Reserve Feats and Metamagic?

[Rossebay]

What I'm wondering is, do Wizards and Sorcerers key a reserve feat off of a spell's effective level?

So, if I have a sorcerer at, say, 20th level, capable of casting Fireball as his only fire spell. He picks up the Fiery Burst Reserve Feat. That seems like 3d6.
Say he had the Empower Spell or Maximize Spell feat. Since he can technically apply either of those to his Fireball spell, would that mean that he can technically cast Fireball as a 5th or 6th level spell, so Fiery Burst now does 5d6 or 6d6 points of damage? Better yet, with Rapid Metamagic, as an 8th level spell, 8d6 points of damage?

Or, since they don't truly raise the spell's level, say he had the Heighten Spell feat.
Since the level 20 Sorcerer can cast 9th level spells, he can cast Fireball as a 9th level spell.
Fiery Burst now does 9d6, as a 9th level spell, no?

In the same way that, if a Wizard prepared a 9th level Heightened Fireball, it'd be a 9th level spell, so 9d6?


The way this ends is this: If I were to use Heartfire Fanner in this mix, with access to Metamagic Song as a feat, as well as Extra Music a few times, I could conceivably cast, oh, Heightened Meteor Swarm as a 23rd or 27th or 31st level spell then, right? And since I can possibly cast that, my Fiery Burst deals up to 31d6, correct?

Is this correct? Since the spell is treated as the level it is heightened to, and the Sorcerer could cast it as that level, the Reserve Feat becomes much more powerful.

Or, am I wrong, and have I wasted all of this theory on nothing?

[Coidzor]

Don't know about sorcerers, but heightened X[fire] should work, yeah.

[tyckspoon]

Aside from Heighten being limited to 9th level, yes, that's how it works.

[Rossebay]

Aside from Heighten being limited to 9th level, yes, that's how it works.

Oh, is it? :[

Dang.

Any ways around this issue?

[jaybird]

Oh, is it? :[

Dang.

Any ways around this issue?

Epic feats? :smalltongue:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Oh, is it? :[

Dang.

Any ways around this issue?

Circle magic (from Red Wizard, Halruuan Elder, or Hathran) can heighten a spell up to 20th level max instead of 9th.

[Coidzor]

Circle magic (from Red Wizard, Halruuan Elder, or Hathran) can heighten a spell up to 20th level max instead of 9th.

Can you do circle magic before you're in the middle of casting the spell though?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Can you do circle magic before you're in the middle of casting the spell though?

You can't do circle magic in the middle of casting a spell. It requires a 1-hour ceremony and alters the circle leader's prepared spells, so if you use circle bonus levels to heighten a spell to 20th level, that spell is sitting prepared in a 20th-level slot as far as a reserve feat is concerned.

[Wings of Peace]

You can't do circle magic in the middle of casting a spell. It requires a 1-hour ceremony and alters the circle leader's prepared spells, so if you use circle bonus levels to heighten a spell to 20th level, that spell is sitting prepared in a 20th-level slot as far as a reserve feat is concerned.

Combo with Simulucrum for easy replacement to party Warlock? :smallamused:

[Rossebay]

Combo with Simulucrum for easy replacement to party Warlock? :smallamused:

Yeah, Fiery Burst was basically an immediate invalidation of the Warlock.

[Andion Isurand]

To increase the spell level even further, one could also use Node Spellcasting and the Metanode feat in tandem with an Acorn of Far Travel (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a), by using a feather token to place an oak tree in the middle of an earth node... preferably one created in your private demiplane.

[Bakkan]

Earth Sense/Earth Spell can be used to Heighten up to 10th, and is probably your least cheesy option for breaking the cap on Heighten Spell.

[Jack_Simth]

Or, am I wrong, and have I wasted all of this theory on nothing?Your answer lies in the description of what a reserve feat in general is in complete mage. For spontaneous casters, it's keyed off of spells known and available slots - if that Sorcerer-20 only knows Fireball as his fire spell, and he runs out of 3rd level spell slots, he can't use the primary on Fiery Burst. It doesn't matter that he could cast a Heightened-to-9th Fireball, because it's based on what he has in his spells known.

Now, if you can become a prepared caster, on the other hand (one feat, Arcane Preparation, from Complete Arcane), THEN the heightened-to-9th Fireball works, as you're also a prepared caster (other forms of metamagic don't help, though, as they don't technically change the spell's level, just the spell slot required).