Banning Metamagic: Going Too Far? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Malachei

2011-11-11, 03:01 PM

I'm not sure, but I think we had this question in a thread just yesterday or the day before.

(1) It seriously hurts casters at very high levels. Especially when enemies tend to make their saves regularly, damage output becomes relevant again. Not being able to Empower a spell is a big change.

(2) It hurts spontaneous casters, of course, especially if they would have had access to Rapid Metamagic.

(3) It also hurts prepared casters, of course, potentially to a lesser degree

(4) It has significant impact on several Prestige Classes. Ultimate Magus, for instance, is nearly obsolete.

Have casters been dominating your game? At what levels?

Ernir

2011-11-11, 03:01 PM

Clericzilla cries a river and blasters another, but BatGodMan generally doesn't care.

You might get closer to what you want by banning metamagic cost reducers (followed by a definition or comprehensive listing of what a metamagic cost reducer is). Metamagic, by itself, isn't usually a huge problem.

But I agree with Tyckspoon. If you want to kick casters where it hurts, kick them in the spells.
And you're probably going to have to to that one spell at a time.

Emperor Tippy

2011-11-11, 03:03 PM

In practice it doesn't really do much.

Most anyone who abuses metamagic knows the game well enough and is a good enough optimizer to break the game in a dozen other ways without metamagic.

For the players who either aren't really trying to break the game or don't know how, you are just eliminating options that don't effect balance or effectiveness all that much.

Take Quicken for example. It's one of the best metamagics around, but it's impossible to put into play (without abuse) until 7th level (for 0 level spells and 9th level for 1st level spells). When you have 9th level spells the best you can do is quicken a 5th level spell. Look at the possibilities and then compare them with what you could be doing; shapechange, gate, time stop, prismatic sphere. It's certainly useful, but it's not broken.

Just remove the various metamagic reducers; Arcane Thesis, Incantatrix, Easy Meta, etc. and it will be fine. Perhaps replace them with a feat that allows a player to cast a spell with any metamagic that they know without using a higher spell slot and that's only usable 1/day. Or let's them burn additional spell slots to mitigate.

Basically, unless it's part of a full rewrite of the casting classes and magic system it doesn't actually do anything positive.

Doug Lampert

2011-11-11, 03:50 PM

Clericzilla cries a river and blasters another, but BatGodMan generally doesn't care.

Clericzilla can still function without metamagic. It hurts the cleric a bit, but clerics are still decent melee if they want to be and the druid can still make the fighter sit in the corner and cry if he wants to.

You might get closer to what you want by banning metamagic cost reducers (followed by a definition or comprehensive listing of what a metamagic cost reducer is). Metamagic, by itself, isn't usually a huge problem.

To quote what I said in another recent thread. If metamagic is appropriately priced then a metamagic reducer is every bit as broken as a slot reducer would be.

Except for quicken EVERY core metamagic is too expensive, you're spending a feat to be worse. And since the core metamagic is overpriced and almost worthless they added reducers all over the place and then optimizers stacked the reducers.

What would you think of a feat or prestige class that let you cast a level 9 spell out of a level 1 slot when your cleric was level 6 or so? Is that ability maybe a tiny bit broken? Just slightly over the top? Even if it does cost something like turn attempts or require entering a (full progression) prestige class.

But that's exactly and precisely what DMM persist does if you accept that persist is actually worth +8 to the slot (it's not, but it's closer to that than to +0 which is what DMM makes it).

They overpriced metamagic, and have been compensating since by breaking the sytem to try to make it work rather than admitting they overpriced it and fixing the prices.

DougL

GoodbyeSoberDay

2011-11-11, 04:04 PM

I agree that most of the core metamagic feats aren't worth the slot increase in general, but almost all of them have situational uses. I have no problem with situational-at-best feat choices for casters. Moreover, various non-core metamagic feats (Invisible Spell, Sculpt Spell, Persistent Spell) are viable without metamagic reducers, but not so viable that the game is ruined with them.

