[Tome feat] Mystic Dilettante

[JonSetanta]

Pants, magic pants...

Junk, magic junk.

Those "once per day" should be more like "once per hour", or "once per encounter" if supported within 3e at the time, due to the general failure of per-day utility powers in wider scope of a setting.
.. OR if you have support for free SLAs of the previous group each time a new benchmark is gained.

[Akula]

If we go that route, why not have a feat that lets you grab basic access to a sphere? When I had to get a player into one of my games quickly I just went with that.

[Avoraciopoctules]

If people really want feats to grant spells, a better idea might be a feat that grants specific spells as SLAs - you could have a bunch of them. It'd be within acid-spitting distance of Spheres.

Like...

Pixie Dance

You have magic pants that let you do a magic dance.

Benefit: you can cast Dancing Lights and Mage Hand as SLAs at will. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Knowledge: Arcana OR Nature.

4: you can also cast Colour Spray and Charm Person once per day each.

9: you can also cast Faerie Fire and Spirit Wall once per day each.

14: you can now cast Deep Slumber and Reaving Dispel once each per day.

19: you can cast Prismatic Spray, Otto's Irresistable Dance and Eternal Slumber once per day each.


Devil Pact:

You made a stupid deal, but you get power out of it.

Benefit: you can cast Bane as a SLA at will. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Knowledge: the Planes.

4: you can also cast Investiture of the Spined Devil once per day.

9: you can also cast Investiture of the Bearded Devil and Investiture of the Chain Devil once per day each.

14: you can now cast Investiture of the Amnizu and Investiture of the Erinyes once each per day.

19: you can cast Investiture of the Horned Devil, Investiture of the Pit Fiend and Investiture of the Ice Devil once per day each.

Special: devils probably often rock up to make you pay, but this is really just a part of your expected level-appropriate encounters routine.

You rock. My next take on the feat was going to involve writing a specific "Dabbler" list of spells from which the Mystic Dilettante would have to pick and choose (1st level Dabbler Spells: Chill Touch, Cure Light Wounds, Detect Secret Doors, Endure Elements, Floating Disk, Jump, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Melt Snow, Produce Flame, Ventriloquism)

This is much better. I'll just combine this concept with Sigma's ideas and produce a new batch of 3 or 4 feats that do what I need when I've got the time. I might have one up tomorrow.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Wi-fi found. Here:

Pyromantic Dabbler
A Fire Mage offered to set your soul on fire. For some reason, you accepted.

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can use Produce Flame as an at-will SLA. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Burning Hands, Melt, and Resist Energy (Fire) once per hour each.

9: you can also cast Fireball, Heat Metal, and Empowered Flaming Sphere once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

14: you can also cast Fire Shield, Incendiary Cloud, and Wall of Fire once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

19: you can also cast Flame Strike, Extended Summon Monster VII (Fire Elementals only), and Quickened Scorching Ray 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

Special: The damage dice for the SLAs granted by this feat are uncapped (For example, Fireball is not capped at 10d6 Fire damage).


How does this look?

[JonSetanta]

Looks good Avor.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Splendid. I'll make some more when I finish the first post in my next project.

[JonSetanta]

I was thinking about shorthand for advancing abilities lately.

I figured, what if there was better terminology for writing these kinds of feats, and instead of repeating the same phrases we'd just tag a new occurrence and refer back to a single line for each tag?

For instance concerning powers that become more frequent or even free later on:
Lesser - A Spell-Like Ability of this type may be used once each hour.
Greater - A Spell-Like Ability of this type may be used at will.

The feat would then list as follows:

4: X spell as Lesser.

9: X spell as Greater.
Y spell as Lesser.

14: Y spell as Greater
Z spell as Lesser.


I think like this because of Magic cards, I suppose.
Keywords such as Flying and First Strike are described in instructions and certain 'core set' editions for learning; everywhere else, unless introducing new keyword abilities, displays well-known keywords as shorthand (without instruction text that looks like this)

[Akula]

That makes things easier for the people who know what you are talking about...and impossible to understand for the people that don't. Since these are our homebrew creations I think we should avoid keywords so other people can understand what we are talking about.

[MGuy]

Maybe if there is a compiled list of X, Y, Z spells and you set the terms in the same post?

