Metamagic to remove missile and ray number caps

[Fiery Diamond]

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in Homebrew, since it's actually a single, simple question:

If you were to create a metamagic feat that could remove the cap for things like magic missile and scorching ray so that there was no upper limit on the number of missiles or rays, what would you put the level adjustment at? Pathfinder's Intensified Spell, which adds +5 to the damage dice cap of spells that do damage based directly on level, like fireball, is a +1 metamagic. This is more powerful than that, obviously. Should it be variable, like Heighten Spell, and depend on how many extra damage dice were involved? Something like +1 per five or portion of five extra damage dice, so a CL 11-20 Magic Missile would only be +1; as would a CL 14 Scorching Ray, but a CL 17 Scorching Ray would be +2 and a CL 20 Scorching Ray would be +3?

What do you guys think?

[Max Caysey]

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in Homebrew, since it's actually a single, simple question:

If you were to create a metamagic feat that could remove the cap for things like magic missile and scorching ray so that there was no upper limit on the number of missiles or rays, what would you put the level adjustment at? Pathfinder's Intensified Spell, which adds +5 to the damage dice cap of spells that do damage based directly on level, like fireball, is a +1 metamagic. This is more powerful than that, obviously. Should it be variable, like Heighten Spell, and depend on how many extra damage dice were involved? Something like +1 per five or portion of five extra damage dice, so a CL 11-20 Magic Missile would only be +1; as would a CL 14 Scorching Ray, but a CL 17 Scorching Ray would be +2 and a CL 20 Scorching Ray would be +3?

What do you guys think?

You mean like Enhance spell?

[Beni-Kujaku]

You mean like Enhance spell?

Yeah‚ but also affecting ray spells‚ and also actually useful. 4 levels for only damage spells is way too much.

If we go by Dispel Magic/Greater Dispel Magic and Fireburst/Greater Fireburst‚ the cost for increasing the level cap by 10 is around +3. The greater version also has slightly better effects‚ but that seems pretty fair to me as a general rule‚ if it was applicable to all spells.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Reserves of Strength does this, removing all of the "normal level-fixed limits of a spell."

It's in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Reserves of Strength does this, removing all of the "normal level-fixed limits of a spell."

It's in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting.

To note is that the feat is pretty badly written, and the most probably intended effect is to only increase the limits by 3 levels at most. In general, almost no DM will allow somebody to completely bypass level limits using Reserves of Strength outside of purely RAW consideration.

[King of Nowhere]

I think it would be more fair to have a scaling effect; for every 5 extra dice it costs +1
Beware, it can get VERY strong with metamagic cost reduction. Even just easy metamagic would allow a 4th level, 20d6 fireball

[H_H_F_F]

Reserves of Strength does this, removing all of the "normal level-fixed limits of a spell."

It's in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting.

RAI here is pretty clearly against RAW, and I don't personally know a DM that would let RAW fly here.

[Biggus]

Yeah‚ but also affecting ray spells‚ and also actually useful. 4 levels for only damage spells is way too much.

If we go by Dispel Magic/Greater Dispel Magic and Fireburst/Greater Fireburst‚ the cost for increasing the level cap by 10 is around +3. The greater version also has slightly better effects‚ but that seems pretty fair to me as a general rule‚ if it was applicable to all spells.

I think it's based on the table on p.36 of the DMG, where damage dice caps increase by 5 every 2 spells levels.

As an epic feat Enhance Spell is definitely underpowered, as once the dice cap on spells reaches 15 it's always better to use Empower Spell and/or Twin spell. But for 10 dice cap spells it works out the same value as Empower and Twin, and for 5 dice it's actually better if it's a 1 dice per caster level spell.

For ray spells Split Ray is better than any of the above.

So while Enhance Spell as an epic feat should probably be +3 or possibly even +2, as a normal feat it would be stronger than other metamagic except Split Ray.

Also, why do you think Enhance Spell doesn't affect rays? As far as I can see it works just the same on them as on other spells.

[nedz]

Would the end result allow for a more powerful Mailman ?

[Vaern]

I'd say +1 spell level per additional projectile would probably be reasonable, granting that the number of projectiles fired is still dependent on your caster level. I think this is actually what 5e does with Magic Missile, rather than basing the effect on caster level.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

RAI here is pretty clearly against RAW, and I don't personally know a DM that would let RAW fly here.What's the source for this? Because I've never seen any statements from the devs, and Reserves of Strength itself says nothing of the sort.

[Beni-Kujaku]

So while Enhance Spell as an epic feat should probably be +3 or possibly even +2, as a normal feat it would be stronger than other metamagic except Split Ray.
Also, why do you think Enhance Spell doesn't affect rays? As far as I can see it works just the same on them as on other spells.

