Divine Metacheese may not be so cheesy...

[Nattypat]

I don't know how many people are aware of the alterations made to the Divine Metamagic Feat in the Complete Divine errata. I'm just posting to see if people were aware of these changes, and if not, whether you still think this feats is as effective as before.

Page 80: Divine Metamagic feat
The boldface text needs to be added to the Benefit
paragraph of the feat description:
When you take this feat, choose a metamagic feat that
you have. This feat applies only to that metamagic feat.
As a free action, you can take the energy from turning
or rebuking undead and use it to apply a metamagic feat
to divine spells that you know. . . .

What this means is that since you already need the metamagic feat to take this into effect, it costs two feats to be able to use one metamagic feat divinely. Answer with any comments or questions.

[Nerd-o-rama]

We knew that. Still broken.

Or at least, I knew that, and I think it's still broken.

The main problem with Divine Metamagic is that it lets clerics cast spells that are of higher effective levels than they can actually cast, like a Persistant Divine Favor at level 3 or a Persistant Divine Power...well, ever. All it takes is enough Turn Undead uses, and of course, a Cleric can obtain arbitrarily large numbers of those with Nightsticks (Libris Mortis). Even without them, a high-Cha cleric with Extra Turning can do really broken stiff with it.

[Gavin Sage]

It can still be fairly cheesed. Like say a Quickened 8th level spell. Certainly a lot better then getting every Metamagic feats for free, but still abusable too.

[KIDS]

Take Undeath (Extra Turning as bonus) and Planning (Extend Spell) as domains, be a human, take Persistent Spells and Divine Metamagic as your human feats (or flaw) and you're all set.

Wait, a human just pooled all of his domains into doing this? He deserves some credit, right?
No way at all, at least in my opinion. You shouldn't be able to do that stuff at any level.

[Pestlepup]

Mmm... Persistent End to Strife... *drools*

[ShneekeyTheLost]

This gets even more broken with Nightsticks (called Crack sticks for a reason). Basically, they give you more turn attempts. Which you use to fuel Divine Metacheese. Besides, what else is your turn attempts good for when you're not fighting hordes of undead?

DMM Persist: Divine Power and Righteous Might. Sure, you need a total of what, 12 turn attempts... fine. Base of 3+ Cha mod. With a Cha of 16 (not unreasonable if you're building for Divine Metacheeze), you're starting out with 6 turn attempts. +4 for Extra Turning gives you 10. Either you need a Cha of 22, or a single nightstick, and you've got it. Congratulations, you've made the Fighter obsolete.

[Callix]

And to add to the problems from KIDS' build, they have 6 feat slots free over the rest of their levels. Extra Turning anyone? Then, of course, there are nightsticks.

Basically, anything that lets you have round/level buffs on all day at level 1 is a bad idea. Make it all cleric buffs, and it's a horribly broken idea. Some new ideas: Persistent Pulse of Hate. Now CZilla doesn't even need to hit you.
Persistent Summon Golem and Persistent Shapechange. (swap undeath domain for animal, spend a lot on nightsticks). Iron golem and monster of your choice. Against casters? Dual golems.

[Gavin Sage]

When I see things broken (btw where can I find Persistant's description) I wonder how to fix them.

It seems to me one way would be to have the further requirement "and have sufficient spell levels to prepare normally" added.

[Jack Mann]

You can find it here. It's also in Complete Arcane.

[TheOOB]

Theres an inherient problum with turning any spell with a duration measured in rounds into something thats effectivly on forever.

[Rad]

Ok, so this is the question: Is it persistant spell to be broken or divine metamagic? Id Divine metamagic as gamebreaking if you ban persistant spell? is Persistant spell better with no divine metamagic available? What if I just ban nighsticks and call it a day?

[Breaon]

I think Divine Metamagic is the broken part of this. That, and Nightsticks. A smart DM will not allow them into the game, and/or restrict their availability greatly.

My last FR game had a priest of Tempus who (ab)used Divine Metamagic a lot. Did the 3-4 round buff cycle (ie. pufferfished), Enlarged, and then when the BBEG came up for the encounter, triggered his Str domain for the opening salvo. Few things survived that.

[Ikkitosen]

Adding the caveat that the adjusted spell level of the Divine Metamagic'd spell cannot be greater than the highest spell level you can cast (or maybe this +1) would do the trick nicely.

[Jack Mann]

Persistent spell is broken. Even if you have to spend a 7-9 spell slot for a 1-3 level spell, it can be broken. The balancing factor on a lot of these spells is the fact that it only lasts for a short while.

Divine metamagic... Well, without nightsticks and persistent spell, it's not as broken. It's still more powerful than it really needs to be. Divine Metamagic (quicken) gives even more power to the melee cleric, since it greatly reduces the resources needed for buffing.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Adding the caveat that the adjusted spell level of the Divine Metamagic'd spell cannot be greater than the highest spell level you can cast (or maybe this +1) would do the trick nicely.