[Manxome]

I was thinking about shorthand for advancing abilities lately.

I figured, what if there was better terminology for writing these kinds of feats, and instead of repeating the same phrases we'd just tag a new occurrence and refer back to a single line for each tag?

For instance concerning powers that become more frequent or even free later on:
Lesser - A Spell-Like Ability of this type may be used once each hour.
Greater - A Spell-Like Ability of this type may be used at will.

The feat would then list as follows:

4: X spell as Lesser.

9: X spell as Greater.
Y spell as Lesser.

14: Y spell as Greater
Z spell as Lesser.


I think like this because of Magic cards, I suppose.
Keywords such as Flying and First Strike are described in instructions and certain 'core set' editions for learning; everywhere else, unless introducing new keyword abilities, displays well-known keywords as shorthand (without instruction text that looks like this)

"X spells as Greater, Y spells as Lesser" doesn't immediately strike me as shorter or clearer than "X spells at will, Y spells 1/hour".

[Leress]

It's not because you have to take time to explain what Lesser and Greater mean.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Sorry, I forgot all about this for a while. Here are the feats I've made up till this point.

Pyromantic Dabbler
A Fire Mage offered to set your soul on fire. For some reason, you accepted.

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can use Produce Flame as an at-will SLA. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Burning Hands, Melt, and Resist Energy (Fire) once per hour each.

9: you can also cast Fireball, Heat Metal, and Empowered Flaming Sphere once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

14: you can also cast Fire Shield, Incendiary Cloud, and Wall of Fire once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

19: you can also cast Flame Strike, Extended Summon Monster VII (Fire Elementals only), and Quickened Scorching Ray 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

Special: The damage/healing dice for the SLAs granted by this feat are uncapped (For example, Fireball is not capped at 10d6 Fire damage). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). Your caster level is equal to your character level.

----------------

Casual Hexxer
You can totally curdle a glass of milk with just one evil eye from 30 paces.

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can give someone in Medium range a -2 bullshit penalty on their d20 rolls until the beginning of your next turn as an at-will SLA that takes a swift action. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Corrupt Water (as the black dragon ability), Extended Bane, and Doom once per hour each.

9: you can also cast Bestow Curse, Blindness/Deafness (Long range instead of Medium, lasts 10 minutes per caster level), and Contagion once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

14: you can also cast Cursed Weather (as Control Weather, but it makes things like rains of frogs), Eyebite, and Blight once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

19: you can also cast Greater Bestow Curse, Finger of Death, and Soul Bind 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

Special: All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). Your caster level is equal to your character level.


-----------------

Curative acolyte
Someone has to carry the first-aid kit. Not you.

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can use Cure Minor Wounds as an at-will SLA that takes an attack action. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Cure Light Wounds, Delay Poison, and Purify Food and Drink once per hour each.

9: you can also cast Lesser Restoration, Remove Blindness/Deafness, and Remove Paralysis once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour. Cure Light Wounds upgrades to Cure Moderate Wounds

14: you can also cast Raise Dead, Restoration, and Remove Curse once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour. Cure Moderate Wounds upgrades to Cure Critical Wounds.

19: you can also cast Mass Cure Critical Wounds, Resurrection, and Greater Restoration 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour. Cure Critical Wounds upgrades to Heal

Special: The damage/healing dice/mods for the SLAs granted by this feat are uncapped (For example, Cure Light Wounds is not capped at +5 to the hit points healed). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). Your caster level is equal to your character level.

-----------------

Magician
Nobody knows precisely how you can fit so many angelic badgers into your hat

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can use Prestidigitation as an at-will SLA. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Extended Summon Monster I, Hypnotism (1d4 hit dice for every 2 caster levels, minimum 2d4), and Ventriloquism once per hour each. You may treat a single piece of clothing as a Glove of Storing as long as it is on your immediate person (if taken away for more than a round, the item concealed inside emerges).

9: you can also cast Animate Rope, Suggestion, and Silent Image once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour. You may now treat 2 pieces of clothing as Gloves of Storing as long as they are on your immediate person (if taken away for more than 1 round per level, the item concealed inside emerges).

14: you can also cast Mass Suggestion, Telekinesis, and Programmed Image once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour. You may now treat 3 pieces of clothing as Gloves of Storing as long as they are on your immediate person (if taken away for more than 1 minute per level, the item concealed inside emerges. You can command it to emerge early as long as the item is in Short range).

