Optimize this Feat 6: Residual Rebound from Unearthed Arcana

[daremetoidareyo]

I Love Feats. They are little alterations to the rules and they interface with class features in some really fun and strange ways. Sometimes their utility is circumspect and sometimes they just stink. I'm looking at you Battle Dance. However, there is just something really satisfying about the interplay of feats and rules to produce illogical and unintended effects. Also, as a team, we can collectively push the limits of our apparent intelligence. (https://www.singularityweblog.com/human-swarming-and-the-future-of-collective-intelligence/)

What is this?
So this is the "Optimize this feat" discussion, wherein we work together to plumb the clever and amazing uses for feats in ways the designers could have only dreamt of. Arbitrary credit seems to be important to sway people's incentives, so I have devised the following system to award credit to people who help explore the possibilities of how to use a feat. I'm developing this pseudo-contest on the fly, so rules are subject to change :smallannoyed:


All participants in the optimization endeavor post directly into the thread. They may post as many times as they want, just like any thread where you volunteer your ideas. After a week or so, the thread will be evaluated and participants will be assigned a score. That score represents how helpful or novel the poster was in their analysis of a feat's uses, abuses, interactions, and limitations. The rubric by which points are assigned to posters is developed below. The poster's who are most helpful will be announced after a week, and have their name highlighted in bold and in a font color other than black! I will try to remain interactive in the process, because the contest element to me is secondary to extracting the maximum amount of versatility and power out of the feat resource.


Point Allocation Rubric
The following list is not exhaustive of how points will be allocated, as I imagine that there will be weird end cases.

Suggestion of a non-overtly obvious class feature, spell, feat, skill trick, psi-power, magic/psionic item, or monster that interplays with the feat to produce an exaggerated result.

Overt Obviousness will be judged by me, but I will generally allocate points generously, What I am trying to avoid is people suggesting feat interplays that are non-exceptional and thus cluttering the thread with lame and uninteresting things. 1 point.

If the suggestion is particularly powerful or clever, an additional point may be allocated to reward the optimizerly thinking. This decision is mine, although I will be swayed by what seems like genuine "co-signing," where other posters in the thread really glom onto the idea and develop it further.

A small build stub, between 5-12 levels, that includes a small write up of how the feat interplays with a few class features, racial features, spells, powers and feats to produce an effect that is far beyond the scope of what the feat of the week is capable of providing on its own. 5 points. +/- 1 point.

A rather undeveloped stub may only receive 4 points if it is a slightly modified rehash of a previous stub. A rather ingenious stub can earn an extra point. In some cases, you may actually do both! All of these are judgement calls as adjudicated by myself.

A fully functional optimization of the feat that ramps it up to its maximum power level where there is no way to possibly make it more amazing, including a 20 level build that follows the same format as iron chef dishes, but with minimal write up, is worthy of 10-12 points.

As the Chair, I will remain interactive throughout the thread, even suggesting a few builds. Commenting on these is fine and all of the rubric points apply to those as well. This means that the thread is not a totally objective competition.

A display of relevant rules expertise that shapes the discussion is worthy of 0 or 1 point. This is the "squishiest" criteria, and will only be allocated when it corrects part of the conversation that is going too far off the rails. Particularly nasty interchanges about RAW may lead to abdication of this point. Being incorrect isn't an immoral offense, so I want an atmosphere where suggestions are flying but staying generally within the real bounds of dnd play. RAW discussions tend to get a little too personal, and hopefully this arbitrary point system can circumvent that. Plus, seeing as how extensive the rules system is, it is easy for me to get excited about how to make an idea work and get lost about the details.

Bounties. Starting with Optimize this feat #5, I am instating an additional means of accumulating bonus points: Bounties. You will find the bounties and their point values in a spoiler on the bottom of the second post, underneath the relevant rules excerpts and clarifications. A Bounty is a "winner-take-all" style miniquest for users to provide information relevant to optimizing the feat. The hope is to allow these "Optimize this Feat" contests can serve as a longform mini-handbook to the use of their namesake feats.


BIAS
I am not a perfect judge. I prefer mundane to magical. I prefer Tier 3 and below to Tier 2 and up. But I do love me some dysfunction. So optimization that requires a lot of high level spells or powers (anything level 4 or up) will be less impressive to me. Go ahead and make your suggestion, I will try to police these biases in myself, but understand that these are factors that are in play.

Other information
All of that said, I have an exhibited tendency to be more forgiving/rules lax, whereas some of you are far more RAW heavy. I really do appreciate ya'll, so don't be afraid to reign in some of the theory and ground it in what is explicitly allowed. Different tables play the game differently. And this forum tends to highlight super polarized ends of this permissiveness spectrum that spans from "RAW to a fault" - "So ridiculously theoretically unbalanced beyond any DM's willingness to allow". Most play tends to be in the middle, if not a little skewed towards RAW: but not all play. With that in mind, if requested, if you are asked to assume that the theoretical DM handwaves your criticism as a special exception, please update your approach and proceed from there if you would like to continue to parse the possibilities that a feat offers. In this way, we can develop the full spectrum of what a feat can do.

Thanks to a suggestion by ATHATH, this week's Feat is Unearthed Arcana's Residual Rebound (p.94)

This endeavor concludes at 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time on February 29th.


Optimize this Feat 1:Wanderer's Diplomacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472308-Optimize-This-Feat-1-Wanderer-s-Diplomacy): VAZ
Optimize this Feat 2: Conductivity (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?473047-Optimize-this-Feat-2-Conductivity-from-Unearthed-Arcana&highlight=Conductivity): ben-zayb
Optimize this Feat 3: Swim-by Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?474225-Optimize-this-feat-3-Swim-by-attack-from-Stormwrack): WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 4: Contagious Paralysis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?476019-Optimize-this-Feat-4-Contagious-Paralysis-from-Libris-Mortis) WhamBamSam
Optimize this Feat 5: Hammer and Piton (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477681-Optimize-this-Feat-5-Hammer-and-Piton-From-Dungeonscape) Zetapup

Upcoming Schedule:

Don't post your ideas for these on the wrong competition. Save em. Unleash your brilliance on us.

Optimize this feat #7: Fiendish Codex 2's Mark of Phlegethos p.85
Optimize this feat #8: Fey Feature's (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a) Seelie Court Noble Kelir (web)
Optimize this feat #9: Races of Faerun's Animal friends p.161
Optimize this feat #10:To Be Determined ...(could be your suggestion! make a post and I'll consider it.)