That's my personal fix for DMM, when I choose not to ban it entirely. Getting 11th-level equivalent spells in exchange for a situational class feature is just bad design.

[Rad]

MY impression is that divine metamagic:Quicken with no nighsticks would be doable. Two feats are a heavy price for a cleric after all and doing it twice a day would mean 10 turning attempts and practically require extra turning (one more feat). If you invest three feats for nothing but casting a quick spell 2/day I can call it even.

Since I am about to DM (maybe) I am strongly interested in your opinions; more so if you actually played with this.

[Imrix.]

Originally posted by ShneekeyTheLost
Congratulations, you've made the Fighter obsolete.

Well, be fair that isn't exactly DIFFICULT.

[Leon]

i introduced Divine Meta Cheese to our Darksun game, the DM however shot down the option of taking extra turning and while Liber Mortis is there i dont think anything is being used from it

[Matthew]

Hah, I'm not surprised. Did you end up trying it with the Vigour Spells, Leon?

[martyboy74]

Also, don't forget that (Greater,) Anyspell is divine too. So DMM now includes all arcane spells below 7th(?) level.

[Leon]

not yet, no healing has been done so far

[Leon]

Also, don't forget that (Greater,) Anyspell is divine too. So DMM now includes all arcane spells below 7th(?) level.

Spell Compendium?

[martyboy74]

Yep.

[Leon]

Hmmm, I think a trip to the LGS tomorrow and Acqusition of said Tome is in order

[ShneekeyTheLost]

How about this combo:

Reach DMM Chain Greater Magic Weapon. Use the DMM on the Chain metamagic, since you can only apply it to one metamagic rather than several. Do so with Magic Vestment as well. Congratulations, the whole party now has +5 weapons and armor for the day (hours/level duration on both spells, so at 20th level, that's pretty much all day you're not going to be in a MM/Rope Trick). A savings of literally millions of gold.

Even better, DMM Chain Mind Blank (if you have the Protection Domain). Now the whole party is immune to mind-affecting stuff and scrying. Handy, that...

Or even worse, the Magic Domain... DMM Persist Protection from Spells. The whole party now has a +8 bonus on all saving throws...

[kyz]

Take Undeath (Extra Turning as bonus) and Planning (Extend Spell) as domains, be a human, take Persistent Spells and Divine Metamagic as your human feats (or flaw) and you're all set.

Wait, a human just pooled all of his domains into doing this? He deserves some credit, right?
No way at all, at least in my opinion. You shouldn't be able to do that stuff at any level.

Well, you forgot the prerequisite for persistent spell itself is that you take extend spell first, so you put off having your olol combo until level 3 at least to get DMM persist.

Not much of a difference, but it is a wonder how many times people forget prerequisites.

[warmachine]

I had already built a demo character around the errata. I have the requisite Persistent Spell for Divine Metamagic (Persistent) and plenty of divine spells are good enough that lack of arcane magic isn't much of a loss.

Devine Metacheese

Large size, +26/+26/+21/+16 attack, 2d6+19+d6 cold, darkvision 60ft, flying 40ft, gives your allies (within 30ft) +3 attack and damage and one extra melee attack, effectively gives fast healing 4 within 10ft and still has plenty of cleric spells. A better melee whacker than the melee classes and still helping the team, especially fellow melee classes. I'd say Divine Metamagic is effective.

[Ikkitosen]

Well, you forgot the prerequisite for persistent spell itself is that you take extend spell first, so you put off having your olol combo until level 3 at least to get DMM persist.

Not much of a difference, but it is a wonder how many times people forget prerequisites.

The Planning Domain gives Extend Spell as a bonus feat, as mentioned. L1 combo entirely possible.

[Rad]

How about this combo:

Reach DMM Chain Greater Magic Weapon. Use the DMM on the Chain metamagic, since you can only apply it to one metamagic rather than several. Do so with Magic Vestment as well. Congratulations, the whole party now has +5 weapons and armor for the day (hours/level duration on both spells, so at 20th level, that's pretty much all day you're not going to be in a MM/Rope Trick). A savings of literally millions of gold.

Even better, DMM Chain Mind Blank (if you have the Protection Domain). Now the whole party is immune to mind-affecting stuff and scrying. Handy, that...

Or even worse, the Magic Domain... DMM Persist Protection from Spells. The whole party now has a +8 bonus on all saving throws...

A metamagic rod would also let you do that and still cost less than +5 weapons and armor for all the party.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

If you invest three feats for nothing but casting a quick spell 2/day I can call it even.

It takes 7 feats to get Sudden Quicken, which only works 1/day. Though it doesn't cost other resources that you might need to use later on (the turning attempts).

Of course, Sudden Quicken is massively overpriced to begin with.