The Arcane Mastery Feat (CArc): Need Testimonials & Advice

[Miss Disaster]

With my 12th level Wizard now encountering more & more opponents with SR, I'm seriously considering retraining one of my lesser-used feats into the Arcane Mastery (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/arcane-mastery--96/) feat from Complete Arcane. My optimized Wizard uses a lot of SR=Yes spells and runs most of her typical adventuring day with CL=14 ... and sometimes higher (like 15 and 16) for select spells and schools (like Divination). And yes, I have access to other spells that boost CL checks (Spell Enhancer, Assay Spell Resistance, etc.).

So I'd like to hear from you Giants in the Playground ... who have play experience testimonials with the Arcane Mastery feat ... and also your observations on the feat in typical gameplay from levels CR11 to CR15. Especially if you play in average-to-high Op sessions.

My guess is, for those who play primary spellcasters with a sizable boost to CL, this feat can really shine due to its ironclad certainty to CL checks. Which a bunch of spells use outside of those who need it to pierce opposing SR's.

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P.S. It's quite difficult to do site searches and Google searches on this feat due to the generic and commonplace words of 'Arcane' and 'Mastery'. As a result, I found very, very few instances of players directly talking about this feat.

[Miss Disaster]

Anybody? :-(

I'm sure some of you have some observations on Arcane Mastery in play ...

[Vaz]

Having trouble with high SR opponents and continually using SR: yes spells isn't exactly in cue with optimizing. You wouldn't target an Undead opponent with a fort save that doesn't affect objects, the same thing applies here. Don't target high SR opponents with SR yes spells. Use no SR spells, or buffs. If you are divining, you should be able to identify the threat early enough to adequately choose your spells. Instead of trying to brute force your way through 24+ SR, go around it - pick up Uncanny Forethought if you have Spell Mastery already. Or just escape, rest,,change spells, reattempt.

Note that taking 10 does mean you add +10, it just means you roll slightly under average (d20 average is 10.5).

[RelentlessImp]

Personally, the only time I've ever used Arcane Mastery as a feat was with a gestalt game where I played an Illithid that took levels in Metaphysical Spellshaper so I could auto-make the DC 20 CL check to heal ability damage caused by MpSS's "damage ability scores for metamagic" to Persist all my buffs at the start of each day and to auto-succeed on checks to use Shapechange scrolls for Wishes. I could have done the former better by dipping Binder and binding Naberius, probably.

It's a nice idea for a feat but it needs to do better than let you Take 10; maybe Take 15 instead.

[Jeff the Green]

I've only seen it used for counterspelling, for which it's quite useful if you both have CL-boosting abilities available and have a means to not have to ready an action to counterspell. For SR... yeah, I'm going to go along with Vaz. You're level 12; you can afford to spend a few spell slots on SR: no spells each day even if your bread and butter are SR: yes.

[Miss Disaster]

Thanks much for the replies, but as I stated in the original post, I'm not looking for wizard-playing advice ... I'm looking for Arcane Mastery testimonials and in-play observation in mid-to-high Op 3.5 environments. I play in a very high CharOp environment that pushes boundaries up to T.O. Since our group has never had Arcane Mastery see the light of day on our gaming table, that's why I thought some of you may have.

[Ischtan]

I was also once thinking about taking the feat, but I didn't. So I cannottell you stories about how useful it really is. But just think about the last play sessions. Could you beat the SR of the opponents with a 10 on your roll or not. This should give you all information you need to know about how useful the feat will be in your game.