Sacred Geometries

[Erik Vale]

Here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry)

Read the feat. Make sure you understand it first.
Ok, what does everyone else think of it. Other than it slowing the game down while the resident wizard/mathematician figures out the maths to get one of the numbers. Is it game breaking to the extreme like I think, or does the playground think that it's too chancy to use/really on?

[icefractal]

... :smalleek:

That is - not good for the speed of the game, unless you're playing PbP. Fun if you like math puzzles, I suppose.
IMO - not super powerful. The fact that you're limited to a modified level you could already cast means you don't gain a huge benefit from downtime use, and while adventuring the chance of failure (which I have no idea what % it is) seems like a significant downside.

Good for extending your longevity, I guess. When the enemies are mostly defeated and you're just mopping up, you can try using this with low-level spells. If the rest of the players don't throw dice at you for taking so long!

[erok0809]

That sounds like a major hassle for everyone involved, and it would be too random to trust, since the spell fails entirely if you can't do the proper math. It would take way too long, and it's not even a guarantee that your spell works. I would never use or allow it in a game of mine, anyway.

[Psyren]

It wouldn't be so bad except for this line:

"Perform some combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division upon the numbers rolled that gives rise to one of the relevant prime constants."

Instead of forcing you to perform a specific combination each time (e.g. multiply first, add second, subtract third...) it tells the caster to just crunch the numbers six ways from sunday to see if s/he can come up with something workable. Since it's impossible to know what numbers you'll roll ahead of time, you're pretty much going to need the Goal Seek function in Excel every time you use this.

[Scots Dragon]

It makes about as much sense as 'real-world' sacred geometries. Which is to say none.

[The Grue]

Honestly, I think this would work fine if you axed the arithmetic minigame and just kept the extra casting time.

[Alleran]

Other than it slowing the game down while the resident wizard/mathematician figures out the maths to get one of the numbers.
For the amount that it can slow down the game, it's one of the few feats that I am not willing to allow in a campaign that I DM.

[Spore]

I would disallow it. And I would hurt every player slightly physical to try and bring this up. I really really like the idea but it should be done in an abstract and quick way.

1) Use three meta magic feats.
2) Increase the spell slot.
3) Make Knowledge roll.
4) Have an quickened empowered maximized scorching ray on a 9th level spell slot.

[Serafina]

The feat kinda-sorta works if you have a low number of skill ranks, at least you don't have TOO many combinations then. Or if you are in a PbP-game and use your computer to find the solution.

The feat Arithmancy actually does the whole "number-crunch during the game" thing in a decent way - you just calculate the digital root based on the letter-values of the name of the spell. Which is static, so you just have a small cheat-sheet where you write it down for your spells, such as "Fireball (Root: 2)" or "Magic Missile (Root 1)".
Of course being static kinda makes the in-game number crunching obsolete, but to be honest its a pretty bad idea anyway. Calculating a Digital Root can be done pretty quickly in your head, but the feat has a weird letter-value table that complicates the whole thing waay too much again.

I love the concept, but the execution is just really crappy. Arithmancy works fine, but Sacred Geometry is just terrible.

[AMFV]

Here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry)

Read the feat. Make sure you understand it first.
Ok, what does everyone else think of it. Other than it slowing the game down while the resident wizard/mathematician figures out the maths to get one of the numbers. Is it game breaking to the extreme like I think, or does the playground think that it's too chancy to use/really on?

Well you could always just set up a program to do it. It's pretty much a wrote thing that only varies based on a few variables. So you could just write up a short program that could do it almost instantly for you, if that's really your thing.

[The Grue]

Well you could always just set up a program to do it. It's pretty much a wrote thing that only varies based on a few variables. So you could just write up a short program that could do it almost instantly for you, if that's really your thing.

This is an elegant solution and would totally work.

However, it says a lot about the mechanic itself that the best way to handle it from a game-flow perspective is to write a short program to perform the menial computations instead of the player.

