Just how strong is this?

[SangoProduction]

​Quick Cast - Once per hour, the action you use to cast a spell with casting time of no more than 1 standard action is reduced to 1 swift action. You may not use your remaining actions that turn on casting a spell. You may take this multiple times, each time increasing the number of times per hour you may cast by 1.

Quicker Cast - Requires Quick Cast. As Quick cast, but the spell may be of up to 1 full round action.

These feats was intended for a Gish-type character, but is there anything I am missing that would allow full spellcasters to abuse this? Or are these just too good or what? Quick Cast was inspired by duskblade, but buffed to refresh on the hour rather than day the day. Quicker Cast was just an expansion upon Quick Cast.

EDIT: Both of the above will not allow psionics or spell-completion nor spell-trigger magic items.

[Cerefel]

It seems like it could be abused by characters like psionic/magic theurges that have access to powerful standard action options other than spells, but otherwise it seems reasonable.

[ryu]

Let me put it this way. Fullcasters have more efficient and less tethered ways of casting more quickly than this already unless this is the super lowbie levels. Do the feats have any sort of prereqs? Even if not I'd still only consider using them at very low levels.

[Pluto!]

Items can still be activated, Psi/Sp/Su abilities can still be used and full attacks can still be taken. Depending on campaign assumptions, it seems like it could easily be 4 free Quickens a day with no spell level increase or prerequisites listed.

I would slam the first of these feats on like 50% of all characters I play, no questions asked -- which probably means it's too good.

[ryu]

Items can still be activated, Psi/Sp/Su abilities can still be used and full attacks can still be taken. Depending on campaign assumptions, it seems like it could easily be 4 free Quickens a day with no spell level increase or prerequisites listed.

I would slam the first of these feats on like 50% of all characters I play, no questions asked -- which probably means it's too good.

I was working under the assumption that things which duplicate spellcasting would also be disallowed. If not then the feat is actually somewhat powerful. Not the most powerful, but somewhat powerful.

[Troacctid]

A good comparison would be Quicken Spell-Like Ability, which is 3/day (pretty similar to 1/hour) and has increasingly difficult prerequisites based on the level of the spell-like ability you're quickening, but doesn't restrict your actions for the rest of the turn.

Quicken SLA is a pretty good feat for characters that use SLAs. If this feat has no prerequisites and can affect a spell of any level, I would expect it to be decently strong.

Another comparison would be Sudden Quicken. This feat is clearly just better than Sudden Quicken--you lost the harsh prereqs and you can use it multiple times a day. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever seen a build use Sudden Quicken ever--it's not really worth all those feat slots.

[SangoProduction]

I was working under the assumption that things which duplicate spellcasting would also be disallowed. If not then the feat is actually somewhat powerful. Not the most powerful, but somewhat powerful.

That's a very good point. I am admittedly working on a custom system based 3.5 (and in fact uses many of the same rules). It doesn't have any casting except the runes I set up, so I didn't think about spellcasting-like abilities that aren't actual spells (although this is a good approximation to the mechanic I'm trying to implement). And I'm a complete nubcake when it comes to magic items. I generally just take whatever seems interesting at the time lol. Thanks very much for point this out for me.

So, notes:
Probably won't be allowed to use it for psionics, or spell-completion / spell-trigger magic items. The intent was to help gish characters along.

Now is it appropriate?

A good comparison would be Quicken Spell-Like Ability, which is 3/day (pretty similar to 1/hour) and has increasingly difficult prerequisites based on the level of the spell-like ability you're quickening, but doesn't restrict your actions for the rest of the turn.

Quicken SLA is a pretty good feat for characters that use SLAs. If this feat has no prerequisites and can affect a spell of any level, I would expect it to be decently strong.

Another comparison would be Sudden Quicken. This feat is clearly just better than Sudden Quicken--you lost the harsh prereqs and you can use it multiple times a day. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever seen a build use Sudden Quicken ever--it's not really worth all those feat slots.

Well, that's encouraging


Let me put it this way. Fullcasters have more efficient and less tethered ways of casting more quickly than this already unless this is the super lowbie levels. Do the feats have any sort of prereqs? Even if not I'd still only consider using them at very low levels.

Yeah, they probably do, but that's why I'm intentionally trying to not target them...or target away from them...or whatever the terminology is.

[Troacctid]

If it's intended for gishes, why not push that angle a little harder? Like, instead of letting you cast a spell as a swift action so your other actions are free for attacking, maybe it lets you make a full attack as a swift action after casting a spell.

[SangoProduction]

If it's intended for gishes, why not push that angle a little harder? Like, instead of letting you cast a spell as a swift action so your other actions are free for attacking, maybe it lets you make a full attack as a swift action after casting a spell.

Hmm. OK. I could do that.
That's interesting.

[Necroticplague]

Meh. Battle Blessing does this, except without a 1/hour limit.

[ryu]

My main point is that the feat is probably fine. The sort of thing you're afraid of is already fully possible in several different ways and your feats aren't likely to be relevant to the process with the restriction on also not allowing things which duplicate casting.

[MisterKaws]

If it's intended for gishes, why not push that angle a little harder? Like, instead of letting you cast a spell as a swift action so your other actions are free for attacking, maybe it lets you make a full attack as a swift action after casting a spell.

Move->cast->full attack.

Nice, now you want to give people tons of mini-Belts of Battle?

[ryu]

Move->cast->full attack.

Nice, now you want to give people tons of mini-Belts of Battle?

Put in those terms this feat would actually be kinda underpowered. Literally just duplicating a fairly inexpensive item effect for an entire feat.

[Troacctid]

Move->cast->full attack.

Yes, that's the idea. Only once per hour, remember. Seems okay to me.