Metamagi feats: how good are they?

[Trandir]

Third thread of the series.

This time it's metamagic time. Since the metamagic are by design caster only and casters are the best kind of classes in d&d metamagic feats are good really good.

What will be considered metamagic feat:
The (metamagic) feats
Any feat that changes the spell slot of a spell in order to gain some sort of bonus
Any feat that interacts with metamagic feats (like Divine Metamagic)

I already know that metamagic feats are good but let's see how broken can be

[Divine Susuryu]

Extremely good. Residual Magic, Heighten, and Earth Spell combined are the basis of the famous Killer Gnome (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=16433.0) build. Persist Spell and Divine Metamagic (Persist) is the base for a variety of cleric builds, and can be combined with Ocular Spell to persist things that you normally could not.

Outside of things that are high-op, Extend and Quicken will see play with a variety of characters, simply because double duration is good and two spells in a round is good.

[RNightstalker]

Persistent Spell and Cooperative Metamagic from the Incantatrix are in the running for top game-breaking combo, and it will be a long time before either of those are allowed in a game I run.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If you're going with the Ultimate Magus build I suggested, you can spend Beguiler spell slots to add metamagic to your Wizard spells, and vice versa. You'll have Beguiler 8 spellcasting for 4th level spell slots, which can be used to apply Quicken Spell or Twin Spell to a Wizard spell. You'll have high enough Wizard spell slots to add Persistent Spell to Beguiler spells, but there's not much worth making persistent without shenanigans, but you can just prepare persistent versions of lower level Wizard spells like Shield.

Your metamagic choices really depend on what you're casting, and what you want to do. For crowd controls, Sculpt Spell is one of the best choices. For summoning creatures (which isn't useful at level 18) or conjuring barriers, Invisible Spell is pretty good. If you want to deal damage (which is typically a waste of spell slots), Empower and/or Maximize are strong, but Split Ray and Twin Spell are often better.

Practical Metamagic is fantastic if you have the dragonblood subtype, such as from the Glimmerskin Halfling variant in Dragon Magic, or the Dragonborn of Bahamut template in Races of the Dragon. Take that and/or Easy Metamagic from Dragon 325 p62 and/or Metamagic School Focus, and you can get Persistent Spell down to a +4 or +3 for a certain school of magic.

[Oberron]

For a +1 fell energy spell makes good buff spells into great or amazing buff spells for undead. Fell animate is another for free zombies. And there is also black lore of moil that doesn't increase spell slot but basically gives an extra 1d6 negative energy damage per 2 spell lvl for 25gp each die to necromancey spells.

The game could have never had metamagic feats and casters would be fine. Metamagic feats along with the easy ways to abuse them make casters even stronger almost needlessly.

[heavyfuel]

I'd say most MM feats give a lateral power change, rather than a vertical one.

Is a quickened 1st level spell as good as a 5th level one? Is an Empowered Fireball as good as Cloudkill? Is Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor anywhere near the power of 9ths?

In most situations, the answer to questions like these are going to be "No". Of course, in some cases these feats are brilliant, but they are edge cases. In the vast majority of times, MM feats are about having options rather than straight up power.

HOWEVER.

Metamagic reducers are broken as hell. They are a terrible mechanic that should be extinguished from the game. If the designers wanted MM to cheap or free, they should've made it so from the beginning.

Also don't get me started on Invisible Spell. By RAI it's pretty useless, by RAW it's like... what the hell were the designers even thinking?

[Kayblis]

Metamagic feats are absurdly good. They are each flexible enough to be applied to many circumstances.

That's why every PrC that revolves around them is considered broken. Without considering cost reducers, you gain so many more options to use your existing options to solve problems. With a +0 modifier you can make all your spell effects invisible. With a +1, everything lasts twice as much. With a +2, every damage you deal adds a negative level. And those are just the general ones.

They really shine when you plan around them. The Fell Metamagic can be combined with low-level area spells that damage every round, starting with the 1st-level spell Chill Mist and getting much better ar 2nd level with Kelgore's Grave Mist. Add a way to lock an enemy in place(Grease, Web, Entangle, Solid Fog, the usual) and you turn combat into a ticking clock that saps the enemy's life every turn. Can't get out? No save kill. The fact that a single feat can give a mid-level character a super effective setup against a huge swath of possible enemies is no joke.

Metamagic reducers bork everything. When you factor in Incantatrix and Divine Metamagic, the question is more "how many feats do you have to spare" than how much you can do with them. You CAN do it all.

[Biggus]

I already know that metamagic feats are good but let's see how broken can be

Oooh...let's try DMM Persistent Spell used with Greater Consumptive Field. Wander round a town and kill a few hundred commoners with the Field, you now have Strength and hit points far in excess of any deity for the next 24 hours.



Metamagic reducers are broken as hell. They are a terrible mechanic that should be extinguished from the game.

Agreed, metamagic reducers (including feats like DMM) are one of the main things which can move casters from very powerful to ridiculously OP, I ban or limit most of them when I DM. Metamagic School Focus is OK as it's only 3/day. Metamagic Song doesn't allow you to increase the effective level of the spell beyond the maximum that you could normally cast anyway, if the same restriction is applied to DMM it goes from broken to merely useful.

