Are there any shenanigans with Echoing Spell?

[Rebel7284]

An echoing spell is first cast as normal. After 1 hour, the spell then returns to you as if it had been prepared an additional time, and can be cast again at any time. However, the second time the echoing spell is cast, you treat your caster level as four lower for the purpose of effect, area, range, duration, and overcoming spell resistance. This process repeats itself every time the spell is cast, reducing your effective caster level by four until your effective raster level is no longer high enough to cast the original spell (at which point the spell is not regained).

For example, a 9th-level wizard has an echoing Melfs Acid Arrow prepared. She casts the spell the first time at 9th level, giving her maximum long range and dealing acid damage for 4 rounds (1 round + 1 round per three levels). After 1 hour, she can cast the spell again as a 5th-level caster, reducing its range and dealing acid damage for 2 rounds. The spell cannot be regained a third time, however, because her effective caster level of 1st would be below the minimum level needed to cast the spell.

You must expend any material or XP components for an echoing spell each time it is cast. An echoing spell that is counterspelled as it is being cast does not return to the caster.

This feat can be applied only to prepared spells. Spells cast spontaneously cannot benefit from this feat.

An echoing spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher than the spell's actual level.


This feat always intrigued be because of the value you could potentially get from it. First of all, it's not 100% clear to me if the caster level penalty is 4 lower than the caster level at which the spell was last prepared or last cast. If it's cast, then using it in combination with something like Divine Spell Power or Elder Giant Magic + Primitive Spellcaster or some such way of increasing your caster level when you cast a spell could over time give you an arbitrary high caster level for that spell slot. However, when there is a lack of clarity, presumably most DMs would chose an option that does not break the game (but hey, those with permissive DMs or TO builds, take note!)

Outside of that, it looks like it's most useful with caster level optimization, especially circle magic, that could allow 10 castings or more of low level spells.

I am also unclear about the best spells to use with this. With circle magic and extend spell, you could probably get a minute/level spell to last most of the adventuring day, but of course spells that don't care about caster level much are optimal. Arcane Fusion comes to mind, but that requires a Sorcerer with Arcane Preparation feat that can't use Echoing Spell otherwise. Another minor way of optimizing this could be burning the spell slot for something like Arcane Strike or other abilities that sacrifice spell slots once the caster level gets very low.

What are y'all thoughts? Anyone use this feat to good effect? Any ways of breaking it completely?

[thethird]

What are y'all thoughts? Anyone use this feat to good effect? Any ways of breaking it completely?

Get something that does prepared and spontaneous spells.

Like a wizard with spontaneous divination (add versatile spellcaster for better results). Once the caster level gets low enough that it won't let you recast it again (or that you don't want it) trade it away. In general anything that would let you trade spell slots away can be useful.

Get metamagic cost reductions on it. If you specialize in one spell (such as by being a shadowcraft mage illusionist) use residual metamagic to cheat it in.

[Gruftzwerg]

some ideas:

1. Echoing Spell (Greater) Arcane Fusion - Sorcerer
Always a good pick if you play a sorcerer.

2. Persistent (Greater) Consumptive Field - Cleric
If you have this up, your caster level will increase over the course of the day with each encounter. This will help you to cast your Echoing Spell even more often.

3. Any spell with dmg dice or non clvl dependent effect.
a) Finger of Death. It doesn't matter for the save roll that you cast it at a lover caster level.
b) Meteor Swarm
These have their full effect. The sole downside can be foes that have Spell Resistance.

edit:
maybe combine all of the things mentioned above by playing a Death Domain Sorcerer? ^^

[MaxiDuRaritry]

What about using it on a spell that grants more spell slots, like mnemonic enhancer?

Echoing that with, say, Versatile Spellcaster could get some funky stuff going.

How does this work on, say, a wand, or a staff with a really high CL?

[Gruftzwerg]

What about using it on a spell that grants more spell slots, like mnemonic enhancer?

Echoing that with, say, Versatile Spellcaster could get some funky stuff going.

How does this work on, say, a wand, or a staff with a really high CL?

Since a wand is limited to 4th lvl spells and Echoing Spell increases the lvl by 3 this would limit it to 1st lvl spells for wands.

Are there any staffs with metamagic versions of spells at all? Dunno, did never come up for me.

