Spell Focus vs Weapon Focus: Which is better?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

In 3.5 and Pathfinder - prerequisites aside - which feat is better, Weapon Focus or Spell Focus? Both give a 5% boost to your primary means of offsense for the character. (I assume that for whichever character takes this feat, they do so for a weapon or spell school they plan to use often.)

I vote Spell Focus for the better. There are plenty of ways to boost accuracy. Spell Focus boosts all DCs of one spell school by one, but that +1 DC is often for area effects, DoT effects, crowd control effects, and 'if you fail your save I win' effects. Not all spells have saves, and not all spell schools are made equal for this feat (just like with Weapon Focus), but Spell Focus just makes me feel slightly better (compared to Weapon Focus) for having taken it.

[Necroticplague]

Spell focus, because it tends to serve as a prerequisite to things that are better than things that Weapon Focus serves as a prerequisite to.

[AvatarVecna]

Beyond the obvious "Spell Focus because magic is better than weapons", I think making your enemies saves harder is more useful than making your weapons more accurate. As an example, your enemy can only auto-succeed on a 20, but it's possible to auto-hit somebody for great effect on something other than a 20 with a weapon; it's generally better to optimize critical threat range than accuracy, unless the accuracy boost is much better than this (I consider Improved Critical better than Weapon Focus, especially for higher threat range weapons, but Knowledge Devotion has a better leg to stand on).

Still, ultimately, Spell Focus is better than Weapon Focus because Spell Focus makes it builds on the magic system, where Weapon Focus builds on the weapon system...and spells are (at worst) significantly superior to weapons, and (at best) are almost literally infinitely superior to weapons.

[Necroticplague]

Beyond the obvious "Spell Focus because magic is better than weapons", I think making your enemies saves harder is more useful than making your weapons more accurate. As an example, your enemy can only auto-succeed on a 20, but it's possible to auto-hit somebody for great effect on something other than a 20 with a weapon; it's generally better to optimize critical threat range than accuracy, unless the accuracy boost is much better than this (I consider Improved Critical better than Weapon Focus, especially for higher threat range weapons, but Knowledge Devotion has a better leg to stand on).

Er, critical threats aren't auto-hits, only natural 20s are auto-hits, even for weapons.


Automatic Misses and Hits

A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit.

[AvatarVecna]

Er, critical threats aren't auto-hits, only natural 20s are auto-hits, even for weapons.

Technically, sure, but the effect is usually the same; if you're rolling high enough to threaten a critical, you almost always hit. If you're rolling within your crit threat range and whiffing the attack roll, you probably need to seriously rethink your strategy (and possibly consult the rules on appropriate challenges while you're at it).

[sleepyphoenixx]

Spell Focus, no question. There are plenty of ways to boost accuracy. Spending a feat for a +1 isn't worth it.
There are also plenty of ways to boost spell DC that are better than spell focus, but not as many and most also cost feats.

Special mention goes to Spell Focus:Good from the BoED. Not only does it add a +2 to DC, if you learn Mark of the Enlightened Soul (DrM) it also applies to all your spells. That's worth a feat if you have room in your build.

[Ashtagon]

The question presents a false dichotomy. Character builds will almost never be in a position such that they need to choose one or the other, since you will always choose your class before feats. Warrior classes would always find Weapon Focus to be the better choice. Caster classes will always find Spell Focus to be the better feat.

Gish classes could conceivably find a use for both; which is better for them very much depends on whether they are usually able to make their spells last for the whole adventuring day, which in turn depends on the nature of that gish class and how much spellcasting it actually gets.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Spell Focus, no question. There are plenty of ways to boost accuracy. Spending a feat for a +1 isn't worth it.
There are also plenty of ways to boost spell DC that are better than spell focus, but not as many and most also cost feats.
This. Saves and save DCs also tend to be rather lower than attack rolls and AC, so the +1 goes a lot farther.

[Flickerdart]

Gish classes could conceivably find a use for both; which is better for them very much depends on whether they are usually able to make their spells last for the whole adventuring day, which in turn depends on the nature of that gish class and how much spellcasting it actually gets.

Gishes don't typically rely on spells with DCs, since the whole reason for watering down a full caster is usually so you can slice and dice your enemies up close and personal.

[sleepyphoenixx]

This. Saves and save DCs also tend to be rather lower than attack rolls and AC, so the +1 goes a lot farther.

Not really. AC is generally higher than saves too. You also get the +1 from Weapon Focus on all your attacks (generally), while the DC increase applies only to one school.
And unless you're at the point where you autohit or your enemy needs a 20 to save you're getting a 5% (1/20) increased chance to hit either way.

To hit bonuses are just a lot more common, so you don't have to spend feats on a measly +1. Other sources also tend to give more than +1.
DC increases are basically gained with feats, higher casting stat and very rarely an item, and anything above +1, often to a subset of spells only, is rare.

[Kurald Galain]

Frankly, I usually wouldn't take either of them (unless it's a prerequisite to something I want). There are so many good and impressive feats out there that I find getting a +1 to anything is just too lacklustre to spend a slot on.

[Zaydos]

Running the numbers with PA versus a balor.

WF = ~10 hp of damage on a full attack (roughly 3% max hp a little more).