[daremetoidareyo]

Feat can be found here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm

Bounties to be added later, if any are thought of at all.

Ideas for optimisation:

1.) Roll more dice against spells.
2.) cover your rear if you fail your save
3.) abuse the "a targeted spell" word choice
4.) Weaponize this ability somehow

Bounty:
Sources of saving throw re-rolls not already covered by the suggestions below. That's what we want. Custom magic/psionic items don't count. Epic spells don't count.

This bounty will differ from the previous competition, as it will be that each new additional method of a save reroll is a 1 point award that goes directly to the contributor. Thanks to Jormengand's link, I was able to populate this pretty well.


Items
Luck blade (reroll) ... no action?
Mantle of Second Chances (reroll) [Immediate mental]
Amulet of Second Chances (swift) ... stackable by a readied action correct?
Crystal of LifeKeeping, greater - once per day reroll failed save vs energy drain attacks, inflict spells, death spells, and death effects
Crystal of Mind Cloaking, greater - once per day reroll failed save vs mind-affecting spells and abilities
Crystal of Stamina, greater - once per day reroll failed save vs disease and poison
Soulbound (weapon enhancement) - if chakra bound to brow, once/round reroll miss chance due to concealment
Amulet of Fortune Prevailing - reroll a saving throw, once/day
Barbs of Retaliation - force enemy that just made a saving throw to reroll, once per sorcerer spell slot sacrificed (or per 5 hp if dragonblooded)
Phaant's Luckstones (Ghostwalk, p.72)

Domains
Luck Domain - You gain the power of good fortune, which is usable once per day. This extraordinary ability allows you to reroll one roll that you have just made before the game master declares whether the roll results in success or failure. You must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll.
Destiny Domain - Once per day as an immediate action, you can grant a willing creature within 30' the ability to reroll an attack, save, ability check, or skill check. You must be able to see the creature to be affected. You cannot use this power on yourself. (RoD-163)
Pride Domain - Whenever your roll a 1 on a saving throw, you can immediately reroll the save. You must keep the result of the second roll if it is another 1. (SpC-278)

Spells
Alter Fortune: Cause one creature to reroll any die roll.
Battle Hymn: Allies can reroll one Will save/round.
Benediction: Subject gains a +2 luck bonus on saves, can reroll one attack roll, save, skill check, or ability check.
WARP DESTINY: After learning the result of a saving throw that you have rolled, you may cast this spell to reroll the save, but with an insight bonus equal to your caster level
WISH: Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event.
Insight of Good Fortune (PHB2): Once during the spell's duration, when he makes an attack roll, skill check, saving throw, or ability check, he rolls twice and takes the better result.
Unluck (SC): Whenever the affected creature undertakes an action involving random chance , two separate rolls are made and the worse result applied.

Powers:
Change fate (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040827e)
reality revision (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/realityRevision.htm)
Second Chance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/secondChance.htm)

Feats
Dumb luck (CS)
Planar touchstone (catalogues) - Choose a domain
third times the charm (CS)

Other
Binder with Balam bound: reroll a save, skill check, or attack once every 5 rounds.

[Jormengand]

Do this (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=7956.0) until you roll a 20. Pride domain lets you re-roll 1s on saves.

Many spells have multiple targets (or affect non-target creatures), meaning that you can bounce a spell between you and an ally forever, racking up more targets each time if you both have the feat and can keep forcing 20s.

[Thurbane]

Residual Rebound [Spelltouched]
Sometimes spells cast at you rebound on the caster instead.

Prerequisite
Exposure to spell resistance or spell turning spell.

Benefit
If you roll a natural 20 on a save against a targeted spell, it turns back on the caster as if affected by a spell turning spell. Unlike spell turning, however, the Residual Rebound feat potentially functions against touch range spells as well. Residual Rebound only works on targeted spells that allow a saving throw, so a fireball won't rebound, nor will a power word stun.

There's a couple of abilities that allow you to treat a natural 1 as a 20: off the top of my head, there's the feat Dumb Luck (CS p.77). That effectively doubles your chance of rolling a 20 on a save.

If you want an expensive, but effectively unlimited (depending on funds), source of save re-rolls, there's Phaant's Luckstones (Ghostwalk, p.72). 1000gp a pop. Slotless, which is a bonus.

[Zetapup]

Ooh, you can combine this feat with some of the previous conductivity optimization. Take Leadership/whatever thing you desire that gives you a decent amount of followers, and try to acquire followers with electricity resistance/immunity (lesser mechanatrixes might be a good option, if I'm remembering correctly) and the residual rebound feat. Rerolls would be helpful, but aren't necessary if you have enough followers. Next, cast chain lightning (or some other targeted spell that does electricity damage. Chain lightning was just the first I thought of) on your followers.

If you have enough followers, there's a pretty good chance that at least a few will bounce it back at you (does each follower who is targeted and gets a nat 20 bounce back a separate version of the spell? That seems like the most likely reading, but I'm not 100% sure about it). Now, because of your conductivity feat, you can shoot multiple lines of lightning at your intended target, plus they might also take damage from chain lightning's secondary targets. War spells might be handy for targeting the maximum number of followers if I'm remembering how they work correctly, but I'd have to read up on them again.

In theory, you could get a pretty large amount of damage with this: at 20th level, 21 targets gives you an alright chance of getting the spell reflected back at you, at which point you (or the follower who reflected the spell??) would choose secondary targets and continue the cycle of slowly increasing amounts of electricity damage. If you add in rerolls for the followers from whatever source you desire and/or can find a spell that can target more people, this gets much better. Overall, sorta similar to a lightning maces build, except with a small army of followers and a wizard acting as a tesla coil.

I'm going to have to read up on the follower rules to make sure this works, but if followers don't work, you can just go thrallherd instead. Makes it a lot easier to replace your low hp tesla coil people too.

Edit: For more fun with electricity, give your followers/thralls the conductivity feat too. Hire a bard to follow you around and sing Thunderstruck everywhere you go. Not a whole lot you'll be able to do against enemies with immunity to electricity with this tactic, but you're a wizard who should have loads of spell slots available since you probably only need a few electricity spells per encounter. You can probably figure something out.

Edit edit: Wait nevermind, conductivity won't work for followers with lightning immunity. Knew I was forgetting something.

[Jormengand]

Ah, okay, so you be a greater deity, and throw a spell at another greater deity that has the feat, and then keep on bouncing the spell between you. Use Mass Heal and have them save against it to throw out more mass heals? Maybe useful if you want to kill some undead? Or Mass Charm Monster? Mass Hold Monster? Anything with Chain Spell?

