I Never Meta-Magic I Didn't Like

[thompur]

Hey playground. I have very little personal experience with meta-magic feats in practice, only using them with Warlocks. What experience do you have with meta-magic feats in real games, and which ones do you use most often? Which are most worthwhile?
Also, what would be the effect of eliminating meta-magic feats, and just making them different versions of spells at the appropriate level, i.e. Maximized Magic Missle is a 4th level spell?

[AmberVael]

Also, what would be the effect of eliminating meta-magic feats, and just making them different versions of spells at the appropriate level, i.e. Maximized Magic Missle is a 4th level spell?

Effect 1:

Wizards could save feat slots by spending some extra money. Net gain to the most powerful class.

Effect 2:

Divine casters, as they know all spells automatically, no longer have to do anything to get metamagic at all. They save tons of feats and get many more options, though depending on how you work it, cleric may lose Divine Metamagic shenanigans. Overall, still pretty awesome for them.

Effect 3:

Sorcerers must give up precious spells known to ever achieve metamagic. Loss of versatility. Nerf.

[Eldariel]

Hey playground. I have very little personal experience with meta-magic feats in practice, only using them with Warlocks. What experience do you have with meta-magic feats in real games, and which ones do you use most often? Which are most worthwhile?

Every single one is useful with metamagic reducers in some contrived scenario. Without tho, PHB is pretty bad. The only ones I use regularly outta there are Extend Spell and Quicken Spell. Quicken Spell vastly increases your offensive output and burst potential so having a couple of Quickened spells after level ~12 is pretty much a gimme.

Even more-so with Cleric who has Divine Favor, one of their best buffs, at level 1 (and it only matures at level 9 which is conveniently when you can Quicken it). Wizards can mostly Quicken the early general utility with effects on successful save, or no save (Grease, Ray of Enfeeblement, True Strike, Web, Glitterdust, etc.). Druid has Entangle which remains one of their premiere combat spells on land at all points (outside Core it gets much more varied for all of them, of course).

Extend Spell is the other one I occasionally use; Extended Greater Magic Weapons/Magic Vestments, Rope Tricks (for resting before 9), and buffs in general. Only problem with it is, Lesser Rod of Extend is super-cheap so you gotta be sure you'll want to extend level 4-6 spells eventually to pick it up as a feat (or have no magic item access).


Outside Core, I use Sculpt Spell a ton. So useful, it's often worth the one level cost with area of effect spells to hit more targets more often and avoiding allies. It has tons of other uses too; I love it on Wizards.

Twin Spell is powerful but expensive, much like Quicken. Some uses are strong enough to make it worth it, for example Twinned Celerity. Outside the superstrong uses tho, it's rarely worth it.

Chain Spell mostly goes with Dispel Magic as it's the only spell that regularly makes use of the vast number of targets you get (as you can hit individual magic items). Generally better in a Rod.

Invisible Spell, not costing levels, is a gimme. Kinda poorly defined rules about it tho.

Other than that, Split Ray is cheap enough to be worth it quite often. I use it on offensive casters regularly. Empower Spell is on the same boat occasionally but very rarely as it only feeds few uses outside the obvious offensive ones that aren't very efficient (rarely beats higher level version of the same spell, except when one doesn't exist such as with Enervation).

Reach Spell, Rapid Spell, Persistent Spell and company have some niche uses but that's it.


Also, what would be the effect of eliminating meta-magic feats, and just making them different versions of spells at the appropriate level, i.e. Maximized Magic Missle is a 4th level spell?

Would improve preparing casters quite a bit, giving them effectively every metamagic feat if they bother to purchase the spells (Clerics and Druids even more-so since they know everything automatically).


EDIT: I forgot the usual damage enhancers. Searing Spell/Piercing Cold have some uses, and Energy Substitution isn't terrible. Energy Admixture is about Twin Spell, except more limited.

[Ernir]

What experience do you have with meta-magic feats in real games, and which ones do you use most often? Which are most worthwhile?
Sculpt Spell, Quicken Spell, Sudden Maximize (you read that right), Extend Spell and Chain Spell are the ones I've actually used the most.

Persistent spell is super-worthwhile, but I haven't used it in a lot of Real Games.

Also, what would be the effect of eliminating meta-magic feats, and just making them different versions of spells at the appropriate level, i.e. Maximized Magic Missle is a 4th level spell?
Wizards and full-list casters laugh their asses off at the Sorcerer's expense, metamagic stacking and metamagic cost mitigation goes out the window, and casters suddenly have a truckload of feats to play with.

