Arcane Dampening

Magical energy affects you less than normal.  This feat is available only to the Mage Slayer class.  This feat is available more than once, but cannot be taken more times than levels of Mage Slayer.

Prerequisite

Mage Slayer class.

Benefit

Each Arcane Dampening feat taken causes any magical forces which would act upon the character to function as if cast by a caster one level lower.  For example, a fireball cast by a 9^th level wizard against a character with 2 Arcane Dampening feats would do only 7d6 damage rather than 9.  The Arcane Dampening feat also affects the target DC of any saving throw the spell may have by reducing the save DC by one per level of Arcane Dampening. 

Illusion spells (such as Mirror Image) also function as if cast by a caster one level lower for the character with Arcane Dampening.  For example, facing a 6^th level mage using mirror image (1d4 + 1 image per three caster levels) the party may see 6 images, whereas a Mage Slayer with one level of Arcane Dampening will see only 5 images (as the spell functions as if cast by a 5^th level mage for the Mage Slayer.

Wall or shell spells (such as Wall of Force or Antilife Shell) which normally have no save are granted a DC for a character with Arcane Dampening to force their way through.  The DC for such an action is 10 + Caster Level - Arcane Dampening levels.

Spells with a duration which affect characters with Arcane Dampening are reduced in duration by 1 round for every level of Arcane Dampening.  For example, a Confusion spell cast by an 8^th level caster would normally have an 8 round duration. If used against someone with 5 levels of Arcane Dampening (who fails their save) the duration would be only 3 rounds.

Arcane Dampening functions against any spell which causes a temporary state of being.  For example, a Wall of Thorns or Wall of Ice is maintained by the magical forces which brought them into being, and so can be dampened as described above.  A Wall of Iron or Wall of Stone is not maintained by magical forces.  The magic caused the iron or stone to come into being, but once there it is simply iron or stone, and cannot be dampened.

This feat cannot be used selectively.  It is always considered to be active, even when unconscious or asleep.  This feat does not affect Dragon Breath.

Drawback

Magical gear functions at a reduced “plus” for each Arcane Dampening feat taken.  For example, a +2 Short Sword wielded by a character with 2 Arcane Dampening feats would function as a normal short sword.  Magical items with no “plus” attribute are dampened completely if the wearer has a number of Arcane Dampening feats greater than the caster level of the item.  For example, a character with 5 Arcane Dampening feats would negate Boots of Levitation (caster level 3) completely, but could use Winged Boots (caster level 9). 

Players with this feat must make a save to allow beneficial spells to affect them.  They may reverse their base save (take a +3 save as a -3 penalty, for example) when attempting to fail the save on a beneficial spell for the purposes of allowing it to take hold.  If the slayer fails to fail their save the beneficial spell will have half the effect it otherwise would have.  Successfully failed saves will still be affected by the level-related decreases as described in the benefit section.