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Irrealist
2007-05-26, 04:10 PM
There are lots of ways to lower the spell slot adjustment of metamagic feats, like the Dweomerkeeper, Incantatrix, Ultimate Magus or Anima Mage Prcs or feats like Arcane Thesis. Even with all these options, I think divine metamagic is still overpowered (persistent spel at 1st level?)
I am considering a house rule to bring it more in line with the special ability of the ultimate magus, and propose that a cleric using divine mm has to expend a second spell of a level equal to the level adjustment of the mm feat the character is trying to apply in addition to expending uses of turn undead.
thought? comments?

Ryuuk
2007-05-26, 04:17 PM
Getting rid of nightsticks would help. Turning attempts would become more precious, so you either have to spend more feats on extra turning or points in charisma.

Citizen Joe
2007-05-26, 04:39 PM
Find book that details it... burn it
Find people that bring it up... throw rocks at them
Repeat until problem goes away.

Works for some religions.

the_tick_rules
2007-05-26, 05:05 PM
or as a dm don't allow them to multiclass just enough levels to get those abilities. my dm makes you earn your prestige classes.

JaronK
2007-05-26, 05:11 PM
Make it so you can't use any metamagic that would have used a slot higher than you have access to. That would help a great deal... you couldn't persist anything until 11th level, and you could never persist Shapechange.

JaronK

Hario
2007-05-26, 05:15 PM
Or outright ban any metamagic with a spell level modifier of +5 or more (yes banning it to be used with quicken too) Or make it so every time you expend a turning attempt to it, you lose (turning attempts) x level in HP for the day so if you use persistant you generally lose 6x level of your character in HP as well generally almost mortally wounding your character with d8's

Closet_Skeleton
2007-05-26, 05:24 PM
Or outright ban any metamagic with a spell level modifier of +5 or more (yes banning it to be used with quicken too) Or make it so every time you expend a turning attempt to it, you lose (turning attempts) x level in HP for the day so if you use persistant you generally lose 6x level of your character in HP as well generally almost mortally wounding your character with d8's

Except you cast persistant spells when you're at your safest and could just heal yourself.

Hario
2007-05-26, 05:37 PM
Except you cast persistant spells when you're at your safest and could just heal yourself.
what I ment was you lose those HP for the day as in you max goes to whatever that is

Quietus
2007-05-26, 05:40 PM
Remove it. Problem solved. This is how I'd deal with it if one of my players wanted to start pulling DMM cheese.

Less all-encompassing fix has already been mentioned; Remove nightsticks. Also, you could consider letting it only work for spells up to 3rd level, cutting down on the "I'm an always-awesome, full BAB cleric with super everything!"

deadseashoals
2007-05-26, 06:19 PM
Or outright ban any metamagic with a spell level modifier of +5 or more (yes banning it to be used with quicken too)

How does that prevent it from being used with Quicken Spell, which modifies the spell's original level by 4?

NullAshton
2007-05-26, 07:12 PM
Make it so that divine metamagic can't push a spells effective level over the maximum level spell you can cast. Thus you can only use a divine persistent metamagic on a 1st level spell, when you can cast 7th level spells.

Other than diving metamagic, divine feats are okay. I don't think they're too powerful, and mostly balanced.

Saph
2007-05-26, 07:23 PM
Remove it. Problem solved.

QFT.

It's not like Divine Metamagic adds anything especially fun or exciting to the game. If clerics want to use metamagic, they can buy it with higher-level spell slots like everybody else.

- Saph

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-27, 06:41 AM
It's not like Divine Metamagic adds anything especially fun or exciting to the game.
Now, that's rather subject to point of view, there.

Irrealist
2007-05-27, 07:06 AM
Make it so that divine metamagic can't push a spells effective level over the maximum level spell you can cast. Thus you can only use a divine persistent metamagic on a 1st level spell, when you can cast 7th level spells.

You can already modify spells beyond the level you can cast in core with the sudden metamagic feats (if only 1/day), so I'm reluctant to make this the only way. I think by making chars expend additional spells I can keep them from using powerful mm feats at least during low-to-mid levels.

Saph
2007-05-27, 08:38 AM
Now, that's rather subject to point of view, there.

Oh, come on. Clerics can use nearly every metamagic feat in the game already, the same way every other full caster class can. What does it add to let them do it (essentially) for free with turning attempts?

It's not like they're especially weak and need to be better metamagicers than anyone else.

- Saph

Morty
2007-05-27, 12:11 PM
If you ask me, divine casters shouldn't have acces to the metamagic at all. It just doesn't fit their flavor. They don't learn, weave, etc. spells like arcanists do. They perform miracles by the grace of their gods or nature(druids). It shouldn't really be that customizable.

Green Bean
2007-05-27, 12:17 PM
If you ask me, divine casters shouldn't have acces to the metamagic at all. It just doesn't fit their flavor. They don't learn, weave, etc. spells like arcanists do. They perform miracles by the grace of their gods or nature(druids). It shouldn't really be that customizable.

