I cast a sudden Maximised and Empowered fireball!

[TheAuldGrump]

That's either the slowest dungeon crawl or an emty one.....

Or not a dungeon at all... I do town and wilderness adventures a lot, especially now, since I am running Steampunk.

The Auld Grump, thank the gods that I do goal based XP, otherwise the party would stll be third level, and they started at 2nd.

 

[Victim]

so, what 4 rounds of the lesser combats, 6 rounds for the bigger ones? 24 combat actuions and one of those you can use this feat for? I don't know still doesn't seem worth it. While the fighter gets his feat for all 24 rounds of combat, maybe using it twice a round depending on how many attacks he has... that's good bang for the feat there.

And on how many of those rounds is the wizard using a normal metamagic feat? One round? Zero rounds? And since wizards get bonus metamagic feats, why shouldn't they take something that doesn't have an additional cost? And while a fighter might be using Weapon Focus every round, that doesn't mean it has an impact every round. That +1 to hit will affect attacks that would otherwise miss, so assuming 2 attacks per round for 24 rounds, it affects two and half attacks. Still look like a good deal? Over the period of time, weapon specialization probably adds around 30 or damage; a sudden empower adds 17.5 on 10d6 AND puts the average damage over the massive damage threshold. Of course, sudden empower doesn't restrict the wizard to using only one spell or school; in fact, some of the best uses would be for non damaging spells. If a caster is using absorbtion, he can defeat a spell or two and probably get back your 9th level slot. After empowering it, the wizard has a guarenteed gain in spellslots and blocks another spell - probably foiling an attempt to burn through with a critical spell by using a sacrifice.

 

[Daesumnor]

Or not a dungeon at all... I do town and wilderness adventures a lot, especially now, since I am running Steampunk.

The Auld Grump, thank the gods that I do goal based XP, otherwise the party would stll be third level, and they started at 2nd.

Here here, but I run straight D&D. My party is nearly third level and they have yet to enter a proper dungeon.

 

[reanjr]

That's either the slowest dungeon crawl or an emty one.....

Not all of us run dungeon crawls.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=373634&page=1&pp=30

Here is a related link.

 

[Anthelios]

I have to agree that the sudden metamagic feats are so much better. No preparation is needed, and a higher spell level isn't needed. Its especially effective on the lower level spectrum, sudden maximizing your magic missiles, fireballs, lightning bolts ( and for clerics, maximized heals are great for that emergency in combat patch heal to the tank).

The original metamagic feats are more for higher level casters, where you have the higher spell levels to burn on random spells you think your going to need maximized.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Heck, I remember my post on this subject and how I killed a 10th level enemy mage with a Rod and my Feat.

Lots of interesting reactions to that one.

And yeah, it's weird, but hardly anyone I know DMs a straight out dungeon crawl these days. It may be a short tomb or a tower or abandonded church, but no one I've played with has recently busted out a dungeon. In some ways, the Eberron adventurers are set up for this style play. Take Whispers of the Vampire's Blade. Not a lot of options for combat in there and lots of rest between them.

Then again, one of my friends is playing in the World's Largest Dungeon so hey, group's vary.

 

[Thanee]

so, what 4 rounds of the lesser combats, 6 rounds for the bigger ones? 24 combat actuions and one of those you can use this feat for? I don't know still doesn't seem worth it. While the fighter gets his feat for all 24 rounds of combat, maybe using it twice a round depending on how many attacks he has... that's good bang for the feat there.

In that case you would end one of the bigger fights in round 1, so it was worth 6 rounds. And in the small battles you don't need feats, so you cannot count them.

So it's 6 vs 6.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well, most of my dungeon crawls end up like this:

* Weak battle
* Weak battle
* Strong battle
* Weak battle
* Strong battle

"Let's rest".

True, and there is always the other possibility. I played a warmage in a campaign where there was almost no dungeons. We were all overland, we had an average one one random encounter per day. It tended to die very quickly in my first round firey assault, generally a maximixed empowered fireball for 96 points of damage. I attempted to find 8 more intelligence to add to my character so that I could up the damage to 100 so that even though who made their saves needed to save vs massive damage.

Couldn't find it.

But yes, they ARE powerful but only because we were fairly certain we'd only fight one enemy a day because that was the trend.

And as for dungeon crawls aways having quite a few battles per day, I've found that parties will only continue with a dungeon crawl as long as they think they can possible succeed. If their spells start getting low, most parties run out of the dungeon, find a place to rest and come back in the morning.

 

[Pinotage]

That's either the slowest dungeon crawl or an emty one.....

Depends what type of game you run. In PbP games there is a very different balance between combat and roleplaying than in a table top game, with the net result that in the games I play and run, there's rarely more than two combats in any given day, depending on how much of a dungeon crawl it is. If you only have a few combats per day, things like this become significant.

Pinotage