Uses for 10th level spells?

[Jowgen]

It has come to my attention that several metamagic components break the normal Heighten Spell rule of only being able to heighten spells up to 9th level.

Shades, Imprisonment, Greater Planar Binding, Prismatic Wall, Symbol of Death, Temporal Stasis, and Weird can all be Heightened up to 10th with these. Prismatic Spehere even goes up to 11, whatever that means.

Now my question is what the potential uses of this are.

Top of my head, an Incantifier could use this to regain 10th level spell slots for Epic Spellcasting, but they need to have those slots (manageable) and know the spells (tricky since it seemingly requires a feat).

Now ideally you'd want those spells tied to an energy transformation field, but us using a metamagic component might run foul of the "Spells that have a costly material component or an XP cost cannot be linked to a field".

So thoughts anyone?

[Khedrac]

Top of my head, an Incantifier could use this to regain 10th level spell slots for Epic Spellcasting, but they need to have those slots (manageable) and know the spells (tricky since it seemingly requires a feat).

I don't know incantifiers, but 10th level spell slots have noting to do with epic spellcasting.

Epic spells count as 10th level solely for purposes that need to know the spell's level - such as penetrating a globe of invulnerability but you do not need 10th slots to cast epic spells, and having 10th slots does not give the ability to cats epic spells - they are unrelated.

If you have the slots you get to play with metamagic that takes spells over 9th, but that's it (unless you go back to ancient Netheril or the equivalent).

[Jowgen]

[QUOTE=Khedrac;24652010]I don't know incantifiers, but 10th level spell slots have noting to do with epic spellcasting.

Epic spells count as 10th level solely for purposes that need to know the spell's level - such as penetrating a globe of invulnerability but you do not need 10th slots to cast epic spells, and having 10th slots does not give the ability to cats epic spells - they are unrelated.[7QUOTE]

I'll have to disagree on that one. The full quote is: "for purposes of Concentration checks, spell resistance, and other possible situations where spell level is important, epic spells are all treated as if they were 10th-level spells", wherein "other possible situations" is pretty darn broad.

In the Incantifier example, if a spell or SLA fails to penetrate their SR they "regains a spell of the absorbed spell's level that he has already cast that day or regains a used spell slot of the appropriate level", which is very much a situation were spell level is important. So if an incantifier abosrbs a 10th level spell, and you decide what sort of spell-slot is regained, that is a situation where it ought to be treated as a 10th level spell, resultinng in the regaining of an epic spell slot.

Now this still nessecitates our character has an epic spell slot to begin with, and has somehow managed to acquire an epic spell among their spells known, which is tricky to say the least.

unless you go back to ancient Netheril or the equivalent.

Not familiar with how this ties, mind elaborating?

[Anthrowhale]

Doesn't Earth Spell have the same effect? And, in an even more extreme way circle magic?

Rary's Arcane Conversion on a circle magic spell is a classic method for applying any desired suite of metamagics.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

It has come to my attention that several metamagic components break the normal Heighten Spell rule of only being able to heighten spells up to 9th level.

Shades, Imprisonment, Greater Planar Binding, Prismatic Wall, Symbol of Death, Temporal Stasis, and Weird can all be Heightened up to 10th with these. Prismatic Spehere even goes up to 11, whatever that means.

Now my question is what the potential uses of this are.

Top of my head, an Incantifier could use this to regain 10th level spell slots for Epic Spellcasting, but they need to have those slots (manageable) and know the spells (tricky since it seemingly requires a feat).

Now ideally you'd want those spells tied to an energy transformation field, but us using a metamagic component might run foul of the "Spells that have a costly material component or an XP cost cannot be linked to a field".

So thoughts anyone?

Does it allow you to take Extra Slot for more level 9 spell slots? You could access it early if you had Heighten Spell and Residual Magic, I suppose. Feat-intensive though.

[Khedrac]

I'll agree that I was wrong about the list of things an epic spell counts as 10th level for.

