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Redesigned Metamagic Feats
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<blockquote data-quote="Hawken" data-source="post: 4816186" data-attributes="member: 23619"><p>I didn't go all the way because a spell point system for magic is kind of like sushi--people either hate it or love it, there's very little middle ground. </p><p></p><p>My suggestion though stems from my experience that metamagic tends to work better in a point based system rather than a slot based system. In a slot based system an empowered Ice Storm is never as good as a normal Chain Lightning--for example, so my players rarely ever tended to use metamagic. It just wasn't worth it. A modified low level spell is never as good as the higher level spell you have to lose to get it.</p><p></p><p>Even with your system, as originally mentioned, an Empowered Fireball is still far from worth it. Lets say the caster is 10th level. Empowering a Fireball involves a total of 3 3rd level slots or 30d6 worth of fireball damage (or 15-25 d6 if any saves are made). You're giving this up for 15d6 (or 7.5d6 on a save) fireball damage. There's absolutely no reason to do this from a numbers point of view. I'm not trying to re-hash anything, I just wanted to illustrate a numbers breakdown with what you proposed.</p><p></p><p>If you think Empower/Maximize make things too powerful, then use them "in reverse". Instead of increasing their maximum damage, increase their minimum damage! Like so:</p><p></p><p>Empowered Fireball: 15d6 fire damage, 7.5d6 on a save--0d6 on a save w/evasion, 7.5d6 on a failed save w/improved evasion.</p><p></p><p>Alternate Empowered Fireball: 2 dice of damage are converted to "arcane" damage. This damage ignores energy resistance/immunity, it is not affected by Evasion or Improved Evasion and is applied whether a saving throw is successful or not. So damage for a 10th level Empowered Fireball would look like: 8d6 fire damage, 2d6 arcane damage. On a save, 4d6 fire damage, 2d6 arcane damage. Evasion: 2d6 arcane damage on a successful save. Improved Evasion: On a good save, see Evasion; on a failed save, 4d6 fire damage, 2d6 arcane damage.</p><p></p><p>Evasion and Improved Evasion are fine against 'standard' spells, but if you're going to put slots, points or whatever into beefing up a spell, the last thing you want is anyone ignoring it. Plus it keeps rogue types competent and dangerous but they are no longer the anti-caster class able to casually shrug off spells that would decimate armies. I consider this to be a small step toward "un-nerfing" wizards.</p><p></p><p>I'd treat Maximize in a similar fashion, but making it unnecessary to combine it with Empower. So, Maximize would work normally, but 100% of the damage is arcane damage, so resistance and evasion will not work--but a saving throw would function normally in this case. This causes the spell to inflict either maximum damage (100%) or exactly half maximum (50%) damage on a successful save.</p><p></p><p>So here are my takes on Metamagic, using some of Tilenas' ideas:</p><p></p><p>HEIGHTEN SPELL</p><p>--Select a number of spell slots (up to 3 levels of slots) that you want to expend for this alteration. For each level of slot spent, your spell is treated as if it were 1 level higher. When spending only 1 slot, the save DC and caster level are each increased by +1. When spending 2 slots, the save DC and caster level are each increased by +3. When spending 3 slots, the save DC and caster level are increased by +6. </p><p></p><p>This can be applied to high level spells but no spell is treated as having more than 9 levels. The increase in save DC and caster level will still apply though. </p><p></p><p>A secondary benefit is increased maximum spell damage. A 3rd level Fireball that is Heightened by 2 levels would now (as a 5th level spell) have a damage cap of 15 dice instead of 10. An Empowered Heightened spell would convert one additional die to arcane damage--so, a 15th level Empowered Heightened Fireball would inflict 12d6 fire damage and 3d6 arcane damage. </p><p></p><p>EMPOWER SPELL</p><p>--Spend 2 spell level slots and you convert 1 dice of spell damage to arcane damage regardless of what type of damage is normally inflicted. One extra damage die is converted to arcane damage at 6th, 11th and 16th caster levels. This arcane damage ignores energy/damage resistance and immunity and is not affected by Evasion, Improved Evasion. Spell Resistance may apply if normally allowed. </p><p></p><p>This feat cannot be combined with Maximize Spell since both use arcane damage. </p><p></p><p>MAXIMIZE SPELL</p><p>--Spend 2 spell level slots and you convert all spell damage to arcane damage and inflict the maximum amount of damage possible. Like the Empower Spell feat, spells modified this way are not subject to Energy or Damage resistance or immunity. Evasion and Improved Evasion do not work on a Maximized spell either. However, saving throws, if allowed, work normally, as well as Spell Resistance. If a save is successful, then exactly 50% of the maximum damage is inflicted. </p><p></p><p>QUICKEN SPELL</p><p>--Spend 3 levels of spell slots (in any combination) to Quicken any spell. No more than 9 levels of spells can be cast in a single round. So, a wizard with a Quickened Lightning Bolt could also cast up to a 6th level spell normally. </p><p></p><p>SUBTLE SPELL</p><p>--Spend 1 level of spell slots to make a spell Subtle, not requiring Verbal or Somatic components. Alternately, the caster can spend a 0 level slot to remove the need for either Verbal or Somatic components, but not both. </p><p></p><p>EXTEND SPELL</p><p>--Spend up to 3 levels of spell slots (in any combination), to extend the duration of a spell. By spending 1 slot, the duration is doubled. Two spell level slots quadruples the duration, while 3 spell level slots increases the duration by 6 times. Durations cannot be extended beyond 12 hours in a 24 hour period.</p><p></p><p>WIDEN SPELL</p><p>--Spend 1 spell level slot to have a spell that affects one person now affect 2 people or targets. Spend 2 spell level slots to double the targets affected if the spell affects 1 target per caster level. Spend 3 spell level slots to double the area of effect of other spells. </p><p></p><p>ENLARGE SPELL</p><p>--Spend 1 spell level slot, or two 0 level slots, to double the range of a spell.</p><p></p><p>New Idea:</p><p>IMMEDIATE SPELL (Metamagic)</p><p>Requirement: Quicken Spell.</p><p>Benefit: You spend 4 levels of spell slots (in any combination) to make any spell up to 5th level an Immediate Spell. Where a Quickened Spell takes a free action to cast, an Immediate Spell can be cast as an Immediate action, at any point in a round whether its his turn to act or not. No more than 9 levels of spells can be cast in this manner, so this feat is limited to 5th level spells or lower. </p><p></p><p>New Idea:</p><p>DISMISS MATERIALS (Metamagic)</p><p>Requirement: Subtle Spell</p><p>Benefit: By spending a 0 spell level slot, you can cast a spell without material components as long as those components have no gold piece value. By spending 1 spell level slot, you can cast a spell without material components that have a value between 1gp and 999gp or up to 100xp. By spending 2 spell level slots, you can cast a spell without material components that have a value between 1,000gp and 4,999gp, or up to 499xp. By spending 3 spell level slots, you can cast a spell without material components that have a value of 5,000gp or more, or an xp cost over 500xp.</p><p></p><p>This feat can be used to eliminate the XP cost of creating magic items, when used in conjunction with Item Creation feats, however, doing so increases the time to create the item by 1 day per 50xp that would otherwise be spent.</p><p></p><p>New Idea: </p><p>Anytime 1 spell level slot can be spent to activate a metamagic feat, the caster can instead select two 0 level slots to use instead.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hawken, post: 4816186, member: 23619"] I didn't go all the way because a spell point system for magic is kind of like sushi--people either hate it or love it, there's very little middle ground. My suggestion though stems from my experience that metamagic tends to work better in a point based system rather than a slot based system. In a slot based system an empowered Ice Storm is never as good as a normal Chain Lightning--for example, so my players rarely ever tended to use metamagic. It just wasn't worth it. A modified low level spell is never as good as the higher level spell you have to lose to get it. Even with your system, as originally mentioned, an Empowered Fireball is still far from worth it. Lets say the caster is 10th level. Empowering a Fireball involves a total of 3 3rd level slots or 30d6 worth of fireball damage (or 15-25 d6 if any saves are made). You're giving this up for 15d6 (or 7.5d6 on a save) fireball damage. There's absolutely no reason to do this from a numbers point of view. I'm not trying to re-hash anything, I just wanted to illustrate a numbers breakdown with what you proposed. If you think Empower/Maximize make things too powerful, then use them "in reverse". Instead of increasing their maximum damage, increase their minimum damage! Like so: Empowered Fireball: 15d6 fire damage, 7.5d6 on a save--0d6 on a save w/evasion, 7.5d6 on a failed save w/improved evasion. Alternate Empowered Fireball: 2 dice of damage are converted to "arcane" damage. This damage ignores energy resistance/immunity, it is not affected by Evasion or Improved Evasion and is applied whether a saving throw is successful or not. So damage for a 10th level Empowered Fireball would look like: 8d6 fire damage, 2d6 arcane damage. On a save, 4d6 fire damage, 2d6 arcane damage. Evasion: 2d6 arcane damage on a successful save. Improved Evasion: On a good save, see Evasion; on a failed save, 4d6 fire damage, 2d6 arcane damage. Evasion and Improved Evasion are fine against 'standard' spells, but if you're going to put slots, points or whatever into beefing up a spell, the last thing you want is anyone ignoring it. Plus it keeps rogue types competent and dangerous but they are no longer the anti-caster class able to casually shrug off spells that would decimate armies. I