Coidzor

2011-11-11, 04:10 PM

You kill blasting and encourage casters to choose better guns, mostly.

But I agree with Tyckspoon. If you want to kick casters where it hurts, kick them in the spells.
And you're probably going to have to to that one spell at a time.

And if I'm recalling things correctly, even the community-based rebalanced compendium project over on BG got tired of doing that real quick. And they had more than one brain going over 'em.

DeAnno

2011-11-11, 04:44 PM

The only truly game breaking thing metamagic has is Sub-Zero Arcane Thesis abuse, using 0 level adjusters to mitigate the cost of 2+ adjusters (ie an Empowered (2-1=+1) Invisible (0-1=-1) Fireball (3+1-1=3) as a 3rd level spell). Everything else requires very heavy investment to be effective, or is easily disrupted by countertactics.

DD metamagic stacking without Pathfinder (I've heard that makes things significantly more ridiculous) will typically produce very hard to avoid damage in the region of hundreds or possibly even low thousands per round, but when you consider this is burning up high spell slots at a quick rate you can force such builds to throttle back with long, many encounter days. While these DD builds are much better than melee DD with regards to accuracy and range, they don't have that much endurance at maximum burn. Note that unless you allow Celerity to stack with Greater Arcane Fusion a DD Psion has far more nova potential than any Arcane DD build due to the better Psionic action economy (though he will exhaust himself even faster).

If DD metamagic still seems to be walking all over your game, a good starting measure might be to prevent metamagic reducers stacking with each other, as no metamagic feats are much better than good to decent with a -1 reducer. For example something as simple as a Empowered Maximized Twinned Fire Orb for 232 damage is a 10th level spell with only one reducer (4+(2-1)+(3-1)+(4-1) = 10).

Persist chicanery, either with DMM Clerics or Incantatrix Spellcraft checks, is limited per day (as long as you ban Nightstick stacking), which means it is extremely vulnerable to Dispel Magic and similar, and at later levels not even CL boost cheese will save you from Disjunction. Persist hijinx can still be a problem if you find dispelling difficult to include thematically or to be too sharp a risk/reward choice to allow in your game, and in that case banning the Persist spell feat alone will do the most good.

Malachei

2011-11-11, 05:17 PM

Except for quicken EVERY core metamagic is too expensive, you're spending a feat to be worse.

For blasting, maybe.

I find Extend Spell extremely useful, especially for 1 hour per level and flat 24 hour duration spells. At high levels, you save spell slots every other day, which is a great net gain.

Doug Lampert

2011-11-11, 05:24 PM

For blasting, maybe.

I find Extend Spell extremely useful, especially for 1 hour per level and flat 24 hour duration spells. At high levels, you save spell slots every other day, which is a great net gain.

Without reducers that requires a feat and a higher level slot, that's only good if you KNOW what day you'll fight on (and know you won't fight today). Otherwise there are feats that will simply grant an additional high level slot, and those are generally considered poor feats, but they're clearly better than extending without reducers (put a mass buff in your extra level 6 slot and then go to town with all the level 2 slots you save rather than spending one level 3 to save 2 level 2 slots).

Similarly, a feat is worth a LOT, pearls of power are cheap, as are scrolls and wands. There are lots of ways to save low level slots that are used to out of combat cast long duration buffs that cost less than a feat, which means they cost far, far less than a feat + an increased slot.

vitkiraven

2011-11-11, 06:08 PM

Emperor Tippy

2011-11-11, 06:12 PM

Extend is nice but you just grab a Greater Rod of Extend and you're fine. That gets you all day shapechange and foresight.

It's not worth burning a feat on.

Coidzor

2011-11-11, 06:53 PM

I think it's a start, but there is a long road ahead to temper their power back to reasonable levels. If you want to keep them, make them school (or domain) specific and require spell focus for the class first before they can take any metamagic. Then any metamagic reducers only apply to one metamagic feat (but can be taken repeatedly not stacking). Also, make it feat required for level 4-6 spells and another for 7-9 spells.