In the Incantifier example, if a spell or SLA fails to penetrate their SR they "regains a spell of the absorbed spell's level that he has already cast that day or regains a used spell slot of the appropriate level", which is very much a situation were spell level is important. So if an incantifier abosrbs a 10th level spell, and you decide what sort of spell-slot is regained, that is a situation where it ought to be treated as a 10th level spell, resultinng in the regaining of an epic spell slot.

Based on this, I would still regard absorbing a 10th level spell and an epic spell as different things - 10th level spell slots cannot be used to cast epic spells and are not required to cast epic spells.

If they absorb an epic spell they can potentially gain the use of an epic spell back.
If they absorb a 10th level spell they gain a 10th level spell (slot) back.

In the Forgotten Realms, travelling through time back to the ancient Netherese empire gives the character access to actual 10th + level spells that were in use back then, e.g. create mythal, also 11th and the one known 12th level spell (Karsus' Avatar).
Unfortunately time travel back to then is definitely one-way (and, if I understand the lore correctly, surviving from then back to now removes 10th and higher level spells from the character).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Earth Spell in RoS can do the same thing.

Probably the most notable use is a Darkness-Light Arms Race. Equal-level [Darkness] and [Light] effects cancel each other, and a higher-level effect of one overcomes a lower-level effect of the other. So a Deeper Darkness that's Heightened to 4th level can't be beat by a 3rd level Daylight.

Continual Flame is a permanent [Light] effect. Hire an NPC spellcaster with Heighten Spell and Earth Spell (and preferably a Ring of Enduring Arcana) to cast that Heightened to a 10th level spell on your hair at a caster level of 20th. Wear a thick hat over it to block the effect when needed. It would take a 10th level [Darkness] effect to cancel it out, and an 11th level [Darkness] effect to overcome it. Using standard rates for NPC spellcasting that would only cost you 2,050 gp, the dispel DC is 31, or 35 with the ring. Disjunction can remove it, but not if you've got your hat on.

[Endarire]

Reserve feats and Extra Slot, though Circle Magic (Heighten to spell level 20) does these better.

[Vaern]

Based on this, I would still regard absorbing a 10th level spell and an epic spell as different things - 10th level spell slots cannot be used to cast epic spells and are not required to cast epic spells.

If they absorb an epic spell they can potentially gain the use of an epic spell back.
If they absorb a 10th level spell they gain a 10th level spell (slot) back.

The ability says that they can regain a spell slot of up to the absorbed spell's level. Epic spells have no level and are treated as 10th level spells for the purposes of effects where spell level is important; therefore, if they absorb an epic spell they should only be able to regain a spell slot of up to 10th level rather than an epic spell slot.

[Kalkra]

First of all, Epic spells don't really have slots, they can just be cast a certain number of times. Also, once you can cast Epic spells, you can just take Improved Heighten Spell, and then you have no limits on Heightening spells at all.

That being said, one potential trick would be a Shadowcraft Mage getting Silent Image to level 11 to cast War versions of 9th-level spells, unless you're in FR, in which case you probably can't do that.

[Zanos]

Erudites can only learn discipline powers up to 1 level lower than the maximum level they can manifest. Regular heighten power, if allowed from 3.0, can be combined with manifester level increase to take care of this up to 17th level and gets you on level access to domain spells. You need some way to manifest 10th level powers to learn 9ths. This is especially important for cheesing spell to power, because you learn spells as discipline powers. If you can apply special components to converted spells to get 10ths, you can cheese up with regular spell 9ths.

Not familiar with how this ties, mind elaborating?

Ancient Netheril, before the collapse of the weave, had real >9th level spells. A lot of these were converted to Epic Spells in later editions, but some of them were stuff like 'cut the top off a mountain and invert it and make it float' at 10th level, 'completely seal a crystal sphere against spelljamming' at 11th, and 'become a deity of your choosing, usurping their portfolios' at 12th level. Note: the later one breaks magic if you do it to the god of magic. Do not attempt.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zanos
...and 'become a deity of your choosing, usurping their portfolios' at 12th level. Note: the later one breaks magic if you do it to the god of magic. Do not attempt.

Proof that the warnings come after the spells.