Of course, it gets worse if you throw some of the spells into an energy transformation field, allowing it to gobble them up and grant you infinite copies of whatever spell you like. In one round.

You could argue that the spell is reflected onto the original caster, ie the first creature ever to cast spells. I'm not sure how this helps you, but I'm sure someone can come up with something...

[noob]

Now you can rebound spells at the creator of the universe(which was probably the first spellcaster).
Now use that with dominate person and control the GM.

[Zetapup]

Twin Spell and Repeat Spell are excellent for this (assuming metamagic reducers) if the target doesn't have a way to automatically get nat 20s. Plus, from the wording, wouldn't the reflected spell also be a twinned repeated [insert x]? So this would be similar to the process of using two spell blades to get a ridiculously high number of spells bouncing between them, with the main differences being that you don't need to use an action to bounce back the spell, but you only have a 5% chance (higher with rerolls) of bouncing it back.

Edit: Math time. A twinned repeated chain lightning would hit 4 times (assuming I'm reading it correctly: twice on the first round because of twin spell, then twice on the next round because of repeat repeating the twinned spell) and target up to 21 targets (1 primary, 20 secondary). Each target has around a 19% chance of rolling a natural 20 (assuming no rerolls). With 21 targets, the chances that someone/multiple someones will bounce back the spell are pretty dang good, allowing you to effectively multiply the damage of whatever spell you cast proportionally to the number of targets who roll nat 20s. This would also work well with buffs/whatnot, but I'm too lazy to go through buff spells right now.

(The main reason I'm not including rerolls in this is because I'm not a mathematician and am not particularly sure how that would affect the probability of rolling a nat 20. My guess is that it would double the odds (making it a 35% chance for each target to get a nat 20), but I dunno)

Edit 2: Actually, spells requiring multiple saves get better with this. Let's take Phantasmal Killer, requiring 2 saves, and put chain, repeat, and twin on that. Each time the spell hits, the targets will get 2 saves, so since it hits 4 times, that's 8 saves. That's a 34% chance of one of your targets getting a nat 20, without rerolls, and you've got 21 targets. If a spell that is reflected back has the same metamagic on it (which I think it should), you could throw out a ridiculous amount of SoDs at nearby enemies. Sure, they have to make 2 saves, but everyone rolls a 1 eventually. Might want a way to keep your followers from dying if they fail the saves though. (I believe there's a SoD which requires 3 saves, but I can't remember what it is right now)

Hm, it's still only 2 saves, but weird can hit any number of targets as long as they're all within 30 feet of each other. Make your followers as small as possible and give them flight through whatever means you like best and you should have a pretty decent amount of SoDs bouncing around. Kinda meh for 9th level, but oh well.

[daremetoidareyo]

Twin Spell and Repeat Spell are excellent for this (assuming metamagic reducers) if the target doesn't have a way to automatically get nat 20s. Plus, from the wording, wouldn't the reflected spell also be a twinned repeated [insert x]? So this would be similar to the process of using two spell blades to get a ridiculously high number of spells bouncing between them, with the main differences being that you don't need to use an action to bounce back the spell, but you only have a 5% chance (higher with rerolls) of bouncing it back.

Edit: Math time. A twinned repeated chain lightning would hit 4 times (assuming I'm reading it correctly: twice on the first round because of twin spell, then twice on the next round because of repeat repeating the twinned spell) and target up to 21 targets (1 primary, 20 secondary). Each target has around a 19% chance of rolling a natural 20 (assuming no rerolls). With 21 targets, the chances that someone/multiple someones will bounce back the spell are pretty dang good, allowing you to effectively multiply the damage of whatever spell you cast proportionally to the number of targets who roll nat 20s. This would also work well with buffs/whatnot, but I'm too lazy to go through buff spells right now.

(The main reason I'm not including rerolls in this is because I'm not a mathematician and am not particularly sure how that would affect the probability of rolling a nat 20. My guess is that it would double the odds (making it a 35% chance for each target to get a nat 20), but I dunno)

Edit 2: Actually, spells requiring multiple saves get better with this. Let's take Phantasmal Killer, requiring 2 saves, and put chain, repeat, and twin on that. Each time the spell hits, the targets will get 2 saves, so since it hits 4 times, that's 8 saves. That's a 34% chance of one of your targets getting a nat 20, without rerolls, and you've got 21 targets. If a spell that is reflected back has the same metamagic on it (which I think it should), you could throw out a ridiculous amount of SoDs at nearby enemies. Sure, they have to make 2 saves, but everyone rolls a 1 eventually. Might want a way to keep your followers from dying if they fail the saves though. (I believe there's a SoD which requires 3 saves, but I can't remember what it is right now)

Hm, it's still only 2 saves, but weird can hit any number of targets as long as they're all within 30 feet of each other. Make your followers as small as possible and give them flight through whatever means you like best and you should have a pretty decent amount of SoDs bouncing around. Kinda meh for 9th level, but oh well.

Explosive spell for an additional reflex save....

[ben-zayb]

I was thinking of means to make some infinite chain with this, but we already have rules for spell-turning spell-turned spells that could stop the chain. Would this apply?

[Zetapup]

Explosive spell for an additional reflex save....

Unfortunately, explosive spell requires that the spell allows a reflex save and has an area (cone, cylinder, line, or burst). Meanwhile, residual rebound only works on targeted spells, which is a shame. However, Born of The Three Thunders works rather nicely, adding a reflex and fortitude save. It requires the spell to do sonic or electricity damage, which you can get around by using Black Lore of Moil to add negative energy damage to any necromancy spell, then using snowcasting to add an energy descriptor to the spell, then using energy substitution to turn that into electricity damage. Unfortunately, this won't work with weird/phantasmal killer, since I can't think of any ways off the top of my head to change their schools to necromancy (although I'm sure there's a way).

That's a lot of feats and effort for two extra saves, but nothing says style like a twin repeated snowcasted black lore of moil energy substituted (electricity) born of the three thunders spell.

Edit: There's a few dragon magazine feats that add saves: Forceful (fortitude), Radiant (will), and Slimy (reflex). Combine these with everything above on, say, a chained repeated twinned finger of death, and your targets have to roll 3 fortitude saves (finger of death, forceful, born of three thunders), 2 reflex saves (slimy, born of three thunders), and a will save (radiant)(note that radiant requires the fire descriptor before it can be applied, but it should be easy enough to throw that on). That's six saves multiplied by 4 because of repeat and twin, giving 24, then multiplying that by 21 from chain, for a grand total of 504 saves from one spell. If you're in a dice rolling mood, add quicken/whatever action economy stuff you want to get 1008 saves. Chances are some of your targets will roll 20s and start off a cycle of fingers of death.