In my mind, it might start to get closer, but not really, with specific spell nerfs.

Strengthening the feat tax paradigm is working in the wrong direction anyway, since as an institution, every brick put into that wall for one is really ten bricks from how it affects everyone else.

That, and as you say, it's the spells themselves.

vitkiraven

2011-11-11, 07:35 PM

Strengthening the feat tax paradigm is working in the wrong direction anyway, since as an institution, every brick put into that wall for one is really ten bricks from how it affects everyone else.

That, and as you say, it's the spells themselves.

But then, would they not be comparable to the weapon focus -weapon mastery chain for fighters?
I can see a spell caster focusing on one school, and choosing to pursue the feats applicable to it. The reason why I'd make 1-3 feat free is because they should have access of spellcasting, which I consider of a power similar to the attack abilities of other classes. To become uber, fighters have a feat tax, why not wizards as well?

HunterOfJello

2011-11-11, 07:40 PM

If you want to nerf/balance metamagic use a bit then do three things.

1. Ban metamagic reducers
2. Let spontaneous casters cast metamagic like prepared casters do.

Optional
3. Remove metamagic items from the game. (i.e. Metamagic Rods, Wands with Metamagic on them, Circlet of Rapid Casting, etc.)

~~~~~~~

It would be best if you could give us a clearer impression of what your goal for this change is.

Coidzor

2011-11-11, 07:50 PM

But then, would they not be comparable to the weapon focus -weapon mastery chain for fighters?

You say that like it's a good thing. :smallconfused: Why would you say that like it's a good thing?

That feat-chain is a primo example of something that should've just scaled with level. Or been a scaling class feature of Fighters in addition to the feat inflation they burdened the system with.

To become uber, fighters have a feat tax, why not wizards as well?

...What are you talking about? Fighters never do that. :smallconfused:

vitkiraven

2011-11-11, 08:27 PM

You say that like it's a good thing. :smallconfused: Why would you say that like it's a good thing?

That feat-chain is a primo example of something that should've just scaled with level. Or been a scaling class feature of Fighters in addition to the feat inflation they burdened the system with.

...What are you talking about? Fighters never do that. :smallconfused:

My apologies, I did not complete that post right. I was refering to OTHER feat chains a fighter has to take to be powerful in any way. I.e. supercharger or trip monster builds.
And my point about making it feat based is because it limits the ease of availability of those gut wrenchingly overpowered upper level spells, even if only by a bit.
I should apologise again, though, as I do not expect fighters to take the feats for weapon focus to weapon mastery chain, unless they are archery distance builds, or some other thing. However, on a feat scale, it would make those feats highly desirable. I personally feel that spell casters are WAY to overpowered, even from the start, so anything that weakens them is just peachy in my eyes.
I mean, how many threads are there for fighters soloing tarrasques or armies, compared to those heinous toadies to extraplanar forces.

Venger

2011-11-17, 02:36 AM

trip monster builds.

hey, wait a second...

he was a fighter all along! (http://www.retrowalkthroughs.com/images/final-fantasy-1/chapter-1/knock-down.png)

that's why he lost to the light warriors!

Acanous

2011-11-17, 02:57 AM

Frankly, I'd change metamagic feats to work only with an individual school or domain, but would also drop the adjustment by 1. All items would be affected similarly. You wouldn't buy a Rod of Quicken, you'd buy a Rod of Quicken (Conjuration).

Then apply the stacking law, where you take the best single reducer, not adding them all together (And in this instance, things like DMM would still apply, but would apply independant of reducers. You pay full price in turn attempts, not the price minus reducers)

Metamagic is a good part of the game, allowing players to have more control over what they want their spells to do in a vancian system. If you do the above, it comes across as your world being more unique, without coming across as a global caster nerf. Still applies a decent gate to tossing metamagic around willy-nilly.

