Anyone thought about spell depowering metamagic?

I was struck by a potential untapped market in metamagic feats - those that lower the spell slot required by a spell by restricting some aspect of the spell (rather than increasing an aspect)

Some possible examples:

Reduce Spell - Reduces the range of a spell that is normally Medium or greater to Close. Spell is prepared as if 1 slot lower.

Singleton Spell - Makes an area effect or multi-target spell affect only one target. Spell is prepared as if 1 slot lower.

Compress Spell - Reduces the duration of a spell. One that normally lasts for hours lasts for minutes instead. One that normally lasts for minutes lasts for rounds. One that normally lasts for rounds lasts for just 1 round. Spell is prepared as if 1 slot lower.

Minimise Spell - The spell does minimum damage. Spell is prepared as if 2 slots lower.

Thus a 5th level caster could cast a Minimised Fireball as a 1st level spell, doing only 5 points damage (half on a reflex save). He could cast a Singleton Fireball as a 2nd level spell which does the normal fireball 5d6 damage but only to one target. He could cast a Reduced Bulls Strength as a 1st level spell which lasts for 5 minutes instead of 5 hours.

I freely admit that I haven't considered what the implications are for every spell on the list However, I thought the idea might be interesting enough to share with people at this point.

As a balancing factor one could rule (for instance) that you cannot reduce a spell below its normal spell slot level but one of these feats could be used to offset the cost of a normal metamagic feat. For instance - a Reduced Empowered Bulls Strength which only lasts for 1 minute per level but gives 1.5x(1d4+1) onto strength. Or a Singleton Maximised fireball which is prepared at 5th level (instead of 6th) and does max damage to just one creature.

I could imagine a lot of interesting flexibility that arises with this (and since people can't learn higher level spells before they reach certain levels it *isn't* giving "early access" to high level spells - just giving magic users an awful lot more flexibility in how they mix and match their spells together..

So what do you think?

(dons special cape that automatically Minimises, Reduces and Singletons incoming flames )

Cheers

"Compress Spell" The problem I have with this one is it shouldn't stack with Persistent Spell.

Also, Compressed 1st level Invisibilities strike me as too powerful.


"Singleton Spell" Isn't this one already in effect with things like Haste/Mass Haste?

A single-person Fireball with a 10th level caster (10d6 damage) in a 2nd level slot is not balanced. It should be more like 10d4 or spread out over multiple rounds.


"Minimise Spell" No thoughts on this one yet.


"Reduce Spell" Potential trouble spells: Heck, ALL spells. Peoplewould always take this one. I would metamagic every spell with this one. I am never at maximum range when I cast my spells. I'm always at Close.


Anyway, my criticism of your idea does not mean it's not a good one. However, if you put them in a campaign, make them harsher, then you can always lighten up later on.

An example would be combining Singleton and Minimize Spell so that the new spell would only affect one creature, do half damage and cost -1 spell slot.

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback. As I said, I haven't thought through all the spell ramifications by half Some of the ideas I'm less happy with than others, but I included them all for "completeness"! Reduce spell being a case in point - as you note, almost all combat is taking place at close range anyway. Perhaps if it reduced a spell to 25ft range? That would be seriously close!

ConcreteBuddha said:

[BA single-person Fireball with a 10th level caster (10d6 damage) in a 2nd level slot is not balanced. It should be more like 10d4 or spread out over multiple rounds. [/B]

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This is one of the few which I actually think works out well (and is actually in line with the DMG guidelines - a 2nd level arcane spell could do up to 10d6 to a single target or 5d6 to multiple targets). As a third level fireball it could do that damage to a couple of dozen targets, so the tradeoff seems very fair.

IMC I introduced a metamagic feat "MASS SPELL" which turns a single target spell into a spell that affects one target per caster level (all within 30ft of each other) at a cost of +3 levels. This matches up with almost all the "mass" spells and strikes me as a better fit than a "chain" metamagic which was published, for instance.

