metamagic rod and spell level

[Zhepna]

Hi,

my character has a metamagic Rod, Extend. If I cast a spell lvl 3, do I have to cast it in a lvl 4 spell slot ?

We always used the same level when we were using rods but I'm working on a dmm cleric build at the moment and even with the nighstick stacking, buying a few rod of persist will be cheaper instead to buy like 10 nightsticks so I wonder if we made a mistake all those years...

Thanks for the information.

[Rebel7284]

There is no rod of persist in any book nor a reliable formula to figure out how much it would cost if it existed, so that might be an issue for your plan to use it. Of course if you can try to convince your DM to create a custom item.

As to the rest of your question, you have been playing it correctly. Using the charge replaces both the need to have the relevant feat AND the need to prepare the spell in a higher level slot.

[Psyren]

Rods negate both the cast time increase (or the need to prep the spell with the feat, if you're not spontaneous), and the slot increase.

[Crake]

Also, arguably nightstick stacking doesn't work, as it simply increases your normal limit per day, so if you go from 3 uses to 7 uses, and you use all 7, when you swap to the next nightstick, your uses per day drop back to 3, and then rise back up to 7, which you've already used.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Also, arguably nightstick stacking doesn't work, as it simply increases your normal limit per day, so if you go from 3 uses to 7 uses, and you use all 7, when you swap to the next nightstick, your uses per day drop back to 3, and then rise back up to 7, which you've already used.

As obscene as it is, it works just fine. Nightsticks don't have to be held to work and each gives you 4 additional TU uses simply for possessing them.

At 15k per spell, they're not gonna let you cast too many persistent spells without getting ridiculously expensive.

[Caudex Capite]

DMM becomes a much more interesting build challenge/tradeoff if Nightstick stacking is disallowed, and it's not like Cleric needs the help, so I personally prefer to rule only one Nightstick works. That's not to say every table should play it the same way, of course.

Regardless, if you really need to Persist a whole bunch of buffs, there's always Spelldancer (MoF), which can be entered at level 6 and allows infinite persists per day at its first level if you can swing the 4 feat prereqs, slightly awkward skill prereqs, a strong perform check, and immunity to or infinite healing for con damage and fatigue. It's full casting progression, and gives Evasion at level 2, though the latter 3 levels are relatively mediocre.

[Crake]

As obscene as it is, it works just fine. Nightsticks don't have to be held to work and each gives you 4 additional TU uses simply for possessing them.

At 15k per spell, they're not gonna let you cast too many persistent spells without getting ridiculously expensive.

Thats even worse then, same source, doesn't stack.

[darkdragoon]

Nightstick is based off of Extra Turning, which explicitly stacks.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#extraTurning

That's not even getting into the fluff of rods being unique and not having the same qualms as other items about who can use it etc.

[Biggus]

We always used the same level when we were using rods but I'm working on a dmm cleric build at the moment and even with the nighstick stacking, buying a few rod of persist will be cheaper instead to buy like 10 nightsticks so I wonder if we made a mistake all those years...

Do you mean rods of extend? Pretty sure rods of persist wouldn't be cheaper than nightsticks even at the lowest estimate for their price, except possibly for level 1-3 spells.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I think, by looking at the old Tome and Blood prices, that I've sucessflly reverse engineered the metamagic rod formula.

The old formula seemed to be (1000 gp X the square of the highest spell effected X the difference in caster level to have a slot that many levels higher) X 0.6 for the 3/day limit. Then, when the 3.5 changeover happened, those prices were cut in half and rounded to the nearest 500gp.

That being the case, a rod of lesser persistence should cost (1000 X 11 X 32) X 0.6 = 59,400 by the old formula. Adjusted for the 3.5 change that's 29,500.

Same process gives me 119,000 for a regular rod and 267,500 for a greater rod of persistence.

FWIW, tome and blood didn't have persistent spell rods and the cost of the greater rod puts it in epic item territory.

[Biggus]

I think, by looking at the old Tome and Blood prices, that I've sucessflly reverse engineered the metamagic rod formula.

The old formula seemed to be (1000 gp X the square of the highest spell effected X the difference in caster level to have a slot that many levels higher) X 0.6 for the 3/day limit. Then, when the 3.5 changeover happened, those prices were cut in half and rounded to the nearest 500gp.

That being the case, a rod of lesser persistence should cost (1000 X 11 X 32) X 0.6 = 59,400 by the old formula. Adjusted for the 3.5 change that's 29,500.

Same process gives me 119,000 for a regular rod and 267,500 for a greater rod of persistence.

FWIW, tome and blood didn't have persistent spell rods and the cost of the greater rod puts it in epic item territory.

Nice, I'd partly worked out the formula but not all of it. A few points though:

1) Isn't it the difference in caster level to have a slot that many levels higher, minus one?

2) The rounding is a bit erratic. Generally they round UP to the next 500GP, but with the quicken rods they rounded down, and in the case of the lesser rod of empower, they rounded up to the nearest 1000GP.

3) While most metamagic rods follow this formula, the lesser rod of quicken doesn't.

[Kelb_Panthera]

1) Isn't it the difference in caster level to have a slot that many levels higher, minus one?

Yeah. To be clear 1 for +1, 3 for +2, 5 for +3, etc. The rods of metas that don't adjust the spell level were reduced by half from the +1 formula.


2) The rounding is a bit erratic. Generally they round UP to the next 500GP, but with the quicken rods they rounded down, and in the case of the lesser rod of empower, they rounded up to the nearest 1000GP.

WotC makes a fair number of errors for one. Whoever wrote it may have simply felt 8k was too low as well. You see a -lot- of ad-hoc in reversing these things. The most frustrating thing in the whole process was that the lesser rods of chain and maximize were both off by 200gp while all the other rods in T&B worked out exactly.


3) While most metamagic rods follow this formula, the lesser rod of quicken doesn't.

I'm gonna guess ad-hoc again. It works out exactly with the old price but for some reason it got cut -way- less than the others in the changeover.

Still, it works out 45 out of 49 times. I suspect that's as close as anyone's ever likely to get.

[Zhepna]

Thanks to everybody for the answers