natural spell vs divine metamagic

[lhilas]

Here's the deal :
Me and my friend had a fight about whether the feat divine metamagic was game breaking or not.
I say that while it is a powerful feat which can be abused quite easily, it's not stronger than the druid's natural spell feat - that is completely accepted in our dnd table.
He claims that natural spell merely boost the druid's abilities, while divine metamagic can and will cause the cleric who uses it to accomplish unfair deeds such as destroying any opponent in a one on one combat (quicken 9th level spell + something else), saving his team from a near deatg scenerio at ease and more.
What do you guys think? Are the two feats compareable? Is divine metamagic really all that game breaking? And in case i'm right, what other popular feats/class abilities can be compared to this feat in order to prove to him that it's not really irregular in the dnd 3.5 system?
Thanks in advance...

[Aditus]

I think that it mostly depends on the metamagic you're using. Quickening a high level spell is far from the most DMM can do--why Quicken it, when you can Persist it? Persistent Divine Power through DMM is basically the go-to solution for a Cleric who wants Full BAB.

Basically, its exact level of power depends on whether you have Persistent Spell allowed or not, but, like any other metamagic reducer (arcane thesis, incantatrix, metamagic school focus, magical trickster, or if you're playing in Pathfinder, sacred geometry), you should always handle with care.

In short, I'd agree more with your friend here--it's powerful, and while Natural Spell is good, it's not the same kind of power.

(Cue the druid experts telling me exactly how Natural Spell can get me that same kind of power)

[Nifft]

Divine Metamagic is more broken if:
- Persistent Spell is allowed; and
- Nightsticks or other cheap Turn stacking tricks are allowed.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Natural Spell is required for the Druid to actually function without its two primary class features completely stonewalling each other. Yes, other weaker classes have exactly this problem (most notably, monk is supposed to move around fast but needs to full attack to do adequate damage), but they should be fixed, you shouldn't break druid just to make them feel better.
I don't know, people always say how powerful wild shape is, but it's no where near as powerful as the casting, despite the druid having overall the weakest spell list of the 4 core primary casters. And the polymorphing spells put it to shame, too.

Now, "Divine Metamagic" on its own means nothing. It's attached to other metamagic feats when taken, and often requires large amounts of turn undead uses. On its own, it's not a big deal. It's when you take away the high cost of using it -- via night sticks for tons of TU, and by using it with Persistent Spell* so you get the benefit of the DMM all day instead of just for one encounter -- that it becomes super overpowered.

So, I think Natural Spell is high power but not overpowered, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter if it's a human or a T-Rex that's calling down wishes, miracles, and creating new demiplanes. DMM with the right ingredients easily becomes overpowered, but it's not necessary to ban the whole feat. I could see people strongly objecting to it not caring about the effective spell level of the modified spell vs. your actual spell level casting cap.

*Persistent Spell itself is a broken metamagic feat. Even without DMM. It doesn't care what the original duration was...even if just 1 round, now it's 24 hours. That's going to be ripe for abuse by default. In my games, I ban both Persistent Spell and night sticks, but DMM is legal. If you want to spend 5 turn undeads that you actually had to earn the hard way just to quicken one spell for free, I'm cool with that.

TL;DR: DMM directly boosts spellcasting power. Natural Spell doesn't. This was never even a contest.

[Rebel7284]

DMM + quicken spell accomplish the same as a greater rod of quicken spell. Unless your campaign is way below wealth by level, buying/crafting the rod is more powerful. Of course you can't afford rods at very low levels, but at very low levels, you are not quickening 9th level spells either. :)

DMM persistent spell, on the other hand, helps you save action economy by essentially starting each combat pre-buffed and is probably better than Natural Spell in most cases.

[eggynack]

So, you're arguing that divine metamagic isn't overpowered, because natural spell, one of the most powerful feats in the entire game, exists. Natural spell is absolutely of comparable power to divine metamagic, but I don't think that's necessarily a favorable position for natural spell to be in. If natural spell is acceptable where divine metamagic isn't, it's because it makes things functional where they weren't quite so functional prior, making wild shape operate on a constant basis, while divine metamagic takes a functional thing and makes it more functional. The former is more like a class feature where the latter acts something more like a feat. But it's an incredible class feature, and it might be too good.