[Diefje]

I'm currently playing with a houseruled all metamagic being like Sudden Metamagic feats. 1/day only, spontaneous but non-stackable. Maybe something to ease into metamagic.

Anyway, Quicken is good because it frees up actions, and actions are probably the single most limiting factor ingame. Twinned and Split Ray let you double up spells. Persistant to give you looooooong buffs. Energy Substitution and Energy Admixture for changing a spell's energy type. All of these (minus Quicken) can be found in Complete Arcane

[Etrivar]

I don't have anything to contribute to the discussion, I just wanted to say that that is the best thread title EVAR!! Bravo on the stunning amount of badassery, good sir.

[legomaster00156]

It depends on your general build style. The ones I consider most important for some of the more popular builds? (PF player, here.)

Blaster: Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Elemental Spell (Those darn immunities aren't so painful, now.), Piercing Spell (Lower SR always helps.), Selective Spell (You, you, and you are not harmed by my Fireball.)
Conjurer: Extend Spell
Crowd-controller: Widen Spell
Buffer: Extend Spell
General: Heighten Spell (Actually useful on low-level gems such as Charm Person!), Enlarge Spell (Double spell range? Yes, please!), Quicken Spell (Uh, hello? Swift action casting?), Silent/Still Spell (Silent Shout!)

[Kantolin]

In my group, we generally are too low-op to (ab)use metamagic reducers, so as a result of this most metamagic feats we utilize are quicken spell, sudden spells, or in metamagic rods. I believe Quicken, Maximize, Empower, Extend, and Chain spell are the only four rods we've used, so that's about the full list of those (Suddens are usually maximize on a sorceror or the intrinsic ones a warmage gets).

Oh - and elemental substitution, usually for thematic people.

[Aegis013]

I use Heighten Spell and Earth Spell... but my first real metamagic abuser is a Shadowcraft Mage. Earth Spell definitely isn't your typical build's choice of metamagic.

I use persist (via lesser metamagic rod) pretty often too on various buffs and effects.

[navar100]

Sorcerers like meta-magic because it helps to diversify their spells. Some people despise the full round casting time required like the plague, but that is nonsense. You aren't doomed to epic fail because you don't move for a round.

[Wings of Peace]

Every meta-magic is useful if you're an arcanely focused Mind Mage. :smallsmile:

[Vizzerdrix]

Heighten and fell Drain are two of my favorites.

[Golden Ladybug]

Well, on a regular basis, the only time I ever use multiple metamagic feats often enough for it to matter is when I'm building a Metamagic Stacker. Since I play Sorcerers a lot I find myself doing that more than I do with most other builds. The favourites there are Maximise Spell, Practical Metamagic: Maximise, Empower Spell, Twin Spell, Practical Metamagic: Twin, Easy Metamagic: Twin, Split Ray and Invisible Spell tacked on with Arcane Thesis to my favourite offensive spell.

But when I'm just building a Caster, I'll normally invest in Extend, Quicken and Empower, for general utility. Persist is amazing when I've got the tricks to pay for it (DMM for the most part)

[navar100]

Clerics can get good mileage on Extend spell - Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestment, Heroes' Feast, Elemental Immunity. A nice particular tactic for cleric players who prefer buffing and summoning is to Heighten Sanctuary. A good anti-spellcaster tactic is to use Silent Spell after casting Silence.

[Snowbluff]

Sorcs are fine with metamagic, just you need some feats to use them properly. I prefer their approach to magic compared to wizards in general. More balance overall. If you need more feats for metamagic, take incantatrix.

[The_Snark]

I'm fond of Fell Drain, Fell Frighten and (to a lesser extent) Fell Weaken as debuffing feats; a nice way to add some status effects to a damaging spell. I had a character once who used these feats and Arcane Thesis (magic missile) to great effect.

(Fell Fright should probably be houseruled not to stack, though; as-is, you can render someone frightened or panicked without a save in just a couple rounds, or 1 if you combine it with Quicken Spell.)

I've never actually used Invisible Spell (Cityscape), but it seems like there are some fun possibilities there.


Empower Spell is on the same boat occasionally but very rarely as it only feeds few uses outside the obvious offensive ones that aren't very efficient (rarely beats higher level version of the same spell, except when one doesn't exist such as with Enervation).

