# Spell Focus?  Is it worth it?



## Methos (Jul 15, 2002)

Folks,

I'm playing a wizard in one campaign, and I'm trying to decide if taking Spell Focus (and eventually Greater Spell Focus) is worth it as a feat.  In looking at the various schools, there often appear to be very few spells (particularly at some levels) to which having a higher DC would make any difference, since the spell is a touch/ray/no save/enhances abilities, etc.

I'm not a specialist wizard, but I was thinking of taking spell focus in either Enchantment or Necromancy (or even both).  These schools tend to have an all or nothing aspect to their saving throws.  Evocation, by way of comparison, tends to have spells that save for half damage, so I'm not sure that having spell focus in that school would give you as much bang for the buck so to speak.

By the way, I love Necromancy!!  Although, I do tend to pick spells from a variety of schools, hence the reason for not specializing.

Any insight would be welcome.

Thanks.

Methos


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## bensei (Jul 15, 2002)

I'm playing a bard with lots of enchantment spells and my experience that spell focus (enchantment) is definitely one of the best feats to take. The +10% really make a difference, and as you already said, for all the Charms, Dominates, Sleeps and Suggestions there is mostly only one try, especially in non-combat situations, if people feal that someone just tried to enchant them. I'm going to take greater spell focus, soon.


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## Furn_Darkside (Jul 15, 2002)

Methos said:
			
		

> *Evocation, by way of comparison, tends to have spells that save for half damage, so I'm not sure that having spell focus in that school would give you as much bang for the buck so to speak.*




I think the feat in question is good in general, but you may want to rethink your stance on Evocation.

If your caster starts slinging around damage spells, then he/she/it is going to get the attention of the target. The odds are you want that target dead before they stop you from casting another spell.

FD


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## mikebr99 (Jul 15, 2002)

Everything helps...
Spell focus/Greater spell focus/Epic spell focus... More bang for your buck!!

BTW. Bensei... What ARE those characters in your Avatar doing??


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## Zog (Jul 15, 2002)

Spell Focus Enchantment and Illusion are almost must haves, in my opinion.  Depending on spell selection, transmutation is also key.

These three schools are filled with the Save negates type of spells.  And since all you've got is spells, having someone make their save, effectively wasting your round, really stinks.  Anything you can do to increase the save DC is vital.

Since wizards get bonus feats - you have room for spell focus and some item creation or metamagic feats.  

Unless you are playing a ranged spell attack expert or some other interesting planned specialization, the spell focus feats are all good.


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## bensei (Jul 15, 2002)

> BTW. Bensei... What ARE those characters in your Avatar doing??



Playing Ultimate Frisbee.
But now as you say it...  
One should not shrink images without having a deeper look at the result.
On the other hand, the name of our Ultimate Frisbee Team is *Fabulous Ultimate Club Kaiserslautern*. So the abbreviation fits...


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## Crothian (Jul 15, 2002)

It's very useful if you find yourself using one school more then all others.  I've got a cleric and I've been looking at getting spell focus, but I use too many spells from all across the board.


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## Jalkain (Jul 15, 2002)

Taking spell focus in Transmutation gives you a more subtle benefit as well.  The saving throw of spells from this school are fairly evenly split between Fortitude (like Disintegrate and Polymorph Other) and Willpower (like Slow and Bestow Curse).

This means that you can tailor spells to specific opponents and still keep your bonus from spell focus.  Whereas Illusion and Enchantment are almost entirely Will save spells, so if you attack a spellcaster you often have a poor chance even with the bonus.

It breaks down as follows:

Enchantment and Illusion: Will
Evocation: Ref
Necromancy: Fort, a couple of Will
Transmutation: Will/Fort

Conjuration and Abjuration spells don't often give saving throws.  Anyone ever taken Spell Focus (Divination)?


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## Al (Jul 15, 2002)

Usually, yes.

Even though you have a broad range of spells, particular schools attack particular types of victim.  As Jalkain has made clear, necromancy targets Fort saves; evocation targets Reflex saves and enchantment/illusion targets Will saves (though enchantment is probably the more effective in combat).

As such, even if you are a 'broad' caster, you end up using similar spells for similar victims.  Casters generally throw necromantic effects at weak Fort saves and enchantments at weak Will saves, no matter how 'broad' they like their spell selection to be.