Specialist Wizards would be more prone to grabbing metamagic in this system, as well. Normally, they spend their slots on Reserve feats and PrC requisites, instead.

Godskook

2011-11-17, 03:23 AM

Honestly, I find that there's only 2 problems with metamagic:

1.Persistent Spell doesn't care for the duration-based balance inherent in the original spell.

2.Metamagic reducers.

What I'd do to fix these:

1.Substitute Persistent Spell for a new metamagic feat called Prolong Spell, which for each +3 you take on the spell level, it increases the duration by one duration category. If the spell had a fixed length, the first +3 changes it to the nearest duration category instead. Cannot be applied to spells that have differing effects at different points in their duration.

2.To be able to use reducers, you must first be able to cast the metamagic'ed spell without reducers. For class features, generally assume that you must have levels in the relevent class equal to a wizard who could meet the above pre-requisite in order for you to be able to use that class feature. For instance, an Artificer who wishes to apply empower to a wand of fireball needs to be a 9th level Artificer before he is able to do it. In a few exceptions, the metamagic works as per RAW: Metamagic Rods, Sudden Metamagic, and Wu Jen class features to name a few.

Yuki Akuma

2011-11-17, 03:27 AM

1.Substitute Persistent Spell for a new metamagic feat called Prolong Spell, which for each +3 you take on the spell level, it increases the duration by one duration category. If the spell had a fixed length, the first +3 changes it to the nearest duration category instead. Cannot be applied to spells that have differing effects at different points in their duration.

Wouldn't this mean you can change a 1 hour/level spell into a days/level spell with a simple +3 adjustment? That seems a bit much.

Unless there's some category between hours and days I'm missing.

Killer Angel

2011-11-17, 03:46 AM

Gullintanni

2011-11-17, 09:09 AM

In this matter, Core is balanced: want a quicken spell? it's 4 levels higher!
Instead, remove metamagic reducers.

Basically this. Core metamagic is not problematic in the least. They're only situationally useful, but they're not outright offensive. Metamagic reducers, particularly Arcane Thesis, can really break metamagic though.

Ban metamagic reducers, and classes that grant them, and you should be alright.

Tyndmyr

2011-11-17, 09:43 AM

jaybird

2011-11-17, 10:53 AM

It nerfs the weaker caster builds like blasters while not doing anything to the really broken builds. IMO not a good idea.

Godskook

2011-11-17, 11:04 AM

Wouldn't this mean you can change a 1 hour/level spell into a days/level spell with a simple +3 adjustment? That seems a bit much.

Unless there's some category between hours and days I'm missing.

1.I wouldn't call +3 'simple', considering the other rule.

2.They're hours/level spells anyway. By about the time you're willing to cast them from a +3 slot, you're going to have them up almost all day every day regardless.

Tyndmyr

2011-11-17, 11:25 AM

1.I wouldn't call +3 'simple', considering the other rule.

2.They're hours/level spells anyway. By about the time you're willing to cast them from a +3 slot, you're going to have them up almost all day every day regardless.

That's not the point. The point of swapping it from hours/lvl to days/lvl is that you only have to cast them every coupla weeks. And thus, can load up those spell slots with something else between time.

Curmudgeon

2011-11-17, 02:46 PM

I just ban all metamagic cost reducers, and impose a minimum of +1 level for all metamagic. If metamagic costs, it's not going to be the problem. The problem is the spells themselves.

Godskook

2011-11-17, 05:27 PM

That's not the point. The point of swapping it from hours/lvl to days/lvl is that you only have to cast them every coupla weeks. And thus, can load up those spell slots with something else between time.

And I'm not seeing where a problem is being described. You could already do that with those spells with extend spell. The proposed feat just makes it doable a bit earlier.

DiBastet

2011-11-17, 06:50 PM

Okay, limit it to "max = 24 hours"? In my campaigns I already use persist like this, and I really don't see a problem with a 7th level caster using an arcane armor that lasts some days, but that's my game. Of course, my games have no prepared casters, just spontaneous, so it doesn't matter so much.

