Tag: Feat

dnd 5e – Is this homebrew feat, Wandslinger, balanced?

I’m playing a wandslinger-themed artificer (with an eye toward the Artillerist subclass) in an urban Eberron campaign. Given the predominantly close-quarters combat environments, it would be useful not to have disadvantage on spell attacks whilst within 5 feet of hostile creatures. Granted, I could avoid this problem by taking a save-based cantrip such as frostbite, but I’d rather not. Attack-based spells feel like a better fit for the “wand as gun” theme, not to mention that they benefit from critical hits. And the class’s limited number of cantrips make it tough to take more than one offensive choice, given the other excellent options available (e.g., guidance).

Two feats published to date provide a means to avoid disadvantage at melee range: Crossbow Expert and Gunner. Both include the following among their benefits:

Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

That would work — but the other benefits granted by these feats are largely irrelevant to me. I don’t plan on using a crossbow, so Crossbow Expert’s crossbow-related benefits likely won’t come into play. Gunner provides a +1 to DEX, which I don’t really need, and other benefits relating to traditional firearms, which do not exist in our Eberron. (Even if they did, the feat’s grant of proficiency in firearms would likely be duplicative of the proficiency optionally granted by the artificer class.)

My table-mates are open to a homebrew option as long as it’s balanced. Using other feats for comparison (e.g., Gunner, Artificer Initiate, Spell Sniper, and Fey Touched), here is what have in mind to propose:

Wandslinger

Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell

You have learned to use certain spells more effectively in close quarters, granting you the following benefits:

  • Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
  • Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
  • You learn one cantrip that requires an attack roll. Choose the cantrip from the artificer spell list. Your spellcasting ability for this cantrip is Intelligence.

Is this homebrew feat roughly on par with official feats? To be clear, my intention is to approximate the benefits of Gunner, except with a granted cantrip instead of granted proficiency in firearms. I think I’ve done that. But is there some balance problem I’m missing?

dnd 5e – Must I expend a Hit Die to cast a spell using the Aberrant Dragonmark feat?

Reading the whole section it should be pretty clear.

  • (…) You learn that spell and can cast it through your mark. Once you cast it, you must finish a short or long rest before you can cast it again through the mark (…)
  • When you cast the 1st-level spell through your mark, you can
    expend one of your Hit Dice and roll it. If you roll an even number, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the number rolled. If you roll an odd number, one random creature within 30 feet of you (not including you) takes force damage equal to the number rolled. If no other creatures are in range, you take the damage.

So the usage of a hit die is completely optional to incur an additional effect as you cast your spell.

To clarify, you can cast your 1st level spell once, with no cost.
To do so again you need to rest – a short rest is enough, while the Magic initiate feat requires a long rest.
As you do, you can spend a Hit Dice for additional effect (temp hit points or damage).

I realize that this is mostly a question about the usage of “can”, rather than “may”. But there are several other descriptions that use can for optional actions. Like Witch Bolt:

..and on each of your turns for the duration, you can use your action to
deal 1d12 lightning damage to the target automatically

In summary:

Must I expend one Hit Dice if I’m able to?

No.

What happens if I don’t want to, or have any Hit Die left?

Your spell is cast in a normal fashion.

dnd 5e – Does the Quicksmithing feat make the Servo Crafting feat obsolete?

It is true that you could pick find familiar as one of your ritual spells via Quicksmithing:

When you choose this feat, you master two magical
effects, each of which recreates the effect of a 1st-level
spell that has the ritual tag. These spells can come from
any class list, but Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for them

However, Servo Crafting adds:

You can communicate telepathically with your servo familiar and perceive through its senses as long as
you are on the same plane of existence. You can speak
through your servo in your own voice.
Additionally, when you take the Attack action, you
can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your servo
familiar to make one attack of its own.

Normally, the find familiar spell does not allow you to have essentially infinite range on telepathic communication and seeing through its senses, speak through it with your voice (I’m ignoring Pact of the Chain warlocks here) or forgo an attack to allow it to make an attack instead1.

Since the Servo Crafting feat enhances the spell in this way, it is distinctly different from simply picking find familiar via the Quicksmithing feat, which does not enhance the spell in this way.

1 It can do something similar, in that it can allow you to deliver a touch spell through it, but that it quite different from what Servo Crafting provides:

Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell. Your familiar must be within 100 feet of you, and it must use its reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, you use your attack modifier for the roll.

dnd 5e – Does the Elemental Adept feat apply to the Wildfire Druid’s Enhanced Bond?

The bonus to damage from Enhanced Bond is not a damage roll of the spell.

The official wording of Enhanced Bond printed in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything1 says:

Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage or restores hit points while your wildfire spirit is summoned, roll a d8, and you gain a bonus equal to the number rolled to one damage or healing roll of the spell.

Enhanced Bond is a bonus that gets added to one damage roll of the spell, but it is not itself a damage roll of the spell. Since it is not a damage roll of the spell, the roll for Enhanced Bond is not eligible for Elemental Adept, which requires:

you roll damage for a spell you cast

This ruling is further established by the fact that the roll for Enhanced Bond occurs the moment the spell is cast, prior to any attack roll or saving throw occurring, so it is definitely not part of the damage roll, which only occurs after a successful attack roll of failed save (in most cases).

1 The wording in the question matches the wording found in the Unearthed Arcana version of the Wildfire Druid, but the difference in wording does not affect the logic of this answer.

Does a spell that deals persistent damage allow you to use the Energy Fusion metamagic feat?

No, as I explain in my answer to the question Medix2 linked in comments, when applying the same (seemingly accurate) ruling suggests that the combination does not work.

Specifically, persistent damage is “dealt by” a Condition, not the character that inflicted the Condition. By extension, the spell is not “dealing” damage in the sense that Energy Fusion implies; it would be different if blistering invective had a duration over which it did damage instead of being the Condition persistent damage.