19: you can also cast Greater Shadow Conjuration, Mislead, and Veil 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour. You may now treat 4 pieces of clothing as Gloves of Storing as long as they are on your immediate person (if taken away for more than 1 hour per level, the item concealed inside emerges. You can command it to emerge early as long as the item is in Long range).

Special: All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). Your caster level is equal to your character level.

[Hicks]

Ok, I'm seeing a lot of stupid shit all over this thread. First off, the OP feat isn't broken or overpowered, it sucks. Command, Master of Terror, Leadership, all the Necromantic Creation feats, the Summon special ability of fiends, an Intelligent Weapon, and your mom all kick sand in the face of the dweeby "Mystic Dilettante" because spell casting and sword slashing have basically no synergy in an action economy. If it takes an action to stab fools and an action to magic fools, you can't do both unless you have two people acting.

The Straight Dope: You cast arcane spells as a sorcerer of your HD -2, which means you are a full spell level behind sorcorers who are a full spell level behind everyone else. Color me nonpulsed if a Monk whips out a phantasmal killer or solid fog at 11th level when real spell casters are slinging flesh to stone and acid fog.

And yes, the only classes that are going to pick this feat up are those who don't wear armor because nobody in their right mind casts arcane spells with a chance of failure. Fighters? No. Barbarians? No. Clerics and Druids? No. Anybody with a brain? No. Mindless Creatures? Still "No"! Because spending your action to act as a cohort's cohort is super retarted when you could just, ya know, do a level appropriate action. And don't even give me that lame "Quicken Spell" bullshit lie; Casting a spell that was appropriate 12 levels ago as a swift action is a fucking flavor ability that is a waste of time and life when the Fighter could be Foiling or the Samaurai Iaijutsu Foucusing or the Monk activating a Master Fighting Style or the Knight Designating. If you cast, as if it mattered, anything you did over half the game ago, you EPIC FAIL D&D.

The spells would have been the shit 3 goddam levels ago, but you are a TWF Barbarian with Combat School who can't even cast spells while in a rage. Are you guys trying to tell Avoraciopoctules that instead of full attacking a fool in the face and forcing somewhere between 2 and 8 saves vs. Daze, he should be wasting a whole turn of combat to shut off all his level appropriate attacks and defences just so a he can waste his next turn doing things that were cool 3 levels ago that have a flat 25% of failing before even starting because he can't strip off his Masterwork Adamantine Breastplate off in combat time is overpowered?

In conclusion, grow a perspective bone here people: Acting slightly better than a mook of a mook is still a waste of time because you have better, level appropriate, things to do! Having the ability to set a finite resource on fire to have the honor of being less than a cohort for a turn, is an insulting bitch slap to the face.

-END TRANSMISSION-

[Avoraciopoctules]

I'd be interested in some feedback on the 4 feats I have up right now, since I've only done very vague balancing work. The original Mystic dilettante was balanced against having a cohort, but these are supposed to be roughly on par with having a nice, but not overwhelming [Combat] or [Skill] feat.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Since spell-like abilities can't be used to counterspell, but they can be cast defensively, perhaps Concentration would be a better skill for the feats. I can also imagine skill feats like Mountebank (Bluff-based, gives an illusion progression) and Enchanter (Diplomacy-based, gives an...enchantment progression). Maybe I'll give them a writeup after I pick up my wife.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Since spell-like abilities can't be used to counterspell, but they can be cast defensively, perhaps Concentration would be a better skill for the feats. I can also imagine skill feats like Mountebank (Bluff-based, gives an illusion progression) and Enchanter (Diplomacy-based, gives an...enchantment progression). Maybe I'll give them a writeup after I pick up my wife.

I can see your point. My initial thought was essentially that Spellcraft was a mostly useless skill, so making the feats require it would give more incentive to put points into it. But there isn't anything keeping me from switching the skill required and/or giving a second class skill with the feats.

And I'd be interested in seeing the feats you propose if you've got the time to write them. Magician is supposed to vaguely represent the fantastic version of a real-world stage magician and it's got spells from both those schools, but it doesn't really cover either of those bases very well since it's so generalized.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Sticking these here so I'll remember to finish them. Suggestions welcome, a number of spells are very tentative right now.