Rubik

2011-11-17, 06:56 PM

The psionic version costs 12 pp (which is 6 power levels), and requires you to retain your psionic focus (rather than expending it). You have to burn a feat to overcome the latter.

Anarion

2011-11-17, 07:09 PM

I disagree with the page and a half of people saying to ban all the metamagic reducers. It really depends what kind of character you're playing, what your friends are playing, and how heavily the group optimizes. Playing a blaster sorcerer that abuses arcane thesis shenanigans will put out a lot of damage, but so will a dungeoncrasher ubercharger, or a rogue who maxes out sneak attack.

Now, if your whole party consists of the rogue, the ubercharger, and the blaster, you might have an issue (with redundancy if nothing else), but that's more a problem with nobody talking with each other during character creation.

On the other end of the spectrum, if your party consists of a core only fighter, a monk, and a cleric who only prepares healing spells, I'm pretty sure that no amount of feat banning is going to prevent you from outshining everyone else combined.

Rather than ban metamagic, or even the metamagic reducers, it would be better to coordinate character optimization with the group and make sure that everyone has a role to play in the party.

Essence_of_War

2011-11-17, 10:27 PM

I just ban all metamagic cost reducers, and impose a minimum of +1 level for all metamagic. If metamagic costs, it's not going to be the problem. The problem is the spells themselves.

This absolutely.

The problems with metamagic abuse are the cost reducers.

Strongly Consider banning:
1) Practical Metamagic
2) Easy Metamagic
3) Incantatrix
4) Dweomerkeeper
5) Nightstick Stacking

Arcane thesis is probably OK, so long as you stipulate that under NO circumstances may +0 metamagics be abused. (Arcane Thesis + Invisible Spell is not a -1 metamagic...)

If your problem is high-level casters that are one-shot'ing everything with raw HP damage, this will probably solve or at least mitigate the problem. This will not solve the general caster problem. If you shut a wizard off from doing abusive DD, expect them to shift gears to summoning, battlefield control, buff/debuff.

Gotterdammerung

2011-11-18, 12:40 AM

Hey All:

Quick question: How does banning Metamagic effect a 3.5 game? I always thought of it as a "soft nerf" for prep casters and a bit of a harder nerf for spontaneous casters -- not enough to cause the loss of a tier, but certainly enough to discourage shenannigans.

Thoughts?

For my caster heavy games, I typically use a free metamagic system I came up with.

Silent spell and still spell are feats with the modifier lowered to +0

all other metamagic feats are free.

Any caster is capable of using any of the core metamagic feats (the basic ones from the PHB).

Metamagic feats from other sources require exposure.

This exposure can come in the form of spell books, eyewitness + personal experimentation, or in the form of arcane lore.

I like this system because it allows me to use cooler metamagics as treasure that really makes players excited.

It allows me to make metamagics I consider unbalanced nigh impossible to find without outright banning it. And the players don't usually resent the ones they can't seem to find, because they are having to much fun with all the free extra metamagics.

Killer Angel

2011-11-18, 04:59 AM

Malachei

2011-11-18, 07:27 AM

I disagree with the page and a half of people saying to ban all the metamagic reducers.

As you rule ( :smallbiggrin: ), banning is a bad choice (IMO, of course). [/irony]

Now to quench the debate: There are spells that are obvious candidates for banning (Shivering Touch comes to mind) -- of course, as are other game elements.

What I'd like to point out is that many people mess with the system before they even have a real, in-play issue that persists for several sessions. Some even play with the system while not playing the game at all.

I once played with a DM who did a nice campaign, but then he started to invent all kinds of houserules -- some of which changed over time. The fun was lost when he started to have "playtest sessions", and testing his houserules became more a focus than running a great adventure.

