how do you collect as many uses of metamagic as possible, as a blaster?

[dehro]

To clarify... say you want to play an arcane blaster... either with rays, cones or fireballs.. or shaped explode-y spells...
How do you not run out of juice in terms of applying metamagic after the first 3 rounds?
Say you wish to apply maximise, extend or enlarge feats to your blasty attack of choice.. how do you increase the number of times you can do this per day or, alternatively, make the most of it? I occasionally see characters throw around maximised spells with devastating effecfts like they have an endless supply of maximisation available... when I build a character, this doesn't seem to be the case.
Other than using a warlock's eldritch blast as a starting point, I am at a loss as to how to make sure I can add metamagic feats to spells that are at least relevant at higher levels, and make it so that I can do this more than once per encounter without finding myself empty should we have a second or third encounter.
Whenever I try doing so (as a pure intellectual exercise) I end up being a glass cannon that sucks at anything else... and am still not really good at the cannon part of that.
I am clearly doing something wrong.

[noce]

You're doing something wrong, as you say. The wrong thing you're doing is going the blaster route.

Really, blasting is not relevant at high levels, you cannot usually keep up with the damage a melee build does.

I say usually, because there are blaster builds specifically intended to stack damage multipliers: an example is stacking maximize, empower, twin, energy admixture, etc. on an orb, taking all the relevant metamagic cost reducers (arcane thesis, easy metamagic, incantatrix...there are a couple more).

This way you can do just one thing with just one spell.
Not only this is boring as hell, but you cannot compete with any other caster in terms of anything except damage (and often you cannot compete with melee builds in terms of damage).

[Nifft]

Rods of Metamagic.

Arcane Thesis (on a blasty spell).

Ultimate Magus (so you can pay for metamatic from a different spell pool).

Not using meta-magic, but rather using meta-psionics on an Ardent who has the Dominant Ideal ACF for the Energy Mantle.

= = =

That said, yeah, blasting is not usually the optimal use of an arcane caster's actions... but if you want to be a blaster, there are ways of making it work. Look up the Mailman Sorcerer for one of them.

[lord_khaine]

No, blasting might not be viable in theoretical d&d, but it certainly is viable in actual play.
The first question that needs to be answered though, is what level your playing at.

[Zaq]

Yeah. You simply can't throw around heavily metamagicked spells every round (and until you've reached "one spell and the encounter is over" levels of optimization—which likely isn't fun—a blaster is likely to want to cast more spells per encounter than a non-blaster might need to) without investing hard in metamagic reducers. And yeah, that takes resources (feats, levels, sometimes gold), so you always have to be aware of what level you're starting at when you're building someone like this.

Be advised, of course, that metamagic reducers are (rightfully) often considered to be cheesy, overpowered, or both. It's possible to invest in reducers without breaking the game, but if I were to see someone strolling up to a new game with an Incantatrix or another hardcore metamagic build, my gut reaction is going to be "what's that powergamer trying to do to this campaign?"

If you have a favorite spell, Arcane Thesis is a good starting point, but it pretty much guarantees that you'll have fewer unique tricks than if you weren't relying on it. Whether that's good or bad is up to you.

Incantatrix is, of course, one of the best choices for arcane metamagic reduction. It's nearly a self-contained package (just find a way of turbocharging your Spellcraft mod), truth be told.

Overall, though, sometimes it's better to fight smarter rather than harder. Try to figure out if you can accomplish similar results without paying for metamagic. (This is sometimes easier than others, and I fully admit that if you're going for Mailman levels of optimization, metamagic is where it's at.) Not every gun needs to be your biggest gun.

[logic_error]

No, blasting might not be viable in theoretical d&d, but it certainly is viable in actual play.
The first question that needs to be answered though, is what level your playing at.

Entirely this.

Also, people saying that melee builds can out-blast blasters, you don't know what you are talking about. This "may" be true for a single target blast, but not beyond that. And even in that case it probably isn't.

That said, take energy substitution and born of three thunders and not just blast but daze them too. Zero spell level change metamagic that.

[GilesTheCleric]

I like to reduce the cost as well, via MM rods, DMM, or other MM-reducer feats like Easy Metamagic. It's also important to calc out what's most efficient, and it's usually not empower or maximise:

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd160/ryuusui-ken/Capture_zpsit0h9epp.png

[RoboEmperor]

Early levels you blast sparingly. Let your melees do most of the damage. Your spells are like a life-saving damage burst on the one target that really needs to die right now.

