[3.5] Balance point of a feat for +1 to all CL

[Zaq]

Let’s say that there’s a feat (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist) that just gave you a +1 to all your existing CL(s) all day, every day, no questions asked. No HD cap like Practiced Spellcaster, no subschool limit like reserve feats, no “for the purposes of” like Spell Penetration, just permanent +1 CL at the cost of a precious, precious feat. Stacks with anything else; can’t be stacked with itself.

To be clear, this is just CL, not a level of progression. Only CL, nothing more and nothing less. But it would unambiguously count for prereqs and the like. And again, it’s existing CLs, so it wouldn’t be used to bootstrap into something you didn’t otherwise have at all. But I’m fine with it applying to your actual spells and your SLAs and whatever. (ML is a separate question; leave that aside for now. This would not, in the current discussion, affect ML.)

Assume that there’s no method of double-counting CL (Master Spellthief, go home—you’re drunk).

What would your opinion be of such a feat? Situational, obviously, but would you ever take it? If so, what kind of caster (naturally it’s for casters—noncasters don’t have CL to advance and partial casters are better off taking Practiced Spellcaster) would find this to be on par with, you know, a metamagic feat or a reserve feat or whatever else? Is it undertuned? Open to nonsense? Close to fair?

This isn’t for a real project. Just one of my myriad brain-firings demanding a little attention.

[Crichton]

Let’s say that there’s a feat (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist) that just gave you a +1 to all your existing CL(s) all day, every day, no questions asked. No HD cap like Practiced Spellcaster, no subschool limit like reserve feats, no “for the purposes of” like Spell Penetration, just permanent +1 CL at the cost of a precious, precious feat. Stacks with anything else; can’t be stacked with itself.

To be clear, this is just CL, not a level of progression. Only CL, nothing more and nothing less. But it would unambiguously count for prereqs and the like. And again, it’s existing CLs, so it wouldn’t be used to bootstrap into something you didn’t otherwise have at all. But I’m fine with it applying to your actual spells and your SLAs and whatever. (ML is a separate question; leave that aside for now. This would not, in the current discussion, affect ML.)

Assume that there’s no method of double-counting CL (Master Spellthief, go home—you’re drunk).

What would your opinion be of such a feat? Situational, obviously, but would you ever take it? If so, what kind of caster (naturally it’s for casters—noncasters don’t have CL to advance and partial casters are better off taking Practiced Spellcaster) would find this to be on par with, you know, a metamagic feat or a reserve feat or whatever else? Is it undertuned? Open to nonsense? Close to fair?

This isn’t for a real project. Just one of my myriad brain-firings demanding a little attention.

At the (as you say, precious) cost of a feat, I think it'd be valuable enough to be fairly competitive against other magic-oriented feats, but I agree with you that it would be situational. Not everyone would take it all the time, but there are plenty of builds it'd be useful enough to out-compete something else for that slot. I can see various blaster type builds liking it, to get damage dice/level spells more powerful at earlier levels, though that return starts to diminish as you get higher level. I could maybe see Artificers liking it, for even earlier access to spells for item creation.

By comparison, to get a +1CL costs 30000gp for an ioun stone, or 20000gp for a Ring of Arcane Might (which has a few limitations on what it applies to, rather than just being a straight +1CL)


Edit: As for the related ML question, I think the ML version would be just as valuable, perhaps even moreso, as it would allow the increase to augmenting of powers. It would be like Overchannel at that point, but better in that it doesn't require Talented to avoid damage, and worse in that it doesn't scale up to +2 or +3, later on.

[Anthrowhale]

You are effectively proposing to make the Spell Power class feature a feat. Heirophant also allows you to directly choose between a metamagic feat and Spell Power.

Bloodline of Fire grants +2 caster level for anything with the [fire] descriptor. Giving half that on a more general basis seems reasonable to me.

Reserves of Strength gives +3 caster in general with a prereq (Iron Will) and a drawback but a damage cap breaking advantage as well.

Elder Giant Magic gives +3 caster level as long as you are willing to spend extra rounds casting a spell. It also requires 9 ranks in Spellcraft.

Overall, it would be a strong feat that would see occasional use amongst other strong feats. You might or might not want to give it a prereq to avoid some early entry issues.

[GrayDeath]

Strong, little limitations (if any) in usefulness, no prerqs?

Most Casters will take it, unless the build is already very feat starved.

A ML Version would be a complete Must, as manifester Level ahs stronger effects than Caster Level.


As for Balance....well. Its stronger than most to all "wide purpose feats.

[The Viscount]

I'd call it strong but definitely reasonable. Feats are a pretty precious commodity, and there's certainly things casters will be looking at.
Like with toughness, it makes a lot more difference at level 1 than it does at level 20. At early levels the extra CL could be the difference between knocking a foe into the negatives and merely reducing their hp. My Iron Chef brain is permanently fixated on PrC/feat prerequisites, and this could provide access to a few a level earlier.
If you slap a quick CL requirement of say 3+ on there you would move it from great to quite good (and save yourself from having people deliberately misreading it to grant themselves a CL of 1).

