A buff to Elemental Adept

[TyGuy]

Buff: elemental adept makes casted spells of the associated damage type critical hits on a 19.

Why: The full damage to resistance can be great, especially for a specialized build. Kind of a feat tax though to make an element-theme work. And the extra damage is negligible. This buff is meant to increase the chances of excitement when attacking with spells of the chosen element.


Should this add to the 1s into 2s damage aspect of the feat or replace it? One thing it doesn't address is spells with saves, not sure how to tackle that one. Maybe something like bane (-1d4 to affected creatures' saves) cooked into the saves against spells that deal the appropriate element.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Your buff wouldn't apply to too many spells, would it?

Let's grab fire as an example for a wizard taking the feat, for example. There's 24 spells that deal fire damage that the feat would apply to. Out of these, there are 3 that your buff would apply to; fire bolt, chromatic orb and scorching ray.

You could also make the argument for greenflame blade and flame arrows, I suppose.

The point being, it's not really as much of a buff as you think it is.

And giving creatures affected by the spells a -1d4 penalty on their saving throws is a much bigger bonus than an expanded critical range.

[Theodoxus]

You could always add in critical fails (auto fail on a 1), and then Elemental Affinity would auto fail on a 1 or 2.

[Chronos]

Eh, in almost all cases, if an enemy rolls a natural 2 on a saving throw, they're failing anyway. And if an enemy is so good at a particular kind of save that they succeed on a 3, then you really ought to be doing something else.

[Theodoxus]

Perhaps... but you could be facing a Paladin in a party with Bless, Bardic Inspiration, etc. Making saves becomes trivial. There is no base line auto fail for saves. Adding one keeps some things a little fairer. (There are mitigating circumstances, of course, Portent, Lucky, etc., so it's certainly not guaranteed, but it would help.)

[loki_ragnarock]

Your buff wouldn't apply to too many spells, would it?

Let's grab fire as an example for a wizard taking the feat, for example. There's 24 spells that deal fire damage that the feat would apply to. Out of these, there are 3 that your buff would apply to; fire bolt, chromatic orb and scorching ray.

You could also make the argument for greenflame blade and flame arrows, I suppose.

The point being, it's not really as much of a buff as you think it is.

And giving creatures affected by the spells a -1d4 penalty on their saving throws is a much bigger bonus than an expanded critical range.

Enhancing crit range should be very niche.

Applying a penalty to saves should be even more niche than that.

[RogueJK]

Your buff wouldn't apply to too many spells, would it?

Let's grab fire as an example for a wizard taking the feat, for example. There's 24 spells that deal fire damage that the feat would apply to. Out of these, there are 3 that your buff would apply to; fire bolt, chromatic orb and scorching ray.

You could also make the argument for greenflame blade and flame arrows, I suppose.

The point being, it's not really as much of a buff as you think it is.


(Also add Produce Flame and Flame Blade to the Fire list.)

There are very few spells with attack rolls from the other elements as well.

Acid:
-Primal Savagery
-Chromatic Orb
-Melf's Acid Arrow

Cold:
-Ray of Frost
-Ice Knife
-Chromatic Orb

Lightning:
-Shocking Grasp
-Witch Bolt (First round only)
-Chromatic Orb

Thunder:
-Booming Blade*
-Chromatic Orb

(And also Chaos Bolt for all of the above, but that's a random energy type, so you'd have to just hope that you roll the element for which you have the Elemental Adept feat, making it tough to benefit from in practice.)

None of these, with the exception of Storm Sphere, are above 2nd level. Once you have higher level spells, how often do you really cast a 1st/2nd level attack spell like Chromatic Orb or Scorching Ray?

As a result, on 99% of characters, that increased critical range part wouldn't be all that useful, only seeing use on the occasional cantrip attack or during Tier 1 play (although only VHuman/CLienage races would be able to benefit in Tier 1.)

On the other hand, if one were to allow it to apply to GFB/BB, on certain powerful builds that rely primarily on GFB/BB (like a 2/X Sorcadin, Arcane Trickster, melee-focused Celestial Tomelock Generalist, Arcana Cleric Frontliner, etc.), it'd likely be overpowered on those builds specifically, effectively applying Improved Critical to all of their melee attacks. That's also bad, just for the opposite reason.


As a result, I don't see much point in the increased critical range.

[Xihirli]

I think you could remove the "1s become 2s" and replace it with "immunity is treated as resistance."

[TyGuy]

Your buff wouldn't apply to too many spells, would it?

Let's grab fire as an example for a wizard taking the feat, for example. There's 24 spells that deal fire damage that the feat would apply to. Out of these, there are 3 that your buff would apply to; fire bolt, chromatic orb and scorching ray.

You could also make the argument for greenflame blade and flame arrows, I suppose.

The point being, it's not really as much of a buff as you think it is.

And giving creatures affected by the spells a -1d4 penalty on their saving throws is a much bigger bonus than an expanded critical range.
I mean, there's the new transmuted spell metamagic and sometimes homebrew spells. And option proportion isn't quite the same as frequency of use. A cantrip like firebolt is likely to see a lot more use than the bread and butter fireball.


(Also add Produce Flame and Flame Blade to the Fire list.)

There are very few spells with attack rolls from the other elements as well.

Acid:
-Primal Savagery
-Chromatic Orb
-Melf's Acid Arrow

Cold:
-Ray of Frost
-Ice Knife
-Chromatic Orb

Lightning:
-Shocking Grasp
-Witch Bolt (First round only)
-Chromatic Orb

Thunder:
-Booming Blade*
-Chromatic Orb

(And also Chaos Bolt for all of the above, but that's a random energy type, so you'd have to just hope that you roll the element for which you have the Elemental Adept feat, making it tough to benefit from in practice.)

None of these, with the exception of Storm Sphere, are above 2nd level. Once you have higher level spells, how often do you really cast a 1st/2nd level attack spell like Chromatic Orb or Scorching Ray?

As a result, on 99% of characters, that increased critical range part wouldn't be all that useful, only seeing use on the occasional cantrip attack or during Tier 1 play (although only VHuman/CLienage races would be able to benefit in Tier 1.)

On the other hand, if one were to allow it to apply to GFB/BB, on certain powerful builds that rely primarily on GFB/BB (like a 2/X Sorcadin, Arcane Trickster, melee-focused Celestial Tomelock Generalist, Arcana Cleric Frontliner, etc.), it'd likely be overpowered on those builds specifically, effectively applying Improved Critical to all of their melee attacks. That's also bad, just for the opposite reason.


As a result, I don't see much point in the increased critical range.
Could make the semantics block out the blade cantrips easily enough by requiring a spell attack. Sounds like you don't think it'd be anywhere close to OP though, which is good.


I think you could remove the "1s become 2s" and replace it with "immunity is treated as resistance."
When I was new to D&D I thought of this being the clear option, but not so much anymore. I think I've shifted to liking the immunities to stay 100%.

[Catullus64]

I think that the relative scarcity of attack roll spells makes this an ideal little tune up to an ok-but-not-great feat; it will in practice function mostly as a minor cantrip buff.

[Sandeman]

I think you could remove the "1s become 2s" and replace it with "immunity is treated as resistance."

Agreed.
This might make the feat actually worth taking.