I do think that metamagic reducers can become an issue if stacked and not conservatively interpreted. However, I think, except for empower and extend spell, most core metamagic feats are rather harshly priced. Quicken does break the action economy, yes, but at a +4 level adjustment. It is one of the best metamagic feats, and still, I see many wizards prepare only a very small number of quickened spells. Sorcerers with rapid metamagic may be another issue, of course. I've seen discussions on this board and others where people made good cases that a lot of metamagic feats are not worth it.

DiBastet

2011-11-18, 07:37 AM

For my caster heavy games, I typically use a free metamagic system I came up with.

That's another side of the coin. In my games I also use my own version: You buy the feat, you can apply the metamagic on any spell you want (it becomes full-round action) no level adjustment, and the adjustment in spell levels become the ammount of turns that you can't use this feat again (only one metamagic per spell). Metamagic becomes more or less "sudden X" that can be used once / adjustment turns.

For my group it turns very well, but I'm fully aware that it would not be the case with many groups. That's the job of the DM to find a sweet spot after all...

Gullintanni

2011-11-18, 07:57 AM

This absolutely.

The problems with metamagic abuse are the cost reducers.

Strongly Consider banning:
1) Practical Metamagic
2) Easy Metamagic
3) Incantatrix
4) Dweomerkeeper
5) Nightstick Stacking

Arcane thesis is probably OK, so long as you stipulate that under NO circumstances may +0 metamagics be abused. (Arcane Thesis + Invisible Spell is not a -1 metamagic...)

If your problem is high-level casters that are one-shot'ing everything with raw HP damage, this will probably solve or at least mitigate the problem. This will not solve the general caster problem. If you shut a wizard off from doing abusive DD, expect them to shift gears to summoning, battlefield control, buff/debuff.

Hehe...if you're gonna ban any of the Metamagic reducers, Arcane Thesis is probably THE one to ban. The way it works, each Metamagic feat you apply reduces the cost of Metamagic modification by 1 level. If you stack 12 metamagic feats onto a spell, and can find a way to have it cost only 12 additional spell slots then your overall Metamagic cost is zero.

If you banned Arcane Thesis, Incantatrix, maybe Divine Metamagic (and almost certainly DMM: Persist) and then played without Dragon Mag content in your game, then it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult to break Metamagic, though you still have access to some of the less problematic Metamagic reducers, for example, Metamagic School Focus; which renders a lot of Metamagic feats worth taking at all. :smalltongue:

YMMV obviously, but...I just thought I'd share.

Essence_of_War

2011-11-18, 08:41 AM

Hehe...if you're gonna ban any of the Metamagic reducers, Arcane Thesis is probably THE one to ban. The way it works, each Metamagic feat you apply reduces the cost of Metamagic modification by 1 level. If you stack 12 metamagic feats onto a spell, and can find a way to have it cost only 12 additional spell slots then your overall Metamagic cost is zero.

Uhh...I feel like maybe we're reading the feat differently? My reading of it is that if I stack Twin, Maximize, Quicken onto a scorching ray, normally it would eat a level 13 spell slot, but if I have arcane thesis (scorching ray) it would only eat up a 10th level spell slot.

It can get crazy if you want to empower + invisible spell on your scorching ray, because by RAW invisible becomes a -1 mod and empower is now only +1 so the empowered, invisible scorching ray still only eats a 2nd level slot.

As long as you close the +0 metamagic loophole, I actually think that Arcane Thesis is probably OK.

But it might be faster, easier, and cleaner to just to close all of the reduction loopholes...

Malachei

2011-11-18, 08:50 AM

I know no game in which the negative modifier loophole is allowed.

Essence_of_War

2011-11-18, 11:15 AM

Nor do I.

But I have a feeling that there exists a VERY HIGH OP game in which it is allowed.

In general, I've observed that some sort of 'Rule 34' exists for 3.X OP levels...:smallamused:

DiBastet

2011-11-18, 02:43 PM

I know no game in which the negative modifier loophole is allowed.

+1

I think it's THE single most obvious, non pun-pun or similar, example of "theorical optimization".

Emperor Tippy

2011-11-18, 02:57 PM

Why? It's just fine.