[ben-zayb]

If you have decent Knowledge (Nature) and either expected to be mostly in a natural setting or doing Acorn shenanigans, Magic of the Land is the easiest feat investment for adding saves to targeted spells.

[daremetoidareyo]

Unfortunately, explosive spell requires that the spell allows a reflex save and has an area (cone, cylinder, line, or burst). Meanwhile, residual rebound only works on targeted spells, which is a shame. However, Born of The Three Thunders works rather nicely, adding a reflex and fortitude save. It requires the spell to do sonic or electricity damage, which you can get around by using Black Lore of Moil to add negative energy damage to any necromancy spell, then using snowcasting to add an energy descriptor to the spell, then using energy substitution to turn that into electricity damage. Unfortunately, this won't work with weird/phantasmal killer, since I can't think of any ways off the top of my head to change their schools to necromancy (although I'm sure there's a way).

That's a lot of feats and effort for two extra saves, but nothing says style like a twin repeated snowcasted black lore of moil energy substituted (electricity) born of the three thunders spell.

Edit: There's a few dragon magazine feats that add saves: Forceful (fortitude), Radiant (will), and Slimy (reflex). Combine these with everything above on, say, a chained repeated twinned finger of death, and your targets have to roll 3 fortitude saves (finger of death, forceful, born of three thunders), 2 reflex saves (slimy, born of three thunders), and a will save (radiant)(note that radiant requires the fire descriptor before it can be applied, but it should be easy enough to throw that on). That's six saves multiplied by 4 because of repeat and twin, giving 24, then multiplying that by 21 from chain, for a grand total of 504 saves from one spell. If you're in a dice rolling mood, add quicken/whatever action economy stuff you want to get 1008 saves. Chances are some of your targets will roll 20s and start off a cycle of fingers of death.

This is great and all but what spell is worth bouncing at yourself in this manner? Imbue with spell ability. Ability rip?

[Zetapup]

This is great and all but what spell is worth bouncing at yourself in this manner? Imbue with spell ability. Ability rip?

Well, there's buff spells if you want to go that route, or you cast a spell that you're immune to the effects of (chain lightning or whatever SoD you want). The important part is that the spell that's being bounced back at you has multiple targets (the way I'm doing it, at least), so if you cast a chain finger of death onto your followers, and four of them bounce it back at you, presumably they can also select other targets (4 x 20 secondary targets gives you 80 other targets that also need to save, or 20 targets that need to save 4 times. Sure, the DC's a bit lower because of chain spell, but I think forcing 4 saves is a pretty nice trade).

Alternatively, you could cast mass heals (make sure your follower's saves are so low that they'll fail except on a nat 20), mass cat's grace/insert mass buff spell, or any buff spell you desire that you can throw chain spell onto. With enough followers/rerolls/saves, you've got a solid chance of someone bouncing the spell back and selecting additional targets for the buff.

So for example, you cast a chained [insert buff] on your followers. All 21 of them choose to save against the spell, and 3 of them roll a nat 20. The rest fail since their saves weren't high enough, and so are affected by the buff. Residual rebound gets a bit fuzzy on what happens next. The spell bounces back at the caster, but presumably something has happen with the secondary targets when the spell bounces back, right? My assumption is that the person with residual rebound who rolled a nat 20 gets to determine who the secondary targets are, while the primary target is the original caster. Under this assumption, the 3 targets who rolled nat 20s choose for half their secondary targets to be people with residual rebound, and the other half to be who you actually want to buff. This gives you far more targets out of 1 spell than you would normally get, at the cost of slightly less reliability and having to drag around 21 followers whenever you want to use it.

The situations I see it being most useful in would be large battles, BBEGs who will only fail a save on a nat 1 anyway, and hospitals (why cast a chained cure light wounds on 21 people when you could use this tactic and potentially multiply that by quite a bit).

An alternative reading of the feat would be that the person who rolls a nat 20 with residual rebound just reflects however they'd be affected by the spell, eg, a secondary target of chain lightning would only cause the caster to suffer the effects of being a secondary target. I don't think this is quite RAW, but it would probably be more balanced. However, it would also make most of my speculation a moot point.

[Thurbane]

Can you make Great Thunderclap into a targeted spell - it has 3 saves built in by default.

Something with Ocular Spell or Spellwarp Sniper maybe?

[Zetapup]

Can you make Great Thunderclap into a targeted spell - it has 3 saves built in by default.

Something with Ocular Spell or Spellwarp Sniper maybe?

Spellwarp sniper would work, but it gets rid of the reflex save, so eh. I'm not really sure whether ocular spell would work. I guess great thunderclap is a spell with a target other than personal, so you could make it an ocular spell (I don't play enough spellcasters to be 100% sure though). I'm not sure it's worth it though- you're missing out a lot on potential targets, since you're only getting one target with an ocular spell vs a 20 foot area with thunderclap or up to 21 targets with a chained spell. Thanks for pointing those out though, I hadn't thought of them.

[daremetoidareyo]

Spell Barrage teamwork benefit from DMG 2 + Conductivity + a number of fleshgolems with residual rebound feat.

[Zaq]

I think the question is whether we want to try to use the feat for its intended purpose (possibly bouncing an offensive spell back at the attacker, but unfortunately as a passive ability) or if we can find a way to use it proactively. (Naturally, I think it'll be more fun to try to use it proactively, but I'm not sure yet exactly how best to do that.)

It does specify that it targets the effect back on the caster, so I'm skeptical that we can affect additional targets other than the caster (even if the original spell allows for multiple targets). So that means it'd be hard to set up too much of a multiplicative effect unless we can find some really ironclad RAW stating otherwise. Also, since Residual Rebound works "as Spell Turning," are we actually affected by the spell in question? I was under the impression that Spell Turning prevented you from being affected as well as possibly affecting the original caster, but now I'm not 100% sure.

I want to get a Spellthief's Absorb Spell ability involved, but I'm not 100% convinced that Absorb Spell would play nice with Residual Rebound. (That, and there's basically nothing that directly makes Absorb Spell better.

I feel like there's gotta be a way to make this proactive, but I can't see it right now. I think that'll be the key, though. Getting rerolls and otherwise making it more likely for us to get a nat 20 is all well and good, but if all it does is let us occasionally bounce a spell back at an attacker, that's not really a good use of a feat. We've gotta come up with something proactive.