In any case, you seem to want arguments for the power of natural spell, and there's any number of them. The two most obvious uses are as a base for combat, giving good stats for face beating and strong combat tricks, and as a base for casting, providing strong defenses and movement modes. I prefer the latter, but either use is very strong, and the former is more in line with what clerics tend to do. Toss venomfire on a fleshraker, and you're definitely competitive with the damage output of any reasonable thing. Other uses beyond that tend to rely on enhance wild shape and/or form adding feats. Something like a desmodu hunting bat adds blindsense, adding aberration wild shape grants stuff like thoon elder brain for magic fighting combos, and adding both grants nilshai form for doubled spells. And, while those things do rely on things separate from natural spell, they also very much rely on natural spell to operate properly. Wild shape does a massive amount if you know what you're doing with it, and much of that is utterly meaningless if you can't also cast spells. Even combat forms aren't usually worth sacrificing access to tier one power for.

Edit:

TL;DR: DMM directly boosts spellcasting power. Natural Spell doesn't. This was never even a contest.
And, in summary, this is just very untrue, especially with modification. I mean, you're not usually changing spells directly, even if you very occasionally are, but when your feat indirectly grants access to doubled spells, or even enough dexterity to give you first shot at spells and a high ranged touch attack, that's spellcasting power you're boosting.

Double-edit: Alternatively, consider it from the exact opposite direction. Instead of thinking of natural spell as a way to augment your spells directly, think of it as a way to persist the spell that wild shape effectively is. Without natural spell, you can only be a bat on a very temporary basis, because you can't cast spells in that form, but with natural spell, you can essentially "persist" the overland flight spell that is bat form. The same could be said of your traditional beatstick form, which acts something like the traditional cleric pile of buff spells. Of course, the list of cleric buffs that can be persisted is more interesting than just face beatery, but the list of "spells" directly "persisted" through natural spell is more complicated andthan it initially appears to be as well. I think you're drastically underselling the versatility of wild shape, in other words.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Other uses beyond that tend to rely on enhance wild shape and/or form adding feats. Something like a desmodu hunting bat adds blindsense, adding aberration wild shape grants stuff like thoon elder brain for magic fighting combos, and adding both grants nilshai form for doubled spells. And, while those things do rely on things separate from natural spell, they also very much rely on natural spell to operate properly. Wild shape does a massive amount if you know what you're doing with it, and much of that is utterly meaningless if you can't also cast spells. Even combat forms aren't usually worth sacrificing access to tier one power for.

Edit:
And, in summary, this is just very untrue, especially with modification. I mean, you're not usually changing spells directly, even if you very occasionally are, but when your feat indirectly grants access to doubled spells, or even enough dexterity to give you first shot at spells and a high ranged touch attack, that's spellcasting power you're boosting.

Double-edit: Alternatively, consider it from the exact opposite direction. Instead of thinking of natural spell as a way to augment your spells directly, think of it as a way to persist the spell that wild shape effectively is. Without natural spell, you can only be a bat on a very temporary basis, because you can't cast spells in that form, but with natural spell, you can essentially "persist" the overland flight spell that is bat form. The same could be said of your traditional beatstick form, which acts something like the traditional cleric pile of buff spells. Of course, the list of cleric buffs that can be persisted is more interesting than just face beatery, but the list of "spells" directly "persisted" through natural spell is more complicated andthan it initially appears to be as well. I think you're drastically underselling the versatility of wild shape, in other words.

