The Gaming Den

If I were to make, say, a firemage or other such similar magic user, and want to use the energy reshaper feat: http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Energy_Res ... 3.5e_Feat)

I would get nothing from that feat what-so-ever from it because it relies on the spell-level of magic I can cast and the spell I am using from this class are not spell-leveled.

Is there a way to easily handle this so that energy mages, or other such casters can take meta-magic feats and have them do what they should? Maybe base it off of what spell slots they *would* have with their caster level if they were a wizard of the same casting level?

No, because the point of those feats is to effect Wizard shit. Quite aside from the fact that the feat itself is shit, it is designed to give Wizards access to a bunch of effects, not to give those same effects to fucking Firemages, who were designed to not need them.

So the mages with less utility are the ones who DON'T need feats to increase utility? Also, I had meant this feat: http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Energy_Spe ... 3.5e_Feat)

A friend played a firemage at lower levels for a while in a game I was DMing, and they felt like their character had nothing useful to do in or out of combat except attack things. Even ignite was lackluster and it was literally the only ability they had that did anything but straight damage. And after looking at it for a while, it sure seems like that is all they will ever do.

I mean, isn't this guy supposed to be more or less on the same level as a wizard? That is the point of Tome, right? To balance everything at that level?

But this mage just does damage, and not even more, necessarily, than a wizard and yet a Wizard has gobs of utility. I don't see the point in further adding to Wizard utility and denying such utility to other casters.

Perhaps you should read the design intent of the Fire Mage:

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=40 ... c&start=18

It was actually created in response to someone wanting a low powered class that never really got any high level abilities and could be played by new players. Kind of like a magical equivalent to a 1st edition Fighter. So it really does what it was designed to do pretty well, it's just not designed to be at the same power level of other Tome stuff. It is kind of a shame that there wasn't a disclaimer of any kind put on it when it was put into the Tome pdf, because now occasionally people pipe up that it's badly designed or underpowered. It's out of combat abilities are supposed to be the same as the Knight or Fighter; skills and the problem solving abilities of the player.

The point with the feat is that the Fire Mage is themed as all-fire all the time. Personally I'd have no problem with one taking this feat, but then why play a Fire Mage?

I guess because the concept seems so popular it might be nice if someone did a "Tome-ified" version to go with the Stormlord and other energy mages that had more high level and out of combat abilities and more general utility.

EDIT: All this @OP

Um... WTF?

Yes, that is the terrible feat I was talking about. No that feat does not give any utility of any kind, it makes you more powerful in fucking combat by allowing you to do more damage in combat, which is not something that the Fire Mage fucking needs.

Yes, the Fire Mage lacks utility, because it was designed for stupid people who just want to do damage and don't want to play the game at all outside of combat. If you want utility, pick one of the eight snow mage classes, or the sandshaper, or any other at will caster with utility.

I'm not sure what fucking utility you think you would get from Energy Specialization that would allow you to do something outside of combat, and if you want to do something outside of combat just pick a different goddam class.

Seriously you dumb shit, even if you wanted to use an actually good feat that did add utility as an example instead, it would still be the case that adding certain kinds of utility to spells per day casters is fundamentally different from giving them to at will casters, so a straight conversion would often be inappropriate.

You bring up a good point, per day vs at will casting is very different. And I didn't know this class was intended to be under-powered. I'll keep that in mind.

The feat I posted doesn't grant OUT of combat utility, but it does grant IN combat utility in the way of blinding foes for fire users. I know it was designed for stupid or new people, and the person playing the character has never played DnD before. But they are feeling useless since the other players enjoy and drag out non-combat experiences which the player can provide very little in, and in combat they do roughly the same damage.

The feat doesn't grant extra damage though, it grants a status condition. It does also lower resistances, which would in turn increase damage, but that case has never came up and rarely would.

But I do concede perhaps I should convince them to be a Green Mage or Storm Lord since it comes with out of combat utility. But they wanted to do fire magic.

Also, Red Rob, they would take the fire substitution of it, just for the bright fire effect.

Also, Kaelik, if the feat is so terrible, why are you so dead-set on allowing firemages to use it?

EDIT: Don't want to triple post... I need to make a run to the store, so if I don't reply for a while, I apologize.

Giraffeking wrote:The feat doesn't grant extra damage though, it grants a status condition. It does also lower resistances, which would in turn increase damage, but that case has never came up and rarely would.