Later levels just throw unmetamagicked stuff and use the metamagicked stuff sparingly.

If that is too weak for your table then you really should be going some form of a mailman sorcerer. Even without incantatrix, arcane thesis and residual metamagic should be more than enough for you to spam maximized and twinned spells.

I played a really successful sorcerer that spammed lesser orb of acid with arcane thesis and residual metamagic. orb of fire only came online super late levels so it's worth it to grab arcane thesis:lesser orb of acid.

[Zsaber0]

Sacred Geometry, and a hard hat to stop projectile books.

[darkdragoon]

Mostly you're better off with items, especially if you can somehow squeeze Metamagic Spell Trigger in.

[Inevitability]

Sacred Exorcist + Nightsticks + Divine Metamagic (Maximize Spell) = Win.

Also, I like to cast heavily metamagic'ed Fire Seeds or Gembombs (using amber or git in the latter case), placing the item in Unguent of Timelessness, and retrieving it to throw any time I want. A maximized persisted Gembomb deals 60 damage, one with Reserves of Strength added on deals a whopping 156.

[dehro]

I'm not playing it, for now... I'm just considering options, and an thinking of high to epic levels..

[noce]

Also, people saying that melee builds can out-blast blasters, you don't know what you are talking about. This "may" be true for a single target blast, but not beyond that. And even in that case it probably isn't.

I know what I'm talking about, at least in single target.
Consider the party I'm playing with, which is level 16 and has three melee toons: a not-so-uber-charger warblade (he has just 20 STR after items, for example), a kensai and a rogue/swordsage.
The warblade deals 1200+ damage per round.
The kensai deals 350+ damage, plus 8 CON damage per round.
The swordsage deals 750+ damage per round, and imposes the staggered condition.

I think that a well built lvl 16 blaster is not likely to deal that much damage in single target.
An orb with maximize, empower, twin and energy admixture deals 540 damage, but requires 5 metamagic feats, in addition to many cost reducers.
A disintegrate with maximize, empower, twin and split ray deals 1152 damage, but requires 4 metamagic feats and has a save. It is still less damage than the warblade, even if the enemy fails the save.

When there are more than a single enemy, it's tactically better to focus them in order to reduce their number as fast as possible. So a blaster could out-damage a melee, but that damage is spread on many targets with less chances to kill any of them.

[logic_error]

I know what I'm talking about, at least in single target.
Consider the party I'm playing with, which is level 16 and has three melee toons: a not-so-uber-charger warblade (he has just 20 STR after items, for example), a kensai and a rogue/swordsage.
The warblade deals 1200+ damage per round.
The kensai deals 350+ damage, plus 8 CON damage per round.
The swordsage deals 750+ damage per round, and imposes the staggered condition.

I think that a well built lvl 16 blaster is not likely to deal that much damage in single target.
An orb with maximize, empower, twin and energy admixture deals 540 damage, but requires 5 metamagic feats, in addition to many cost reducers.
A disintegrate with maximize, empower, twin and split ray deals 1152 damage, but requires 4 metamagic feats and has a save. It is still less damage than the warblade, even if the enemy fails the save.

When there are more than a single enemy, it's tactically better to focus them in order to reduce their number as fast as possible. So a blaster could out-damage a melee, but that damage is spread on many targets with less chances to kill any of them.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7802.0

leave you to mull over this. Remember, level 1 spell.

[noce]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7802.0

leave you to mull over this. Remember, level 1 spell.

I read the link, thank you for sharing. I give you this point.
I did know these things are possible, I don't think they're common in actual gameplay, though, hence I said "not likely".

[dehro]

1200 damage in 1 round and he's not fully optimised???:smallconfused:
is that when he actually manages to land all his blows and roll a lot of crits, or on the regular? because the stuff we're pitted against usually has AC up the wazoo and reduces a lot of damage.. and even then, none of us deal that sort of damage, even at level 20+..

[schreier]

The warblade deals 1200+ damage per round.
The kensai deals 350+ damage, plus 8 CON damage per round.
The swordsage deals 750+ damage per round, and imposes the staggered condition.


I'm curious on this as well ... no matter what you say, they seem very optimized. There are no monsters that stand a chance against that unless they have horrible AC and saves. They also sound like one trick ponies?

[Pugwampy]

How do you not run out of juice in terms of applying metamagic after the first 3 rounds?

Umm wand of fireballs ?

[logic_error]

OP.

As a blaster, you still should concentrate on multiple threats. Which is why I suggested Born of Three Thunders. If you have access to material from Eberron books, then there is an easy way to get past the daze effect yourself, with a dragon mark. It's a total of 4 feats worth of investment (Energy Substitution, BoTT, Dragon Mark, Mark of the Dauntless), but it will make you break the game immediately with some clever use of spells. Remember, these feats add ZERO adjustments to spell levels!

Now to reduce costs further, again Eberron has Heroic Metamagic as a feat. If you take that route (it effectively blocks you from going the BotTT way due to feat tax) then you have the fooken broken spell called Unfettered Heroism at level 5. That and Heroic metamagic gives you +1 adjustment FOR FREE each round of the cast, almost ensuring that for a given encounter it's basically free.

For quicken spell, consider access to classes like Recaster. For other PrCs from Eberron, things like Escalation mage come to mind. These PrCs give you a lot of free stuff.

[noce]

1200 damage in 1 round and he's not fully optimised???:smallconfused:
is that when he actually manages to land all his blows and roll a lot of crits, or on the regular? because the stuff we're pitted against usually has AC up the wazoo and reduces a lot of damage.. and even then, none of us deal that sort of damage, even at level 20+..


I'm curious on this as well ... no matter what you say, they seem very optimized. There are no monsters that stand a chance against that unless they have horrible AC and saves. They also sound like one trick ponies?

I fear the thread may derail, but here's how we do that much damage.
The damage I listed is with all attacks landing, but without crits. We rarely miss.
Armor class of the enemies we encounter usually is below 35.

The Warblade is a charger. He has Battle Jump, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper and a Valorous weapon.
He also has Pounce, Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Unarmed Strike, so he uses a two handed weapon coupled with unarmed strikes. He can charge in difficult terrain, if there's room for a long jump.
Thanks to Dancing Mongoose maneuver and Gloves of the Balanced Hand, he does a total of 7 attacks on a charge.
He has optimized his attack bonus and bought items to reroll attack rolls.

The Kensai is not a charger, but he can use swift activated objects to close the gap, then full attack.
He has 30 STR (38 after Power Surge) and dipped Exotic Weapon Master to apply 2x STR to damage instead of 1.5x.
He also has an impressive attack bonus (+46 +46 +41 +36 after Power Surge) and items to reroll attack rolls, so he uses every bit of Power Attack, always.
Given his prestige class, he has a +10 weapon (which is a +1 weapon with +9 equivalent enhancements), including the enhancement Greater Wounding (2 COS damage, +4 item price). This can be found on the online 3.5 official update of MM2.

The Rogue/Swashbuckler/Swordsage has a Manyfang dagger from Serpent Kingdoms, which lets he do quadruple damage with his main hand, including sneak attacks.
He can also sneak attack immune enemies for half damage, and has many ways to negate concealment and dexterity to AC.
He has the Pounce maneuver.

Sorry OP for the derail.

[Rhyltran]

I'm curious on this as well ... no matter what you say, they seem very optimized. There are no monsters that stand a chance against that unless they have horrible AC and saves. They also sound like one trick ponies?

You can build characters that can do damage without sacrificing AC, saves, or HP. Take my last monk I played (the class everyone rags on.) He can do on average 541-578 damage per round, has 240 HP, and 42 AC (in bear form). His saves are 26, 20, 18 respectively. Still not as powerful as Noce's team but quite capable in the damage department.

As logic error stated you want to focus on your multiple threat potential. An optimized mundane is usually going to be entirely single target and if you have optimized mundanes at your table and still want to bring the damage your best bet is to focus on spells that can target multiple enemies at once or end most encounters outright. Truth is damage is a small part of the game and it's why people rag on mundanes. It isn't that they can't do damage but they're limited in how they do damage and sometimes damage alone isn't the best solution to a problem.

Also if your table allows it.. anything that reduces metamagic levels is a boon.

[noob]

There is a cleric spell that allows each round to make as a free action an attack dealing 10d6 for cl rounds.
persist it and apply a bunch of metamagics and cast it multiple times and then forget about blasting: this spell will do it for you and you can use your normal actions for doing other stuff.