If you're going to treat Wild Shape as a buff suite for the Druid, then you have to factor in that the cleric has much better buffs in spell form that anything the druid does, either automatically or available w/ the right domains or other options. Things like true seeing, antimagic field, haste, going ethereal, etc...
I admit I've never heard of "nilshai form" before. It sounds pretty broken if it really doubles spells. Is this something a cleric w/ the right polymorphing spells (Shapechange via Animal domain; any of the other polymorph spells via Arcane Disciple variant; etc...) cannot also achieve?
And is there any way for the Druid to get to tell the spell level cap to sit down and shut up like a DMM cleric can? Other than taking prestige classes to gain turn undead and start using DMM as well, which is a pretty self-defeating counter-argument to DMM not being (more) overpowered.

[eggynack]

If you're going to treat Wild Shape as a buff suite for the Druid, then you have to factor in that the cleric has much better buffs in spell form that anything the druid does, either automatically or available w/ the right domains or other options. Things like true seeing, antimagic field, haste, going ethereal, etc...
Druids can pull off, let's call it most of that stuff, or things like that stuff, through various means. True seeing is all over the place (phaerimm elder from lost empires of faerun, and deep dragon and song dragon from monsters of faerun), and the list of other vision modes is enormous. AMF can be picked up in comparable form through will-o'-wisp form, granting magic immunity, and other immunities are all over the place. Not quite the same thing, but I might actually prefer it. For ethereal-like stuff, you want the dharculus from planar handbook. Although, thinking about it, phantom stag acts a lot like long term etherealness with a high CL. As for haste, that's a close range spell, and thus can't be persisted, at least not natively, but nilshai and thoon elder brain do similar things personally, and druids are all about the attack piles. I don't think I have to factor that in, as a result.


I admit I've never heard of "nilshai form" before. It sounds pretty broken if it really doubles spells. Is this something a cleric w/ the right polymorphing spells (Shapechange via Animal domain; any of the other polymorph spells via Arcane Disciple variant; etc...) cannot also achieve?
It's a form from unapproachable east, and it is pretty crazy. Shapechange does do it, but druids are pulling this off at level nine. Polymorph doesn't get extraordinary special qualities, so it doesn't do it. No enhance polymorph, to my knowledge. Really, you need aberration forms and extraordinary special qualities, so whether a thing does it depends on that.


And is there any way for the Druid to get to tell the spell level cap to sit down and shut up like a DMM cleric can? Other than taking prestige classes to gain turn undead and start using DMM as well, which is a pretty self-defeating counter-argument to DMM not being (more) overpowered.

I don't think that's a wild shape granted thing, no. I agree that it's a good ability, but it's not like I'm arguing strictly better status here. There are things that each feat does better. For example, wild shape is more versatile on a moment to moment basis, able to be done as quickly as a swift action if you use a mantle of the beast, granting access to stuff you didn't plan to need.

Edit: The true weakness of wild shape, incidentally, is not that you can't do anything. Because you really can do most things. The weakness is that you can only do a few of those things at a time. Some of the druid versions of those abilities you listed are actively better than the cleric versions, with craziness like perfect immunity to illusions or blindsight out to 360 feet slotting really efficiently into the hole left by relatively inefficient true seeing. But, those two abilities come on different creatures, and enhance has a long casting time, so you often have to plan ahead some. Aberration wild shape suffers from this the most, due to dependence on that feat, while dragon and exalted wild shape suffer the least, because their abilities are always on. But, at the same time, you're often trading away power for that consistency. It doesn't make natural spell worse. Just different, with differing advantages and limitations.

[animewatcha]

Can the argument be solved with divine metamagic persist Time-Stop? Or Divine metamagic persist Shapechange?

[atemu1234]

Can the argument be solved with divine metamagic persist Time-Stop? Or Divine metamagic persist Shapechange?

... Not cleric spells.

[eggynack]

... Not cleric spells.
And the first probably isn't persistable.

[Lerondiel]

As has already been noted, its simply:

Natural Spell - retain the ability to keep casting spells while in the form of a gargantuan buffed animal

vs

DMM - Stormrage, Ironguard, Veil of Undeath etc running all day. Flight, shooting 10d6 (substituted) sonic bolts every round, immune to metal, missiles and all the undead traits (Fort, mind affecting, crits etc). Cant get tired.
Freedom of movement, spell resistance, energy resistance, stoneskin, heal, etc can deal with other issues.