___

This made me thinking about craftlocks. Because a craftlock determines his caster level for crafting purposes via an UMD roll. And those can be optimized pretty high. I think I would go for scrolls as medium here. This would increase the value you get from using a single scroll.

[Anthrowhale]

How many spells do you get back if you cast a Repeat Echoing spell?

[Akal Saris]

1) Fun with Spelldancer
I once made a build using Echoing Spell, Spelldancer, and various spell substitution options (such as spontaneous divination, domains, and whatnot).

Basically, you spend the morning casting your entire suite of persisted+echoing buffs with spelldancer, and then when the spells come back an hour later, you have them on hand to use as fuel for spontaneous divination, or to use with trade-spells-for-effects like the Arcane Strike feat, the Draconic Breath feat (though that requires a sorcerer level), or ultimate magus' class abilities, for example.

Obviously spelldancer+persist is doing the heavy lifting here and recovering the slots with echoing is just a nice bonus, but one could also adapt the concept for more of a gish build, skipping persist to simply cast extended+echoing buffs a few times per day.

2) Gish build with sacrificing slots
For example, a Warblade 1/Wiz 6/Jade Phoenix Mage 2 (ECL 9, CL 7, effective CL 9 with Practiced Spellcaster or Illumian) could cast echoing 1st level spells 3-4 times during the day, allowing repeated use, and then use up the spell for the arcane wrath ability or Arcane Strike feat when the caster level is too weak to matter.

3) Fun with Residual Metamagic
Low CL spells can be cast, and then the next round a scroll/wand of the same spell can be used, and thanks to Residual Metamagic it will use your full CL, save DC, etc. There's probably something useful there?

[Rebel7284]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!


Get something that does prepared and spontaneous spells.

Like a wizard with spontaneous divination (add versatile spellcaster for better results). Once the caster level gets low enough that it won't let you recast it again (or that you don't want it) trade it away. In general anything that would let you trade spell slots away can be useful.

Get metamagic cost reductions on it. If you specialize in one spell (such as by being a shadowcraft mage illusionist) use residual metamagic to cheat it in.

Ah yes, Spontaneous Divination definitely fits the theme more consistently than Arcane Strike!
Residual Magic is a GREAT way to apply it for free on a Shadowcraft Mage! Not to mention that Earth Spell that those builds often take helps with caster level.

Also, to take this even further, once you have applied echoing spell, you have multiple opportunities to apply other metamagic. Since you cast the spell affected by echoing spell several times, some of those might be after other spells affected by metamagic! (admittedly, each other metamagic feat added also effectively means -4 CL since you needed to have cast the spell)


some ideas:

1. Echoing Spell (Greater) Arcane Fusion - Sorcerer
Always a good pick if you play a sorcerer.

2. Persistent (Greater) Consumptive Field - Cleric
If you have this up, your caster level will increase over the course of the day with each encounter. This will help you to cast your Echoing Spell even more often.

3. Any spell with dmg dice or non clvl dependent effect.
a) Finger of Death. It doesn't matter for the save roll that you cast it at a lover caster level.
b) Meteor Swarm
These have their full effect. The sole downside can be foes that have Spell Resistance.

edit:
maybe combine all of the things mentioned above by playing a Death Domain Sorcerer? ^^

As mentioned in the OP, sorcerers would need Arcane Preparation to use this feat. With that said, certainly an option.

Consumptive field is certainly a great way to boost caster level, with that said, I don't think it's clear how it would interact with echoing spell. If you prepare your echoing spell at CL 10, cast it the first time when your CL is 12 and then again when your caster level is 15, what actually happens? This seems like a more complicated case of the question in the OP about "treat your caster level four lower than WHAT"


What about using it on a spell that grants more spell slots, like mnemonic enhancer?

Echoing that with, say, Versatile Spellcaster could get some funky stuff going.

How does this work on, say, a wand, or a staff with a really high CL?

Mnemonic Enhancer's 10 minute casting time gives me pause, with that said, you can definitely get a LOT of low level spells if your caster level is high enough.

Since this feat only works with prepared spellcasting, Versatile Spellcaster may not work at all. Assuming that it does, yeah, things can get a bit weird. The relevant text for both this question and the items is that the spell returns as if it was prepared an additional time. So it sounds like it's not necessarily trying to find the same spell slot or anything, it comes back as its own new thing. With that said, the word "return" is there which _might_ imply that you have to be the source, not an item.


