Sculpt spell vs Mastery of Shaping

[Niwrad]

Been wondering about this for a while, and thought that the forums might be able to answer this.

What is the difference between the complete arcane feat sculpt spell, and the archmage high arcana mastery of shaping?

Which one is better?

And should one take sculpt spell, is investing in archmage mastery of shaping still worthwhile? Or once mastery of shaping is taken, should sculpt spell be replaced?

[TheMooch]

These two feats let you do very different things. One lets you make holes an in area of effect and the other you actually change the shape of the spells area.

So is one better than the other? It depends on what you are trying to do.

Should you take/have both? Again it depends on what you are trying to do.

[Niwrad]

These two feats let you do very different things. One lets you make holes an in area of effect and the other you actually change the shape of the spells area.

So is one better than the other? It depends on what you are trying to do.

Should you take/have both? Again it depends on what you are trying to do.

so should a battlefield control wizard have one or the other? Or both?

[Elderand]

Idealy you want both, scult to ensure your spells always have the best possible shape to hit as many enemies as you can and mastery of shaping to ensure that you don't hit your allies when you do.

[Zanos]

If both were a feat, I would take Mastery of Shaping over sculpt spell. Mastery of Shaping has no spell level adjustment and you don't have to prepare spells with it applied if you're a prepared caster.

Sculpt spell gives you far more control over your spell areas, however.

[Uncle Pine]

They're both useful indeed. However, you can take Sculpt Spell at 1st level while Mastery of Shaping becomes available at ECL 13. You might prefer the former over the latter if the campaign doesn't start at mid-high levels.
Talking about feats, Selective Spell (http://dndtools.eu/feats/shining-south--25/selective-spell--2543/) works similarly to Mastery of Shaping: at a mere +1 cost, you cast an area spell so that it does not affect one designated creature within it's area. Note that it doesn't create a hole inside the spell's area, it just lets someone act as if you didn't cast the spell in the first place. This opens some nice tricks like selective wall of stone/iron/force and selective AMF.

EDIT: As for Sculpt Spell, Selective Spell is available at 1st level (even though it becomes useful only later).

[Jack_Simth]

This opens some nice tricks like selective wall of stone/iron/force and selective AMF.That last one works, but the others are all Effect spells, not Area spells, so the Selective Spell feat doesn't apply.

[StreamOfTheSky]

They're both useful in their own way, and having both together is awesome.

Also, Sculpt is nice because you can turn tiny area spells like grease and glitterdust into big radius or long line blasts, along with the finer control option of 4 10' cubes (still a big increase in area).

[Uncle Pine]

That last one works, but the others are all Effect spells, not Area spells, so the Selective Spell feat doesn't apply.

My bad, I didn't check the various walls' entries and must've failed my Autohypnosis check. :smalltongue: