Extreme Distance on Spells?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I was reading a Worm/D&D crossover 'fic (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11359049/1/Stepping-On-Worm) and he talks about tossing out spells with massively increased Ranges and Areas. As in, multiple mile radii.

Obviously there're Enlarge and Widen metamagic and War spells, but none of them (even stacking them) would improve spell ranges to the level he's talking about. Metapsionics could work for psionic powers if you could remove the psionic focus component (such as via the ardent ACF), but he's not using powers.

Anyone have ideas on this front?

[Anthrowhale]

Enlarge Breath explicitly self-stacks so persist Dragon Breath and affect very large areas at the cost of a long recharge time. You should be able to hit a 27 mile cone with an Extended Persistent Dragon Breath and finish recharging before the spell duration ends (barely).

[AvatarVecna]

I was reading a Worm/D&D crossover 'fic (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11359049/1/Stepping-On-Worm) and he talks about tossing out spells with massively increased Ranges and Areas. As in, multiple mile radii.

Obviously there're Enlarge and Widen metamagic and War spells, but none of them (even stacking them) would improve spell ranges to the level he's talking about. Metapsionics could work for psionic powers if you could remove the psionic focus component (such as via the ardent ACF), but he's not using powers.

Anyone have ideas on this front?

In 3.0, a metamagic effect could be stacked with itself, although doing so could get expensive without metamagic reduction/substitution. I'm unsure what reduction/substitution methods existed in 3.0, though. Now, where it gets interesting: while Extend Spell "doubles the duration", Enlarge Spell and Widen Spell "increase the range/area by 100%", which is a subtle difference. This means that a 1st lvl spell octuple extended into a 9th lvl slot would last 256 times as long as normal, while a 1st lvl spell octuple enlarged into an 9th lvl slot would have 900% its normal range. Assuming Circle Magic for CL 40, and a long range 1st lvl spell, that gives us an 18000 ft range on that spell - a good 3.4 mile range, certainly, but perhaps not as neat as what's going on there, and you certainly couldn't do such a thing with Widen since it's much more expensive.

However, if we're combining 3.0 Self-Stacking Metamagic rules with 3.5 metamagic reduction/substitution, it's possible to pull off such ranges. Use Incantatrix/Easy Metamagic/Practical Metamagic to get the desired Metamagic down to +1 per application, and then take Arcane Thesis for the spell you wish to apply it to; this will allow you to effectively apply any +1 Metamagic you want to your Arcane Thesis spell without ever increasing the spell level - and since they can self-stack per 3.0 rules, we could just put the same one on over and over. Alternatively if "infinite stack of the same metamagic" doesn't gel well with you, an ability substituting the metamagic cost with a different finite resource - for example, a 3.0 Cleric with Easy Metamagic (Widen) and Divine Metamagic: Widen could apply Widen to a spell without increasing the spell level by spending two Turn Undead attempts per application. Assuming Cleric 20 and 20 Turn attempts from feats and items, they could apply widen 10 times from DMM Widen and another 4 times just from increasing a 1st lvl spell to a 9th lvl slot. Thus, a 1st lvl spell could be Widened 14 times, for 1500% normal area (which could result in a 750 ft burst Bless effect, for example). Still, because Widen is an additive effect rather than a multiplicative effect, getting multiple-mile radii basically requires the infinite stacking mentioned before, or some method of getting an absolutely ludicrous amount of substitution.

[Celestia]

Apocalypse From the Sky has a radius is 10 miles per caster level.

[Erik the Green]

It's a limited special case of what you are asking but take a look at Horizon Goggles (Complete Mage, p 132): in addition to granting the benefits of the Far Shot feat, they increase the range of any spell or SLA that requires a ranged attack roll by 50%. So, Disintegrate, Enervation, Orb of X, Ruby Ray of Reversal, Scorching Ray, etc = not to be sneered at. Curiously, the underlying spell Near Horizon (rgr2) does not mention extending the range of spells, but the goggles explicitly do. At 12K GP they are probably a little pricey when your ranger friend could first join your wizard in some cooperative crafting, but a few levels later the goggles could be a useful angle for ranger and wizard both. Also, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't stack with any of these other suggestions, in their particular parameters of effect.
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