[Troacctid]

All I can say is that I would rate it highly in my warmage handbook.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think it'd be one of those feats that doesn't combine with other feats/abilities in particular (other than moving up the availability of certain abilities or combinations), but is just all-around nice to have. If Improved Initiative is a "mundane" feat, this would be the caster equivalent.

[DeAnno]

I'm going to go against the grain and say it's weak. Here's why: Spellcasters who care a ton about caster level care about it mostly because it helps them deal damage. Sure, it gets through SR too, but there are plenty of ways through SR including feats, and almost all of them are way cheaper than this. Sure, you can use it for PRC a level early in some cases, or for dumb Blasphemy tricks, or other edge cases like that as well, but the main benefit that exists from raw CL is spell scaling, and the main spell scaling that matters is on damaging spells. Most control spells just care about your save DC, which doesn't interact with your CL at all. Buffs and summons will care a bit about their durations, and a lot of spells get benefit from range, and this will make you better at dispels and counterspells, but these are on the whole small considerations, almost all of which can be improved radically by other feats.

At the end of the day, if you care about dealing damage as a spellcaster, you are extremely feat starved, feat starved because you want to take metamagic feats and metamagic reduction feats. I can tell you right away that this would be a trap feat for anyone embarking on a damage focused magic build. And that's a big problem for this feat, because who else is really taking it? Sure, people take Practiced Spellcaster when they need to all the time, but even a 50% effiicient Practiced Spellcaster provides double the benefit of this.

This isn't to say that I think nobody would take it. There are probably wizards lounging around with feats coming out of their ears and no commitment to any specific strategy that would stumble into it, I suppose, and there are probably also cases where qualifying for some PRC a level early is make-or-break for some reason, but I don't think it's like, good. I think even a wizard who has no coherent strategy or any sort of clue what it is they're doing every day would be better off taking Improved Initiative first, for example.

[Vaern]

I'd take the overall +1 CL over Spell Penetration any day. But, if I was playing a specialist-type character, I don't think I'd pass up the save DC increase from Spell Focus for it.
It's a really solid effect that any caster will want and will benefit from. It's something I can see people taking at any level that they have a feat to spend and no other critical feats to worry about, but it's not so powerful that people would feel the need to redesign a character in order to drop a feat and make room for it. One of those things where people think, "I don't know what feat to take. This one looks like a versatile feat that'll be generally helpful regardless of the situation, so I guess I'll go with this."
Basically, as ExLibrisMortis said, it might just become the spellcaster's equivalent to Improved Initiative.

[nedz]

The best feats open doors, and this might do that if you are looking for early entry.

Otherwise it's just bigger numbers, and not necessarily that impressive since most direct damage spells have caps.

It might help with divinations, but there are several PrCs which already help here.

It's of little help with DCs for Save or suck etc.

[Falontani]

If it interacts favorably with Warlock then it would allow early entry into most of its prestige classes. It might also boost your eldritch blast which is very nice.

For damage purposes it is competing with meta slas and mortalbane, which is to say, it's doing paltry amounts. And I doubt even the best reading would interact too much with your invocations, however dispelling could be nice.

[Vaern]

Whether or not it would apply to prestige class qualification depends on how it's written. If it says, for example, "Your caster level is increased by 1," then a level 4 wizard has a caster level of 5. No ifs, ands, or buts about this one.

On the other hand, if it says something like, "You gain a +1 competence bonus to your caster level when casting spells," then the same level 4 wizard only has a caster level of 5 while he's in the process of casting a spell; while he's traveling, resting, or otherwise not actively casting a spell, his caster level remains sitting at 4. While it always applies to every spell you cast, the bonus is still technically temporary and conditional. You couldn't use that bonus to meet a prerequisite for a feat or prestige class any more than a barbarian could use his increased strength and constitution bonuses while raging to qualify for a feat.

[Thurbane]

By comparison, to get a +1CL costs 30000gp for an ioun stone, or 20000gp for a Ring of Arcane Might (which has a few limitations on what it applies to, rather than just being a straight +1CL)

AE&G guidelines value feats at 10,000gp each, plus an additional 5,000-10,000gp per req of the feat.

So by reverse engineering, that would indicate that such a feat might have 2 pre-reqs feats; seems somewhat excessive to me, but would probably be inline with WotC balance points.

Knowing the designers, the req feats would be something awful like Magical Aptitude and Skill Focus (Spellcraft). Unless it was a Forgotten Realms feat - then it would have no reqs and be a free bonus feat anyone could take at first level. :smalltongue:

[Endarire]

I echo the 'depends on details' sentiment. The most favorable reading is, of course, helpful, and something that may be worth a general feat. I'd need to experience it in play for a better understanding of how it fared.

