Reserve feats.

[Metahuman1]

So, I got kinda a quirky Probably-not-hard-core-optimization build idea recently while glancing through complete mage.

A caster who focuses his feats on Reserve feats.

For some reason I'm leaning Sorcerer for this with an eye toward wanting spells that will, at any given level, allow me to get the most out of the largest number of reserve feats possible and still have as many tricks as possible.


Anyone have any input/thoughts/ideas for how this build should look?

[Urpriest]

Most of the reserve feats are the same, especially the arcane ones. For example, you probably only need one of the damage-dealing ones. Beyond that, Summon Elemental and Minor Shapeshift are well regarded.

[Vladislav]

Summon Monster spells are great for this purpose. First, it's a Summoning spell, so counts for Elemental Summoning. Second, one of the options on the summoning list is a Fire Mephit, so as long as you have a Summon Monster spell you could cast, it counts as "having a Fire spell available to cast", so you can use Fiery Burst as well. Same logic applies to the Air-based reserve feat, the Water-based one, etc.

One spell can enable like a half-dozen reserve feats.

[Igneel]

I especially love the Summon Elemental feat as a 'at-will' minion summoning method. Need a fast fire? Summon a Fire Elemental! Need something to check for traps? Earth Elemental! Scout? Any of them really pending on environment!

Edit: One of my most recent characters specializes in summoning elementals, and uses the Augment Summoning+Rashemi (sp?) Summoning+Elemental Summoning along with a few other feat chain to summon super strong elementals.

I used to really love the Storm Bolt feat till I found the errata that says a enemy gets a Ref save for half.

In my own personal experience in playing a few games that don't really have a "Go back to town and rest" option they can help in that you have very minor spells that you have an option to spam.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If you're going to get reserve feats on a spontaneous caster, get Heighten Spell. With that you'll automatically get to count your current highest level spell slot available for determining the strength of your reserve feats.

Storm Bolt is probably the most useful of the damaging reserve feats. Acidic Splatter is decent if you have Sneak Attack. Keep in mind that if you find yourself left with a lot of unused spell slots whenever you rest, you should probably be casting spells more often and using those reserve feats a bit less.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It will be... Difficult... To keep up with the demands of reserve feats as a Sorcerer, since almost all of them (all of them?) scale with your highest-level spell of X descriptor, and you really won't have the spells for all of them. The exception to this is if you take Heighten Spell and encounter a Schrödinger's spell list scenario where every spell can technically be cast at the highest level (even if it's not), and thus you "know" how to cast every spell at the highest level (even if you don't), and can therefore use every reserve feat at your highest spell level as long as the spell slot is there. I don't believe that's how they work, however.

If you want to take all the reserve feats, however, I'd recommend starting with Fiery Burst (or Acid Splatter), Minor Shapeshift, Face-Changer, and/or Summon Elemental first. Dimensional Jaunt and Dimensional Reach are cool, but amount to standard-action mini-teleports (Move Action distance) and mini-telekinesis; of course, you get Dimensional Reach for preparing the same spell as you use for Summon Elemental, and you get Dimensional Jaunt for preparing a teleportation spell, so you're not losing much. Aquatic Breath and Sunlight Eyes are cool passive abilities with caveats (Sunlight Eyes uses up a swift action to last a turn; Aquatic Breath has no drawbacks, but the ability to breathe in water has limited applications). I honestly don't think any of the others are worth your time (unless you have a lot of enemy spellcasters who stand close to enemies while they cast, but somehow don't have ranks in Concentration).

[Jack_Simth]

Summon Monster spells are great for this purpose. First, it's a Summoning spell, so counts for Elemental Summoning. Second, one of the options on the summoning list is a Fire Mephit, so as long as you have a Summon Monster spell you could cast, it counts as "having a Fire spell available to cast", so you can use Fiery Burst as well. Same logic applies to the Air-based reserve feat, the Water-based one, etc.

One spell can enable like a half-dozen reserve feats.
Actually, no. In the Complete Mage description of what reserve feats mean, this is nixed: "Spells that do not have a descriptor until cast (such as the summon monster spells) can't be used to gain the primary benefit of a reserve feat" - page 37, first column, last sentence of the next-to-last paragraph of that column. Sorry.

Like with many things, the Wizard does it better than a Sorcerer - partly because of Heighten Spell (it works for a prepared caster, but not a spontaneous one!), partly because of the bonus feats (which are extended by Complete Mage to encompass reserve feats - page 37, second column, third full paragraph), and partly because of the faster spell access.