[ben-zayb]

Alright, feel free to use this to have the best chances of proactively using rebounded spells: check out the Merregon, aka Legion Devil (FC2,p121), which also happens to be one of my most favorite monsters for TO/PO. What you do is call a crapton of them using Lesser Planar Binding as many times as needed, and have them qualify and then retrain Residual Rebound (and possibly more luck feats). With their Legion's Defenses, if you target X of them, all of their result will be Xd20b1, which means a single one of them rolling a natural 20 means everyone in the group will actually be considered to have rolled that natural 20, and the spell cast will be turned to you X times.

Extra: If you want the Merregon's to be small-sized, Polymorph them into Forest Trolls and have a Druid NPC cast Return to Nature on them. The latter effect is instantaneous, so once Polymorph's is out, you'll end up with Small Merregons. (credits to Curmudgeon, since I first saw that from him)


Now for my entry: Wizard 3 / Magic Mantle Ardent 1 / Cerebremancer 8 (or with gouda, Magic Mantle Ardent 12 with powers from a StP Erudite)

Trick 1: Friendly Fire (on you) + Telekinesis. Violent Thrust using 15 (bump your CL, duh!) of them as ammunition, and then when turned to you, those 15 will instead use you as Violent Thrust's target for throwing 15 objects. That's 225 projectiles coming your way, which will all be redirected to any target within 30ft away.
Trick 2: Dweomer of Transference. Basically cast Dweomer of Transference on you, multitarget the Merregon's, then watch as the magic-mantle powers turn back to you and become converted as crapton of free temporary Power Points. Infinite PP trick, except temporary, but faster and more massive in scale.


I'm sure there are far more tricks to be mined but these are what I got at the moment.

[daremetoidareyo]

Alright, feel free to use this to have the best chances of proactively using rebounded spells: check out the Merregon, aka Legion Devil (FC2,p121), which also happens to be one of my most favorite monsters for TO/PO. What you do is call a crapton of them using Lesser Planar Binding as many times as needed, and have them qualify and then retrain Residual Rebound (and possibly more luck feats). With their Legion's Defenses, if you target X of them, all of their result will be Xd20b1, which means a single one of them rolling a natural 20 means everyone in the group will actually be considered to have rolled that natural 20, and the spell cast will be turned to you X times.

Extra: If you want the Merregon's to be small-sized, Polymorph them into Forest Trolls and have a Druid NPC cast Return to Nature on them. The latter effect is instantaneous, so once Polymorph's is out, you'll end up with Small Merregons. (credits to Curmudgeon, since I first saw that from him)


Now for my entry: Wizard 3 / Magic Mantle Ardent 1 / Cerebremancer 8 (or with gouda, Magic Mantle Ardent 12 with powers from a StP Erudite)

Trick 1: Friendly Fire (on you) + Telekinesis. Violent Thrust using 15 (bump your CL, duh!) of them as ammunition, and then when turned to you, those 15 will instead use you as Violent Thrust's target for throwing 15 objects. That's 225 projectiles coming your way, which will all be redirected to any target within 30ft away.
Trick 2: Dweomer of Transference. Basically cast Dweomer of Transference on you, multitarget the Merregon's, then watch as the magic-mantle powers turn back to you and become converted as crapton of free temporary Power Points. Infinite PP trick, except temporary, but faster and more massive in scale.


I'm sure there are far more tricks to be mined but these are what I got at the moment.

Wow. 2 part abuse.

Imagine that you took that demon battery and strapped them all together. Now how do you make enemy casters target them selectively?

There's got to be some spell that forces a save but stacks on you once reflected back at the same target. And that stacking is a good thing.

[ben-zayb]

Another fun abuse using up to 4 Merregons, on an Eldritch Theurge chassis with optimized Eldritch Blast (+Sneak Attack?): Friendly Fire + Eldritch Chain + any of the good essences. Even if the secondary targets are supposed to take halved damage, they instead will turn the full Eldritch Blast damage back to you on a 20.
Wow. 2 part abuse.

Imagine that you took that demon battery and strapped them all together. Now how do you make enemy casters target them selectively?

There's got to be some spell that forces a save but stacks on you once reflected back at the same target. And that stacking is a good thing.
Spell save can easily be solved situationally with the aforementioned Magic of the Land.

As for spells, Chain Spell and either Arcane Reach or Reach Spell is a good start: Use Heroics for crapton of FBF. Spellguard of Silverymoon + Arcane Fusion line and/or Celerity line for crapton of action economy abuse. The previously suggested Conductivity can be utilized to channel massive Electricity damage.

[daremetoidareyo]

Another fun abuse using up to 4 Merregons, on an Eldritch Theurge chassis with optimized Eldritch Blast (+Sneak Attack?): Friendly Fire + Eldritch Chain + any of the good essences. Even if the secondary targets are supposed to take halved damage, they instead will turn the full Eldritch Blast damage back to you on a 20.
Spell save can easily be solved situationally with the aforementioned Magic of the Land.

As for spells, Chain Spell and either Arcane Reach or Reach Spell is a good start: Use Heroics for crapton of FBF. Spellguard of Silverymoon + Arcane Fusion line and/or Celerity line for crapton of action economy abuse. The previously suggested Conductivity can be utilized to channel massive Electricity damage.

arcane fusion (sanctum spell fuse arms + girallon's blessing) for a stackable strength boost...

[daremetoidareyo]

There is a new need to talk about some of the metagame here. How do ya'll think I should adjudicate the value of relevant links?

Why don't we start with this, what is the maximum value that can be awarded to a person who posts a single, directly relevant link?

Is a hard cap limit of 6 points unfair? Is it a disincentive? Especially if the link was a directly relevant 20 level build authored by the contributor? Input is good.


On a completely separate note:
Is there any benefit to wild surging and/or overchanneling with this feat, or the legion devil combo?

Does the rebounding effect need line of effect? or can it cross through solid space?

[daremetoidareyo]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20477025&postcount=69

From another thread.


Using rebuking/ general undead controlling means, gain access to as many Vasuthants (MMIII) as you can. Three times a day (but only once per round) each one can force a reroll as a free action. Get enough of them and you can ensure you roll a 20 (or a 1 which you convert to 20 as mentioned previously).



Reality Distortion (Ex): A vasuthant has limited influence over the forces of time and reality. Three times per day (but only once per round), a vasuthant can take a free action to reroll any unfavorable die roll or force its opponent to reroll a favorable die roll. The vasuthant must accept the result of the reroll.