[Anthrowhale]

Without metamagic reduction there are some metamagic feats that seems fully worthwhile. In particular, I like:
+0: Invisible Spell, Alternate Source Spell. Invisible spell is extraordinary. Alternate Source Spell is primarily useful for early entry but is also useful with ASF or some specialized monsters that resist divine spells.
+1: Forceful Spell, Flash Frost Spell, Sculpt Spell, Extend spell, Silent Spell. The first 2 add (potential) action costs to opponents while Sculpt Spell provides much greater flexibility in multi-opponent encounters. For Extend spell, doubling the duration is handy in many situations. For Silent Spell, being able to cast spells without being detected is kind of like being able to cast many spells in the first round of combat.
+2: Ocular Spell. This is 1/combat free quicken spell + the ability to make touch spells operate at range.
+3: Chain Spell. This is useful both offensively (Chain Baleful Polymorph) and defensively (Chain Magic Vestment).
+4: Quicken Spell. The ability to throw another low level spell in the same round is great.
+6: Persistent Spell. A super-buffer spell since you can make spells lasting 1 round go all day. Even restricted to spells of level 1-3, this is impressive.
Variable: Heighten Spell. For spellcasters maximizing the DC of saves, this is borderline required.

The value of metamagic feats also goes up substantially for spontaneous casters.

[Asmotherion]

Persistant Spell: Buffstack yourself virtual imunity to everything/an incredible caster level and some awesome magic attacks you can use all day.

Fell Drain Spell: Any spell that deals hp damage can give a negative level. Functions greatly Persisted.

Heighten Spell+Earth Spell: What Spell Resistance? What Saves?

invisible spell: even the most severe readings still allow some form of cheese to come out of it.

Twin spell: 'Cause what's better than one spell? Two spells.

Quicken Spell: Unless you have access to Arcane Spellsurge and Arcane Fusion this is the most reliable way to cast more than 1 spell per round.

And don't get me started on metamagic from kingdoms of kalamar such as irresistable spell and miser with magic.

There's a reason metamagic alternative payments/reducers (incantatrix/node metamagic/divine metamagic etc) are in the top grade optimisation.

[Malphegor]

I'm not a big fan of metamagic feats, if only because there's feats out there that do a lot more narratively while they're purely mechanical flexibility changes. Like, guys, there's a feat out there called spirit sense which is an automatic 'you can speak to this dead briefly' ability on recent dead things. Feats are valuable and way more fun than the metamagic feats make them seem.

But, I'm quite fond of some. City Magic for one kind of changes how I look at magic (it makes me more like a ranger, trying to find my 'favoured terrain' of a decent civilisation and makes me keen to find civilisation in games, but of course depends on your game.

Sanctum Spell *feels* to me like a cornerstone of what wizards should have. A wizard is at most powerful in their tower, near their library, naturally. That's the natural order of things.

Beyond those two... Eh. They tend to be picked by me solely as a case by case basis. Or if I'm playing a spellscale I suppose I can pick and mix them, but... eh. they're just so boring.

[Oberron]

I'm not a big fan of metamagic feats, if only because there's feats out there that do a lot more narratively while they're purely mechanical flexibility changes. Like, guys, there's a feat out there called spirit sense which is an automatic 'you can speak to this dead briefly' ability on recent dead things. Feats are valuable and way more fun than the metamagic feats make them seem.

But, I'm quite fond of some. City Magic for one kind of changes how I look at magic (it makes me more like a ranger, trying to find my 'favoured terrain' of a decent civilisation and makes me keen to find civilisation in games, but of course depends on your game.

Sanctum Spell *feels* to me like a cornerstone of what wizards should have. A wizard is at most powerful in their tower, near their library, naturally. That's the natural order of things.

Beyond those two... Eh. They tend to be picked by me solely as a case by case basis. Or if I'm playing a spellscale I suppose I can pick and mix them, but... eh. they're just so boring.

The irony is that sanctum spell becomes broken powerful with a sorcerer when you aren't at home with arcane fusion

[TheCount]

no love for widen? really? there is even a PRC to make it expand the spells Area of Effect to 100% instead of 50%...

Reach, i can understand....

Persistent is nice , though, i would use it with a metamagic rod ( costum made, without limit version preferably, maybe restricted to only affect nondamaging spells that target creautes? it IS rare you need to persist bfc or damaging spells all day long....)

[Biggus]

no love for widen? really? there is even a PRC to make it expand the spells Area of Effect to 100% instead of 50%

Widen already expands the area of effect by 100%...

Also, what's the PRC?

[TheCount]

oh, it really is o.o
The class is War Mage from magic of faerun, 3.0 book, must have gotten stuck on it...

oh well.

[heavyfuel]

Widen Spell used to be +50% area in 3.0 (as opposed to +100% area in 3.5)

The class is War Wizard of Cormyr, which made it 100% as a capstone at lv 5 (minimum ECL 12)

[Elkad]

It's not just how good they are. What else do you spend your feats on? Item creation?

Even if you don't PRC out, a Wizard needs what feats? Improved Init, couple school focuses, maybe obtain familiar and improved familiar? That's 5. He gets 6, plus 4 bonus feats if he doesn't PRC out, and another for human.

Blowing a 5th level slot to Quicken a 1st level spell isn't efficient. But upping your action economy is.

Having your Rope Trick actually last the full 8 hours of rest plus 1 hour of spell study at CL5 is mighty nice. Same with a 10 hour Mage Armor that covers basically the whole adventuring day.