Spell Penetration style bonuses for Evokers

[Egon the Monkey]

Split off from a sidetracked discussion here.
The thrust of it seemed to be "Oh yeah Spell penetration is soooo worth it for offensive mages". It isn't, really. Ask yourself if your Evoker would rather spend 2 feats to up his CL vs SR by 4 (which won't guarantee success by any means), or on metamagic that'll work in every situation, or a general use feat. Unless their concept involves trying to go down into the Underdark and Combust Drow...

However, what is obvious is that all the spell schools but for Evocation and Transmutation have some sort of associated bonus (well Transmutation has a Knock boost now but that's not much). EDIT: Forgot Illusion and Enchant don't.

So... How about having SF:Evocation add +1 to all caster level checks vs Spell resistance, and GSF improve that to +2. That way a specialised Evoker would have a better than average chance of busting his spells through defences of both saves and SR, which would stack up with the above feats to make it a better chance if they were taken.

[Gippy]

Why not do this with all GSF's?

Evocation is hardly unique.

No thanks.

[Egon the Monkey]

Because Evocation is the school most devoted to Blowing Stuff Up. Blowing stuff up becomes rather hard when much of it has SR. other schools have specific bonuses to help them rock out at their specialty (Animation, summoning, scrying, dispels) but Evocation doesn't, and it's got a clear specialty in dealing direct damage.

[tropic]

SF and GSF: Evocation are already both very powerful, and by level 5 you can have GSF Evocation and Greater Spell Penetration. This would be overpowered! If you want to make an ultimate evoker, just take the feats.

[Gippy]

You always have ICE STORM.

[VanillaPudding]

I had no problems on Karida, who had spell penetration and greater spell penetration for a reason.

[Nightshadow]

It's all about planning and ensuring you have some way of dealing with magic resistant opponents if they come up. Sure, it's fun throwing fireballs, combusting someone, or causing lighting to fall from the sky on someone, or simply blasting them with a magic missile... But it won't always work. Summons are a great way of dealing with these enemies, particularly elementals, who while not the strongest summons, are pretty reliable.

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

Evocation is a GREAT school!  Don't be silly.

Wizards have spare feats by the barrel load, and it's not hard to take GSF as well as Spell Penetration.

[PlayaCharacter]

I really don't understand what problem this suggestion is supposed to solve.