Hopeless Necromantic
[placeholder]

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can Rebuke Undead as a Cleric of your level (this doesn't stack with Rebuking you get from existing class levels). The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Form of Death, Sobering Skeletal Stillness, and [placeholder] once per hour each.

9: you can also cast False Life, Necromantic Binding, and Empowered [placeholder] once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

14: you can also cast Enervation, Harm, and Magic Jar once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

19: you can also cast Create Greater Undead, Extended [placeholder], and Quickened Enervation 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

Special: The damage/healing dice/mods for the SLAs granted by this feat are uncapped (For example, Inflict Light Wounds is not capped at 1d8+5 Negative Energy damage). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). Your caster level is equal to your character level.

=============

Magic Swordsman
"Sonic Thrust, Lightning Blade, SUPAH LITENING BLAED!"

Benefit: You gain Spellcraft as a Class Skill if it wasn't already, and you can use [placeholder] as an at-will SLA. The rest of the benefits depend on your ranks in Spellcraft.

4: you can also cast Burning Missiles, Deafening Clang, and Sonic Thrust once per hour each.

9: you can also cast Cone of Cold, Fly, and Lightning Blade once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

14: you can also cast Blood Lance Circle, Super Lightning Blade, and [placeholder] once per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

19: you can also cast Judgement, Extended [placeholder], and Quickened [placeholder] 3 times per hour each. The previous tier of SLAs can now be used 3 times per hour.

Special: The damage/healing dice for the SLAs granted by this feat are uncapped (For example, Fireball is not capped at 10d6 Fire damage). All save DCs for the abilities granted by this feat are (DC 10 + highest mental ability modifier + 1/2 your level). Your caster level is equal to your character level.

[PhaedrusXY]

Would this include all feats that grant cohorts? There are multiple ways for someone in Tome to get a cohort along with a number of other benefits. Unless you are restricted to a single cohort per capita regardless of how many different ways you qualify for one, I have difficulty understanding this restriction.

How do you get a cohort besides a Leadership feat or an intelligent magic item?

Path of Blood, and a lot of the other Necromantic creation feats, can give you multiple "cohorts". They're better than cohorts in some ways, as they are explicitly only limited by their CR, with no qualifier. So you can get all kinds of crazy stuff like things with 1000 mile telepathy and the Mindsight feat, or gigantic at-will crowd control abilities, etc.

These feats are proving difficult to deal with in the game I'm DMing. Although I think my biggest mistake was letting him cherry pick monsters to start the game with... I should have only let him use things he encountered in the game... That makes it a lot better, but still quite abuseable.

[Rejakor]

There's one thing I think everyone is missing in all of this. The true power of the Mystic Dilettante feat lies not in using your precious precious full round pouncing charge action to cast magic missile at the hydralisk, but in gaining access to all the utility powers that form such a massive part of the Wizard power base. Fighters and their ilk normally shell out massive amounts of money in order to be able to Fly, not to mention Teleport or any of that jazz. And yes, you could totally take an intelligent item as a cohort and have it do this spellcasting and it would be nearly as inviolable as yourself, much less easy to neutralize/kidnap than a cohort, but very few people use that rules option, and to be honest it needs fixing, just like cohorts need fixing.

Spells are horribly, horribly imbalanced, flawed, and level inappropriate. If someone had gone through and fixed all the spells and had them scale properly to spell level and caster level, then with the crazy ramp up of DnD maybe being three levels behind (1 for being a Sorcerer, 2 from the feat) would be enough to make it flavourful and useful without being overpowered or making the casters (esp. secondary casters) feel small in the pants. But no-one has.. Spells are crazy, and they will continue to be crazy, and we cannot assume that people are going to only pick the appropriate-to-level ones. I have no problem with a 3rd level Fighter casting colour spray. I have no problem with a 6th level fighter casting swift fly or glitterdust or master air - but I do have a problem with an 8th level fighter casting phantom steed, swift fly, web, charm person, rope trick and silent image. Because that instantly increases the fighter's power by a level far beyond what a single feat should give. Limiting the spells known or spells per day don't really fix that, because allowing people to cherry pick is always vastly more powerful than giving people a set of pre-determined spells. Here is my solution, which is basically Akula's, very slightly modified.