But yes, you can turn a Wizard into a Warlock by way of Reserve Feats. Let's see... if we pick, say, 11th level (for Medium elementals), a Human Wizard could potentially have... Fiery Burst (Human bonus feat - qualify via Precocious Apprentice, as it requires 2nd level spells), Acidic Splatter (3rd level feat, requires 2nd level spells), Magic Sensitive (Wizard Bonus 5 - retrain as soon as you get Permanency with Detect Magic), Summon Elemental (9th level feat), and Dimensional Jaunt (Wizard Bonus 10). A specialty (Conjourer recommended), and he can power them all fairly readily. Keep a ring of X-Ray vision handy for short-term use (Dimensional Jaunt requires you be able to see the destination, but not line-of-effect), as well as a Ring of Invisibility, and you can do great.

Alternately, focus on Summon Elemental exclusively (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118749), and get a Ring of Invisibility so you can stand there and think away your enemies from safety (Summons don't break your invisibility).

[Vladislav]

Actually, no. In the Complete Mage description of what reserve feats mean, this is nixed: "Spells that do not have a descriptor until cast (such as the summon monster spells) can't be used to gain the primary benefit of a reserve feat" - page 37, first column, last sentence of the next-to-last paragraph of that column. Sorry.God damn it, seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Jack_Simth]

God damn it, seemed like a good idea at the time.
Yeah, pretty much. Potentially, an elemental domain cleric could get around that via the restriction on their 9ths... but yeah, pretty much.

[Marnath]

Like with many things, the Wizard does it better than a Sorcerer - partly because of Heighten Spell (it works for a prepared caster, but not a spontaneous one!),

That's not my reading of it. All you need is a spell of the appropriate type and level available to cast. For example if you know burning hands and have 5th level spell slots, you could cast a heightened 5th level burning hands any time you wanted as long as you have a slot left.

[JadePhoenix]

It will be... Difficult... To keep up with the demands of reserve feats as a Sorcerer, since almost all of them (all of them?) scale with your highest-level spell of X descriptor, and you really won't have the spells for all of them.
Just take Heighten.


That's not my reading of it. All you need is a spell of the appropriate type and level available to cast. For example if you know burning hands and have 5th level spell slots, you could cast a heightened 5th level burning hands any time you wanted as long as you have a slot left.
I agree completely.

Wow, this reminded me of a character in a brazilian book (O Inimigo do Mundo; The World's Enemy, in a free translation). He was a wizard under vancian casting, as in fire-and-forget. He always prepared two copies of the same spell, because he was very afraid of "forgetting" how to do magic. Now I want to take the obvious next step and play a sorcerer who only ever uses reserve feats =p

[Duke of URL]

Just take Heighten... Now I want to take the obvious next step and play a sorcerer who only ever uses reserve feats =p

You don't even have to exclusively. If you allow Heighten to work like that, you need only reserve 1 spell slot of your highest level to power all of your reserve feats; you just need spells known scattered throughout your list to qualify for them.

[Eldest]

You don't even have to exclusively. If you allow Heighten to work like that, you need only reserve 1 spell slot of your highest level to power all of your reserve feats; you just need spells known scattered throughout your list to qualify for them.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Keep a spell slot of your highest spell open, and you can use the powers as much as you want.

[JadePhoenix]

You don't even have to exclusively. If you allow Heighten to work like that, you need only reserve 1 spell slot of your highest level to power all of your reserve feats; you just need spells known scattered throughout your list to qualify for them.
Indeed, my concept is of someone who simply does not want to spend their spell slots. The slots would be kept for RP reasons, not mechanical ones.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Just take Heighten.

I know a lot of people TL;DR my posts, but you literally stopped at the exact point where I start talking about Heighten and why I'm not sure it works :smalltongue::


It will be... Difficult... To keep up with the demands of reserve feats as a Sorcerer, since almost all of them (all of them?) scale with your highest-level spell of X descriptor, and you really won't have the spells for all of them. The exception to this is if you take Heighten Spell and encounter a Schrödinger's spell list scenario where every spell can technically be cast at the highest level (even if it's not), and thus you "know" how to cast every spell at the highest level (even if you don't), and can therefore use every reserve feat at your highest spell level as long as the spell slot is there. I don't believe that's how they work, however.

