:
Arcane Casting ability
Benefits:
Spells from foes deal half damage to you
Drawbacks:
Your spells deal half damage to enemies





Magic is my life:
You've sacrificed your very body and soul to achieve more knowledge in spellcasting.

Prerequisites:
None
Benefits:
You're able to cast twice the amount of spells per day. This means that the amount of spells of a certain spell level doubles. Example: Edaiol has 3 lvl 0 spells /day, 2 lvl 1 and 1 lvl 2. After aquiring this feat it becomes: 6 lvl 0 spells, 4 lvl 1 and 2 lvl 2 spells
Drawbacks:
Your total hp is cut in half (rounded down).



Repel Magic:
You've never liked magic, thus shielding yourself completely from it.

Prerequisites:
Unable to cast spells (or forfeit the ability to cast them when choosing this feat)
Benefits:
Spells from the foe have no effect on you (thus not making you sick, damaging you, making you roll a save)
Drawbacks:
Spells from your allies have no effect on you (thus not curing you, not healing you or benefitting you in any way)



Please tell me what you think of these, if someone already came up with these ideas (I didn't check) and/or if they work or not. Also, if you can think of something that sounds better than the things I wrote so far, please do tell me (Example: Use "downsides" instead of "drawbacks")

Thanks :smallbiggrin:

[Pyromancer999]

So it looks like for the most part that you're giving the benefits of a metamagic feat to casters to all spells in exchange for a drawback that's even worse? No offense, but if I were to use flaws, I'd just go take a flaw then get a metamagic feat. These feats seem to be pretty broken, especially the last one. If a fighter or even a warrior were to take that feat, they'd be the bane of all spellcasters and creatures who use spells, making the drawback not matter much to some, depending on the amount of spellcasters in the campaign.

[gunnar11]

So it looks like for the most part that you're giving the benefits of a metamagic feat to casters to all spells in exchange for a drawback that's even worse? No offense, but if I were to use flaws, I'd just go take a flaw then get a metamagic feat. These feats seem to be pretty broken, especially the last one. If a fighter or even a warrior were to take that feat, they'd be the bane of all spellcasters and creatures who use spells, making the drawback not matter much to some, depending on the amount of spellcasters in the campaign.

First of all: Not all feats I described here can be replaced by a metamagic feat, nor do these make your spells a higher level in exchange for the effect.
Second: Not giving them a drawback is even worse
Third:
"Oh no, my char is on -5 hp and bleeding!"
"Don't worry, I'll heal you; Cure Light Wounds!"
DM: "That won't work... Remember the feat?"

[Dr.Epic]

Hey guys!
At home today I thought: Metamagics isn't enough really.
What if we can alter the effects individually?
(And if this is succesful I would alter them to fit clerics also)

So here's the list:

Magicborn
You have an affinity for magic, allowing it to remain potent longer than usual.

Prerequisites:
Ability to cast spells
Benefits:
Your spells last twice as long
Drawbacks:
Spells used on you last twice as long

How's that a drawback? Yeah, bad effects certainly are, but if an ally casts a spell to make you more powerful, it lasts twice as long. Drawback ain't so great.


Repel Magic:
You've never liked magic, thus shielding yourself completely from it.

Prerequisites:
Unable to cast spells (or forfeit the ability to cast them when choosing this feat)
Benefits:
Spells from the foe have no effect on you (thus not making you sick, damaging you, making you roll a save)
Drawbacks:
Spells from your allies have no effect on you (thus not curing you, not healing you or benefitting you in any way)

Um, I can't say Broken enough times. So you could pretty much flatten an epic level lich, and the only bad thing is you can't be healed by spells (really that's the biggest drawback here; while buffs are nice, I think healing is far more essential and are more frequently occuring). So you eliminate the ability to be healed by magic in order to pretty much tear through any caster: that's not nearly an equal enough trade since you can just stock up on healing potions.

[gunnar11]

How's that a drawback? Yeah, bad effects certainly are, but if an ally casts a spell to make you more powerful, it lasts twice as long. Drawback ain't so great.