The strength of Empower is that it affects any kind of spells‚ some of which don't deal damage‚ like Awaken or a lower level Summon Monster‚ including some spells with no caps. And for damaging spells‚ at +3 it would only be better than Maximize if you're 10 levels above the cap‚ so something like a 20th level wizard casting Fireball. That really doesn't seem overpowered to me.

I think Enhance Spell doesn't affect rays because the number of damage dice isn't limited by level. Only the number of rays is (at least for Scorching Ray‚ which was what I was thinking of)

[H_H_F_F]

What's the source for this? Because I've never seen any statements from the devs, and Reserves of Strength itself says nothing of the sort.

No source (I left out the IMO I meant to type, sorry).

Given what the feat focuses on and how it's phrased ("with this feat"), it seems pretty clear to me that the breaking of celings was only meant to refer to the increase from the feat itself.

[Biggus]

I think Enhance Spell doesn't affect rays because the number of damage dice isn't limited by level. Only the number of rays is (at least for Scorching Ray‚ which was what I was thinking of)

Ah, I see. There don't seem to be that many damage-dealing rays, but of those I can find Scorching Ray is the exception, Polar Ray and Disintegrate work normally for example.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ah, I see. There don't seem to be that many damage-dealing rays, but of those I can find Scorching Ray is the exception, Polar Ray and Disintegrate work normally for example.

Yes‚ obviously‚ it's just that that's not what OP is looking for

[Elkad]

In general, almost no DM will allow somebody to completely bypass level limits using Reserves of Strength outside of purely RAW consideration.

Why not? It was the default in earlier editions, no tricks needed.

A 17th level 1e M-U threw around 17d6 fireballs out of a 3rd level slot, or 9 magic missiles out of a first level one, no tricks required. And PCs had FAR less hitpoints, so blasting spells were more lethal. That 17th level MU could have mere 72hp, with perfect rolls and a 16+ Con. More likely he wouldn't even have the 60 to be immune to his counterpart's Power Word: Kill.

3.5 doesn't break if you remove the caps and run it exactly the same.

So just throw them out.

Or at least allow Heighten to raise the cap to match a spell of the new level. So a Fireball heightened to 5th level would have a 15d6 cap, same as a Cone of Cold. After all it IS a 5th level spell at that point, and you can argue that RAW the die cap is a function of the level, just like the DC or penetrating a Globe of Invulnerability is.

[Scots Dragon]

Why not? It was the default in earlier editions, no tricks needed.

A 17th level 1e M-U threw around 17d6 fireballs out of a 3rd level slot, or 9 magic missiles out of a first level one, no tricks required. And PCs had FAR less hitpoints, so blasting spells were more lethal. That 17th level MU could have mere 72hp, with perfect rolls and a 16+ Con. More likely he wouldn't even have the 60 to be immune to his counterpart's Power Word: Kill.

3.5 doesn't break if you remove the caps and run it exactly the same.

So just throw them out.

Only problem that does turn up is that empower spell becomes a little super-useful and you're always best off prioritising lower level empowered effects. Might be best to increase its level adjustment as a result.

[Elkad]

So you use minor globe then. Stops all that.
Huge fireballs are bad for zombie hordes, not players or the Grand Vizier.

[Powerdork]

Not that it's relevant, but the force missile mage prestige class in Dragon Compendium specializes in magic missile spells to the point of getting extra missiles. I don't think metamagic fictionally or structurally should be able to uncap missile counts.

[SangoProduction]

Here's my suggestion, as always: Use Spheres of Power.
Destruction sphere. Force damage custom blast type for 1d4 damage, and Unerring blast shape. Boom.
You now gain 1d4 damage per 2 CL that doesn't miss. No fiddling about. No rules interpretation. And has inherent "You are allowed to fluff this however you want, so it can be a missile swarm, or one over sized ki blast."

[RandomPeasant]

Would the end result allow for a more powerful Mailman ?

Probably. But the Mailman already deals enough damage that the only feasible defenses are one that negate their spells entirely, and this wouldn't let you deal with those.


Only problem that does turn up is that empower spell becomes a little super-useful and you're always best off prioritising lower level empowered effects. Might be best to increase its level adjustment as a result.

I mean, is Empowered fireball really better than cloudkill? I would argue that it's not. Indeed, people don't cast Empowered fireballs instead of cloudkills at 10th level, and fireball's damage scales fully there. Blasting, outside of tricked out Mailman builds, is one of the weakest types of combat spellcasting, it is okay if you make changes that cause it to be better.

