Immediate Spell (3.5 Feat, PEACH)

[Noctis Vigil]

Just a feat I came up with. Enjoy.

Immediate Spell [Metamagic]
Prerequisite: Quicken Spell, any other metamagic feat
Benefit: You may apply this feat to any spell already altered with Quicken Spell. Any spell with this feat applied may be cast as an immediate action. An Immediate Spell uses a spell slot one level higher than the normal Quickened spell would.
Special: Unlike most metamagic feats, Immediate Spell does not increase the casting time of a spell for spontaneous casters, thus allowing Sorcerers to Quicken spells should they so choose.

[NeoSeraphi]

Immediate Spell has a lower metamagic adjustment than Quicken Spell? :smallconfused:

Ah well. Any feat that lets me interrupt the BBEG's rant about remaking the world in his own image by turning him into a kitten with baleful polymorph is a good feat. :smallamused:

[Seerow]

Yeah, if Quicken spell is 4 slots, this should be at least 5. An immediate action is just a swift action that can be made on somebody else's round. This feat is way too strong.

[Yitzi]

So you're getting a better boost than Quicken Spell at a lower cost?

Now, if it prohibited you from casting another spell in the same turn (or following turn if you cast it when it's not your turn), then it would probably be balanced (but still awesome).

[Noctis Vigil]

1.) An immediate action expends your swift action next round. This includes swift actions used to cast spells via Quicken. Thus, Quicken and Immediate may not be used in the same round once battle starts.

2.) This feat effects far less spells than Quicken, simply because it doesn't work on full-round spells. You need to stack Immediate with Quicken to do that for a total cost of +6 levels to the spell slot used.

Because of the above, I felt it didn't warrant the same as Quicken. I could boost it if people think it really needs it; I'd like to not go above +3, though. Alternatively, I could make the feat an improvement on Quicken itself at plus one or two additional spell levels. Thoughts?

Just out of curiosity, are there any metamagics that cost more than +4 to apply? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

[Seerow]

Persist is +6.




Also, the reason you can't use an immediate and a swift in the same round is that an immediate is essentially a swift action you can use outside of your turn. Not being able to use it on a full round action doesn't mean much, because most people are going to use it on standard action spells anyway.

What you're doing is giving the ability to use quicken spell on other peoples turns for cheaper than quicken spell. What's more, you're letting it bypass the normal restrictions for spontaneous casters for free. There is no way in which this is balanced against quicken spell, which is already one of the most powerful caster feats.

[Ziegander]

1.) An immediate action expends your swift action next round. This includes swift actions used to cast spells via Quicken. Thus, Quicken and Immediate may not be used in the same round once battle starts.

This is irrelevant. Casting just one spell as an immediate action is better than casting one spell as a swift action.


2.) This feat effects far less spells than Quicken, simply because it doesn't work on full-round spells. You need to stack Immediate with Quicken to do that for a total cost of +6 levels to the spell slot used.

This also hardly matters, because the only thing it changes is that you can't cast summons as an immediate action. At least you're correct that this is a limitation that Quicken Spell doesn't have.


Because of the above, I felt it didn't warrant the same as Quicken. I could boost it if people think it really needs it; I'd like to not go above +3, though. Alternatively, I could make the feat an improvement on Quicken itself at plus one or two additional spell levels. Thoughts?

It offers an effect that is better than Quicken Spell probably around 75% of the time, but with a limitation that Quicken Spell doesn't have. Sounds roughly equal to me. If you made it an improvement on Quicken Spell, you could maybe get away with not increasing the spell slot level any further beyond +4, especially if you add, say, Combat Reflexes, or Lightning Reflexes, or something to the prerequisites.

Immediate Spell
Prerequisites: Lightning Reflexes, Quicken Spell
Benefit: When you apply the Quicken Spell feat to a spell you cast, if you choose, you may cast that spell as an immediate action rather than a swift action.

That's probably appropriately balanced.


Just out of curiosity, are there any metamagics that cost more than +4 to apply? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

There are a few, yes, Persistent Spell being the popular one.

[Waddacku]

You could limit it to only move or swift action spells, in which case if you wanted to use it on a standard action one, you'd have to Quicken it first. That shouldn't be too insane.

[Noctis Vigil]

Added a few updates to the OP, tell me how it looks now.

[Zaydos]

Casting a spell as an immediate action is actually really, really powerful. Just look at how Celerity is generally considered stinky cheese and it makes you lose your entire next turn.

To actually balance it you need a higher metamagic level than quicken spell because casting as an immediate action is much much better than casting as a swift action. The potential for action denial is insane since you do it after they've started their action and before they finish.

In short this is quicken spell with "and the opponent loses their turn" tacked on if you do it right. As written this is just plain better than Quicken Spell even with the extra feat cost, up its metamagic level some and you have something that is worth it for battlefield control but you won't use for say Shield, or other personal buff spells. I'd actually say it should be a +5 or +6 metamagic (really the only one of comparable power is Persist which is better than Quicken for buffs but is completely useless for say Battlefield Control). The key difference is the element of surprise which means you can use it as action denial which means you can use it not only to gain extra actions yourself but remove them from your enemies (I cast quickened grease the monster falls and its next turn is standing up and getting out with this the monster starts to move I cast grease and it falls and can stand up this turn but can't begin to move out; net difference +1 turn of disabled monster).

[Noctis Vigil]

OP updated yet again.