It's the same with normal spells. Normally an ally buffs you and the enemy isn't buffed. The times when the enemy can debuff/ attack you it becomes a lot more troublesome. This feat just extrapolates it.



Um, I can't say Broken enough times. So you could pretty much flatten an epic level lich, and the only bad thing is you can't be healed by spells (really that's the biggest drawback here; while buffs are nice, I think healing is far more essential and are more frequently occuring). So you eliminate the ability to be healed by magic in order to pretty much tear through any caster: that's not nearly an equal enough trade since you can just stock up on healing potions.

Ok, ok, I get your point(s). Although I also included potions and scrolls and magic items in that, but still... yeah. Let's see what I can do about that..

Maybe you guys also have some constructing advise?

[Merk]

An interesting idea, but in play these would probably turn out to be overpowered. Furthermore, within the context of high level, optimized play, the drawbacks will pretty much never matter.

Magicborn: First of all, RAW this applies to buffs that other people cast on you. That includes defensive buffs that prevent entire schools of magic from effecting you. Second of all, free Extend on all of your magic is just too strong, and the drawback is less consequential than the benefit -- how often is a caster targeted? In the case of an alpha strike "scry n die" wizard, that matters even less.

Offensive Magic: Just cast any of the various damage mitigation spells (Energy Immunity, etc.), and you've doubled your damage output for a trivial cost.

Defensive Magic: Blind idiot pick for any caster that eschews damage for control/utility magic.

Magic is my Life: Seeing as this is a mage's whole schtick anyway, and they're amazing, this is another blind idiot pick with trivial drawbacks at higher levels due to the wizard gaining a number of ways to avoid danger.

Repel Magic: IMO this is the only one that approaches balanced, and only because this forces extreme WBL dependency on our poor beatstick (no casting Fly, etc.)

I don't like to be overly critical or negative without offering helpful input, but honestly I think these feats are unusable and essentially cannot be fixed without seriously reconsidering the concept, sorry for that.

Edit:

My constructive advice basically boils down to:

1) Magic is the strongest thing in D&D

2) Balancing options (magic) against numbers (BAB, HP, etc.) is difficult.

3) Having an incredibly powerful capability "balanced" by an equal (in magnitude) disadvantage does not work. This is because in play, PCs work around the disadvantages as much as possible. The net effect is that if they can't do it, it's unusable. If they can, it's brokenly powerful, and it's difficult to hit a middle ground. (See Epic Spellcasting)

Some solutions:


Instead of auto-extend all spells, auto-extend a certain subset of spells, balanced by all other spells having their durations halved.
Increase the damage die of one subset of spells, but all other spells deal half damage.

[Yitzi]

Defensive Magic is pretty broken, as taking half damage from all spells could easily be worth a wizard dip to the right build (especially one that would benefit from wand use and low-level buffs anyway.) It also helps nondamaging casters (save-or-X, buffers, etc.)
Magic is my Life could definitely work...just make sure you don't allow any "mana shield" type abilities (and if using psionics, don't let this apply to psionics unless you ban Vigor).
Repel Magic can easily be broken if placed on something with Fast Healing (as then the lack of magical healing isn't such an issue, and immunity to magic is probably worth the rest).

[Popertop]

for the magic immunity one, you could place some more restrictions on it.
like, you don't qualify for the feat if you have or gain fast healing, or you could just outright say they can't heal naturally. doesn't really help the feat, but just some ideas

[Tenno Seremel]

Repel Magic:
You've never liked magic, thus shielding yourself completely from it.

Prerequisites:
Unable to cast spells (or forfeit the ability to cast them when choosing this feat)
Benefits:
Spells from the foe have no effect on you (thus not making you sick, damaging you, making you roll a save)
Drawbacks:
Spells from your allies have no effect on you (thus not curing you, not healing you or benefitting you in any way)


Take this and go Psion.

[Dragon Star]

I really like the concept behind these, but as others have said, most of these feats won't work very well.