How many spells do you get back if you cast a Repeat Echoing spell?

Depends on how philosophical you want to be about the spell returning vs. the mechanical description of it being prepared an additional time. Assuming that you can indeed return multiple times, this is exponential growth... although if the -4CL per casting is linked to ALL of the spell slots, the growth might end real quickly.


1) Fun with Spelldancer
I once made a build using Echoing Spell, Spelldancer, and various spell substitution options (such as spontaneous divination, domains, and whatnot).

Basically, you spend the morning casting your entire suite of persisted+echoing buffs with spelldancer, and then when the spells come back an hour later, you have them on hand to use as fuel for spontaneous divination, or to use with trade-spells-for-effects like the Arcane Strike feat, the Draconic Breath feat (though that requires a sorcerer level), or ultimate magus' class abilities, for example.

Obviously spelldancer+persist is doing the heavy lifting here and recovering the slots with echoing is just a nice bonus, but one could also adapt the concept for more of a gish build, skipping persist to simply cast extended+echoing buffs a few times per day.

2) Gish build with sacrificing slots
For example, a Warblade 1/Wiz 6/Jade Phoenix Mage 2 (ECL 9, CL 7, effective CL 9 with Practiced Spellcaster or Illumian) could cast echoing 1st level spells 3-4 times during the day, allowing repeated use, and then use up the spell for the arcane wrath ability or Arcane Strike feat when the caster level is too weak to matter.

3) Fun with Residual Metamagic
Low CL spells can be cast, and then the next round a scroll/wand of the same spell can be used, and thanks to Residual Metamagic it will use your full CL, save DC, etc. There's probably something useful there?

Thanks for the builds and more ideas! I forgot about that mode of Residual Magic. So Residual Magic stays relevant even if you run out of slots to apply metamagic to by making your items better!

[Gruftzwerg]

Consumptive field is certainly a great way to boost caster level, with that said, I don't think it's clear how it would interact with echoing spell. If you prepare your echoing spell at CL 10, cast it the first time when your CL is 12 and then again when your caster level is 15, what actually happens? This seems like a more complicated case of the question in the OP about "treat your caster level four lower than WHAT"


regarding OP's question about: "treat your caster level four lower than WHAT"

Let me try to solve this lil riddle:

1. Consumptive Field gives a "self stacking bonus to your caster level" for each kill

2. Echoing Spell gives a "self stacking penalty" for each subsequent cast of the "echoed spell".


You just add up all relevant modifiers at any given moment.


I really don't get your confusion here (no offense, I'm just surprised). Or am I missing here something? Correct me if I did miss anything.

[Rebel7284]

regarding OP's question about: "treat your caster level four lower than WHAT"

Let me try to solve this lil riddle:

1. Consumptive Field gives a "self stacking bonus to your caster level" for each kill

2. Echoing Spell gives a "self stacking penalty" for each subsequent cast of the "echoed spell".


You just add up all relevant modifiers at any given moment.


I really don't get your confusion here (no offense, I'm just surprised). Or am I missing here something? Correct me if I did miss anything.

I think this is the most reasonable way to treat it, yes. I guess part of my confusion was thinking that it gets re-prepared with a lower caster level, but re-reading it, it does look like a penalty at the point of casting.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Convert your build to spell points? Spell point wizards are still prepared casters (of a sort), and returning your spell points at the end of an hour seems like an interesting way to vastly increase your magical stamina throughout the day.

[Tohron]

The most abusive thing I came up with was a Shadowcraft Mage/Incantatrix with Arcane Disciple(Luck) to imitate Miracle with Shadow Illusion. They could use Miracle to imitate Greater Consumptive Field, then use Metamagic Effect from the Incantatrix to apply Persistent Spell (which works because the original Heightened Silent Image had Ocular Spell applied) to make the effect last several days (due to several duration-boosting abilities). If they triggered multiple Greater Consumptive fields in a row so later ones got the benefit of earlier caster-level increases, and combined that with item boosts, spells to increase caster level, and caster level increases from Earth Spell, they ended up casting higher-level shadow illusions with a CL of over 70, for a truly ridiculous number of echos.

The full build is here: https://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=19953.0