Mystic Dilettante [Skill][Spellcraft]
For you, magic is a hobby.
0: Spellcraft becomes a class skill for you, regardless of what classes you have. Additionally, you don't have a spell failure chance for casting spells in armour while using this feat, and you may cast any 8 cantrips from any spell list as spell-like abilities 3/day.
4: You may cast spells as a PHB Sorcerer of your half your character level + 1. You may use any of your mental ability scores as your casting stat, chosen when you first take this feat. You may pick spells known from either the Sorc/Wizard, Druid, or Cleric spell lists, chosen when you first take this feat. Once you have made a choice, you may only learn spells from that spell list, and no other. Your caster level is equal to half your character level.
9: Once per day, you may counterspell a spell as an immediate, purely mental action that doesn't use up your swift action next round. You may use a Spellcraft check result instead of a caster level check for the purposes of this counterspell. In addition, your caster level becomes three quarters of your character level.
14: Once per day, after witnessing a spellcaster use a spell from the list of spells that you choose your spells known from (Sorc/Wizard, Druid, or Cleric), if the spell was cast this or last round, you may spend a full round action to attempt to reproduce the results. If you succeed on a spellcraft check with a DC equal to (10 + 2 x spell level + spellcaster's caster level), you successfully cast the spell, using your caster level (or the minimum level required to cast the spell, whichever is lower). In addition, your own caster level now equals your character level.
19: A number of times per day equal to the modifier of the mental ability score you chose to use to cast spells when you picked this feat, you may cast ANY non-epic spell, regardless of level, with a casting time longer than one full-round action. To do so you must make a spellcraft check with a DC equal to (10+ 2 x spell level + the minimum caster level for the spell), or the spell fails.
Special: You may take this feat more than once, but each time you must pick a different spell list to choose your spells known from. You may not pick the same list twice. The spells gained from this feat do not qualify you to use Epic Spells.

This fix gives a very limited taste of magical power, but makes up for that by giving a few other powerful and flavourey options. There is no way I could think of to control freely-picked spells in higher amounts than 1/2 character level. So, to compensate for that, i've built in a couple of other abilities that are powerful and fit the 'mystic dabbler' theme.

Credit to Akula for the chassis of the feat, and the idea.

Necromantic feats: Monsters need all kinds of crazy crap to keep up with PCs. Giving PCs those abilities has proven to be difficult. Polymorph is a clear example of that, the necromancer on the other hand was mainly controlled by the fact that only certain kinds of (crappy) undead monsters could be utilized by necromancer PCs. Tome has (rightly, in my mind) let necromancers use some of the cooler monsters, but then there's the problem that some of those monsters are horribly broken if the PCs get their hands on them. I can't think of a fix for that at the moment that doesn't involve rewrites of the monsters involved or just saying 'your DM must approve each monster you wish to create by using this feat' and hoping for the best.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Kaelik has brought up the fact that hourly SLAs are cumbersome to keep track of. This is certainly true in many games, and it shows an area where there is probably potential to improve [EDIT]the my[/EDIT] current format for Dilettante feats.

What do we think of a system where after you expended your SLAs, you needed to spend time actively recharging to get them back, sort of like a Bullet Mage's Bombs ( http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51203 ) ?

Some potential times that could be spent actively recharging to get back SLAs:
- 1 Minute: Could plausibly be used in combination with combat escape tactics to be used multiple times against a single encounter.
- 10 Minutes: Much harder to do so, still theoretically possible, but generally a downtime recovery sort of thing.
- 1 Hour: Same time it takes for a Wizard to prepare spells in slots that were left empty.

Thoughts?

EDIT: last minute change to wording that previously felt kind of tactless given the other take on Mystic Dilettante right above my post.

[For Valor]

Erm. I like the first feat. It's nice... especially the whole "2 caster levels behind" thing as a Sorcerer. If you always factor in ASF (regardless of your chosen spell list) from armor and such, the feat should be fine... even weak, like Hicks says. This would basically be used for buffs, and I think you could even create a new spell table with a decent number of spells known, a low number of spells-per-day, and spells with extended durations/free persist spells.

That'd be nicer... and if you keep it so the feat makes the character 2 spell levels behind everyone else, he won't have a problem.