[Phosphate]

Take this and go Psion.

I read this and my eyes bleed. SO BROKEN!

[gunnar11]

An interesting idea, but in play these would probably turn out to be overpowered. Furthermore, within the context of high level, optimized play, the drawbacks will pretty much never matter.

Magicborn: First of all, RAW this applies to buffs that other people cast on you. That includes defensive buffs that prevent entire schools of magic from effecting you. Second of all, free Extend on all of your magic is just too strong, and the drawback is less consequential than the benefit -- how often is a caster targeted? In the case of an alpha strike "scry n die" wizard, that matters even less.

Offensive Magic: Just cast any of the various damage mitigation spells (Energy Immunity, etc.), and you've doubled your damage output for a trivial cost.

Defensive Magic: Blind idiot pick for any caster that eschews damage for control/utility magic.

Magic is my Life: Seeing as this is a mage's whole schtick anyway, and they're amazing, this is another blind idiot pick with trivial drawbacks at higher levels due to the wizard gaining a number of ways to avoid danger.

Repel Magic: IMO this is the only one that approaches balanced, and only because this forces extreme WBL dependency on our poor beatstick (no casting Fly, etc.)

I don't like to be overly critical or negative without offering helpful input, but honestly I think these feats are unusable and essentially cannot be fixed without seriously reconsidering the concept, sorry for that.

Edit:

My constructive advice basically boils down to:

1) Magic is the strongest thing in D&D

2) Balancing options (magic) against numbers (BAB, HP, etc.) is difficult.

3) Having an incredibly powerful capability "balanced" by an equal (in magnitude) disadvantage does not work. This is because in play, PCs work around the disadvantages as much as possible. The net effect is that if they can't do it, it's unusable. If they can, it's brokenly powerful, and it's difficult to hit a middle ground. (See Epic Spellcasting)

Some solutions:


Instead of auto-extend all spells, auto-extend a certain subset of spells, balanced by all other spells having their durations halved.
Increase the damage die of one subset of spells, but all other spells deal half damage.



for the magic immunity one, you could place some more restrictions on it.
like, you don't qualify for the feat if you have or gain fast healing, or you could just outright say they can't heal naturally. doesn't really help the feat, but just some ideas


I really like the concept behind these, but as others have said, most of these feats won't work very well.

Thanks for the responses, and Merk, no offence taken, it was my first homebrew anyway. It seems like it's not fixable, so I'm going to go brainstorm for some new ideas and/or switch to fighter ones, because those seem easier :smalltongue:


I read this and my eyes bleed. SO BROKEN!
Just some things:
1) Really? Are you sure? Thanks man! I hadn't noticed that from the 7 comments before you
2) Not constructive. If you have something to say that could actually help me, thanks, if not, go away.



Thanks again ^^

[Roderick_BR]

It's the same with normal spells. Normally an ally buffs you and the enemy isn't buffed. The times when the enemy can debuff/ attack you it becomes a lot more troublesome. This feat just extrapolates it.




Ok, ok, I get your point(s). Although I also included potions and scrolls and magic items in that, but still... yeah. Let's see what I can do about that..

Maybe you guys also have some constructing advise?
Many non-magical ways to get healing: Tome of battle maneuvers that recovers HP, healing salves (alchemical items, non-magical), Combat Forms (one of them offers temporary HP recovering), monk's healing (supernatural, not magical), though he already have good saves and SR, so avoiding buffs from allies and magic items... well.
Well, really, just look up Vow of Poverty, and the Forsaker prestige class.

Thing is, I don't think casters really need to be more powerful. Even with these "drawbacks".

[Fiery Diamond]

For the last one: Perhaps add a clause like "can only heal through natural healing" and "cannot benefit from this feat if you have fast healing." That would fix all the magic items, potions, psionics, maneuvers, and fast healing loopholes and make it operate as intended.

Frankly, that could be the basis of a character concept in and of itself.