consider this to be a small step toward "un-nerfing" wizards. I'd treat Maximize in a similar fashion, but making it unnecessary to combine it with Empower. So, Maximize would work normally, but 100% of the damage is arcane damage, so resistance and evasion will not work--but a saving throw would function normally in this case. This causes the spell to inflict either maximum damage (100%) or exactly half maximum (50%) damage on a successful save. So here are my takes on Metamagic, using some of Tilenas' ideas: HEIGHTEN SPELL --Select a number of spell slots (up to 3 levels of slots) that you want to expend for this alteration. For each level of slot spent, your spell is treated as if it were 1 level higher. When spending only 1 slot, the save DC and caster level are each increased by +1. When spending 2 slots, the save DC and caster level are each increased by +3. When spending 3 slots, the save DC and caster level are increased by +6. This can be applied to high level spells but no spell is treated as having more than 9 levels. The increase in save DC and caster level will still apply though. A secondary benefit is increased maximum spell damage. A 3rd level Fireball that is Heightened by 2 levels would now (as a 5th level spell) have a damage cap of 15 dice instead of 10. An Empowered Heightened spell would convert one additional die to arcane damage--so, a 15th level Empowered Heightened Fireball would inflict 12d6 fire damage and 3d6 arcane damage. EMPOWER SPELL --Spend 2 spell level slots and you convert 1 dice of spell damage to arcane damage regardless of what type of damage is normally inflicted. One extra damage die is converted to arcane damage at 6th, 11th and 16th caster levels. This arcane damage ignores energy/damage resistance and immunity and is not affected by Evasion, Improved Evasion. Spell Resistance may apply if normally allowed. This feat cannot be combined with Maximize Spell since both use arcane damage. MAXIMIZE SPELL --Spend 2 spell level slots and you convert all spell damage to arcane damage and inflict the maximum amount of damage possible. Like the Empower Spell feat, spells modified this way are not subject to Energy or Damage resistance or immunity. Evasion and Improved Evasion do not work on a Maximized spell either. However, saving throws, if allowed, work normally, as well as Spell Resistance. If a save is successful, then exactly 50% of the maximum damage is inflicted. QUICKEN SPELL --Spend 3 levels of spell slots (in any combination) to Quicken any spell. No more than 9 levels of spells can be cast in a single round. So, a wizard with a Quickened Lightning Bolt could also cast up to a 6th level spell normally. SUBTLE SPELL --Spend 1 level of spell slots to make a spell Subtle, not requiring Verbal or Somatic components. Alternately, the caster can spend a 0 level slot to remove the need for either Verbal or Somatic components, but not both. EXTEND SPELL --Spend up to 3 levels of spell slots (in any combination), to extend the duration of a spell. By spending 1 slot, the duration is doubled. Two spell level slots quadruples the duration, while 3 spell level slots increases the duration by 6 times. Durations cannot be extended beyond 12 hours in a 24 hour period. WIDEN SPELL --Spend 1 spell level slot to have a spell that affects one person now affect 2 people or targets. Spend 2 spell level slots to double the targets affected if the spell affects 1 target per caster level. Spend 3 spell level slots to double the area of effect of other spells. ENLARGE SPELL --Spend 1 spell level slot, or two 0 level slots, to double the range of a spell. New Idea: IMMEDIATE SPELL (Metamagic) Requirement: Quicken Spell. Benefit: You spend 4 levels of spell slots (in any combination) to make any spell up to 5th level an Immediate Spell. Where a Quickened Spell takes a free action to cast, an Immediate Spell can be cast as an Immediate action, at any point in a round whether its his turn to act or not. No more than 9 levels of spells can be cast in this manner, so this feat is limited to 5th level spells or lower. New Idea: DISMISS MATERIALS (Metamagic) Requirement: Subtle Spell Benefit: By spending a 0 spell level slot, you can cast a spell without material components as long as those components have no gold piece value. By spending 1 spell level slot, you can cast a spell without material components that have a value between 1gp and 999gp or up to 100xp. By spending 2 spell level slots, you can cast a spell without material components that have a value between 1,000gp and 4,999gp, or up to 499xp. By spending 3 spell level slots, you can cast a spell without material components that have a value of 5,000gp or more, or an xp cost over 500xp. This feat can be used to eliminate the XP cost of creating magic items, when used in conjunction with Item Creation feats, however, doing so increases the time to create the item by 1 day per 50xp that would otherwise be spent. New Idea: Anytime 1 spell level slot can be spent to activate a metamagic feat, the caster can instead select two 0 level slots to use instead. [/QUOTE]
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