[ubernoob]

Erm. I like the first feat. It's nice... especially the whole "2 caster levels behind" thing as a Sorcerer. If you always factor in ASF (regardless of your chosen spell list) from armor and such, the feat should be fine... even weak, like Hicks says. This would basically be used for buffs, and I think you could even create a new spell table with a decent number of spells known, a low number of spells-per-day, and spells with extended durations/free persist spells.

That'd be nicer... and if you keep it so the feat makes the character 2 spell levels behind everyone else, he won't have a problem.

No. Fuck you. Buffs fucking SCALE. So having [LOTS] of them with a single feat is fucking retarded. That's retarded for EXACTLY the same reason taking leadership to get a buffmonkey to follow you around is retarded.

[For Valor]

Erm. I like the first feat. It's nice... especially the whole "2 caster levels behind" thing as a Sorcerer. If you always factor in ASF (regardless of your chosen spell list) from armor and such, the feat should be fine... even weak, like Hicks says. This would basically be used for buffs, and I think you could even create a new spell table with a decent number of spells known, a low number of spells-per-day, and spells with extended durations/free persist spells.

That'd be nicer... and if you keep it so the feat makes the character 2 spell levels behind everyone else, he won't have a problem.

No. Fuck you. Buffs fucking SCALE. So having [LOTS] of them with a single feat is fucking retarded. That's retarded for EXACTLY the same reason taking leadership to get a buffmonkey to follow you around is retarded.

Oh no... scaling buffs...

a) If you don't like this, Leadership is not a good idea either. You obviously don't like either option, so do me a favor and piss off.
b) When I think "scaling buffs", I think Greater Magic Weapon and its friends. Everybody having access to that stuff sounds pretty good to me...

[ubernoob]

Erm. I like the first feat. It's nice... especially the whole "2 caster levels behind" thing as a Sorcerer. If you always factor in ASF (regardless of your chosen spell list) from armor and such, the feat should be fine... even weak, like Hicks says. This would basically be used for buffs, and I think you could even create a new spell table with a decent number of spells known, a low number of spells-per-day, and spells with extended durations/free persist spells.

That'd be nicer... and if you keep it so the feat makes the character 2 spell levels behind everyone else, he won't have a problem.

No. Fuck you. Buffs fucking SCALE. So having [LOTS] of them with a single feat is fucking retarded. That's retarded for EXACTLY the same reason taking leadership to get a buffmonkey to follow you around is retarded.

Oh no... scaling buffs...

a) If you don't like this, Leadership is not a good idea either. You obviously don't like either option, so do me a favor and piss off.
b) When I think "scaling buffs", I think Greater Magic Weapon and its friends. Everybody having access to that stuff sounds pretty good to me...

No, you are a retard. Feats give options. Buffs give scaling bonuses on top of your base numbers above and beyond what you already have. That means that scaling actually is guaranteed to rape the RNG because you're scaling on top of things that already scale at the right rate.

For example, let's look at what you can have at level six with this feat(keep in mind that you're a full BAB character with combat feats on top of this):
Menacing Tentacles(PH2): +4 circumstance (bullshit) bonus to grapple checks; immediate action cast time.
Wraithstrike(SC): Because fuck you
Truestrike: Because fuck you

Are you not seeing how personal buffs are better than regular buffs? Because they are objectively better. Seriously, you need to spend two whole feats in dungeonomicon to get wraithstrike and something else you don't care about. That's one spell. Two feats for just that spell. The feat on the first page gives that out for a single feat in addition to everything else you want on the sorc/wiz list.

Yes, you are retarded. Please go play in traffic.

[Ice9]

Leadership is not a good balance point - for anything. The only reason it isn't more widely seen as a problem to the game is that its use tends to be moderated by the size of the group. I.e. in an already large group, players are discouraged from taking it, and in a small group, the DM might have already provided a friendly NPC if nobody took it. That, and often people feel guilty about about exploiting it to the fullest, so they don't.

The only way that Leadership is not flat-out broken is if you use the cohort in a sub-optimal or group-benefit way. Use it efficiently to directly boost your own power, and it basically makes you at least 1.75 characters. And no, the fact that Tome feats are really good does not change the balance of this, at all. Because the cohort also gets Tome feats!