Incidentally, from a statistical point-of-view, Spell Focus is far more than a mere 10%.  This is because of the nature of saving throws.  If, for example, Darklich the Grim, necromancer, has a (non Focus) DC of 25 for Finger of Death and his targeted wizard/victim has a Fort save of +8, Spell Focus will halve the chances of his victim saving (he would need a 17 vs. the nonfocus spell and a 19 vs. the focus spell).  And Greater Spell Focus would halve this again.

All in all, Spell Focus is well worth it.


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## bensei (Jul 15, 2002)

> ...from a statistical point-of-view, Spell Focus is far more than a mere 10%.



???
It is exactly 10%. Also in your example.
17 needed <=> P(save) = 20% <=> P(fail) = 80%
19 needed <=> P(save) = 10% <=> P(fail) = 90%
21 needed <=> P(save) =  5% <=> P(fail) = 95% (if 20 always success)


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## LordAO (Jul 16, 2002)

Spell Focus is definately woth it! It increases the save DCs by 2, which is equivalent to having an attribute 4 points higher! It is also a prerequisite for many prestige classes, such as the Archmage. Of course some schools are better than others. The best picks are Illusion, Enchantment, and Evocation, since virtually all of those spells offer saves. Transmutation and Necromancy can also be pretty good picks, but don't even consider Conjuration or Divination, very few of those spells even have saving throws. Abjuration isn't entirely worthless, but there arent many of those spells that have saves either. Of course, if you're a specialist, you should always get spell focus, if not greater spell focus, in your specialty school, since you depend so much on those spells.


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## TroyXavier (Jul 16, 2002)

Yes, Spell Focus is a nice little thing to have.  My 16 th level wizard has Spell Focus Transmutation and it's quite effective.


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## Dr. Zoom (Jul 16, 2002)

I am playing a 2nd level wizard necromancer who also likes cold spells.  Since I am human, I took Spell Focus (necromancy) and Spell Focus (evocation) as my first two feats.  The extra +2 has made my spells very tough to save against.  I plan to get Greater Spell Focus for at least one of these, if not both.


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## Elder-Basilisk (Jul 16, 2002)

My opinion: spell focus is worth it if you concentrate your knowledge on one school which has saves.

A wizard who prepares two haste spells and a summon monster III at sixth level (like the wizard I'm currently playing) will not benefit from spell focus. 

Similarly, a 4th level wizard who prepares a sculpted burning hands, a glitterdust and a flaming sphere in his 2nd level slots will not benefit much from a spell focus feat since it will only effect one of the spells he casts each day.

On the other hand, a wizard whose loadout looks like this:
Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile x3
Glitterdust, Flaming sphere x3
Haste, Fly, Fireball x2
will benefit from spell focus evocation.

Similarly, a wizard whose spell loadout is:
Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, Burning Hands x2
See Invisibility, Blindness/Deafness x2, Enlarged Burning Hands
Haste, Slow x2
will benefit significantly from spell focus alteration (also note that he has a rather good selection of fort, reflex, and will save spells).

So a wizard who uses a lot of spells from different schools will probably be better served by feats which can effect all his spells (empower spell, spell penetration, etc) or item creation feats. A wizard who uses lots of spells from one school can really benefit from spell focus and greater spell focus in that school.

Incidentally, the previous poster was correct. Spell focus and greater spell focus will make much more than a 10% difference in the number of your enemies who make their saving throws.

If your normal DC for slow is 16 and your spell focus DC is 18, a fighter with a +3 will save can be expected to save 30% of the time against slow without the spell focus feat and 20% of the time if you have the spell focus feat. Thus he is 33% less likely to save if you take spell focus.

Regarding spell focus: Evocation, don't discount it. Evocation spells look very flashy but don't really do a lot of damage at low levels. The average damage of a 6th level fireball is 21--10 if the enemy saves. Now most foes at 6th level will notice 21 points of damage but 10 is less than they expect from an AoO. You'd do more damge with magic missiles. In addition evocation spells have to deal with evasion and elemental resistances. It's very hard to hurt a creature with even Fire Resist 15 if it successfully saves against your fireball. It's impossible to hurt a creature with evasion if it saves against the fireball. Spell focus really helps make evocations effective in these circumstances.


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## Li Shenron (Jul 16, 2002)

IMHO, Spell Focus is more useful for a spellcaster who often uses the same spell, or few spells from the same school. At lower lever, your Sorcerer may have just a couple of offensive spell which he casts on a regular basis.