But… this is something a GM could easily rule the other way on. It will increase the effectiveness of Energy Fusion a bit (I believe the “expected” duration on persistent damage is approximately three ticks) at the ‘cost’ of using less up-front damage. A 4th level blistering invective does 4d6 damage to 3 creatures whereas a 4th level fireball (ye olde go-to for spell damage comparison) does 8d6 to everything in a 20ft radius. It takes a second round for BI to catch up in damage assuming fireball only hit 3 targets.

However, GM’s should take care as there are other spells that trigger persistent damage, and it’s possible that, depending on group composition and enemy types/density/etc., adding sometimes 2-4+ times the bonus damage from Energy Fusion (in addition to the non-damage effects of such spells) could cause issues with spells hitting well above their weight.

Does a spell that deals persistent damage allow you to use the Energy Fusion feat?

Blistering Invective deals persistent damage:

Your words deal 2d6 persistent fire damage, and the target must attempt a Will save.

Energy Fusion adds a different damage type to a spell that deals energy damage:

If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that deals acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage, select a non-cantrip spell in your spell repertoire that deals a different type of energy damage from that list, and expend an additional spell slot of the same level as this secondary spell.

Do these work together?

dnd 3.5e – Is there a feat to allow a weapon to hit an incorporeal creature?

TLDR: it’s hard.

Any chance that you could elaborate on your situation? Party composition and levels, access to Magical Emporium Of Everything Books Tell You Exists, etc would be helpful.

Throwing some generic thoughts in the meantime.

Incorporeal subtype is a tricky little thing, but less so than ethereal:

An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by
other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as
magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural
abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit
by spells or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage
from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy,
force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch
weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect
incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not
affecting an incorporeal creature.

There are multiple ways around this issue, but the practicality of most has a lot of room for improvement. I’ll list some of them.

  • Magical Training from Player’s Guide to Faerun gives you 0-level spell slots. Having spell slots, you can use one of several possible ways to increase your spell levels (e.g. Sanctum Spell) and then backfill some spell slots via Extra Slot. From there, you have a 1-level spell slot and can cast magic weapon, which allows to hit incorporeal creatures. Or magic missile which is a force effect. This is hugely impractical.
  • Crafting. Ghost touch weapon is just a feat away.. a feat, a +2-equivalent weapon and an ability to cast plane shift. There are ways around it, but this is still very impractical.
  • Friends. Ghost Touch Weapon (Spell Compendium p102) is a third-level Cleric spell that gives a weapon ghost touch property for a few minutes; this spell seems to be the easiest thing to achieve what you want.
  • Shopping. Wand of magic missile; wand of orb of force; scrolls/oils of ghost touch weapon; weapons with ghost touch ability; a lot of helpful stuff here. Obviously depends on access to vendors.
  • Check whether Tome of Battle can help you out. Martial Study feat allows anyone to pick a maneuver – with level restrictions – and some of those are definitely capable of harming incorporeal creatures, e.g. Fan the Flames. Would be 1/encounter unless you have martial levels, so the practicality is a bit iffy.

dnd 3.5e – Is there a Feat to allow a weapon to hit an incoporeal creature

Im still fairly new to 3.5 but i thought i saw somewhere a feat to allow a PC to hit incoporeal creatures as if they werent. I know there is a feat to allow spells to act normally but couldnt find one for a martial PC with no spell casting.

allowed- all WoTC books

not allowed- Dragon mags or 3rd party

TIA

dnd 5e – Can an Artificer with an All-Purpose Tool gain Eldritch Blast cantrip and take the feat Eldritch Adept to get Agonizing Blast Invocation

Can an Artificer with an All-Purpose Tool gain Eldritch Blast cantrip and take the feat Eldritch Adept to get Agonizing Blast Invocation?

All-Purpose Tool: […] As an action, you can focus on the tool to channel your creative forces. Choose a cantrip that you don’t know from any class list. For 8 hours, you can cast that cantrip, and it counts as an artificer cantrip for you. Once this property is used, it can’t be used again until the next dawn.

Agonizing Blast – Prerequisite: Eldritch Blast cantrip – When you cast Eldritch Blast, add your Charisma modifier to the damage it deals on a hit.

If the Artificer chooses a different cantrip the following day, they still have the invocation right, it just doesn’t function till the Artificer chooses Eldritch Blast the day after?

dnd 3.5e – How does a Monk benefit from the Power Attack feat when flurrying with a quarterstaff?

A Character with the Power Attack feat can decide to use a quarterstaff as a two-handed weapon and apply 1.5 × Strength bonus to the damage roll, plus double the number he decided to subtract from the attack roll.

Now a Monk that decides to use Flurry of Blows with the same weapon must follow the ruling in the Player’s Handbook (41):

When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus × 1-1/2 or × 1/2) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. (…)
In the case of the quarterstaff, each end counts as a separate weapon for the purpose of using the flurry of blows ability. Even though the quarterstaff requires two hands to use, a monk may still intersperse unarmed strikes with quarterstaff strikes, assuming that she has enough attacks in her flurry of blows routine to do so.

The quarterstaff, despite being a two-handed weapon, is treated as two separate weapons in this context but it still requires both hands to be used.

That wouldn’t be much of a concern per se, but what if the Monk decides to use the feat Power Attack with the above class feature? How should the quarterstaff be treated in this case?

  1. As a Two-Handed weapon. Power Attack doubles its bonus.
  2. As a Double weapon. The Power Attack bonus is not applied to the light end of the weapon.
  3. As two One-Handed weapons (e.g. two clubs). Power Attack affects both ends but its bonus is not doubled.

Or how is it generally ruled?