Sure, high level dispelling could wreck the whole thing but that level of opponent also wont have too many issues flying over the T-Rex and dealing with it


EDIT: Time Stop and Shapechange are Trickery and Animal domains

[eggynack]

As has already been noted, its simply:

Natural Spell - retain the ability to keep casting spells while in the form of a gargantuan buffed animal

As has already been noted, that's simply not accurate. People like to reduce wild shape down to the simplest possible use, running over and dealing piles of damage, but the ability can be used for far more than that. Nilshai form alone is sufficient to make casting while wild shaped competitive large quantities of DMM persist. The idea that wild shape is somehow just becoming a T-Rex and stomping stuff is ludicrous. I don't think that form is even on my list. Seems very medium.

[animewatcha]

Nilshai form is an aberration( not automatically available ) in unapproachable east ( a 3.0 book close to release of 3.5 ). To be able to wildshape into an aberration ( usually something that is against druids in general as fluff IIRC) requires the feat tax of aberration blood, and the Aberration wildshape ( and aberant feats have a few penalties to specific penalties, but they don't matter here ) feat. The extra spell action that eggy is referring to is the extra partial action ability ( fearsome celerity specificly. an Ex ability )that was used in 3.0 and nixed in 3.5. So unless proper conversion of 'partial action' can be done, nilshai form cannot be usable as a legal argument.

If the dnd website with tools in it's name, is to be believed, then Trickey and animals domains are not the only domains to have time-stop ( like the time domain ). There is also the Initiate of Amau-whatever feat that adds timestop to the cleric spell list. We can also have clerics of ideals instead of deities which means pick any 2 domains you wants. There is also ways to cast do the domain spells as spontaneous substituion, etc.

-sidenote: Nilshai form also has poor physical stats.

[ExLibrisMortis]

DMM:Persist and Natural Spell have different roles in the party. A DMM:Persist cleric can buff the party, all day, which is very good. Natural Spell doesn't have that immediate party-buffing effect that DMM:Persist can have, but it has other merits. We could ask: "How would my party change, and how much power would we lose, if we replaced our [DMM cleric/NS druid] with a [cleric/druid]?" That is a terrible question, unanswerably complex, but we can approximate.

I think it'd be easier to replace the DMM cleric. There are multiple ways of reducing metamagic costs, incantatrix, spelldancer and such, paying with bardic music, using circle magic. You can get an artificer to just craft all these buffs into items - there's your real permanency. In short, the DMM effect isn't unique. However, every party can use - even needs - all-day buffs.

It's far harder to replace the wild shape + natural spell (+ aberrant wild shape + enhance wild shape) combo that you get on a druid. The druid is like a mini-party you can send out there alone, and they'll be able to deal with anything they encounter in seven different ways, because the Monster Manual is their spellbook. There's nothing quite like a druid; Natural Spell is by extension unique. Whether you can use or need it, depends on the party and game.

(Of course, this sort of goes out of the window if you're persisting supernatural shapechange on everyone. But that's supernatural shapechange for you.)

I think that, to the game, Natural Spell has a more important role, because it's unique, and really makes the druid work. In a party, it's the weaker feat, provided that you don't already have - or can obtain - an all-day-long buffstack somehow. Looking at two single characters, it's impossible to tell. You could always have a druid with turn uses and a cleric with shapechange, and then where's your comparison.

[Nifft]

DMM:Persist and Natural Spell have different roles in the party. A DMM:Persist cleric can buff the party

How do you get that?

The Persistent Spell which I see seems like it can only buff the caster.