But since then, I've read the spontaneous caster's restrictions on reserve feats, and they actually seem less restrictive than all of us might think:


From Complete Mage, p. 37:
A spellcaster who does not need to prepare spells (such as a sorcerer) must know an appropriate spell and must have at least one unused spell slot of that spell's level or higher. If the character has more than one appropriate spell known, he gains the benefit only from the highest-level spell for which he has an unused spell slot of that level or higher.

Which seems to imply that Heighten Spell doesn't even matter regardless, because a 12th-level Sorcerer who knows Dimensional Anchor counts as knowing a 4th-level Abjuration spell for the purpose of meeting reserve feat prereqs... But counts it as a 6th-level spell for the purpose of determining level-dependent spell effects as long as they have 6th-level spell slots prepared, regardless of Heighten Spell? Put simply, as long as you know Combust or Scorching Ray, your 18th-level Sorcerer is going to do 9d6 with Fiery Burst, with a Reflex save of 19+CHA mod, unless and until you run out of 9th slots, at which point it does 8d6... Etc., etc... And none of this even needs Heighten Spell to work.

EDIT: ...Actually, can I get someone to confirm I'm reading that right? Now I think I must be missing something.

[JadePhoenix]

EDIT: ...Actually, can I get someone to confirm I'm reading that right? Now I think I must be missing something.

I think you are missing something. :smallwink:
"that level or higher" does not apply to reserve feats effects, since they already request "that level or higher". Without heighten, that literally makes no difference.
The point is that with Heighten, as long as you have your highest level slot open, all your reserve feats work full throttle.

[Duke of URL]

Actually, you may be right, since you can always cast a lower-level spell using a higher level slot. The only reason to use Heighten is to increase save DC, not to use the slot at all. So technically, a Sorcerer with one unused spell slot from his/her highest spell level counts as having a spell slot of that level unused for any spell he/she knows, without using Heighten at all.

Not sure this is what was intended, but I can't really see a good way of making it work more like a Wizard without completely screwing over the Sorcerer.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think you are missing something. :smallwink:
"that level or higher" does not apply to reserve feats effects, since they already request "that level or higher". Without heighten, that literally makes no difference.
The point is that with Heighten, as long as you have your highest level slot open, all your reserve feats work full throttle.

But see below; there's nothing stopping you from casting Scorching Ray as a 9th-level spell slot without Heighten; it's just that it's a grossly inefficient use of your spell slot (unless you're metamagicking it up). Heighten would just increase the save DC to make it as a 9th-level spell, but... Actually, Scorching Ray doesn't have a save DC, so even that doesn't matter.

EDIT: Which means that the only thing Heighten Spell would do would be let Burning Hands count as a 2nd-level spell known for the purposes of taking the feat, which I'm still not sure it does.

[JadePhoenix]

Actually, you may be right, since you can always cast a lower-level spell using a higher level slot. The only reason to use Heighten is to increase save DC, not to use the slot at all. So technically, a Sorcerer with one unused spell slot from his/her highest spell level counts as having a spell slot of that level unused for any spell he/she knows, without using Heighten at all.

Not sure this is what was intended, but I can't really see a good way of making it work more like a Wizard without completely screwing over the Sorcerer.
Yeah, that much is pretty clear. I didn't think there were any misunderstandings regarding this. My point is that withotu Heighten, the effect of the reserve feat would still be limited by the spell's level.
A little example to see if I'm getting my point across.
Sorcerer 6 with Acidic Splatter. She knows melf's acid arrow as a 2nd level spell and no acid spells on 3rd level. She deals 2d6 damage. With Heighten, acid arrow could be cast as a 3rd level spell. She deals 3d6 damage. In both cases, she can use Acidic Splatter as long as she has a 2nd or 3rd level slot open, because she can use her 3rd level slot to cast Acidic Splatter.

Complete Mage makes it pretty clear - Sorcerers are the kings of reserve feats.



But see below; there's nothing stopping you from casting Scorching Ray as a 9th-level spell slot without Heighten; it's just that it's a grossly inefficient use of your spell slot (unless you're metamagicking it up). Heighten would just increase the save DC to make it as a 9th-level spell, but... Actually, Scorching Ray doesn't have a save DC, so even that doesn't matter.
But then you're casting a 2nd-level spell from a 9th-level slot. That doesn't make it into a 9th-level spell.

[Duke of URL]

Good point. As long as the wording is based on using the spell's level, not the reserved spell slot's level, you'd need to use Heighten in order to get full benefit out of the reserve feat.

