Spell Focus Abjuration (3.5)

[unre9istered]

I'm building a character who will be going into Initiate of the Seven Fold Veils. Iot7FV has 2 feat requirements that are, as far as I can tell, the most useless feats ever. Namely: Spell Focus Abjuration, and Improved Spell Focus Abjuration.
Are there any Abjuration spells that make these feats useful?
The character is a gish who's also going through Abjurant Champion who's strategy is delivering touch attacks while attacking with Fist of Stone.

[Saph]

There are several anti-caster Abjuration spells that require a save - Arcane Turmoil and Reciprocal Gyre come to mind.

About half of the Prismatic save-requiring spells are also Abjuration - Prismatic Wall, Prismatic Sphere, Prismatic Aura.

[Eldariel]

Banishment, Dismissal, Anti-Magic Ray, Prismatic X, Maw of Chaos. Also, Master Specialist: Abjurer helps you with the prereqs, covering GSF: Abjuration (and Skill Focus: Spellcraft). Indeed, Abjurer 3/Master Specialist 10/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 is an extremely elegant, synergistic and quite powerful.

Cloistered Cleric 1/Abjurer 1/Master Specialist 10/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7/Archmage 1 is better for a counterspell specialist though, and Abjurer 2/Master Specialist 10/IotSV 7/Archmage 1 for a generic Abjurer (Archmage gets Mastery of Counterspelling for the first and Arcane Reach for the second, which is absolutely brutal combined with Master Specialist 10-ability to cast Personal Abjurations as Touch-spells).


EDITYAD

[Optimystik]

It boosts the DCs of your veils, because they "duplicate the effect of a prismatic wall."

[unre9istered]

Thanks for the suggestion of Master Specialist, that helps a lot. Not sure if any of those spells fit my concept but if the feats apply to the veils that makes them useful eventually at least.

[Eldariel]

Thanks for the suggestion of Master Specialist, that helps a lot. Not sure if any of those spells fit my concept but if the feats apply to the veils that makes them useful eventually at least.

...what kind of an Abjurer-concept doesn't make use of either anti-magic effects or Prismatics? I mean, what else is there in Abju :o

[unre9istered]

Like I said, close combat gish. I went abjurer because the extra spell/level gives me effectively free defensive buffs. Anti-magic ray I might use against spellcasters, but other than that he won't be a battlefield controller so walls and such won't usually be his thing.

[Cyrion]

Bumping the DCs of Dismissal and Banishment would be big plusses even if you want to eschew the walls etc. for flavor reasons. A huge number of the baddies at middle to high level are extraplanar, and these can be very, very useful if you can get the DC to the point where the spells are fairly reliable.

[cfalcon]

The veils"duplicate the effects of prismatic" whatever, sure. That's presumably for play purposes. But the DC of them is called out specifically in the text (18 + your primary attribute), and the veils themeselves are a spell like ability (in fact I think if something can up the DC on spell like abilities, it will work on it). I'm pretty sure that the spell focus and greater spell focus only work on, you know, spells.

Also, I think Repulsion should be in the list.

Basically, almost no low level abjurations have saves, and while some of the higher level ones do, they are still really crappy feats that you take because that's just part of what being an initiate of the sevenfold veil requires.

[Optimystik]

The veils"duplicate the effects of prismatic" whatever, sure. That's presumably for play purposes. But the DC of them is called out specifically in the text (18 + your primary attribute), and the veils themeselves are a spell like ability (in fact I think if something can up the DC on spell like abilities, it will work on it). I'm pretty sure that the spell focus and greater spell focus only work on, you know, spells.

Actually, the DC of the veils is not "specifically called out in the text" at all. It merely states the type of save that each one has.

And from the SRD:

A spell-like ability takes the same amount of time to complete as the spell that it mimics (usually 1 standard action) unless otherwise stated. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

I still don't see any reason why SF: Abjuration shouldn't apply to veils.

[cfalcon]

Actually, the DC of the veils is not "specifically called out in the text" at all. It merely states the type of save that each one has.

From Complete Arcane, page 46, left hand column (right above the section on Veils):

The save DC for an initiate’s warding is equal to 18 + her primary spellcasting ability modifier (Intelligence for wizards,
Charisma for sorcerers and bards, and so on). The spell level
equivalent of a warding depends on which veil is integrated
into it.

That's uh, pretty plainly called out.

I still don't see any reason why SF: Abjuration shouldn't apply to veils.

Well, I mean, it's not a spell, it's a spell like ability. I doubt it would change the power level of the class too much. Since absolutely every Initiate has to have these two feats, it would probably have been called out explicitly if that was the intent- and of course, it's not a spell. The text about it duplicating it is here:

Veils: When an initiate creates a warding, she can choose
and imbue the warding with any one veil she knows how to
create. These veils duplicate the layers of a prismatic wall and
are described below.

They duplicate the layers of a prismatic wall in the same way that the layers of the prismatic sphere in the SRD do: that text just means, go look at the description of prismatic wall, which is where we put what breaks each thing, what effects it ignores, what happens when you cross it, etc. I doubt very much that it means that prismatic sphere makes 8th level spell effects or whatever, and if prismatic sphere was a different spell school, it wouldn't create layers of abjuration while it itself was $OTHER_SCHOOL or something, just from this text.