[eggynack]

Nilshai form is an aberration( not automatically available ) in unapproachable east ( a 3.0 book close to release of 3.5 ). To be able to wildshape into an aberration ( usually something that is against druids in general as fluff IIRC) requires the feat tax of aberration blood, and the Aberration wildshape ( and aberant feats have a few penalties to specific penalties, but they don't matter here ) feat. The extra spell action that eggy is referring to is the extra partial action ability ( fearsome celerity specificly. an Ex ability )that was used in 3.0 and nixed in 3.5. So unless proper conversion of 'partial action' can be done, nilshai form cannot be usable as a legal argument.
DMM requires at least three separate feats, or more if you're using extra turning, so that claim isn't especially meaningful. On closeness to 3.5, the 3.0 UE nilshai is explicitly stated to be a thing in lords of madness, page 14, and that's basically the main source for aberrations. On partial actions, whatever else is the case, the nilshai ability is explicitly stated to be used for casting multiple spells in a round, so it's only logical to conclude that it allows you to do that. The most logical conversion is as a standard, because the ability does what a standard does, and whether it's specifically a standard action or not, it's definitely a segment of time in which spells Thus, I'd argue that it definitely can be used as an argument.


If the dnd website with tools in it's name, is to be believed, then Trickey and animals domains are not the only domains to have time-stop ( like the time domain ). There is also the Initiate of Amau-whatever feat that adds timestop to the cleric spell list. We can also have clerics of ideals instead of deities which means pick any 2 domains you wants. There is also ways to cast do the domain spells as spontaneous substituion, etc.
It's really not all that interesting.
Timestop probably can't be persisted to good effect, because of the nature of its duration, and shapechange doesn't care that much about being persisted, because its duration is pretty long natively. When you factor in the feat requirement as a negative, and the possibility of persisting as a positive, the two classes are about even in terms of shapechange, maybe with an edge for the druid.


Have I made my point yet?
Not particularly. Even if I were to just give you all the claims you made, no nilshai for druids and persisted 9th's for clerics as a relevant factor, you still have to contend with the massive pile of other forms that have gone both listed and unlisted in the former case, and the fact that you're only getting that ability extremely late in the game in the latter case.

-sidenote: Nilshai form also has poor physical stats.
They're not great, but they're not especially bad either. The flight speed is decent, and the AC decent as well. Everything is just incredibly normal and average, without much in the way of upsides or downsides intrinsic to the form.

[ExLibrisMortis]

How do you get that?

The Persistent Spell which I see seems like it can only buff the caster.
DMM allows you to use the metamagic feat as normal, Persistent Spell applies to spells with a personal or fixed range. As long as your cleric casts persistable buffs that apply to multiple targets - perhaps using Chain Spell - you can buff the entire party.

[Nifft]

DMM allows you to use the metamagic feat as normal, Persistent Spell applies to spells with a personal or fixed range. As long as your cleric casts persistable buffs that apply to multiple targets - perhaps using Chain Spell - you can buff the entire party.

Huh. "Range greater than touch."

So like, you can Chain detect magic because it has an effect range? (Even though the target range is less than touch.)

I guess this is a play on the rules failure to distinguish between "distance-to-target" and "distance-covered-by-effect".

[eggynack]

I don't think chain spell works. It doesn't alter the initial range of the spells in question, so spells with unfixed ranges, like something with close range, would still have that unfixed range afterwards. What you really want is something like ocular spell, which gives spells a really fixed and simple range.

[atemu1234]

Huh. "Range greater than touch."

So like, you can Chain detect magic because it has an effect range? (Even though the target range is less than touch.)

I guess this is a play on the rules failure to distinguish between "distance-to-target" and "distance-covered-by-effect".

Yep. Or Invisible Summon Monster spells.

[TiaC]

And the first probably isn't persistable.

Go ahead. You'll get 1d4+1 rounds of actions over the next day.

[Andezzar]

Yep. Or Invisible Summon Monster spells.Not exactly a buff spell, even though it would help the party.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think chain spell works.
Chain Spell isn't for changing the range, I didn't mean to imply that. It's just for spreading a single-target buff to the whole party - we were discussing the ability of Persist Spell to buff the whole party. You see quite a bit of it in Team Solar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-(Archiving)), which is where I got it from. You can use Arcane Reach or Reach Spell to apply even more buffs, as they do.