Reserve Feats (Wizard/Sorc)

[thaelis]

Speaking from a player of a warlock's perspective, my only concern is that if this feat is implemented, wizards/sorcs will essentially co-opt the greatest strength of a warlock while losing none of their original spell selection or casting power. Being able to cast without resting is supposed to be the primary advantage a warlock has over other arcane casters. If that is addressed somehow, then I would be less opposed.

Of course, a decision like this is ultimately in the hands of the staff.

This is true in part, but I don't think these feats usually affect more than one enemy? They are usually also of an energy type (fire, cold, elec...) which can be resisted, rather than pure magic. Lastly, the damage doesn't seem to approach the amount of Warlock's blast (and some even allow a save, meaning they would almost always do half damage).

On the whole they're a fair bit weaker then the Warlock's 12d6 mass blast of instant-hit no-save death.

Also lets not forget Warlocks have spells too! Some being comparable or even more powerful than wizard ones.

[wangxiuming]

A warlock's eldritch blast only reaches 9d6 at level 20. With Hellfire blast, his eldritch blast will reach 15d6, but at the cost of 1 point of CON per enemy struck. And, just like the Reserve feats (If I read them correctly), a ranged attack roll still has to be made - they are not instant hit abilities ( though, I wish they were ). And the essences which allow the blast to hit multiple enemies (which warlocks have to sacrifice an invocation for) also require saves, or reduced damage. Eldritch chain requires an attack roll on every single chained target, and reduces the damage by half after the first hit. Eldritch Doom offers a reflex save for half damage just like a fireball. Evasion and Improved evasion apply.

And yes, a warlock has spells, but compared to the sheer variety and utility of a true arcane caster? A warlock has 12 invocations total, which can be cast indefinitely yes, but whose utility is far more limited in scope. I would bet on a fully-prepared wizard/sorc over a fully-prepared warlock in a fight, because the wizard's spellcasting potential is so ginormous.

Yes, warlocks are powerful. But wizards and sorcerers are already powerful as well.

[FriendlyNecromancer]

The warlock's Eldritch Blast scaling is similar to that of the reserve feats implemented by Kaedrin's pack. The offensive reserve feats are mostly either 1d4/highest-level spell you have available to cast or 1d6/same. Note that all reserve feats have to be bought first, so buying just one won't give you access to all the others. This will delay prc access if you try to get them as soon as possible, not to mention having to sacrifice other feats such as metamagic.

All the reserve feats also have specific trigger spells, which must always remain prepared as long as you want to use the reserve ability. This can be troubling, because some trigger spells may not be availabe at all spell levels, which means your damage won't be improved, until you find another trigger spell again.

They also tend to require a ranged touch attack, and allow a reflex save, or both. The damage is often elemental. There are some reserve feats that can knock down or disease the target... with saves allowed, but frankly, I doubt anyone is ever going to use those because of how weak they are. Same for those that require melee touch attacks and have rather bad effects.
The Runes of X feats, the only ones that have a somewhat big area of effect, also have a 30 sec cooldown between each use, even if you try to use a different rune.

The warlock's Eldritch Blast requires but a ranged touch attack to hit, offers no save, no spell prepared, and deals damage very few creatures are able to resist. You can still cast your invocations for as long as you want.
You will never see a high level wizard/sorc using reserve feats for anything other than trash mobs, hell even the trash mobs at those levels might have way too high hp for reserve feats to do anything other than scratching them.
They also are mostly useless during bosses and pvp, since you'd rather spend those rounds actually casting something powerful.
If the fact you have to buy a feat for that isn't already troubling enough, I guess you could leave the Rune damage at 1d6 and nerf some of the others to 1d4, since you can literally spam most of them for as long as you want. The damage would still be pretty low however.

[Clangeddin]

You know, you could always implement a nerfed version of them if you deem those too powerful, Instead of 1d6 per spell level, it could be 1d4. At that point it would be 9d4 vs the warlock's 9d6.

I do not have a caster, but I really see nothing wrong in giving them these feats, first of all they require a feat to be taken (there's the opportunity cost of losing the benefits of another feat) and you have to consider that to work at maximum efficiency you also have to "sacrifice" a high level spell slot as well, because as soon as you use that high level spell the damage dice drops (or the feat may even stop working if you don't have any lower level spell of the required type).

While currently casters are really nice for buffing and dealing with the occasional tough enemy, I can see their concern in the case they're thrown in long adventures against dispellers.

[thaelis]

I still don't think they're quite as powerful as an Eldritch Blast (a touch attack at +15 or better is basically an auto-hit anyway!), but if Warlock players feel its encroaching on their unique powers, well...that's just not cool either.

I feel that tweaking Wands/Staves would make for a much more interesting/true to PnP experience, and also could be used by ALL Wizards/Sorcerers without requiring a special feat, which may be out of character for them to choose.

Heck, even if regular Wands recharged 1 charge per game day all our problems would be solved. (Except that they are useable by Rogues/Bards etc with UMD... Whereas Staves ideally wouldn't be as easily usable)

[Lotus]

We'd have to eliminate some NWN2 staple spells before we'd consider adding these feats.

[Valhalla]

While currently casters are really nice for buffing and dealing with the occasional tough enemy, I can see their concern in the case they're thrown in long adventures against dispellers.

True enough. I'm relatively new and haven't gotten past level 15 yet, but the Fire Giants are a reasonable example of this. The Branders cast dispel at the start of pretty much every fight, and regularly strip several buffs in one go. Sometimes it's stuff like Protection from Evil and you can just shrug it off, but every now and then it's Stoneskin and life kind of sucks.

Definitely 100% behind something that encourages a caster's active participation in a fight beyond buff-botting, though I'm with wangxiuming re: warlocks.

[Jhickey]

A feat like this would not make a warlock obsolete, as they would both serve different rolls within the party. I think reserve feats would only add to the customization of what all D&D players desire. It will also give a wizard the ability to just offer minor damage to the rest of the party, which always benefits the players. Sadly I have never made an arcane caster that got higher in levels but I surly would not want to play one to just buff and follow behind. What fun is that? As far as a Cleric goes, they can buff and join in the melee, and buff others. I just think it would add to the players experience for the inevitable dungeon grind.

[Saulus]

What I'd personally prefer to see is we finish our item charging stations and then we can release some things like staves with magic missile or fireball etc, that can be used as a direct damage weapon.

The flipside is you won't be recharging it for free. This should be the equalizer.

[Jhickey]

We'd have to eliminate some NWN2 staple spells before we'd consider adding these feats.

Why would this need to be done? Forgive my ignorance but I don't know much about scripting and the like.

[Kitsunestume]

While currently casters are really nice for buffing and dealing with the occasional tough enemy, I can see their concern in the case they're thrown in long adventures against dispellers.

*cough* Wurest Greater-spellbreach grind *cough*

On a more related note, I agree with the idea that the status quo is currently sufficient, if perhaps not ideal. Wizards are by design high situational flexibility at the cost of numbers of spells; specialising in a shool gets you better at them and grants more spells, but ultimately limits you from casting others. Warlock to me always seemed the opposite niche; few spells you can use all the time - if you can somehow make them applicable. Sorcerers somewhere in between. If you want to fill a niche outside the ideal for your class, I think it should take more than just a feat. One-level dip in warlock perhaps, if you can rp sufficiently for it. Them wizxies always summoning stuff they shouldn't. Nothing like setting up your own infernal pact for a good roleplay hook.

Also, I'll poke and see how low the cost of wands of magic missile can go.

Cheers,
Kit

[Edit] also, what Saulus and the team are working on is awesome. Recharging would solve a lot of problems.