In fact, it occurs to me that a given group of dice will have a finite set of combinations that can, through simple arithmetic, be manipulated to result in any of three numbers. If one were to calculate how many combinations there were that resulted in successes, one could express that number as a ratio against the number of combinations that do not result in successes.

In other words, you could express them as a probability.

Or a die roll.

So really, as written that feat just requires you to roll a die, but in the most needlessly complicated way possible.

[AMFV]

This is an elegant solution and would totally work.

However, it says a lot about the mechanic itself that the best way to handle it from a game-flow perspective is to write a short program to perform the menial computations instead of the player.

In fact, it occurs to me that a given group of dice will have a finite set of combinations that can, through simple arithmetic, be manipulated to result in any of three numbers. If one were to calculate how many combinations there were that resulted in successes, one could express that number as a ratio against the number of combinations that do not result in successes.

In other words, you could express them as a probability.

Or a die roll.

So really, as written that feat just requires you to roll a die, but in the most needlessly complicated way possible.

True, but it's supposed to represent a particular type of mysticism which often involves convolution for no reason. Although that might or might not help game aspects, it's really I'd imagine a matter of taste.

[Slipperychicken]

This kind of crap is why we have skill and ability checks.

Although I guess it could be nice for the "Teach Math with D&D" crowd.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The feat kinda-sorta works if you have a low number of skill ranks, at least you don't have TOO many combinations then. Or if you are in a PbP-game and use your computer to find the solution.

The feat Arithmancy actually does the whole "number-crunch during the game" thing in a decent way - you just calculate the digital root based on the letter-values of the name of the spell. Which is static, so you just have a small cheat-sheet where you write it down for your spells, such as "Fireball (Root: 2)" or "Magic Missile (Root 1)".
Of course being static kinda makes the in-game number crunching obsolete, but to be honest its a pretty bad idea anyway. Calculating a Digital Root can be done pretty quickly in your head, but the feat has a weird letter-value table that complicates the whole thing waay too much again.

I love the concept, but the execution is just really crappy. Arithmancy works fine, but Sacred Geometry is just terrible.

Arithmancy (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/arithmancy)
It's not weird...they're providing a cheat-sheet for you. A is the 1st letter; J is the 10th so it is once again root 1, etc...

I definitely like that one better. But it is only for +1 CL on the spell and requires a completely useless spell focus (divination) for no reason....bleh. And it's limited use per day.

Some combination of Arithmancy and Sacred Geometry would probably be good. One w/ the simplicity and calculate-ahead-of-time features of Arithmancy and the low pre-reqs and benefits of SG, perhaps. (I do think it wouldn't be too hard if you had to roll some dice and digital root them on the spot as long as you calculated the spells ahead of time. Or maybe that's too limiting and random, I don't know.)

It's cool paizo tried to imitate the FF Tactics Calculator class to some extent. It just...doesn't work so well in D&D.

[Erik Vale]

For the math you could do it all pre-game, write out all possible results from what you can roll, work out what prime numbers you can get, and then make a list of successful rolls. Then you roll and refer to the sheet, so it's not necessarily something that will cause delays even without using an app.

Though my preference is quicken and highten.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Free metamagic is pretty much at the top of things to make casters more op. Free metamagic + 2 metamagic feats for one feat is right up there with DMM and Incantatrix, even if you can't cast spells higher than your normal maximum level.
Sure, it's worse if you want to persist everything. It also has unlimited uses and can be used with Quicken (which Incantatrix can not), works with any metamagic you have (DMM works only with one) and gives you 2 other feats for free.

The math makes it a little tedious but no less powerful.

[Fizban]

This is the dumbest idea I've seen for free metamagic since free metamagic.

(Free metamagic: overpowered. Free metamagic with stupid over-complicated math applied in the middle of combat? No.)

[Coidzor]

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

[Kudaku]

I think the flavour and the concept of the feat is amazingly cool.

I will however not be allowing it in play - the math equasion will shut down the table harder than a master summoner who forgot his summon monster cheat cards.