So travel in a retinue of controlled undead vasuthants with the dumb luck feat, residual rebound, the luck domain, another reroll based domain, Third times the charm feat.

[ATHATH]

Wasn't there a Psionic Power that caused a natural 20 on a roll?

[Zaq]

With the Merregon abuse (which is really clever), how are we getting around the restriction that only targeted spells (and specifically not area spells or effect spells) can be Rebounded? Residual Rebound functions "as Spell Turning," and Spell Turning specifies that "The abjuration turns only spells that have you as a target. Effect and area spells are not affected." (Residual Rebound specifically works against touch spells when Spell Turning doesn't, but that's a specific exception, and specific beats general.) There are some spells that target multiple creatures and don't have "area" or "effect" lines, but they're a little bit rarer, and that gives us fewer toys to play with.

[Thurbane]

Wasn't there a Psionic Power that caused a natural 20 on a roll?

Not sure about powers, but I believe there is a spell in CC that can do this.

[ben-zayb]

@Zac: As I mentioned before, Chain Spell, accompanied by Reach Spell / Arcane Reach is a good start. War Weaver, too, maybe? Spellguard of Silverymoon + Magic of the Land open up more options. That said, I was under the impression that Area+Target and Effect+Target spells are rare compared to those that is either just Target, Area, or Effect.
There is a new need to talk about some of the metagame here. How do ya'll think I should adjudicate the value of relevant links?

Why don't we start with this, what is the maximum value that can be awarded to a person who posts a single, directly relevant link?

Is a hard cap limit of 6 points unfair? Is it a disincentive? Especially if the link was a directly relevant 20 level build authored by the contributor? Input is good.


On a completely separate note:
Is there any benefit to wild surging and/or overchanneling with this feat, or the legion devil combo?

Does the rebounding effect need line of effect? or can it cross through solid space?I'd probably give any link to someone's own build a full score*, while a link to someone else's build will have a score with a little bit higher weight on originality than power/effectiveness.

On the subject of bounties back in the previous one, my opinion is a bit biased because I don't plan to deliberately sift through X books just to gain points. I'd probably put less weight on them, especially when the bounty category doesn't exactly inspire creativity.

* Oh, and by these, I meant that there really should not be a cap. If a single build concept was far above a 10 in terms of the new ideas introduced, why give it just a 10.

[daremetoidareyo]

Alright. This one is all wrapped up. I thought that this one was gonna be a lunker, but we really put the screws to this feat and some golden nuggets of cheeze were mined.

I'll begin scoring in a few minutes.

In the meantime, we'll be moving on to our next contender: Feindish Codex 2's Mark of phlegethos.

[daremetoidareyo]

Do this (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=7956.0) until you roll a 20. Pride domain lets you re-roll 1s on saves.

Many spells have multiple targets (or affect non-target creatures), meaning that you can bounce a spell between you and an ally forever, racking up more targets each time if you both have the feat and can keep forcing 20s.

Relevant Link: 3 points. Really good list of rerolls
Targetting abuse with a buddy: 1 point


There's a couple of abilities that allow you to treat a natural 1 as a 20: off the top of my head, there's the feat Dumb Luck (CS p.77). That effectively doubles your chance of rolling a 20 on a save.

If you want an expensive, but effectively unlimited (depending on funds), source of save re-rolls, there's Phaant's Luckstones (Ghostwalk, p.72). 1000gp a pop. Slotless, which is a bonus.

Heck yeah dumb luck: 1 point
Ghostwalk item: 1 point


Ooh, you can combine this feat with some of the previous conductivity optimization. Take Leadership/whatever thing you desire that gives you a decent amount of followers, and try to acquire followers with electricity resistance/immunity (lesser mechanatrixes might be a good option, if I'm remembering correctly) and the residual rebound feat. Rerolls would be helpful, but aren't necessary if you have enough followers. Next, cast chain lightning (or some other targeted spell that does electricity damage. Chain lightning was just the first I thought of) on your followers.

If you have enough followers, there's a pretty good chance that at least a few will bounce it back at you (does each follower who is targeted and gets a nat 20 bounce back a separate version of the spell? That seems like the most likely reading, but I'm not 100% sure about it). Now, because of your conductivity feat, you can shoot multiple lines of lightning at your intended target, plus they might also take damage from chain lightning's secondary targets. War spells might be handy for targeting the maximum number of followers if I'm remembering how they work correctly, but I'd have to read up on them again.

In theory, you could get a pretty large amount of damage with this: at 20th level, 21 targets gives you an alright chance of getting the spell reflected back at you, at which point you (or the follower who reflected the spell??) would choose secondary targets and continue the cycle of slowly increasing amounts of electricity damage. If you add in rerolls for the followers from whatever source you desire and/or can find a spell that can target more people, this gets much better. Overall, sorta similar to a lightning maces build, except with a small army of followers and a wizard acting as a tesla coil.

I'm going to have to read up on the follower rules to make sure this works, but if followers don't work, you can just go thrallherd instead. Makes it a lot easier to replace your low hp tesla coil people too.

Edit: For more fun with electricity, give your followers/thralls the conductivity feat too. Hire a bard to follow you around and sing Thunderstruck everywhere you go. Not a whole lot you'll be able to do against enemies with immunity to electricity with this tactic, but you're a wizard who should have loads of spell slots available since you probably only need a few electricity spells per encounter. You can probably figure something out.

Edit edit: Wait nevermind, conductivity won't work for followers with lightning immunity. Knew I was forgetting something.

Born of the three thunders and all of your followers being knell beetles might be the way to go, especially if the mirror move (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20000901a) is allowed to interact with spell-touched feats, or you dip heartfire fanner and give everyone residual rebound. 1 point for conductivity abuse.


Ah, okay, so you be a greater deity, and throw a spell at another greater deity that has the feat, and then keep on bouncing the spell between you. Use Mass Heal and have them save against it to throw out more mass heals? Maybe useful if you want to kill some undead? Or Mass Charm Monster? Mass Hold Monster? Anything with Chain Spell?

Of course, it gets worse if you throw some of the spells into an energy transformation field, allowing it to gobble them up and grant you infinite copies of whatever spell you like. In one round.

You could argue that the spell is reflected onto the original caster, ie the first creature ever to cast spells. I'm not sure how this helps you, but I'm sure someone can come up with something...