Were this a bonus feat for Wizards, I'd be more inclined to take it.

[Crichton]

AE&G guidelines value feats at 10,000gp each, plus an additional 5,000-10,000gp per req of the feat.

So by reverse engineering, that would indicate that such a feat might have 2 pre-reqs feats; seems somewhat excessive to me, but would probably be inline with WotC balance points.

Knowing the designers, the req feats would be something awful like Magical Aptitude and Skill Focus (Spellcraft). Unless it was a Forgotten Realms feat - then it would have no reqs and be a free bonus feat anyone could take at first level. :smalltongue:

I don't think it's necessarily a fair use of the rules to assume they work in reverse, but it's an interesting take on things. Setting aside that even that sidebar in A&EG goes to great lengths to demonstrate that different feats should be priced differently, and calls their 10K number a 'general guideline' and the whole process of putting a price tag on a feat 'a very fuzzy area,' there's no reason to assume that even if the price of a magic item that granted a feat was set at 10k, that that would indicate that it works in reverse - that a feat that replicates a magic item is worth the same as the item is, so to speak. Magic items have their own set of pricing guidelines, which are much more detailed than the A&EG sidebar for feats, and even then, they tell the DM to exercise their judgement on pricing. Additionally the ioun stone is slotless, so the increased cost of that further muddies those waters.


But we need some sort of benchmark, so let's take a closer look, and assume we do go by those guidelines.

We've got these items (at least) to try to factor your pricing from:

Orange Ioun Stone (30k, slotless, exactly what the feat does, +1CL no limits)
Ring of Arcane Might (20k, but limited to arcane spells)
Karma Bead (from Strand of Prayer Beads, 20k, +4CL, but only for 10 minutes/day, limited to divine casters or UMD)


The Ioun Stone is the most straightforward example, as an item from the core ruleset, and at an unlimited +1CL, but we'd have to take it at half price, since it being a slotless item doubles its magic item price.


So maybe 15k is the price point? So perhaps one prerequisite feat or other such limitation, if that's your inclination?



Personally, I'm still of the opinion that this proposed feat's usefulness is significant, but not so universal that every caster build will want it over their other vast selection of feat choices for very limited feat slots. I'd allow it as is, in any game I ran.

[ericgrau]

To the untrained person it's nice but not that special. But there are spells like Holy Word where boosting casting level does some wacky things that let you bust encounters open. It's only 1 such caster level and other boosters can bust it more, but in general boosting caster level is a bit strong. And there are probably ways to bust prestige classes and feats with such a general purpose bonus.

I think it depends on optimization but personally I wouldn't allow it as a DM. I'd be a bit strict on power as a DM though and I could see it being totally fair for other DMs. I prefer nerfing to banning though, the idea is to keep options equal not to limit them, and would probably allow it for 2 feats (and some kind of minor stylistic bonus on the first feat, plus a partial CL effect), pre-reqs and/or drawbacks.

[Fizban]

You are effectively proposing to make the Spell Power class feature a feat. Heirophant also allows you to directly choose between a metamagic feat and Spell Power.

Bloodline of Fire grants +2 caster level for anything with the [fire] descriptor. Giving half that on a more general basis seems reasonable to me.

Reserves of Strength gives +3 caster in general with a prereq (Iron Will) and a drawback but a damage cap breaking advantage as well.

Elder Giant Magic gives +3 caster level as long as you are willing to spend extra rounds casting a spell. It also requires 9 ranks in Spellcraft.
I think the obscurity and specificity of those feats make the point on their own: a +2 but only for the most commonly resisted energy type, a feat I usually see accepted as completely broken from a setting generally not considered part of the "1st party" canon, and another feat buried in a setting book that requires a bunch of time and skill checks to use.

These are not normally powered feats. I would expect char-op to shun a mere +1 cl, as the focus is usually metamagic cheese and spells that don't care about cl. But for normal people who cast die/level spells, this is huge. Caster level bonuses are extremely limited until you start mixing setting books, and this is another one which stacks with everything, for the mere cost of a feat. In addition to just flat increasing the damage (and duration) of all your spells, it's also another half of Spell Penetration, and bonus on dispel checks, for free. The most general +1 cl feat I know of id Draconic Power, which actually costs two feats due to the minimal effect of Draconic Heritage, and gives +1 cl and DC for your heritage energy type (unless you try pull pull an unintuitive reading based on poor comma placement).

I would not allow it. The strongest general caster level feat I've considered allowing was a 3rd party Circle Magic- which rather than being a ritual with potential for hugely OP exploits, just lets you get +1 cl if you spend a full round action drawing a casting circle around yourself (which stops working once you leave it). I've not put it on the official list because I'm not sure I want another stacking cl bonus around, even as few as there are.