Back on topic - other good examples for the Singleton feat would be Singleton Slow (to affect just one target) or Singleton Horrid Withering.

Generally I make the benefits from downscaling somewhat less than the benefits from upscaling, since the possibility of abuse and multiple use of lower spell slots increases.

I just thought of another one!

Slowen spell - A Slowened (ugh!) spell takes much longer to cast. A single action spell takes 1 full round to cast (like Monster Summoning). A full round spell takes an additional full round to cast. Slowened metamagics cannot be stacked upon each other, a spell can only be slowened once. It is prepared as 1 spell slot lower.

Cheers

I like the idea, but I think there will be a tremendous lot of hassle with individual spell descriptions, and adjucating which spells would be suitable.

Let us take Slowen Spell, as an exemple. It is clear that a Slowed Fireball is worth -1 effective level.
But Water Breathing, Darkvision or Animate Dead? No, hardly. You just don't cast those spells often enough in combat for it to make any real difference.

Many of the feats could be much abused with different spells. It would just become a way of getting a lot of spells cheaper.

I mean, a Reduced Animate Rope. Reduces it to a lvl 0 spell at virtually no cost to the Wizard. Whoever uses it at medium range anyway.

A Minimized Magic Missile is a super-powered, long range Ray of Frost. A seventh level wizard gets a lvl 0 spell with a range of 170', and does 4 x 2 points of damage.

So all in all, I think it's a cool idea, but far too difficult to adjudicate, and with far, far too much min/maxing munchkin potential.

How about this one.

Unstable Spell: You change the duration of a spell to concentration(up to origional duration) -1 level. Spells with duration of instant cannot be affected.

Ex. a 3nd cleric could cast a 1st level hold person, and concentrate for the two rounds it took for the thief to sap the guy unconcious.

Slowen?

Slow is already a verb, it doesn't need to be "verbed" by the addition of 'en'.

Of course, "Slow spell" is ambiguous because slow can also function as an adjective. Reading the description, it sounds like it functions well either way.

As an adjective, "slow spell" reads "a spell which is slow" and that I think works with the idea that it takes longer to cast.

As a verb, "slow spell" reads "a spell I cast slowly" which is precisely the meaning intended.

I like it. It's definitely a new way of looking at things. However since it is a new way of doing things it also would need quite a bit of play-testing to make sure that it didn't break anything. If I were going to introduce it into my campaign I would start with your idea that if could only be used on a spell to counter the effects of other metamagic. See how that plays and then proceed from there.

I was struck by a potential untapped market in metamagic feats - those that lower the spell slot required by a spell by restricting some aspect of the spell

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There are reasons WHY you really don't want to do this...

1. What happens if I try to apply one of these things to a cantrip?

2. What happens if I try to apply one of these things and the spell would be driven "below level 0"?

3. If you apply more than one of these feats to a damaging spell (eg fireball) - you break the damage cap rules for arcane spells.

- Example 1: Fireball that is "slowed" and "singletoned" would be a 1st level spell that can do 10d6 damage to a target - save for half.

- Example 2: Fireball that can only be cast at close range is a 2nd level spell that deals 10d6 over an area of effect.

4. You might get a spell that is particularly potent at far to low a level. Sleep and Magic Missile are prime candidates - as are most first level spells.

I like the idea, but I think there will be a tremendous lot of hassle with individual spell descriptions, and adjucating which spells would be suitable.

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Unless you have a specific category of spells in mind - metamagic spells apply to theoretically ALL spells. You can have them work on "all spells with a specific aspect" (ex range) - but you can't "pick and choose" between spells that have these aspects.

If you want one of these spells - it is a GREAT idea for spell research mind you - but not metamagic.

Yes but you are forgetting, a wizard only has 4 cantrips...and some of those he would want to use for Detect Magic possibly. Perhaps change a few of those metamagic feats so that they apply only to spells with instantaneous duration if you're concerned

There are several good feats in the netbook of feats that do this. I'd suggest checking out a few of their "lower" metamagic feats for ideas.