Using Metamagic for NPCs

[StevenC21]

Don Stonefoot, Celhani, Rulgir, and Dirk Gently, Stay Out!




Hello all. I was wondering, if I have a caster character NPC (in this case a Cleric 10/Blackguard 10), will he be gimped if he doesn't have any metamagic feats? I'm unsure how important they are to characters. I understand that to an extent, they help keep older spells relevant, but I was unsure how important this was as well.

If someone could give some insight into how important metamagic is, that would be ever so appreciated. I am played D&D 3.5.

I have access to:

The Players Handbook
The Dungeon Masters Guide
The Monster Manual
Complete Arcane
Complete Warrior
The Book of Vile Darkness
The Epic Levels Handbook
The Miniatures Handbook
The Expanded Psionics Handbook

[legomaster00156]

Metamagic is by no means necessary for any spellcaster. It extends utility of lower-level spells, but that does not make them a necessity, merely useful.

[StevenC21]

Alright, I am very glad to hear that. Thank you!

[JoshuaZ]

That said, Silent Spell is extremely useful when you finally need it. And if you can get any metamagic reducers in then metamagic becomes extremely powerful.

[Eldariel]

Depends on the focus of the caster too. A damage caster has more need and use for metamagic than a utility caster (though Extend Spell is really good for a buffer and particularly without items, Quicken Spell is all but mandatory past-11 when you can Quicken Glitterdust & al.).

[Fizban]

Depends on what you want the NPC to do, particularly in comparison to the Player Characters.

For a Cleric 10/Blackguard 10, there's not much they can do with metamagic. Their Cleric spells are seriously outdated for offense, so unless you want to impress with Quickened 1st level spells against commoners or 1st level buffs (Shield of Faith and. . . ?), there's not much to do there. Silent/Still/both can have a place if this person want to do things without notice and/or from within restraints, but that's still only so much. The most useful metamagic for them would be Extend Spell: there are a lot of handy 2nd and 3rd and 4th level Cleric buffs, but they only have so many slots, and Extend makes them last that much longer.

[Alabenson]

The answer to your question is going to heavily depend on a few factors, including what sort of role the character is supposed to play in story and in combat as well as the general optimization level of the table. If the NPC's narrative role is heavily predicated on his spellcasting ability or the table tends towards anything more than low-op then the Blackguard levels have already gimped the character into near-uselessness just by virtue of crippling it's spellcasting ability, and metamagic feats won't really be able to change that.
On the other hand, the NPC might be able to make good use of some of the Metamagic Rods from the DMG; the Rod of Extend in particular is relatively inexpensive and would be able to double the duration of any spell the NPC could potentially cast, making potentially very useful if you allow the NPC to cast defensive spells before facing the party.

[StevenC21]

Oh no. He is by no means intended to be a casting-heavy character. He's going to be a melee fighter that will have some casting on the side.

I will look into the metamagic rods, though.

Are they in core, or one of the splatbooks?

[Eldariel]

Oh no. He is by no means intended to be a casting-heavy character. He's going to be a melee fighter that will have some casting on the side.

I will look into the metamagic rods, though.

Are they in core, or one of the splatbooks?

The basic ones are in Dungeon Master's Guide. Lesser Rod of Quicken would be very good for them, I think, and Rod of Extend Spell would also help a ton. There are some for splat characters in splatbooks.

I wonder, are you going to give him Practiced Spellcaster: Cleric from Complete Arcane? That would give him +4 caster level to his Cleric buffs, to rather nice effect on Greater Magic Weapon & Magic Vestment, plus also a dispelling buffer of sorts. And it would let him have tougher undead with Animate Dead. That would combine nicely with Extend Spell for 28 hour duration on buffs. Prayer Beads of Karma [Dungeon Master's Guide], Orange Prism Ioun Stone [Dungeon Master's Guide] and one more caster level booster (Death Knell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathKnell.htm) as a daily sacrifice? It's even on the Blackguard spell list) would let him cast his buffs at caster level 20 for +5 to his weapon and armor. That would also mean the buffs would have caster level high enough that level 20 characters would not automatically dispel them. Good for duration on his Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Magic Circle Against Good, Air Walk, Resist Energy: all types, Spell Resistance and company too.


And he actually has a spell that's quite relevant and useful in-combat: Wall of Stone. He can use it to partition off enemies while fighting a smaller subset (a good candidate for Quickening out of Rod of Quicken Spell). Quickened Silence against enemy casters is also quite solid even on this level if they're on a low level of optimization (bind it to an item and it's just an area of "no sound"). And if he's buffing himself there's literally no reason for him to not use Righteous Might and Divine Power, again with Quicken Spell. Sadly he doesn't have level 6 spells so he lacks the option of Dispel Magicking against the party (Greater Dispel Magic with Chain Spell [Complete Arcane] is a thing of beauty where you get to dispel every buff and disable every item on multiple characters).