[Optimystik]

From Complete Arcane, page 46, left hand column (right above the section on Veils):


That's uh, pretty plainly called out.

Ah, I see it now.
Is the attitude really necessary?

Well, I mean, it's not a spell, it's a spell like ability.

Thank you, I know that.

They duplicate the layers of a prismatic wall in the same way that the layers of the prismatic sphere in the SRD do:

What does PSphere have to do with this? The veils duplicate PWall; end of story.

[cfalcon]

Thank you, I know that.

Well then it should follow that if you are casting a spell, then your specialization feats apply if the spell has the right school. A spell like ability doesn't *have* a school, so your school specialization has no effect. There's an entirely different set of abilities meant to modify stuff for spell like abilities: if an SLA duplicates or otherwise produces the same effect as a spell or a series of spells, it doesn't become license to grab everything related to a spell and apply that.

In other words: the Warding Spell-Like ability is NOT an abjuration spell. The DC is called out explicitly, and the layers duplicate the same effects of the prismatic wall. It's not a function of the yellow layer of a prismatic wall to be an abjuration spell: it's the fact that it was generated by an abjuration spell. Unlike the warding.

What does PSphere have to do with this? The veils duplicate PWall; end of story.

I was pointing out that the line "The colors of the sphere have the same effects as the colors of a prismatic wall. " appears in the SRD to describe prismatic sphere. Because prismatic wall is the "earliest" mention of the effect of prismatic layers, everything refers to THAT when they want to use prismatic effects. But if hypothetically prismatic sphere was conjuration, that line wouldn't make spell focus abjuration work on it, or let the effects of both conjuration and abjuration work on it. That's why I brought it up.

[Optimystik]

A spell like ability doesn't *have* a school

But the spell it's mimicking does. Prismatic Wall is abjuration.
It's probably a DM call, but I would allow SF:A to affect the veils.

In other words: the Warding Spell-Like ability is NOT an abjuration spell.

So what? The wardings don't do anything on their own (besides a little concealment for certain forms); they're primarily just shapes you hang the veils from.

The DC is called out explicitly, and the layers duplicate the same effects of the prismatic wall.

The DC also explicitly refers to the veils, not the warding itself. The warding doesn't do anything with a DC.

[cfalcon]

But the spell it's mimicking does. Prismatic Wall is abjuration.
It's probably a DM call, but I would allow SF:A to affect the veils.

Of course you'd be fine to do so. It's not like the stupid feats help that often, and if you go by the standard rules, the initiate putting up the warding is making layers than are weaker than an actual priswall or prissphere. If your opinion is that the stupid feats SHOULD apply to the primary class ability, I can see that for sure.

So what? The wardings don't do anything on their own (besides a little concealment for certain forms); they're primarily just shapes you hang the veils from.

The veils aren't spell like abilities or spells- they are things that you get to pick from to imbue your warding with. The warding is a spell like ability, that's what determines what you are saving against.

My point, fundamentally, is that the save DC isn't boosted just because the warding is an abjuration effect. Spell Focus requires you cast a spell, not merely use a spell like ability that produces (at least one) effect that falls under your chosen school.

Here's Skip Williams on spell-like abilities:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040413a
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040420a
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040427a
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040504a

The DC also explicitly refers to the veils, not the warding itself. The warding doesn't do anything with a DC.

The veils are the mechanic in use to make it so that you have some number of layers up at a time. It would be clunky if they made a different SLA for each ward, especially given the idea that you are supposed to have a common pool of uses per day. It would also be hard for them to phrase the ability to turn on two per day.

[Optimystik]

Of course you'd be fine to do so. It's not like the stupid feats help that often, and if you go by the standard rules, the initiate putting up the warding is making layers than are weaker than an actual priswall or prissphere. If your opinion is that the stupid feats SHOULD apply to the primary class ability, I can see that for sure.

It sounds like we agree then.

My point, fundamentally, is that the save DC isn't boosted just because the warding is an abjuration effect. Spell Focus requires you cast a spell, not merely use a spell like ability that produces (at least one) effect that falls under your chosen school.

I never said that. I was pointing out that SLAs that duplicate spells should be affected as though they were those spells. Not just any SLA that might be abjuration-ish.

[Ashiel]

To my knowledge Spell Focus does not work on spell-like abilities, and likely should not since the feat Ability Focus does. The feat increases the save DCs of your ability by +2. The feat can even be applied to things like an Assassin's death attack, or a binder's spell-like abilities.

If Spell Focus applies to spell-like abilities, then the next logical step would be to allow meta-magic feats to apply to them as well; followed by allowing them to apply to supernatural effects that mimic spells.

Spells != Spell-like. That's just the way it is. They're not really spells. They're not really affecting by things that boost Spells. Just like you can't use Spell Focus or Meta-Magic on an artificer's Infusions; or how you can't use the Overchannel feat on psi-like abilities.

It's important to realize what your adjustments will mean in the context of the system. Remember "from ripples to waves".

[ericgrau]

More spells (spell filter is handy)
Fire Trap
Imprisonment
Mage's Disjunction
Repulsion