If the player wants to spend 1/12th of their total feats on it, let them. Ban the hole and you are looking at another feat gone to qualify for Incantatrix, Archmage costs you yet another.

Arcane Thesis applies to a single spell. Unless you are allowing trivial feat switching and/or a ton of excess feats it will only be taken once or twice.

That usually self limits the character to Orbs and Enervation (magic missile is too easily stopped with the various ways to become immune to it). Enervation is ineffective against anyone immune to negative levels (which should be most everything at high levels). That leaves the Orbs. Energy Immunity is relatively easy, which is already slashing damage down by at least 50%, then you have miss chance in play and touch AC.

Basically, you are better off banning the various ways to get excess feats (VoP shuffle, Chaos Shuffle, locations, flaws). Cause limited to 12 feats you can be powerful but it's not game breaking at high level play and it takes a while to actually reach that point.

Just as an example; Invisible, Sanctum, Empower, Maximize, Quicken, Arcane Thesis is already half your available feats. Incantatrix and Archmage require Iron Will and Skill Focus using up 2/3rds of your feats. Extend and Persist puts you down to only two feats left.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn

2011-11-18, 08:06 PM

Fix the real holes in 3.5, as I have, and you won't find any more difficulty with metamagic than any other optimized character concept.

I'm not sure, but I think we had this question in a thread just yesterday or the day before.How is this different than any othe

Chronos

2011-11-18, 08:26 PM

Quoth Godskook:
2.To be able to use reducers, you must first be able to cast the metamagic'ed spell without reducers. For class features, generally assume that you must have levels in the relevent class equal to a wizard who could meet the above pre-requisite in order for you to be able to use that class feature. For instance, an Artificer who wishes to apply empower to a wand of fireball needs to be a 9th level Artificer before he is able to do it. In a few exceptions, the metamagic works as per RAW: Metamagic Rods, Sudden Metamagic, and Wu Jen class features to name a few.This is my preferred houserule, too. So, for instance, a 5th-level wizard (who thus has 3rd-level slots) with a rod of Extend could extend a 2nd-level spell using a 2nd-level slot, but he couldn't extend a 3rd-level spell, since he can't cast 4th-level slots yet. This both prevents access to effects that should be too powerful for your level, and mitigates most of the cheese based on stacking multiple metamagics.

Quoth EmperorTippy:
That usually self limits the character to Orbs and Enervation (magic missile is too easily stopped with the various ways to become immune to it). Enervation is ineffective against anyone immune to negative levels (which should be most everything at high levels). That leaves the Orbs. Energy Immunity is relatively easy, which is already slashing damage down by at least 50%, then you have miss chance in play and touch AC.The problem with the orbs is that most of the metamagics you'd want don't apply to them. With an orb, the spell itself doesn't deal damage and doesn't have a variable numeric effect: If it did, they'd be Evocation and allow SR. The spells themselves just conjure up some nonmagical fire/acid/whatever, and then the fire/acid/whatever does damage.

Malachei

2011-11-18, 08:32 PM

The problem with the orbs is that most of the metamagics you'd want don't apply to them. With an orb, the spell itself doesn't deal damage and doesn't have a variable numeric effect: If it did, they'd be Evocation and allow SR. The spells themselves just conjure up some nonmagical fire/acid/whatever, and then the fire/acid/whatever does damage.

IMO, this is not true. Following that reasoning, you could not apply metamagic to all Conjuration (Creation) spells. Nowhere in the rules does it say so.

Emperor Tippy

2011-11-18, 08:35 PM

The problem with the orbs is that most of the metamagics you'd want don't apply to them. With an orb, the spell itself doesn't deal damage and doesn't have a variable numeric effect: If it did, they'd be Evocation and allow SR. The spells themselves just conjure up some nonmagical fire/acid/whatever, and then the fire/acid/whatever does damage.

You would be completely and utterly wrong.

The spell lists a variable, numeric, effect in it's description. That is all Empower and Maximize care about.