Heighten Beyond 9th?

[Dark_Juggernaut]

Is there a hard cap anywhere on how high you can heighten a spells level with the Heighten metamagic and abilities that augment, reduce, or remove the cost of applying metamagic? This is of course assuming you have the spell slot to support the new cost of the spell.

As an example: Heightening an 8th level spell by 3 spell levels.
Ultimate Magus sacrifices a 3rd level spell slot from alternate class slots.
Cleric uses sufficient turn attempts to fuel divine metamagic.
Earth spell+incantatrix+practical metamagic.

[Psyren]

You need Improved Spell Capacity to unlock slots past 9th.

[Urpriest]

You need Improved Spell Capacity to unlock slots past 9th.

Not what's being discussed, as far as I can tell.

[Psyren]

Not what's being discussed, as far as I can tell.

It's definitely relevant; unless he can mitigate every point of the increase past 9th, he will need slots above it. (Just not as many, potentially.)

[Douglas]

Heighten Spell itself has a cap of 9th level. Things that add their own addition on top, such as Sanctum Spell and Earth Spell, can exceed that, but the excess beyond 9th level is limited to the amount coming from those other sources. The cap is on the effect, not the cost, so cost replacement mechanisms don't help; you need things that give additional effect.

To go beyond 9th with just the Heightening, you need Improved Heighten Spell.

[Dark_Juggernaut]

It's definitely relevant; unless he can mitigate every point of the increase past 9th, he will need slots above it. (Just not as many, potentially.)

My original post included mitigating all spell slots beyond 9th in the examples. Your link, however, pretty much cleared up that spell levels beyond 9th indeed EXIST in a form OTHER than epic spells. Thank you.

[Claudius Maximus]

I think there's an argument that Circle Magic can heighten to 20th.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Wasn't the most powerful tricks of a Shadowcraft mage (AKA the Killer Gnome build) heightening silent images to more than 10th level spells to have more than 100% quasi-reality on the illusions?

IIRC it was a combination of stone spell and heighten ore something like that.

[Dark_Juggernaut]

That's exactly the road I'm traveling with a particular gestalt I'm working on. I'm thinking the max it can accomplish is a 6th level programmed image heightened by 10 levels via a 9th level spell slot to 16+1=17th level spell.

That's not the intention of the build, just the maximum spell level it can achieve.

[Douglas]

That's exactly the road I'm traveling with a particular gestalt I'm working on. I'm thinking the max it can accomplish is a 6th level programmed image heightened by 10 levels via a 9th level spell slot to 16+1=17th level spell.

That's not the intention of the build, just the maximum spell level it can achieve.

A heightened spell has a higher spell level than normal (up to a maximum of 9th level).

Regardless of how you pay for it and where you start from, the end result from Heighten can't go above 9th. Earth Spell can bump that up 1 more to 10th. 17th level is unreachable without the epic feat Improved Heighten Spell.

The Shadowcraft Mage build gets more-real-than-reality illusions by Heightening to 9th, boosting that to 10th with Earth Spell, and then applying another class ability that gives a bonus directly to the %reality of the shadow illusions.

Also, you'd need 12 levels of Ultimate Magus to use Augmented Casting on a 6th level spell, and that's not possible before epic.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Yes. See circle magic. Other than that and epic, see my Prereq handbook on BG

/thread

[Starbuck_II]

You need Improved Spell Capacity to unlock slots past 9th.

A Rogue can gain that feat without Preqs at 10th level as a bonus feat. Drawback, big dip for a caster.

[Psyren]

Yes. See circle magic. Other than that and epic, see my Prereq handbook on BG

/thread

You can't just end a threa-

Where did everyone go?

[Douglas]

A Rogue can gain that feat without Preqs at 10th level as a bonus feat. Drawback, big dip for a caster.

No, Rogue bonus feats do not ignore prerequisites.

[BeholderSlayer]

Circle Magic can heighten to 20th. It's not an argument, it's an absolute fact.

[herrhauptmann]

A Rogue can gain that feat without Preqs at 10th level as a bonus feat. Drawback, big dip for a caster.

Even if a rogue could, he'd still need to be [EPIC] to take that feat, which is dependent entirely on his hit dice/class level.
I'm curious though, how does a 10th level rogue meet that requirement?

Prerequisite

Ability to cast spells of the normal maximum spell level in at least one spellcasting class.

[Starbuck_II]

Even if a rogue could, he'd still need to be [EPIC] to take that feat, which is dependent entirely on his hit dice/class level.
I'm curious though, how does a 10th level rogue meet that requirement?

Usually Bonus feats say they require Preqs. Look at Fighter Bonus,
vompare with Rogue: yep, Rogue doesn't say it requires it.
See:
A fighter must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability score and base attack bonus minimums.
Rogue:


Nothing about that.
Wizard:
The wizard must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including caster level minimums.

One of these is not like the other.

[tyckspoon]

Usually Bonus feats say they require Preqs. Look at Fighter Bonus,
vompare with Rogue: yep, Rogue doesn't say it requires it.
See:
A fighter must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability score and base attack bonus minimums.
Rogue:

Even if you grant that interpretation, 10 levels of Rogue in order to gain a higher-level spell slot is wildly counterproductive for a Wizard; if you're not into Epic levels already, you just blew up 10 levels of normal spellcasting progression. If you are, you'll get those bonus feats faster from Epic Wizard or relevant Prestige Class levels.

[BeholderSlayer]

One of these is not like the other.

Remotely intelligent reading dictates that you have to come up with much more evidence than that. You know, like the whole section about taking feats.

[Claudius Maximus]

Many bonus feats note that you need prerequisites, and many other note that you do not need prerequisites.

What is your evidence that bonus feats without any statement one way or another deviate from the general rule that you need to meet prerequisites?

[herrhauptmann]

Words

By your reasoning, anyone who is a non caster can take this feat whenever they gain a feat which isn't restricted to a given list. And they can take it, because they have reached the highest level spell possible for their class selection, in this case is 'none,' not 0 (cantrips/orisons) but 'none'.

I remain unconvinced. A rogues bonus feat is identical to any characters 12th/15th/18th level feats, which can be any feat for which the character meets the prereqs.
In this case, there's technically two. One, is the EPIC keyword, for which you need 21 class levels. The other: "Ability to cast spells of the normal maximum spell level in at least one spellcasting class."

But even if you were right, it would be useless, because its not like they suddenly gain access to 10th level spells.

[Amiel]

Heighten Spell can only heighten a spell up to a maximum of 9th level; the description for the feat makes no mention of spell slots being sacrificed.
This presumably means that mitigating costs do not reduce or remove the cost of applying this metamagic augmentation.

You would need Improved Heighten Spell to unlock the spell cap.

[Dark_Juggernaut]

I knew there was something preventing that, but I forgot what, hah. Thanks.