Reserve feats: how good are they?

[Trandir]

The reserve feats are a fun tool that allow a spellcaster to "trade" one of his spell slots for an at-will spell and some small bonus.

Probably you rarely face dungeons so long that a spell caster uses all his spells for the day without resting and this greatly decreases this feats appeal.


So how good or rather at what level are reserve feats good?

[tiercel]

As much as I hate to say “it depends”.... it does.

Various factors that make a difference:

Does the DM love having long adventuring days (i.e. not the standard “four-ish encounters around your party level”)? The longer your days, the better reserve feats look.
Player paranoia: the more a player wants to hold every spell for its “best” application and “not waste it too soon,” the more attractive a reserve feat. The kind of player who would quite like a wand of magic missiles to fill in for every round that isn’t the optimal-use-of-spell is more likely to like reserve feats.
Number of spells/spell actions. The fewer total “real” spells you have, the more likely you are to turn to a reserve feat to fill in corners. If every round of combat in a day can be filled with either casting a spell or using a standard action to direct or use a spell, then reserve feats not so great.
Reserve feat action type. Minor Shapeshift stands out from most reserve feats because it “only” eats your swift action (so it depends how much you are already leveraging your swift actions), and gives something that is almost universally useful in combat (unless you are already immune to hp damage, in which place you are probably playing the kind of game in which you wouldn’t pick a reserve feat anyway).
How much “garbage time”/“mopping up bad guys” your combats tend to have. If you are a highly effective battlefield controller that can nerf the enemies fast, but actually defeating them takes several more rounds, having a reserve feat is more attractive; if combats are either “rocket tag” or drawn out tactical affairs where many individual rounds matter, then less so.


If I had to give a “conventional wisdom” answer it would be that some reserve feats are decent when you first get them, up through roughly 10th-12th level or so, when full casters start getting to “I can comfortably cast a spell every round,” then if the campaign continues one might wish for retraining; for (in some sense) higher-op games, probably “don’t bother” with the possible exception of Minor Shapeshift for gishes who aren’t already swift-actioning evry round.

But this will be modified by all the points above, plus reserve feats do have the minor passive ability of +1 caster level for their associated theme of spells....

In any case, the opportunity cost of a reserve feat is twofold: is there something else I’d be better off doing this round, and is there a feat that would boost or round out my build better than this? If “no” to both, generally, then all the better for reserve.

[Blackhawk748]

They are amazing in E6 and E8, as they give the casters the ability to contribute for long periods of time without using their spells. I've laso found Spont Casters get more benefit as they just need to leave a single spell slot open in order to use the thing.

Other than that, ya, they start dropping off around 12th level or so.

[Troacctid]

All reserve feats are not created equal. Fiery Burst, Minor Shapeshift, Sickening Grasp, Touch of Healing, Summon Elemental, and Holy Warrior are all excellent feats, but they have wildly different uses. On the other hand, Hurricane Breath, Drowning Glance, Clutch of Earth, and Mystic Backlash are all straight garbage. You can't evaluate the whole category as a group. Even among the most iconic reserve feats—the ones that give an attack with scaling damage based on spell level—there's a pretty substantial power gap between Fiery Burst and Invisible Needle.

[martixy]

All reserve feats are not created equal. Fiery Burst, Minor Shapeshift, Sickening Grasp, Touch of Healing, Summon Elemental, and Holy Warrior are all excellent feats, but they have wildly different uses. On the other hand, Hurricane Breath, Drowning Glance, Clutch of Earth, and Mystic Backlash are all straight garbage. You can't evaluate the whole category as a group. Even among the most iconic reserve feats—the ones that give an attack with scaling damage based on spell level—there's a pretty substantial power gap between Fiery Burst and Invisible Needle.

Let's not forget Dimensional Jaunt which is enough to trigger things like Sun School or Shadow Pounce. + a ton of general utility.

[tiercel]

All reserve feats are not created equal. Fiery Burst, Minor Shapeshift, Sickening Grasp, Touch of Healing, Summon Elemental, and Holy Warrior are all excellent feats

How on Oerth did I forget Summon Elemental aka "Infinitely Repeatable Disposable Minion"? If an adventure features deliberate trapspringing or even just "Hey, Earth!Kenny, go glide through that wall and come back and report," it can certainly be a dungeoneering caster's best friend -- assuming you don't mind trading a little bit of Phenomenal Cosmic Fullcaster Power (in terms of a feat you could be spending on something else) in for being a skillmonkey.

[Bronk]

Some (acidic splatter, invisible needle) also work well when combined with sneak attack.

[Jack_Simth]

The reserve feats are a fun tool that allow a spellcaster to "trade" one of his spell slots for an at-will spell and some small bonus.

Probably you rarely face dungeons so long that a spell caster uses all his spells for the day without resting and this greatly decreases this feats appeal.


So how good or rather at what level are reserve feats good?

Certain ones stay useful, depending on optimization level, for the entire game (Minor Shapeshift's temp HP option is seldom a waste of a swift action).

Certain ones are useful for certain builds; some examples:
A Wizard that also gets sneak attack (Arcane Trickster, Unseen Seer) can make decent use of Acidic Splatter (as a sneak attack vehicle).
For a Red Wizard who pushes a spell's level up with Circle Magic, Acidic Splatter and Fiery Burst actually become useful for mopping mooks (20d6, yay!).
Summon Elemental makes for a VERY disposable minion, if you also take the associated elemental languages - scouting, trapspringing, fodder for a Vampiric weapon (unlimited out of combat HP healing).

For the most part, though, they're pretty lackluster, unless your DM tends to throw grindfests of weak opponents at you.

[Willie the Duck]

Probably you rarely face dungeons so long that a spell caster uses all his spells for the day without resting and this greatly decreases this feats appeal.

I think how true you find this statement will inform how good you consider these feats. Personally, when I play spellcasters I tend to find that I am always running out of spells, or, at the very least, running out of situation-appropriate spells. Having a single feat and a single spell-never-used to resolve a whole field of play (say, direct damage if the reserve feat is Fiery Burst, Acidic Splatter, or Invisible Needle) seems incredibly beneficial. Of course, my group often plays pre-3e adventure modules converted to 3e, so we are always far outside the 4 level-appropriate encounters curve.