Disagree on that one. If you plan to use blasting spells, Empower Spell will be very handy for most of your middle- to high-level adventuring career. Once you get to 4th-level spells or so, you'll almost always find that an empowered lower-level spell is better than your highest-level spells: at level 10 an empowered Fireball does 15d6 while Cone of Cold deals only 10d6, at level 14 an empowered Cone of Cold deals 21d6 while Chain Lightning and Firestorm are still doing 14d6, and so on. It might not be worth taking at 6th level unless you plan on applying metamagic reducers, but definitely worth picking up at 9th if this is your style.

Granted, blasting away with these sorts of spells is not the most optimal strategy, but it's still fun, and unless the rest of your party consists of optimized casters/super-optimized melee folks you'll keep up just fine.

[Tvtyrant]

Also, empower+maximize for summoning on a Malconvoker. Take that minionmancers.

[Eldariel]

Disagree on that one. If you plan to use blasting spells, Empower Spell will be very handy for most of your middle- to high-level adventuring career. Once you get to 4th-level spells or so, you'll almost always find that an empowered lower-level spell is better than your highest-level spells: at level 10 an empowered Fireball does 15d6 while Cone of Cold deals only 10d6, at level 14 an empowered Cone of Cold deals 21d6 while Chain Lightning and Firestorm are still doing 14d6, and so on. It might not be worth taking at 6th level unless you plan on applying metamagic reducers, but definitely worth picking up at 9th if this is your style.

Granted, blasting away with these sorts of spells is not the most optimal strategy, but it's still fun, and unless the rest of your party consists of optimized casters/super-optimized melee folks you'll keep up just fine.

Eh, that's a function of by how much your caster level exceeds your character level (on a blaster, it should be a lot).

[Malachei]

Hey playground. I have very little personal experience with meta-magic feats in practice, only using them with Warlocks. What experience do you have with meta-magic feats in real games, and which ones do you use most often? Which are most worthwhile?
Also, what would be the effect of eliminating meta-magic feats, and just making them different versions of spells at the appropriate level, i.e. Maximized Magic Missle is a 4th level spell?

(1) We use them, but not often in combination of more than two or three assigned to a single spell. I don't like the one-trick-pony feel of the single-spell metamagic caster (Arcane Thesis, Empowered, Split Ray etc. Enervation comes to mind). I mostly use Extend, Empower and Quicken.

(2) Less versatility. Great nerf for Sorcerers, slight nerf for Wizards. All in all, IMO, not a good rule.

[Ravens_cry]

Question: Can a spontaneous caster cast a Quickened spell and a full round spell, whether from meta-magic or from being the normal casting time?

[Malachei]

With Arcane Spellsurge, yes.

And
SWIFT ACTION
A swift action consumes a very small amount of time, but it represents a larger expenditure of effort than a free action. You can take a swift action any time during your turn, but you can perform only one swift action per turn.

IMO, this implies that you always have a swift action, whether you also spend a standard action, full-round action or you begin a one-round-action casting time spell. I also makes sense to me. One-round-action casting time spells are annoying already.

[ericgrau]

Empower spell tends to be the best one by a good margin. Besides doing more damage than higher level blasting spells, you can put it on things like ray of enfeeblement, false life, pyrotechnics, enervation, etc., etc. to do even better things. Heck even at epic levels the proper way for a longer time stop is to empower it not extend it. The 2nd is illegal since the actual spell duration is instantaneous. Maximize is also ok, with similar reasoning.

Extend is usually best on low level buff spells and thus better replaced by a 3,000 gp metamagic rod. Most dungeons aren't big enough for widen, and small radius spells are usually better replaced with existing large radius spells. Enlarge spell likewise sees little use due to limited encounter sizes. Quicken is one of the best, on par with empower (and in many builds or according to many people, better) for its ability to break action economy in half. Heighten, silent and still are great situationally but not all the time, meaning they tend to be bad for prepared casters due to a possibly unnecessary level bump but great for spontaneous casters who can apply them only when needed. Eldariel covered noncore metamagics pretty well.



Empower vs. chain lightning, cone of cold, etc.

True, as I just now agreed empower does do more damage and is usually better. But those aren't bad spells you mentioned. Chain lightning can easily hit 11+ targets even if they're scattered about, giving ridiculously more damage than a maximized fireball when there are that many targets to hit. Cone of cold likewise has a huge area. Select your flavor by the encounter.