Blinding people just adds to your combat damage by allowing you to live longer in combat to do more damage. I'm not saying that blinding effect is bad, I'm saying that it still adds literally nothing to the Firemage other than "more combat" which is the one thing it doesn't need.

On a related note, are they TWFing and using Iterative attacks with their Fire Mage? Because your standard for what constitutes Wizard damage is really quite high. It is certainly not impossible for a Wizard to do that much damage, but it is quite rare.

Giraffeking wrote:Also, Kaelik, if the feat is so terrible, why are you so dead-set on allowing firemages to use it?

I assume you mean "not allowing." Well, because any structure that is used to adapt that feat other than complete rewrite from the ground up is going to be workable on other feats that aren't ass, and create problems.

2) Things can also be bad for being too strong. I think the Tome Fighter is a piece of shit class for reasons that have nothing to do with it being too weak, Now, I don't think it is that big a deal for a Firemage to use this feat specifically, but I could still think that lots of feats that are made are bad for being too weak or too strong.

3) If you want a feat that grants blinding, make a feat that adds blinding, then you aren't trying to force a bunch of compatibility that doesn't really exist.

I did mean that, yes, I typo frequently and this time I was rushed to leave so I didn't catch myself.

I agree I am going about this the wrong way though, and will either make a new feat just for this character to use, or persuade the player to be a Storm Lord or one of the other energy mages. Thanks for your input!

I'm the person who originally requested the Fire Mage. I wouldn't say it was designed to be "underpowered," but it's a legitimate way to describe it. Talking about power in a Tome context is pretty messy.

Back in the day, Frank & K popularized two balance memes: the Same Game Test, and being "like a wizard." These were both really popular ideas and often treated as though they were the same thing, but they're really not. There are two different balance points in there, and the published Frank & K material, plus imitators, fall along a range between the two.

The Same Game Test is checking to see what happens if your character tries to fight a monster of his CR by himself. More specifically, it assumes that he walks in without a huge amount of special preparation and is basically limited to his own personal abilities. If he's getting slaughtered, it means he can't fight the monsters the rulebooks say he should fight, and is thus objectively underpowered, to the extent that anything can be. Or perhaps underpowered relative to "default campaign assumptions." Anyway, everyone involved with the Tomes agrees that a PC should not lose the SGT.

We also agree that the discrepancy between the big casters and everyone else is bullshit. Wizard, Clerics, and Druids have access to enormous toolkits that let them solve all kinds of problem, not just in warfare, but traveling the world and planes, reshaping society, dominating the economy and so on. They also can ratchet up their combat strength way above the default by making golems, collecting charmed thralls, layering contingencies, etc., etc. Anybody whose entire idiom is "I fireball it again" it automatically bullshit by comparison.

Now we get to the schism. Some people feel that wizards and clerics are the best part of the game. Not only do they pass the SGT, but their diverse powers and cool and interesting to apply and where the fun is. So they embrace wizards as their balance point. For them, new classes should also be incredibly flexible and expandable, or else they are "underpowered." Other people tried to use the SGT as a balance point rather than just a quick floor check. The idea was each character should score about a 65 on the SGT, and that anything below 50 was "underpowered" but anything above above 75 is "overpowered."

For a while people acted as though this was the same thing because Frank always said the SGT was calibrated to a Transmuter wizard. But as far as I can tell, it was based on a wizard walking into the dungeon with his prepared spells and a bunch of scrolls, and trying to win fights with that, rather than on a wizard rocking up with bound demons, charmed rogues, and giant skeletons in tow. A wizard who did that would demolish the SGT. And there's the sticking point.

You can make a class that's balanced with wizards and overpowered against the monster manual, or you can make a class that's balanced against the monster manual and underpowered relative to wizards. You can't have both. In the case of the Fire Mage, I asked for a character that can fight the demons in the MM, but doesn't have all the options of a wizard. You could describe that as intentionally underpowered, but that's not the phrase I would use.

Orion wrote: You can make a class that's balanced with wizards and overpowered against the monster manual, or you can make a class that's balanced against the monster manual and underpowered relative to wizards. You can't have both. In the case of the Fire Mage, I asked for a character that can fight the demons in the MM, but doesn't have all the options of a wizard. You could describe that as intentionally underpowered, but that's not the phrase I would use.

I like the "Balance to level appropriate challenges" more, I'd aim for that being the norm in a real, earnest attempt at making a fantasy heartbreaker/D&DN good.