It is somehow limited because you get the bonus only in 1 school over 8. On the opposite, the defender with a feat gets the same bonus in 1 saving throw over 3! On the other hand, you can choose which spell to cast, but not which spell to be targeted by...


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## Thanee (Jul 16, 2002)

If you cast spells on targets that allow a save and you want them to succeed, you better make sure, that the save is difficult at least. Therefore spell power is extremely valuable to any mage that does this regularily (i.e. battle mage).

Spell Focus increases spell power and therefore is worth it for sure, if it fits with your concept!

If all you do is boost yourself or others with your spells, it surely isn't even worth a look.

Bye
Thanee


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## Thanee (Jul 16, 2002)

The FRCS feat Spellcasting Prodigy (if allowed) is also a good pick, as it effectively increases the spell power of all you spells by one. And since you are a generalist wizard, this surely is a nice thing.

At higher levels Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration really come into play, as Spell Resistance is so much more common.

Spell Focus naturally seems more useful for those all or nothing spells, but with Evocation the feat is also extremely valuable, as a failed save drastically increases the effectiveness of those spells.

Spell Focus (Illusion) is very cool because of the Shadow Evocation spells alone, as you cover two schools in one with this! 

Bye
Thanee


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## Methos (Jul 16, 2002)

*Spell Focus - Thanks*

Folks, 

Thanks for all of your responses.  I will be taking Spell Focus in at least one school, but it will be very difficult to decide which one(s).

It would seem like the best choices for me will be Enchantment, Necromancy, and also Evocation.  I've reconsidered my stance on Evocation since it appears to be more valuable than I originally thought.  My original thought with respect to Evocation that most saves are for 1/2, so that you can still do damage with them even with the save, but with the other 2 schools it is all or nothing.

However, given that many opponents may have evasion, damage resistence, evasion, etc., it may prove valuable anyway.

Thanks again.

Methos


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## Gwarthkam (Jul 17, 2002)

bensei said:
			
		

> *???
> It is exactly 10%. Also in your example.
> 17 needed <=> P(save) = 20% <=> P(fail) = 80%
> 19 needed <=> P(save) = 10% <=> P(fail) = 90%
> 21 needed <=> P(save) =  5% <=> P(fail) = 95% (if 20 always success) *




It is usually a benefit of more than 10%.

if you compare needing 18 (15%) and 20 (5%), the chance of the opponent failing triples. Cutting the opponents succesfull outcome down to 1/2 or sometimes 1/3 is not merely the same as a 10% increase.

even if you try to look at it the way you do it's not "exactly 10%"
going from 80% to 90% is a 12.5% increase in succes
going from 5% to 15% is a 200% increase in succes, etc.

And as you yourself show us above, going from a required 19 to 21 is only a 5% gain in your method of counting, so it's not "exactly 10%"

when measuring percentages like you want to do, don't use differences, use ratios.


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## Nail (Jul 17, 2002)

Gwarthkam said:
			
		

> *when measuring percentages like you want to do, don't use differences, use ratios.  *




...Or not.  Both ways are correct.


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## the Jester (Jul 17, 2002)

Jalkain said:
			
		

> *
> Conjuration and Abjuration spells don't often give saving throws.  Anyone ever taken Spell Focus (Divination)?  *




Actually, a pc cleric in my campaign recently took spell focus abjuration for things like dismissal and stuff.  

And I just made an npc wizard with focus in divination; he's kind of a sage for hire.


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## Voadam (Jul 17, 2002)

Spell Focus divination is also a prereq for some feats in the quintessential wizard (as is SF enchantment)


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## Shard O'Glase (Jul 19, 2002)

It has a good in game effect.   I just never would take it except maybe for a specialist.  The reason why, I like feats that do something more tangible, like let me craft items, or make my spells last all day.  While a +2-6 to the dc has a nice solid in game combat effect it just doesn't fint my idea of fun becuase it just doesn't seem to do anything.

Also how useful it is depends highly on your dms style. If he lets the dice rule the saves in encounters then it is powerful, if he only lets suckers fail there saves then it sucks as a feat.


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## Chimera (Jul 19, 2002)

Heck yes, good feat(s).  Anything to raise the DC and make your spells more effective.  Don't just look at the lower level spells, consider it as a long-term investment.  A low level Transmuter might be only looking at buffing spells, but wouldn't you be interested in an additional 10-20% chance that your _Polymorph Other_ spell would work once you've reached 7th level?

