Quick question about Enervation

[Thump]

The spell says that the negative levels don't last long enough to become permanent (1 hour/caster level, max 15 hours). What if I used an extend spell to extend the duration past 24 hours? Would it then force the afflicted to make a save against the negative levels?

e.x.

15th level wizard casts Maximized Extended Enervation.

4 negative levels, for 30 hours.

After 24 hours, do they make a save for each level to avoid it becoming permanent?

[ericgrau]

Ya it takes 24 hours so that'd do it.

[Thump]

Aight, thanks.

[Keld Denar]

Enervation is instantaneous. It's not a valid target for Extend Spell. The fact that the effects last longer than that is irrelevant.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Besides Enervation is an extremely good metamagic seed, so it is perfectly viable to simply kill an enemy with the negative levels you can give them.

I think a split ray'ed enervation is a 6th level slot and does exactly the same as Energy Drain (which is a 9th level spell), add empower for even more nastiness and that is without getting into metamagic reducers.

[jaybird]

Besides Enervation is an extremely good metamagic seed, so it is perfectly viable to simply kill an enemy with the negative levels you can give them.

I think a split ray'ed enervation is a 6th level slot and does exactly the same as Energy Drain (which is a 9th level spell), add empower for even more nastiness and that is without getting into metamagic reducers.

Just judging by Split Psionic Ray which is a +1 I think Split Ray is also +1 level...so for three feats (Split, Arcane Thesis, and any one other metamagic) you get to deal 2d4 negative levels to someone with a 4th level spell. If you Empower it that becomes 2d4*1.5 negative levels with a 5th, on average 7.5 negative levels :smalleek:

[Douglas]

Just judging by Split Psionic Ray which is a +1 I think Split Ray is also +1 level...so for three feats (Split, Arcane Thesis, and any one other metamagic) you get to deal 2d4 negative levels to someone with a 4th level spell. If you Empower it that becomes 2d4*1.5 negative levels with a 5th, on average 7.5 negative levels :smalleek:
Split Ray is +2. Metapsionic feats all expend psionic focus, and they count that as equivalent to 1 level's worth of adjustment.

[tyckspoon]

Split Ray is +2. Metapsionic feats all expend psionic focus, and they count that as equivalent to 1 level's worth of adjustment.

Split Ray and Psionic Split Ray also work differently; Psionic Split Ray requires that your second ray be aimed at a different target. Still useful, but generally less powerful than the cheap single-target doubling you can get by aiming both rays at the same victim with the arcane version.

[Calanon]

Besides Enervation is an extremely good metamagic seed, so it is perfectly viable to simply kill an enemy with the negative levels you can give them.

I think a split ray'ed enervation is a 6th level slot and does exactly the same as Energy Drain (which is a 9th level spell), add empower for even more nastiness and that is without getting into metamagic reducers.

Actually that particular spell is soooo good for Metamagick'ing into amazingness

a Split Ray Maximized Enervation is WAY better then using Energy Drain >_> and if its going into Epic a Split Ray Empowered Maximized Enervation can completely wreck anything you can do with Energy Drain... :smallredface:

OH WoTC why you so crazy :smalltongue:

[ericgrau]

If it's going into epic then why not grab easy metamagic, multispell, and double quicken it too? Well, assuming you haven't already pulled metamagic reducing shennanigans.

Oh, and sorry for not reading the spell description carefully to make sure extend could apply.

I think we have power creep to thank for metamagic enervation vastly outclassing energy drain. In core all you can do is empower maximize for 5 levels on average (5.5 if you round up, I forget how that works), vs. 5 for energy drain. Plus the metamagic way takes 2 feats.

[Lonely Tylenol]

A Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10 with Arcane Thesis (Enervation) casts an Empowered (+0), Maximized (+1), Twinned (+1), Split Ray (+0), Chained (+1) enervation as a 7th-level spell, without getting into further metamagic shenanigans such as net negative metamagics (correct me if I'm wrong here, but Invisible Spell is technically a -1 metamagic with Arcane Thesis), and gets five bonus feats with which to do so.

At the level when you would begin to care about the 24-hour duration of negative levels, you should be able to kill someone instantly with the sheer volume of negative levels you can stack onto them, rendering the argument entirely academic even if enervation wasn't instantaneous.

[Mystral]

Enervation duration caps out at 15 hours, it says so in the spell description.