I like how big you think.
Be a god (auto 20s), (1 point), previous buddy idea, Multiple targetting, Chain spell (1 point), Energy transforming field: 1 point
Mass heal 1 point


Twin Spell and Repeat Spell are excellent for this (assuming metamagic reducers) if the target doesn't have a way to automatically get nat 20s. Plus, from the wording, wouldn't the reflected spell also be a twinned repeated ? So this would be similar to the process of using two spell blades to get a ridiculously high number of spells bouncing between them, with the main differences being that you don't need to use an action to bounce back the spell, but you only have a 5% chance (higher with rerolls) of bouncing it back.

Edit: Math time. A twinned repeated chain lightning would hit 4 times (assuming I'm reading it correctly: twice on the first round because of twin spell, then twice on the next round because of repeat repeating the twinned spell) and target up to 21 targets (1 primary, 20 secondary). Each target has around a 19% chance of rolling a natural 20 (assuming no rerolls). With 21 targets, the chances that someone/multiple someones will bounce back the spell are pretty dang good, allowing you to effectively multiply the damage of whatever spell you cast proportionally to the number of targets who roll nat 20s. This would also work well with buffs/whatnot, but I'm too lazy to go through buff spells right now.

(The main reason I'm not including rerolls in this is because I'm not a mathematician and am not particularly sure how that would affect the probability of rolling a nat 20. My guess is that it would double the odds (making it a 35% chance for each target to get a nat 20), but I dunno)

Edit 2: Actually, spells requiring multiple saves get better with this. Let's take Phantasmal Killer, requiring 2 saves, and put chain, repeat, and twin on that. Each time the spell hits, the targets will get 2 saves, so since it hits 4 times, that's 8 saves. That's a 34% chance of one of your targets getting a nat 20, without rerolls, and you've got 21 targets. If a spell that is reflected back has the same metamagic on it (which I think it should), you could throw out a ridiculous amount of SoDs at nearby enemies. Sure, they have to make 2 saves, but everyone rolls a 1 eventually. Might want a way to keep your followers from dying if they fail the saves though. (I believe there's a SoD which requires 3 saves, but I can't remember what it is right now)

Hm, it's still only 2 saves, but weird can hit any number of targets as long as they're all within 30 feet of each other. Make your followers as small as possible and give them flight through whatever means you like best and you should have a pretty decent amount of SoDs bouncing around. Kinda meh for 9th level, but oh well.

metamagic reduction + twin + repeat spell: 1 point
Multiple saves: 1 point


I was thinking of means to make some infinite chain with this, but we already have rules for spell-turning spell-turned spells that could stop the chain. Would this apply?

I don't know. Is there a link I should read?
1 point for a rules clarification need.


Unfortunately, explosive spell requires that the spell allows a reflex save and has an area (cone, cylinder, line, or burst). Meanwhile, residual rebound only works on targeted spells, which is a shame. However, Born of The Three Thunders works rather nicely, adding a reflex and fortitude save. It requires the spell to do sonic or electricity damage, which you can get around by using Black Lore of Moil to add negative energy damage to any necromancy spell, then using snowcasting to add an energy descriptor to the spell, then using energy substitution to turn that into electricity damage. Unfortunately, this won't work with weird/phantasmal killer, since I can't think of any ways off the top of my head to change their schools to necromancy (although I'm sure there's a way).

That's a lot of feats and effort for two extra saves, but nothing says style like a twin repeated snowcasted black lore of moil energy substituted (electricity) born of the three thunders spell.

Edit: There's a few dragon magazine feats that add saves: Forceful (fortitude), Radiant (will), and Slimy (reflex). Combine these with everything above on, say, a chained repeated twinned finger of death, and your targets have to roll 3 fortitude saves (finger of death, forceful, born of three thunders), 2 reflex saves (slimy, born of three thunders), and a will save (radiant)(note that radiant requires the fire descriptor before it can be applied, but it should be easy enough to throw that on). That's six saves multiplied by 4 because of repeat and twin, giving 24, then multiplying that by 21 from chain, for a grand total of 504 saves from one spell. If you're in a dice rolling mood, add quicken/whatever action economy stuff you want to get 1008 saves. Chances are some of your targets will roll 20s and start off a cycle of fingers of death.

born of three thunders + black lore of moil + snowcasting: 1 point
Sounds like an incantatrix build...optimizing this thing would take like 7 feats, most of them metamagic...


If you have decent Knowledge (Nature) and either expected to be mostly in a natural setting or doing Acorn shenanigans, Magic of the Land is the easiest feat investment for adding saves to targeted spells.

1 point for magic of the land abuse
1 point for acorn abuse on top of it


Well, there's buff spells if you want to go that route, or you cast a spell that you're immune to the effects of (chain lightning or whatever SoD you want). The important part is that the spell that's being bounced back at you has multiple targets (the way I'm doing it, at least), so if you cast a chain finger of death onto your followers, and four of them bounce it back at you, presumably they can also select other targets (4 x 20 secondary targets gives you 80 other targets that also need to save, or 20 targets that need to save 4 times. Sure, the DC's a bit lower because of chain spell, but I think forcing 4 saves is a pretty nice trade).

Alternatively, you could cast mass heals (make sure your follower's saves are so low that they'll fail except on a nat 20), mass cat's grace/insert mass buff spell, or any buff spell you desire that you can throw chain spell onto. With enough followers/rerolls/saves, you've got a solid chance of someone bouncing the spell back and selecting additional targets for the buff.

So for example, you cast a chained [insert buff] on your followers. All 21 of them choose to save against the spell, and 3 of them roll a nat 20. The rest fail since their saves weren't high enough, and so are affected by the buff. Residual rebound gets a bit fuzzy on what happens next. The spell bounces back at the caster, but presumably something has happen with the secondary targets when the spell bounces back, right? My assumption is that the person with residual rebound who rolled a nat 20 gets to determine who the secondary targets are, while the primary target is the original caster. Under this assumption, the 3 targets who rolled nat 20s choose for half their secondary targets to be people with residual rebound, and the other half to be who you actually want to buff. This gives you far more targets out of 1 spell than you would normally get, at the cost of slightly less reliability and having to drag around 21 followers whenever you want to use it.

The situations I see it being most useful in would be large battles, BBEGs who will only fail a save on a nat 1 anyway, and hospitals (why cast a chained cure light wounds on 21 people when you could use this tactic and potentially multiply that by quite a bit).

An alternative reading of the feat would be that the person who rolls a nat 20 with residual rebound just reflects however they'd be affected by the spell, eg, a secondary target of chain lightning would only cause the caster to suffer the effects of being a secondary target. I don't think this is quite RAW, but it would probably be more balanced. However, it would also make most of my speculation a moot point.

Thanks for the thorough explanation.


