Arcane Thesis cheese

[Beni-Kujaku]

The Arcane Thesis feats states "When you apply any metamagic feats other than Heighten Spell to that spell, the enhanced spell uses up a spell slot one level lower than normal.
A spell cannot be reduced to below its original level with the use of this feat."

Note that the limitation is not "each metamagic feat cannot have an effective spell level increase less than zero", but only on the final level. Which means, if I'm not mistaken, that every time you apply a +0 metamagic on the spell, you get a free -1 metamagic reducer. You could cast a Maximized Empowered (Insidious Pernicious Tenacious Energy-substituted) Fireball as a 3rd level spell. Or a Persistent (Sanctum Insidious Pernicious Tenacious Invisible) wraithstrike as a level 1 spell.

When you go with Sudden metamagic feats, then this starts to become really cheesy.

I have a few questions on this.

1) Does this really work?
2) Is there a way to make it count for several spells, to easily change the focus of Arcane Thesis or classes that get Arcane thesis as bonus feats?
3) If you then use Heighten, can this make you qualify for classes that need you to be able to cast high level spells, even if you don't have the slots for it?

[tyckspoon]

1: Yes, it is generally accepted to work that way, at least as the text is written. It is also very common to houserule otherwise, as it's kind of silly.
2: No, not without using further optimization/cheese to get many more feats or to have a way to repick your feats on the fly.
3: Arcane Thesis explicitly does not interact with Heighten Spell (If you wanted to Heighten your Arcane Thesis to Fireball, it would still be a 4th level spell, and the floor Arcane Thesis could reduce it to would be 4 instead of 3. So no, you couldn't cheat a higher spell level access this way.)

[Beni-Kujaku]

1: Yes, it is generally accepted to work that way, at least as the text is written. It is also very common to houserule otherwise, as it's kind of silly.
2: No, not without using further optimization/cheese to get many more feats or to have a way to repick your feats on the fly.
3: Arcane Thesis explicitly does not interact with Heighten Spell (If you wanted to Heighten your Arcane Thesis to Fireball, it would still be a 4th level spell, and the floor Arcane Thesis could reduce it to would be 4 instead of 3. So no, you couldn't cheat a higher spell level access this way.)

It cannot interact at all with Heighten? The way I read it, applying heighten does not reduce the effective spell level by one, but other feats can "buy back" Heighten normally. The spell cannot be reduced below its "original level". I see no mention of Heighten in the level limitation, only when it states that AT does not reduce the metamagic cost of Heighten.

[tyckspoon]

It cannot interact at all with Heighten? The way I read it, applying heighten does not reduce the effective spell level by one, but other feats can "buy back" Heighten normally. The spell cannot be reduced below its "original level". I see no mention of Heighten in the level limitation, only when it states that AT does not reduce the metamagic cost of Heighten.

Heighten actually changes the level of a spell, not just its required slot to cast. Arcane Thesis cannot reduce a spell below its actual level. Ergo, Arcane Thesis cannot reduce a Heightened Spell below the Heightened level.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

1. Yes it works, don't forget about metamagic rods.
2. Chameleon 2 from Races of Destiny gets a bonus feat that you can repick every day.
3. The text of the feat itself says no: "When you apply a metamagic feat other than Heighten Spell to that spell, the enhanced spell uses up a spell slot one level lower than normal."

[Tzardok]

Curious. I read this apparently different than others. It says "When you apply any metamagic feats other than Heighten Spell to that spell, the enhanced spell uses up a spell slot one level lower than normal." The plural expresses (to me) obviously that if you put any number of metamagic feats on a spell, you get a single reduction.

[Mordaedil]

Curious. I read this apparently different than others. It says "When you apply any metamagic feats other than Heighten Spell to that spell, the enhanced spell uses up a spell slot one level lower than normal." The plural expresses (to me) obviously that if you put any number of metamagic feats on a spell, you get a single reduction.

There's literally an example in the feat itself.

"Thus if you were to prepare an empowered maximized magic missile (assuming magic missile is the spell you choose for your Arcane Thesis), it would be prepared as a 4th level spell (+1 level for empowered, down from +2; and +2 levels for maximized, down from +3)."

[Kalkra]

You should be able to reduce Heighten with other +0 metamagics, which would then enable you to qualify for casting higher level spells, but that requires a ton of feats. It would be easier to use free sources of Heighten, like Sanctum Spell, Eldritch Corruption, Divine Metamagic, Tainted Sorcerer/Scholar, and by RAW Residual Magic, although your DM might rule that you can only Heighten it as much as the spell you cast last round. Also, if you're a divine caster, Mad Faith can get you a 3rd-level spell slot.