Anyhow:

(and I'll try to keep my "possible solutions" in line with the ideas presented)

-Magicborn: The drawback also functions as a benefit, giving two benefits for one drawback instead of one benefit for one drawback. Free extend is a bit more powerful than you give it credit for, especially if your allies get free extend when they cast on you as well. Also, most debuffs other than just cancelling the buffs you have are unlikely to run their entire duration anyway, as they will likely be counteracted by either you or an ally before that, making the drawback less powerful than intended.

Possible solutions:

A) Choose one school of magic to apply the benefit to, can only take feat once. This is only a partial solution, as we still need to deal with the drawback, and people are probably going to choose either abjuration or transmutation.

B) Make debuffs (ALL debuffs, not just ones from spells) have a duration of permanent on you and require either dispel magic/greater dispel magic (giving a chance of dispelling your buffs) or remove curse/break enchantment/limited wish/wish/miracle to remove, depending on the level (or effective level) of the debuff. Ally buffs don't have duration doubled.

C) Or you could add both A and B together. Now we have a more limited benefit (free extend on one school of spells) for a firm drawback (permanent, difficult to remove debuffs). It's still a powerful feat, but it's a little less heavily weighted toward all good no bad.

Offensive Magic: Again, too heavily weighted toward goodness; the drawback is relatively easy to negate while the benefit is very good for blasters - it's more powerful than a free empower.

Possible solutions:

A) Benefit: Increase damage die instead of doubling damage. Still good for blasters. We need a better drawback, too. Let's pick and choose from what I've got in option C.

B) Benefit: Free empower for a specific subset (by element, by theme, by something) plus option C.

C) Drawback: Always provoke attacks of opportunity (only matters if you're in melee, so we need more), Take a -X (-5? -10?) penalty to AC (only applies to things that target AC, so we need more), Take maximum damage from spells (only applies to damage spells, which can be negated, so we need more), take a -X (-5? -10?) penalty to all saving throws, or perhaps just 2 of the three saving throws. The last of those is the most crippling, but we still don't want it to stand alone.

This is much less easy to work around. It is less likely that someone will pick this as a no-brainer and more likely that someone would choose it because it fit a character concept rather than any other reason, especially with the massive penalty on saving throws.

Defensive Magic: Yeah, I'm not sure how to go about fixing this one. Perhaps in exchange for taking half damage all spells you cast are halved in some way (half damage, half duration, half range, in that order - if it deals damage it deals half damage, if it has a limited duration and doesn't deal damage it has half duration, if is has a limited range and doesn't deal damage or have a limited duration then it has half range). Or maybe they're halved in all of those ways, provided the spell has that element to be halved.

Magic is my life: This just exacerbates the glass canon problem. Though if that's actually what you want to do, I'd go even further and drop the character down to 1 hp/lvl, or even 1 hp total. But since all that does is mess with hp, we need more of a drawback, like, say, giving some massive penalty on fortitude saves. Even then, it's all too easy to avoid stuff. And anyway, straight up doubling the number of spells per day is pretty powerful; it would still be powerful if all you did was add one spell per day per spell level.

Or, as another possibility, in exchange for more spells (probably just +1 per level) we could make all spellcasting cause hit point damage to the caster that can't be mitigated (though it can be healed), though I don't know what a reasonable amount would be.

And I already commented on Repel Magic.

[Tenno Seremel]

For the last one: Perhaps add a clause like "can only heal through natural healing" and "cannot benefit from this feat if you have fast healing." That would fix all the magic items, potions, psionics

Well known combo that grants temporary HP works around this.

[Yitzi]

Well known combo that grants temporary HP works around this.

The thing about temporary HP is that it's temporary and doesn't stack...so if you lose any real HP, that cuts into your max HP including the temporary stuff.

What is the combo, by the way?

[Tenno Seremel]

The thing about temporary HP is that it's temporary and doesn't stack...so if you lose any real HP, that cuts into your max HP including the temporary stuff.

What is the combo, by the way?

Share Pain + Psicrystal + it's Share powers ability + Vigor. And it does not really need to stack.