So that just really makes Heighten a feat tax for sorcerers to gain some serious awesomeness with reserve feats. (And make Warlocks cry even more about being Tier-5).)

[Lonely Tylenol]

But then you're casting a 2nd-level spell from a 9th-level slot. That doesn't make it into a 9th-level spell.

Right, but don't we only care that we have a spell slot open as a Sorcerer? Reserve feats don't care if the spell you're casting out of a 9th-level spell slot is a 9th-level spell just that the spell potentially fulfills the requirements of the reserve feat (which Scorching Ray does).

Actually, your example with the Acidic Splatter makes more sense - I'm going to roll with that. Forgive me; it's 4 AM in Hawai'i, and I haven't had an actual night's sleep since Monday night (go go gadget 45-minute power nap for finals crunch!).

[Steward]

I feel like that works though, right? I mean, either way (actually keeping a spell slot intended for a 9th level spell, or a spell slot intended for a lower spell that will be cast using a 9th level slot) you're keeping that slot unused, right?

[Eldest]

The slot is unused, if you have a 2nd level acid spell, with a 9th level slot open, you can cast that 2nd level spell, so your reserve feats would be powered by a second level spell. If you had heighten spell, you can cast that 2nd level spell spell as a 9th level spell, so your reserve feat would be powered by a 9th level spell.

[Duke of URL]

I feel like that works though, right? I mean, either way (actually keeping a spell slot intended for a 9th level spell, or a spell slot intended for a lower spell that will be cast using a 9th level slot) you're keeping that slot unused, right?

As JadePheonix pointed out, the wording of the feats are based on the spell level, not the spell slot level. Without Heighten Spell casting a 2nd-level spell out of a 9th-level slot is still a 2nd-level spell.

[Andorax]

The one thing I can say about reserve feats? I have a cleric in one of my campaigns who has had Flame Strike memorized, and uncast, since 9th level. She's 11th now, likely to be 12th tonight, and thoroughly enjoys being able to throw fire into the fray in just about every fight.

[Prime32]

*homebrew plug* (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3545) :smalltongue:

[Randomguy]

A homebrew prestige class themed around this that grants bonus reserve feats and other related benefits would be awesome. Hint hint.


Look for spells that have multiple types and subtypes. For example, Firestride exhalation is conjuration (teleportation) as well as evocation (fire), so it could fuel fiery burst as well as dimensional jaunt.

Personally, I'm a fan of sunlight eyes. Sure, it's a weak benefit, but it's one of very few ways to see in magical darkness.

Dimensional reach also looks useful (Accio!), but it seems like you could save yourself a feat and just learn mage hand. The only situation I can think of when mage hand isn't as good is when the object you want is stuck or embedded in something, like a sword in a frozen lake, so mage hand can't pull it out.

Archmage looks like a decent PrC to go into, since you don't really care about losing spell slots (to power your high arcana), especially as a sorcerer. Are there any other PrC's that involve losing spell slots for other benefits?

I might be wrong, but it looks like you can use the empower, extend and widen supernatural ability feats on your reserve feats, since they count as supernatural abilities. It doesn't really seem worth it though; the metasupernatural feats are only usable 1/day, and the effects that you'd be enhancing aren't very strong anyway.

[Vladislav]

A homebrew prestige class themed around this that grants bonus reserve feats and other related benefits would be awesome.
I believe it's called "Warlock".

[Metahuman1]

Now I kinda wanna know if there's a way to get that it so that you can do two things with your swift action at once. Cause a Sorcerer with one lvl in Cleric for travel devotion and the combat Panche feat along with Fiery Burst would be a master of action economy. Think about it. Cast a useful spell as a standard action, use your move action to make a bluff check to boost AC, swift action to move somewhere where your not as much of a target and drop a fire blast on the bad guy.

[Terazul]

A homebrew prestige class themed around this that grants bonus reserve feats and other related benefits would be awesome. Hint hint.


Been around for a fair bit, actually. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147086)

[Jack_Simth]

Been around for a fair bit, actually. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147086)
... you can relatively easily enter the class after three Wizard levels (skill ranks, there's a few reserve feats that you can qualify for at 2nd), and the capstone (at 8th level), basically lets you use four reserve feats per round quite easily ... and have plenty of reserve feats available to blast someone four times at basically (1/2 character level)d6 damage each. All day. That can get rather strong rather quickly.

[Marnath]

Good point. As long as the wording is based on using the spell's level, not the reserved spell slot's level, you'd need to use Heighten in order to get full benefit out of the reserve feat.