[Ramza00]

Wasn’t there some 3.0 Dragon feats that did this in a Ray Focused article. Some of those feats and spells got 3.5 updates and others did not.

[Seward]

The strength of Empower is that it affects any kind of spells‚ some of which don't deal damage‚ like Awaken or a lower level Summon Monster‚ including some spells with no caps. And for damaging spells‚ at +3 it would only be better than Maximize if you're 10 levels above the cap‚ so something like a 20th level wizard casting Fireball. That really doesn't seem overpowered to me.


Empower can get pretty impressive if you have +x/die type effects.

An empowered fireball is 35*1.5=52 points of damage, maximized 60. It'll scale the same way as you add more dice

An empowered false life scales with the adder, not the die, so 1d10+(max 10) is 16-30, where maximized is only +10. But if the feat only adds +dice that won't matter.

You can add bonuses to fireball dice (in core, only magic missile does this and nobody maximizes magic missiles unless they are also empowering them, generally), and a +1 per die makes them nearly identical (average 67 vs 70), +2 per die makes empowered better. (average 82 vs 80max). I know one way to get to +1 and +2 on the same character for any spell that does +dice damage - frostfell has shenanigans, although you do have to set it up using other spells and effects. There are probably other ways too.

For your average character though, you want something less stupid than Enhance spell (gee, I can quicken or twin a spell, or I can add a few d6. Which will I do?). +4 is way too high. +2 is probably about right if it bumps the cap by 50%, +3 if it doubles it.



I mean, is Empowered fireball really better than cloudkill?

Yeah, it really is. Anything cloudkill kills outright, the fireball will too (unless you can somehow leverage the damage/round thing by people unable to get out of the way as it moves). Anything the cloudkill kills on a save/die will probably also die to a 10d6 empowered fireball if it blows its save. The marginal benefit you get from tiny con loss if a higher level character fails a fort save (very unlikely with high level monsters, advanced to "roll a 2 to fail" or outright immune to poison) is probably less than the hitpoints stripped off on a passed save, and reflex is more likely to fail on anything dangerous (casters, melee brutes. Rouge-types and rogue-type monsters are weak). More critters are absolutely immune to poison than are fire resistant (and even fire resistance won't entirely stop an empowered fireball, some damage will likely leak through. Relevant damage? Maybe not, but neither will cloudkill on anything that tough).

All of that also leaves aside that a 2nd level hour-level buff (slow poison) and a common 6th level 12 hour buff (hero's feast) make enemies also laugh off poison if they have spell support rather than being naturally immune. Said buffs are more likely to be in place than resist energy-type buffs (which have to guard against 5 energy types, guess right and have shorter duration and, when truly immune, are competing with Hero's Feast which also makes you immune to fear plus other minor bonuses)

What can be better than an empowered fireball is stuff where saves and common passive immunities don't matter. Solid fog, for example, but that does assume your party can kill efficiently enemies that stumble out of the fog one at a time. Cloudkill though? I only take that spell in CRPGs where you might encounter some annoying trash that you can kill faster with it than other alternatives.

Honestly, anything involving poison is very weak past level 10, and isn't all that strong even in lower levels. Fire isn't the best element to use, but it is quite often the basic chasse of spells that can be boosted to the point where they keep up with hitpoint growth if you make an effort. Hitpoint damage stacks with everything the rest of your party is doing, and dead is the best condition, and only a few critters can come back from it and those not in time to turn the tide of the battle.


Only problem that does turn up is that empower spell becomes a little super-useful and you're always best off prioritising lower level empowered effects. Might be best to increase its level adjustment as a result.

There is the matter of lower saving throws to consider. But mostly the point you raise is more a weakness of higher level d6/lvl spells design than really a problem to solve. The fireball cap means empowered fireball higher damage than cone of cold in the L9-15 range...but..that's the range where somebody wants to use cone of cold anyway.

If you want higher level spells to be more attractive than empowered lower level spells offer more than a different blast shape and the same d6/lvl mechanic. Cone of Cold is a poor design. Dragon Breath is better - it offers versatility and non-damage effects, with same damage cap as fireball in 3.5. In Pathfinder, it only gives damage type and line/cone shapes, but has a 15d cap. Both spells are sometimes used. Cone of cold rarely used barring a core-only game with a flying arcane who likes to zap everybody (its blast is really huge if you aim down) or a dedicated frost mage.

In first edition my wizard took Delayed Blast Fireball because it was a land-mine. The damage difference vs fireball or lack of it didn't matter it was the DELAYED BLAST aspect that mattered (or sometimes blasting those pesky globes of invulnerable enemy wizards)