SF = 3.25% increased chance of instant kill with 1 spell, or 4.25% with Gr. Spell Penetration or 5% with Assay Spell Resistance

Which would mean that, given equal difficulty in full attacking and casting spell they are 'equal'. Of course this isn't true.

There is also the fact that 226 or 236 the damage will still take 2 rounds to kill the balor, although there is a small (and I mean small) chance of killing it with above average rolls, and ifyou have two fighters that can full attack a balor it will die (2 wizards that can spell sling it and it actually only has ~a 50% due to its saving throws, higher if you target Will and say Dominate Monster to better than kill it).

This does mean that while both do ~3.25% of its max hp in one round SF does it more easily and more meaningfully, where as WF will very rarely make the difference between 1 round kill and 2 round kill and that is what actually matters.

Also other note Balor AC 35. Average Balor Fort save 32.5. Average Balor Will save 29.5. Of course Balor has the worst AC of core CR 20 monsters (Pit Fiend has 5 better, Black Dragon 4, tarrasque ties balor).

So Spell Focus is mathematically almost equal against 1 target and if you ignore the difference in ease of use (Standard action vs full round), required wealth investment (200k+ vs 0), and actual impact of effect (3.25% max health or 3.25% increase in chance of one round kill).

[Ashtagon]

Gishes don't typically rely on spells with DCs, since the whole reason for watering down a full caster is usually so you can slice and dice your enemies up close and personal.

So what you're saying is that for any gish build, it is always an easy decision to choose Weapon Focus over Spell Focus? That simply confirms my main point.

[Xerlith]

So what you're saying is that for any gish build, it is always an easy decision to choose Weapon Focus over Spell Focus? That simply confirms my main point.

That's like saying that for your family van it's always an easy pick to decide on a 5cm spoiler over a big wing.

Both are a waste of money and look silly.

[Kurald Galain]

So what you're saying is that for any gish build, it is always an easy decision to choose Weapon Focus over Spell Focus?
Given that most gish builds are rather feat-starved, the easy decision would be to choose neither.

[Ashtagon]

Given that most gish builds are rather feat-starved, the easy decision would be to choose neither.

But that's not the question. Given a gish build, and given a feat to choose, and given it must be Spell Focus on Weapon Focus, a) is the decision an easy one? And b) if it is easy, which one?

[Troacctid]

But that's not the question. Given a gish build, and given a feat to choose, and given it must be Spell Focus on Weapon Focus, a) is the decision an easy one? And b) if it is easy, which one?

Well obviously Weapon Focus, since as a Psychic Warrior, Spell Focus does literally nothing for you.

[Kurald Galain]

But that's not the question. Given a gish build, and given a feat to choose, and given it must be Spell Focus on Weapon Focus, a) is the decision an easy one? And b) if it is easy, which one?

You're setting up a false dichotomy here, so the proper answer is Mu.

[Zaq]

I agree with most of what has been said already, so I'll answer from a slightly different perspective.

Weapon-using builds usually (not 100% of the time, but very frequently) require more feats to do what they want to do than spell-using builds do. Metamagic is a thing (and building up huge chains of metamagic-tweaking feats can certainly take some investment), but generally, spells just work out of the box. You want to be a caster, so you take levels in a caster class, and then you point spells at people and rewrite reality in your image.

Weapon users, on the other hand, often take a bunch of feats to reach baseline. You want to be an archer? Okay, you need Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot before you're able to ignore a penalty that your melee friends never have to think about, and you probably want Rapid Shot and/or Crossbow Sniper and/or Greater Manyshot and/or whatever. You want to fight with two weapons? Okay, you need TWF or else you basically will never hit anything ever, and then you probably want ITWF/GTWF eventually, and since you need high DEX to do this right, you probably want Weapon Finesse for the privilege of using your primary stat to hit (what do you mean, paying a feat for something other builds get for free? You're being silly), and you might want Shadow Blade, etc. You're a tripper/lockdown melee? Well, you've gotta get a spiked chain, and you've gotta get Combat Expertise and Improved Trip, and you almost certainly want Combat Reflexes, and after all that's in place we can start talking about Power Attack and Knockdown and Stand Still and all that good stuff.

Different builds take different numbers of feats to reach baseline, and we can argue all day about where we draw the line between "making your basic concept function" and "making your basic concept good," but generally, a weapon-user who wants to do anything more complex than Power Attack with a greatsword isn't going to be able to do what they set out to do before they get a handful of feats stashed away. Just try playing a crossbow user before you get Precise Shot and Rapid Reload—it flat out doesn't function. Whereas a magical character still has perfectly effective spells long before they get all their feats in place. They're certainly stronger after getting their feats in place, but spells still work just fine even before you can Persist half your list or whatever.

Based on this, I argue that casters have greater flexibility with their feats than weapon-users do. Therefore, it is less painful for a caster to fit in Spell Focus than it is for a weapon-user to fit in Weapon Focus. At high levels, sure, a caster has a higher opportunity cost to taking a weak feat than a mundane character does (delaying Robilar's Gambit or something equivalent is sad, but it's a smaller loss than delaying Craft Contingent Spell), but I still feel like it's easier for a caster to slow things down by taking Spell Focus than it is for a weapon-user to slow things down by taking Weapon Focus.