So that just really makes Heighten a feat tax for sorcerers to gain some serious awesomeness with reserve feats. (And make Warlocks cry even more about being Tier-5).)

I don't know that I'd call it a feat tax. Heighten is pretty awesome on it's own isn't it?

[Rubik]

Versatile Spellcaster (along with Heighten) is good for Reserve Feats too, because if you have six 0-lvl spell slots and five 1st lvl spell slots, you could potentially convert those 0 lvl spells to 1st lvl spells, and all 8 of those to make four 2nd lvl spells converted to two 3rd lvl spells to make one (potentially) 4th lvl spell. At 1st level you've got some really good reserve feats going on.

[FMArthur]

Reserve feats can be taken with wizard bonus feats, so a wizard will be able to end up with more of them than a sorcerer. You could take Alacritous Cogitation to always leave a top-level slot open for anything in your spellbook, which means that it can power all of your reserve feats at once provided that you can find a top-level spell of each particular type and get it written down.

[artimus261]

Have to mention this, not sure anyone else did, but Druids, druids right? They can always lose a prepared spell for a summon nature's ally spell. Doesn't that mean they always have a conjuration(summoning) spell available to cast of the highest spell level they have? Doesn't that mean that a Druid can infinitely use Dimensional Reach(for what it's worth) and Summon elemental at their maximum potential as long as they haven't used up all the spells of their highest spell level each day? Heighten spell be damned? Think that's kinda amazin <3 and fitting, a druid able to summon up large elementals all the time for almost a whole minute at a whim??? Boss

[Particle_Man]

Interesting, but it seems like a lot of work when one could just play a Warlock. :smallsmile:

[Grim Reader]

Karsite Stalwart Battle Sorcerer.

What kind of ability is using a reserve feat? Can it be quickened?


Versatile Spellcaster (along with Heighten) is good for Reserve Feats too, because if you have six 0-lvl spell slots and five 1st lvl spell slots, you could potentially convert those 0 lvl spells to 1st lvl spells, and all 8 of those to make four 2nd lvl spells converted to two 3rd lvl spells to make one (potentially) 4th lvl spell. At 1st level you've got some really good reserve feats going on.

Thats not even close to how Versatile Spellcaster works.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just a thought; combine with eldritch theurge? All the at-will magics. :smallbiggrin:

[Grod_The_Giant]

If you're going to do this seriously, it might be worth digging into some Earth Spell/Sanctum Spell shennanigans to eek a bit of extra power out of your feats. Maybe Knowledge Devotion too; I don't see why it wouldn't apply to Reserve feat damage. Can we come up with anything else to boost your otherwise-crappy attacks?

[Dagroth]

I especially love the Summon Elemental feat as a 'at-will' minion summoning method. Need a fast fire? Summon a Fire Elemental! Need something to check for traps? Earth Elemental! Scout? Any of them really pending on environment!

Edit: One of my most recent characters specializes in summoning elementals, and uses the Augment Summoning+Rashemi (sp?) Summoning+Elemental Summoning along with a few other feat chain to summon super strong elementals.

I used to really love the Storm Bolt feat till I found the errata that says a enemy gets a Ref save for half.

In my own personal experience in playing a few games that don't really have a "Go back to town and rest" option they can help in that you have very minor spells that you have an option to spam.

There's a Wizard ACF that replaces one of your bonus feats (at 5th, 10th, 15th or 20th) that gives you a Domain Granted Power. The Summoner Domain gives +2 CL for Conjuration (Summoning) & Conjuration (Calling) spells...

[zergling.exe]

If you're going to do this seriously, it might be worth digging into some Earth Spell/Sanctum Spell shennanigans to eek a bit of extra power out of your feats. Maybe Knowledge Devotion too; I don't see why it wouldn't apply to Reserve feat damage. Can we come up with anything else to boost your otherwise-crappy attacks?


There's a Wizard ACF that replaces one of your bonus feats (at 5th, 10th, 15th or 20th) that gives you a Domain Granted Power. The Summoner Domain gives +2 CL for Conjuration (Summoning) & Conjuration (Calling) spells...

This thread is almost 5 years old, guys.

Though I will say, I don't think Heighten works by RAW with sorcerer's the way they want it to. I think it would fall under the same thing as summon monster not counting as [Fire] and [Water] and such, in that while you can cast an 8th level scorching ray you don't have one available, you only have a 2nd level scorching ray available at any one time.