Well, you could also make an argument that divine casters could have an easier time of whipping up metamagic. I mean, it's just a matter of, "Hey, Pelor. Today, I'd like another one of those Searing Light spells, but this time, make it extra big," whereas arcane casters have to deal with all of that research and wrestling with the forces of reality.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-27, 02:35 PM
Oh, come on. Clerics can use nearly every metamagic feat in the game already, the same way every other full caster class can. What does it add to let them do it (essentially) for free with turning attempts?
Well, it adds a bit more sense to, say, clerics of Boccob that are interested in using their divine power to influence Magic in the world and don't give a rat's fig about undead. It helps show these clerics have an actual connection with elements of their portfolio when they can use divine tricks to modifiy the behavior of those spells.

One thing I always disliked about D&D is the cookie cutter clerics representing a large variety of different religious view-points. So, yeah, I think anything that can help differentiate different types of clerics really adds to the game.

But then, as I said before, that's entirely subjective.

Saph
2007-05-27, 07:26 PM
Well, it adds a bit more sense to, say, clerics of Boccob that are interested in using their divine power to influence Magic in the world and don't give a rat's fig about undead. It helps show these clerics have an actual connection with elements of their portfolio when they can use divine tricks to modifiy the behavior of those spells.

One thing I always disliked about D&D is the cookie cutter clerics representing a large variety of different religious view-points. So, yeah, I think anything that can help differentiate different types of clerics really adds to the game.

But it doesn't actually differentiate them. The cleric of Boccob can still turn undead, and the cleric of Kord can still pick up Divine Metamagic if he feels like it. What you're saying would be true if the cleric of Boccob had to substitute out his turn undead power for Divine Metamagic - but he doesn't. Mechanics-wise, his undead turning ability works just as well as any other cleric. So I don't see how that makes him any less cookie-cutterish, particularly since Divine Metamagic is so good that in a campaign where it's allowed nearly every cleric will take it, making clerics even more similar than they were before.

Anyway, more to the point, it's hideously overpowered, which is the real reason not to allow it.

- Saph

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-27, 11:33 PM
But it doesn't actually differentiate them. The cleric of Boccob can still turn undead, and the cleric of Kord can still pick up Divine Metamagic if he feels like it.
There's a certain level of that in every point of class customization. Say you want to have a Fighter's College that specializes in teaching fighting with finesse. This is easily modeled by graduates of the college usually having Combat Expertise or Weapon Finesse—feats which any fighter can take. But that doesn't necessarily rob the finesse flavor training from this particular college of training. It ultimately comes down to player's working with the DM.


What you're saying would be true if the cleric of Boccob had to substitute out his turn undead power for Divine Metamagic - but he doesn't.
To tell the truth, a house rule I've yet to fully implement in any campaigns I'm currently running, but intend to use in the future involves this sort of thing. I plan to replacethe Turn Undead class feature with a non-specific "Channel Divine Energy" feature and a bonus Divine feat. Naturally Turn Undead will become a Divine feat of its own. As a DM, I would naturally expect a player to pick a Divine feat that reflects his or her deity choice.


...particularly since Divine Metamagic is so good that in a campaign where it's allowed nearly every cleric will take it, making clerics even more similar than they were before.
Personally, I've never really seen the trouble with Divine Metamagic itself. The only specific examples I've seen do a better job of proving a problem with Persistent Spell in particular as well as the Nightstick magic item.

I mean, in all other cases—you have to spend at least two feats to use it at all. You wind up with additional MAD to be able to use it more than once or twice a day. And if that's still not enough, you wind up spending an additional feat or two on Extra Turning. That all becomes hideously expensive. More expensive than I'd be prepared to pay in many cases.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-05-28, 02:40 AM
Make it so you can't use any metamagic that would have used a slot higher than you have access to. That would help a great deal... you couldn't persist anything until 11th level, and you could never persist Shapechange.

JaronK
This is the method I use. It removes the outright brokenness, and brings it down to "very powerful".

I would also ban Nightsticks if anyone brought them up. So far, nobody has. I mean, even without Divine Metamagic, they're pretty dumb. +N turn attempts per day, where 0 < N < Infinity, all for a miniscule gold cost? Yes, please. I just avoid them on principle.

Aquillion
2007-05-28, 06:28 AM
Let's see. I've always been in favor of banning any metamagic combination whose 'normal' usage would increase a spell's level above the highest slot you can currently cast,. This includes sudden metamagic, divine metamagic, and metamagic rods. Metamagicking a 9th-level spell (aside from genuinely 0-level-cost metamagic like energy substitution) should require an epic-level character, no matter what you use for the actual metamagic.

In addition...

This is only tangentally related, but make it so Persistent Spell only works with spells that can be affected by Permanency. Harsh, but obvious. Persistent spell is inherently broken in concept.

Only allow the basic turning attempts gained from raw class levels, ignoring feats and items, to be used to fuel divine metamagic. This lets players actually turn undead from time to time without wasting divine metamagic fuel, and prevents a great deal of cheese, while still letting +turning attempt effects remain useful.

Irrealist
2007-05-29, 10:57 AM
This is only tangentally related, but make it so Persistent Spell only works with spells that can be affected by Permanency. Harsh, but obvious. Persistent spell is inherently broken in concept.
That sounds like a great idea. Why didn't I think of that?