Can you make Great Thunderclap into a targeted spell - it has 3 saves built in by default.

Something with Ocular Spell or Spellwarp Sniper maybe?

1 point


I think the question is whether we want to try to use the feat for its intended purpose (possibly bouncing an offensive spell back at the attacker, but unfortunately as a passive ability) or if we can find a way to use it proactively. (Naturally, I think it'll be more fun to try to use it proactively, but I'm not sure yet exactly how best to do that.)

It does specify that it targets the effect back on the caster, so I'm skeptical that we can affect additional targets other than the caster (even if the original spell allows for multiple targets). So that means it'd be hard to set up too much of a multiplicative effect unless we can find some really ironclad RAW stating otherwise. Also, since Residual Rebound works "as Spell Turning," are we actually affected by the spell in question? I was under the impression that Spell Turning prevented you from being affected as well as possibly affecting the original caster, but now I'm not 100% sure.

I want to get a Spellthief's Absorb Spell ability involved, but I'm not 100% convinced that Absorb Spell would play nice with Residual Rebound. (That, and there's basically nothing that directly makes Absorb Spell better.

I feel like there's gotta be a way to make this proactive, but I can't see it right now. I think that'll be the key, though. Getting rerolls and otherwise making it more likely for us to get a nat 20 is all well and good, but if all it does is let us occasionally bounce a spell back at an attacker, that's not really a good use of a feat. We've gotta come up with something proactive.

Yeah, the spell turning bit might put the nix on some optimization methods handled thus far.


Alright, feel free to use this to have the best chances of proactively using rebounded spells: check out the Merregon, aka Legion Devil (FC2,p121), which also happens to be one of my most favorite monsters for TO/PO. What you do is call a crapton of them using Lesser Planar Binding as many times as needed, and have them qualify and then retrain Residual Rebound (and possibly more luck feats). With their Legion's Defenses, if you target X of them, all of their result will be Xd20b1, which means a single one of them rolling a natural 20 means everyone in the group will actually be considered to have rolled that natural 20, and the spell cast will be turned to you X times.

Extra: If you want the Merregon's to be small-sized, Polymorph them into Forest Trolls and have a Druid NPC cast Return to Nature on them. The latter effect is instantaneous, so once Polymorph's is out, you'll end up with Small Merregons. (credits to Curmudgeon, since I first saw that from him)


Now for my entry: Wizard 3 / Magic Mantle Ardent 1 / Cerebremancer 8 (or with gouda, Magic Mantle Ardent 12 with powers from a StP Erudite)

Trick 1: [I]Friendly Fire (on you) + Telekinesis. Violent Thrust using 15 (bump your CL, duh!) of them as ammunition, and then when turned to you, those 15 will instead use you as Violent Thrust's target for throwing 15 objects. That's 225 projectiles coming your way, which will all be redirected to any target within 30ft away.
Trick 2: Dweomer of Transference. Basically cast Dweomer of Transference on you, multitarget the Merregon's, then watch as the magic-mantle powers turn back to you and become converted as crapton of free temporary Power Points. Infinite PP trick, except temporary, but faster and more massive in scale.


I'm sure there are far more tricks to be mined but these are what I got at the moment.

WOW!. 1 points for identifying such a crazy monster. 2 points for 2 tricks and 12 points for the build.


Another fun abuse using up to 4 Merregons, on an Eldritch Theurge chassis with optimized Eldritch Blast (+Sneak Attack?): Friendly Fire + Eldritch Chain + any of the good essences. Even if the secondary targets are supposed to take halved damage, they instead will turn the full Eldritch Blast damage back to you on a 20.
Spell save can easily be solved situationally with the aforementioned Magic of the Land.

As for spells, Chain Spell and either Arcane Reach or Reach Spell is a good start: Use Heroics for crapton of FBF. Spellguard of Silverymoon + Arcane Fusion line and/or Celerity line for crapton of action economy abuse. The previously suggested Conductivity can be utilized to channel massive Electricity damage.

stub (4) Reach spell (1), heroics (1), spellguard + AF (1), celerity...ewwww.(1)


With the Merregon abuse (which is really clever), how are we getting around the restriction that only targeted spells (and specifically not area spells or effect spells) can be Rebounded? Residual Rebound functions "as Spell Turning," and Spell Turning specifies that "The abjuration turns only spells that have you as a target. Effect and area spells are not affected." (Residual Rebound specifically works against touch spells when Spell Turning doesn't, but that's a specific exception, and specific beats general.) There are some spells that target multiple creatures and don't have "area" or "effect" lines, but they're a little bit rarer, and that gives us fewer toys to play with.

Clarification 1 point.


@Zac: As I mentioned before, Chain Spell, accompanied by Reach Spell / Arcane Reach is a good start. War Weaver, too, maybe? Spellguard of Silverymoon + Magic of the Land open up more options. That said, I was under the impression that Area+Target and Effect+Target spells are rare compared to those that is either just Target, Area, or Effect.

war weaver 1 point


I'd probably give any link to someone's own build a full score*, while a link to someone else's build will have a score with a little bit higher weight on originality than power/effectiveness.* Oh, and by these, I meant that there really should not be a cap. If a single build concept was far above a 10 in terms of the new ideas introduced, why give it just a 10.

I like the idea of rewarding folks for their already hatched ideas, but linking arbitrary things will be incentivized by applying higher point values to them. Further I don't want the conversation to turn into a link sharing fest of repeated ideas with slight changes. But I do want to reward stimulating and helpful links.

How does the following work?
So a link to a build, previously unmentioned in the discourse, that is directly relevant to the feat, but you didn't author is hard capped at 6 points.

A link to a build, previously unmentioned in the discourse, that is directly relevant to the feat, but you totally did author is to be treated as if the contributor posted in the thread and thus has a point distribution between 4 and 12, depending on whether or not it is a stub or a 20 level write up with feats.

A link that has a list of spells, items, monsters, or exploits relevant to the feat is hardcapped at 6 points. But will typically yield 1 or 2 points unless it is a particularly deep or expansive list.

[daremetoidareyo]

And the rubric breaks down thusly



Contributor
Points
Place


Jormengand
8
2nd


Thurbane
3



Zetapup
4
3rd


ben-zayb
27
1st


Zaq
1




For their efforts in Feat based optimiziology, ben-zayb has earned their name in a bold brilliant purple lucida console font.

A special shout out goes to Jormengand, who has placed in the top 3 in like the last 4 optimize this feat projects. For your consistency and chipper attitude, please enjoy this italics. Jormengand