Talk:Spiritual Weapon (3.5e Feat)

Balance Point

Rogue? Really? It's a weapon specific, damage only, stat swap that you have to take at first level. I'm just not seeing that as strong enough to be rogue level, it really looks fighter. Mind sharing your thoughts on it, pointing out where this is awesome and I'm overlooking it? - TarkisFlux 03:14, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

I figure it's a way to extend character options. While amongst the weakest of possibilities might be a crusader who took Spiritual Weapon (Charisma), a more rogue-level example might be a swordsage who nabs Shadow Blade on top of Spiritual Weapon, something that would definitely in my mind be a high rogue-level combination. --Ghostwheel 03:17, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

I think it's Wizard, though mind you it's not a bad thing at all, I rather like this feat. It reminds me of Lost Tradition, which may be 3rd part but is useful, is a 1st lvl only thing which defines the character, and incidentally also has a "switch your stat" thing, in that case for casting. It IS useful, it wouldn't be balanced at not 1st level (which is a limitation which balances this IMO). Reducing MAD is always a good thing, and because it's just that useful, it's Wizardly. Again, like I said, not a mark of shame, just a good ass feat. -- Eiji Hyrule 04:07, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

lol, Between the two of you, I'm convinced it's Rogue-level now XD

It's not an actual boost to power. It's just something that lets you reduce MAD. Reducing MAD still doesn't necessarily make a warblade, crusader, or swordsage (and other VAD classes) SAD, just makes it a bit easier to make a high-cha crusader (for example) work well. Or a marshal, for that matter, which could be pretty awesome--but nowhere near wizard level. --Ghostwheel 04:12, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's a way to balance. XD -- Eiji Hyrule 04:14, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Ummm, how does this reduce MAD instead of increase it? Instead of needing to boost one stat to boost your melee abilities, you need to boost two now. Are you assuming that there's already MAD going on because of finessing, and also that Dex and Chr were already prime stats for whoever you expect to take this feat? Cause that's what your example suggests, and that's a really specific set of builds. I could see the argument for reducing MAD if this also allowed you use the bonus to Chr for attacks, but I don't see it without lots of other stat swaps otherwise. - TarkisFlux 04:45, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Whoops. I missed the bit about the attack bonus coming from the new stat. I retract my previous mistaken concerns. This feat is pretty solidly Rogue level. - TarkisFlux 05:03, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly the balance point I shoot for most often :-) --Ghostwheel 05:14, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Weapon Finesse

Suppose I take this feat at level 1 for a dagger, and assign my ability score to Charisma(My highest stat at level 1, or flavor-wise it fits best, the reason isn't important). Later, at level 6 I have improved my Dexterity score with the 4th level point and a pair of gloves(to the point where it is now higher than Charisma), and I take Weapon Finesse. Can I use DEX as the Attack Modifier for daggers, instead of Charisma? Considering "Charisma replaces Strength" I would assume that's A-OK, right?--The Badger 02:50, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

Right, instead of replacing str with dex for attack, weapon finesse would then replace cha with dex for attack --Ghostwheel 02:56, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

...though, why would you want to? -- Eiji Hyrule 03:33, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

I had a friend whose Wizard's INT was his 2nd highest stat. Things happen. Maybe I was given "ugly poison" and took 1d4 points of permanent Charisma damage.--The Badger 08:17, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

Fluff concerns

Good feat, I like it. It hits its balance point well; although it doesn't add any power by itself, the min-maxing potential seems to be around the Rogue level. The only issue is that the effect seems arbitrary, and solely explainable as min-maxing. By what virtue does Jack the Dwarf strike with his toughness, or Jill the Bard strike with her wit? The flavor could be expanded a little to explain that, but the core mechanics of the feat are good enough to warrant a favor. - DanielDraco

By what virtue does a sorcerer suddenly have the power to cast spells? By what virtue does a psion have the power to access his mind's energy? By what virtue does a swordsage have to call fire to his weapon, a binder to bind unknowable creatures to his soul, the truenamer to speak the true names of creatures, or the totemist to meld the souls of wild creatures to his body? --Ghostwheel 13:20, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

There is flavor to explain the processes behind each of those, at least somewhat. This lacks such explanations. --DanielDraco 23:54, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think flavor could be done if this were four different feats rather than one. As it is, it's really up to the player to explain the feat. It's not exactly hard, and can be quite interesting. This is generally helped by the character always being first level (write it into background) and a character using this feat generally having low strength provides a reason why the character had to use other talents to compensate. See the background for Ezlum Camhe, for an example. If people want, I can write up possible explanations as to why each flavor might exist, but I think it's better if it's something unique to each character. -- Aelaris 03:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Ratings

	MisterSinister favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	I'm all for making fighting-types less MAD, and this feat does so in a pretty satisfactory way. I disagree with the whole weapon group thing, because those groups are both arbitrary and serve as nothing but a less-severe limitation on a severely-limited set of feats, but I'm willing to overlook it.

	Leziad is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
	I kinda like the feat, but I think it a bit too min-max happy for SAD characters. Don't get me wrong I would dislike it if Ghostwheel didn't built an anti-abuse clause into it but the pay off for SAD character for taking the feat is a little too high I think.

Why is the pay-off for SAD characters too high? Could you give examples? Does it *entirely* make characters SAD, as opposed to at least DAD? --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:45, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

	Foxwarrior likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	This is a neat number-fiddling feat that opens up interesting new builds, but the part where it extends to only one specific weapon type, while stylistically appropriate, also causes ugly harm to the character's versatility.

	Tarkisflux likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	This feat looks like a numbers feat, and it basically is, but it does interesting and useful things with those numbers. It sets the stage for non-str based characters to get in on some of the melee action with a stat that they prefer. This either reduces MAD or opens up entirely new character styles, both of which are a good thing.

Jota favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!

Fluff justifications not-withstanding (and largely irrelevant), this is an excellent feat. By ruling out Constitution, the very nature of the feat ensures that it won't be unbalanced, as those taking it (meleers) are bound to be MAD by virtue of the mandated physical triumvirate and the oft-needed single mental accompaniment. This ends up being a lateral shift for a full BAB character, and a vertical one for the three-fourths BAB fighters, but not beyond their one-to-one counterparts, who have a free feat to do something else nice with. Delicious. The only thing I dislike it the first level restriction. It seems very fluffy in something otherwise well-grounded in the mechanics. Being homebrew, however, if permission can be acquired for the feat in itself, there's (presumably) no reason that caveat cannot be waived. It just seems a bit out of place.

DanielDraco likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

What can I say? My views have changed. All of what I said above continues to stand, except that, since feats are such a small part of the overall character, they don't necessarily need to all have built-in all-encompassing flavor. The first-level restriction is a bit arbitrary — such things are usually explained by flavor of the sort that this feat lacks — but it's a piddling enough complaint that I'll still give this feat a "like".

	Havvy favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	People say that Soulknives could be turned into a feat. This pretty much does that in a satisfactory way. As such, I favor this.