What to choose: Invisible spell vs. Prepping for Born of the three thunders

[mabriss lethe]

As the title says: I'm currently playing a lvl 5 warblade/wu Jen prepping for Jade Phoenix Mage entry asap. As my 6th level features I'm torn between picking up invisible spell for pure hilarity and mayhem, or picking up energy substitution in preparation for picking up born of the three thunders at 9. In the meantime I'd mostly be using ES to expand the energy types I can get from fire shuriken, but lesser metamagic rods of ES are dirt cheap.

Any suggestions?

[Mike Miller]

Invisible spell doesn't provide much mechanically, but is a lot of fun. I have a wizard gearing for silent, still, and invisible strictly for the comedic value. The campaign isn't combat heavy though, so it works. If you need born of three thunders for the utility of it, maybe go for that instead.

[ryu]

Invisible spell doesn't provide much mechanically, but is a lot of fun. I have a wizard gearing for silent, still, and invisible strictly for the comedic value. The campaign isn't combat heavy though, so it works. If you need born of three thunders for the utility of it, maybe go for that instead.

Are you joking? Invisible spell is one of the most overpowered metamagics there is.

[Crake]

Are you joking? Invisible spell is one of the most overpowered metamagics there is.

Whether or not that's the case comes down entirely to your DM's adjudication of how the feat works. "Carries no visual manifestation" is a very vague phrase. What is a manifestation? Is it the same as an effect, or are they different? For example, two DMs may agree that a ray's colorful beam is a visual manifestation of the spell, while the same two DMs may argue that a fog cloud spell's fog is not a visual manifestation, but rather the effect of the spell itself. Likewise, many DMs would not let it make summons invisible, despite how often that suggestion is thrown about on these forums.

My personal favourite use of invisible spell is for scrying spells. Having the scrying sensor be actually invisible means that without see invisibility up at the time of casting, people don't even have a chance of seeing the sensor, but again, even that may vary from DM to DM, some may say the sensor is already invisible, but it's something else that you notice with the int check, otherwise why wouldn't it be a spot check instead for example.

[Mike Miller]

Well, then I suppose I haven't devised a use for it that is overpowered. I did mention my campaign is low power though

[Fouredged Sword]

Invisible spell is one of those things you sit down with your DM and actually talk about what it is and what is does before you take it. It is badly written and even with good intent it can still be a point of confusion and irritation to have it just pop up in a game. Once you know what it actually does you let us know and we can advise you further.

Though born of three thunders is a powerful ability. Mechanically it is likely the best choice for combat magic. Invisible spell is best for things like long term buffs you want to keep subtle. Invisible mage armor or such.

[Venger]

As the title says: I'm currently playing a lvl 5 warblade/wu Jen prepping for Jade Phoenix Mage entry asap. As my 6th level features I'm torn between picking up invisible spell for pure hilarity and mayhem, or picking up energy substitution in preparation for picking up born of the three thunders at 9. In the meantime I'd mostly be using ES to expand the energy types I can get from fire shuriken, but lesser metamagic rods of ES are dirt cheap.

Any suggestions?

congratulations on going born of three thunders. I wish the two of you many happy sessions together.

that said. this is dependent on whether you already have at least one metamagic feat. energy sub x requires at least one.

if your dm's very permissive and lets you summon a whole bunch of invisible monsters in one turn, that's the clear winner. if not, my personal go-to for a no-prereq metamagic feat for the purposes of wetting my feet for the good stuff later is lords of madness's ocular spell, which lets you store spells in your eyes and later fire them out as frickin' laser beams.

[mabriss lethe]

congratulations on going born of three thunders. I wish the two of you many happy sessions together.

that said. this is dependent on whether you already have at least one metamagic feat. energy sub x requires at least one.

if your dm's very permissive and lets you summon a whole bunch of invisible monsters in one turn, that's the clear winner. if not, my personal go-to for a no-prereq metamagic feat for the purposes of wetting my feet for the good stuff later is lords of madness's ocular spell, which lets you store spells in your eyes and later fire them out as frickin' laser beams.

I'd forgotten about Ocular spell, tbh. I may have to give that one a look at some point. As for prior metamagic, Wu Jen get's a MM bonus feat early on (1st level, iirc) So I've already got my foot in the door with Still Spell (We're still low level, so a lot of special goodies to lower my ACF aren't feasible yet.) My one "complaint" with Energy Substitution is that Born of the Three Thunders requires ES: (electricity) Which is slightly less useful than Acid at the moment (since I can easily cast spells with the other energy types.) But it's at least the #2 spot when compared to Cold and Fire.

As it stands, I'm definitely trying to pick up some lesser metamagic rods of ES so that I can mass produce a good number of alternate energy type fire shuriken in the character's downtime. (That spell is disgustingly fun for a gish build)