why is Metamagic Song never suggested?

[CyberThread]

So you get bardic songs, more often then say turning abilities, if your in the mid or high levels, but a question I never understood, is why does Metamagic Song, never seem to be suggested in bard builds?

[danzibr]

I actually saw a build once that was the DMM Persist version of a Batd which used that feat, IIRC.

[Nettlekid]

Because unlike Divine Metamagic, it still requires you to be able to cast a spell of the level of the spell with metamagic applied. So for example, in order to be able to cast a Persisted Glibness, you need to be able to cast 9th level spells, even though it only takes a 3rd level slot. To be able to cast a Persisted Greater Blink, you need to be able to cast 11th level spells, even though it only takes a 5th level slot. As a result, you lose the main draw that Divine Metamagic has: Persisting high level spells.

Also it's harder to get a really high Bardic Music pool than it is to get a high Turning pool. There's more than one kind of Turning, and you add Cha to your uses, and Nightsticks exist and all that. Bardic Music has a feat and that's about it.

[Urpriest]

It's nice, but it's limited by the level of spells you can already cast. So it's not quite the game-changer that DMM is.

[AMFV]

The cap at level 9 is pretty rough, unlike DMM persist, you can never boost a spell past theoretical level 9, which hurts a lot of useful things. Also it's harder to get more pools of bardic music, as compared to turning. It is useful, just not quite as useful.

Edit: Wow, that was an unusually painful swordsage... twice in one go...

[Piggy Knowles]

The problem with Metamagic Song is that it has a spell cap - you can't use it to cast a spell with an effective level higher than you can cast. So, it can help conserve spell slots, but you don't get the insane power of Divine Metamagic, which doesn't have a cap.

EDIT: Triple ninja'd... impressive.

[MirddinEmris]

Well, unlike Divine Metamagic, it doesn't allow you to increase effective spell level higher than you are able to cast.

EDIT. swordsaged by a whole party of swordsages

[AMFV]

Well at least there's a pretty good general consensus here...

[CombatOwl]

So you get bardic songs, more often then say turning abilities, if your in the mid or high levels, but a question I never understood, is why does Metamagic Song, never seem to be suggested in bard builds?

Answer: Not good for buffing (because it's not good for persisting as a bard), not good for blasting (because the bard list is kind of terrible for that).

What else would you do with metamagic as a bard?

[AMFV]

Answer: Not good for buffing (because it's not good for persisting as a bard), not good for blasting (because the bard list is kind of terrible for that).

What else would you do with metamagic as a bard?

Quicken could be nice...

[Zanos]

Bardic music also scales with your bard level, and bards aren't full or prepared casters. Buffs you persist are things you're generally only going to want once per day, which makes persist builds weaker on casters with limited spells known. And bards only get up to sixth level spells.

Metamagic song would be considerably worse than DMM even if it didn't have the built in spell level cap.

[Flickerdart]

Pop on over to my signature and hear ye the tale of Bardzilla (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8595585) who nimbly sidesteps the issue of the spell level cap for a while by abusing Heighten Spell. Bards get less love than clerics when it comes to nifty buffs, but there are some gems to be found.

[danzibr]

Pop on over to my signature and hear ye the tale of Bardzilla (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8595585) who nimbly sidesteps the issue of the spell level cap for a while by abusing Heighten Spell. Bards get less love than clerics when it comes to nifty buffs, but there are some gems to be found.
Yeah, that's the one.

[Piggy Knowles]

Quicken could be nice...

Sadly, as a spontaneous caster, bards are kind of SOL when it comes to quickening spells.

[AMFV]

Sadly, as a spontaneous caster, bards are kind of SOL when it comes to quickening spells.

You can take Arcane Preparation, that could be a good solution, if you're trying to make a casty bard. Also with Sublime Chord you can quicken spells of higher level although not much higher, Incatatrix could be mixed in there some as well, although you'd probably loose too much music in that process.

[tyckspoon]

Quicken could be nice...

Spontaneous caster. Gotta jump through hoops to use Quicken, and you don't have some of the easier workarounds Sorcerers can use (biggest one being the ACF to trade your Familiar for metamagic uses without increased casting time.)


One more problem: Bardic spellcasting only goes up to level 6. Combine with the inability to metamagic spells prematurely, and you have a very strict limit on what you can actually do with your metamagic - even if you do have a way to use it Quicken can only be applied to less than half your spells, and Persist can only be put on your cantrips (compare to 9 level casters who can potentially Quicken up to 5th level spells and Persist 3rd even without metamagic reducers and replacers.)

[AMFV]

Spontaneous caster. Gotta jump through hoops to use Quicken, and you don't have some of the easier workarounds Sorcerers can use (biggest one being the ACF to trade your Familiar for metamagic uses without increased casting time.)


One more problem: Bardic spellcasting only goes up to level 6. Combine with the inability to metamagic spells prematurely, and you have a very strict limit on what you can actually do with your metamagic - even if you do have a way to use it Quicken can only be applied to less than half your spells, and Persist can only be put on your cantrips (compare to 9 level casters who can potentially Quicken up to 5th level spells and Persist 3rd even without metamagic reducers and replacers.)

Arcane Preparation in combination with Sublime Chord and some reducers is a pretty good thing though, you could potentially get quickening all the way, even a little earlier for free. I mean you'd have to prepare them, but that's not so bad.

[tyckspoon]

Arcane Preparation in combination with Sublime Chord and some reducers is a pretty good thing though, you could potentially get quickening all the way, even a little earlier for free. I mean you'd have to prepare them, but that's not so bad.

For me, at least, the question then is.. once you've put so much of your build into basically being a metamagic-focused Sorcerer, why not just be a metamagic-focused Sorcerer?

[AMFV]

For me, at least, the question then is.. once you've put so much of your build into basically being a metamagic-focused Sorcerer, why not just be a metamagic-focused Sorcerer?

Well you still get the spells cheaper, you'd have 9ths open. And bardic music in general. Probably not as good an option but still a flavorful option. I was mostly trying to find a build where you would want to use it, since people had asked about that, that's the only kind of build I can think of where you might want to use it.

[MirddinEmris]

For me, at least, the question then is.. once you've put so much of your build into basically being a metamagic-focused Sorcerer, why not just be a metamagic-focused Sorcerer?

Bigger spell-list (Sublime Chord = sroc/wiz + bard) + actual class features + skills.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Another difference to DMM is that people who make a bard usually want to use their bardic music for music.
Turning is fairly useless unless you invest heavily in it and even then it's situational.