Heck, in the D&D tournament last year, I got the bad guy by turning him into a lamb.  (There was this whole Sheep fixation thing going...you had to be there.)

And don't look at the 'Save or Half Damage' as being "just as good" because you're still doing damage.  There are characters and creatures who are going to take NO damage on a save.  Me, I want them to fail that save, so the higher DC makes it very appealing.


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## Gwarthkam (Jul 19, 2002)

Nail said:
			
		

> *
> 
> ...Or not.  Both ways are correct. *




but they are not equally relevant regarding the issue at hand.

It would also be "correct" to say that it's an 0.7% increase in "at least 1 succes out of 3" when you go from needing 17 to needing 19. But those 0.7% somehow doesn't feel relevant.

I would accept it if it was stated as a 10 percentage point increase in succes-probability, not just "10%"

Arguing that "spell focus is exactly a 10% increase" isn't a valid statement, it fails to describe what is being measured.

I didn't say that what he was doing wasn't "correct" I just told him what to do instead in the future


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## bensei (Jul 19, 2002)

> Arguing that "spell focus is exactly a 10% increase" isn't a valid statement, it fails to describe what is being measured.



As Nail said, it is a valid statement (taking the special case of 20 roll away) - it is just that the number 10 is not an appropriate measure for the increase in usefulness. 
The increase in usefulness depends on the subject of the spell, since against one mighty opponent the 10% do not make such a big difference compared to the case of one (or more) weak opponents (in terms of save boni).

So the statement that the prob. of failing is increased by 10% is always correct (besides 20-rule) - although it may give a wrong impression - while the statement that spell focus doubles, triples, or whatever-les your chances is not true for mighty opponents.

But neverthess it is still useful, of course...


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## Gwarthkam (Jul 19, 2002)

bensei said:
			
		

> *As Nail said, it is a valid statement (taking the special case of 20 roll away) - it is just that the number 10 is not an appropriate measure for the increase in usefulness.
> The increase in usefulness depends on the subject of the spell, since against one mighty opponent the 10% do not make such a big difference compared to the case of one (or more) weak opponents (in terms of save boni).
> 
> So the statement that the prob. of failing is increased by 10% is always correct (besides 20-rule) - although it may give a wrong impression - while the statement that spell focus doubles, triples, or whatever-les your chances is not true for mighty opponents.
> ...




Ok, this argument is not that important, I think the original poster get the idea  but:

that "prob. of failing is increased by 10%" is actually never the case, not "always"  as shown below (1 and 20 avoided)

(the numbers to the left are the result needed to make the save before and (->) after spell focus)

2->4 from 5% to 15% i.e. a 200.0%  increase in probability of failing
3->5 from 10% to 20% i.e. a 100.0% increase in probability of failing
4->6 from 15% to 25% i.e. a 66.7% increase in probability of failing
5->7 from 20% to 30% i.e. a 50.0% increase in probability of failing
6->8 from 25% to 35% i.e. a 40.0% increase in probability of failing
7->9 from 30% to 40% i.e. a 33.3% increase in probability of failing
8->10 from 35% to 45% i.e. a 28.6% increase in probability of failing
9->11 from 40% to 50% i.e. a 25.0% increase in probability of failing
10->12 from 45% to 55% i.e. a 22.2% increase in probability of failing
11->13 from 50% to 60% i.e. a 20,0% increase in probability of failing
12->14 from 55% to 65% i.e. a 18.2% increase in probability of failing
13->15 from 60% to 70% i.e. a 16.7% increase in probability of failing
14->16 from 65% to 75% i.e. a 15.4% increase in probability of failing
15->17 from 70% to 80% i.e. a 14.3% increase in probability of failing
16->18 from 75% to 85% i.e. a 13.3% increase in probability of failing
17->19 from 80% to 90% i.e. a 12.5% increase in probability of failing


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## Methos (Jul 19, 2002)

*Enchantment it is!!*

Ok.  After spending an exhaustive amount of time over the past few days reviewing spells mostly in the PHB since my DM effectively considers all of these spells "common" with a few exceptions, and all other spells from other sources as "forgotten" so they have to be researched, I will take enchantment spell focus.

This, I think, will be the most effective for me over the long term and I will probably take greater spell focus too.  The ability to raise the DC by 20% is too tempting, even if boring.  Juicy feats like metamagic feats and item creation feats will be fewer, but I may have a more effective spell caster over the long term especially for those pesky fighters who will be failing their will saves, heh!!!  

Cheers

Methos


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