Easy metamagic

[James the Newbie]

So I just read dragon 325 (I do love the feats there, even if they are not all brilliant I think they are very flavourful)

It got me thinking about quicken, if you where to apply quicken spell to all your spells, does this mean you would be limited to only casting spells as a swift action, so you could not cast two spells per round?

For those wondering what sparked this question, I just found the 'easy metamagic' feat in dragon 325, it lets you apply a metamagic feat at one level lower, so quicken would be +0.

 

[delericho]

So I just read dragon 325 (I do love the feats there, even if they are not all brilliant I think they are very flavourful)

It got me thinking about quicken, if you where to apply quicken spell to all your spells, does this mean you would be limited to only casting spells as a swift action, so you could not cast two spells per round?

I'm not sure it's ever stated, but I would expect you could trade your standard action for an additional swift action in the round. That's what SWSE and (I hesitate to say) 4e do, and it does seem reasonable.

For those wondering what sparked this question, I just found the 'easy metamagic' feat in dragon 325, it lets you apply a metamagic feat at one level lower, so quicken would be +0.

Isn't quicken +4, so Easy Metamagic would reduce to +3? (And even so, it sounds like Easy Metamagic may be overpowered.)

 

[Dalamar]

Well, first, Quicken is +4.

But yes, if all your spells were quickened, you would be limited to casting just one spell per round.

 

[James the Newbie]

It is +4, me being silly (^_^")

Thanks for clearing it up.

 

[Greenfield]

Also, unless I'm mistaken, the Easy Metamagic feat drops the cost by 1, but keeps a minimum of +1.

I could be wrong, of course, but that's the way I remember it.

 

[Dandu]

I'm not sure it's ever stated, but I would expect you could trade your standard action for an additional swift action in the round. That's what SWSE and (I hesitate to say) 4e do, and it does seem reasonable.

It may sound reasonable, but it leads to degenerate behavior.

 

[delericho]

It may sound reasonable, but it leads to degenerate behavior.

How so? 3.5e doesn't have a great many Swift actions available, so it's not like the players are going to be doing this all the time. And even with Easy Metamagic, if the caster has two Quickened Spells prepared then he's already paid the very high cost of preparing each at Level+3.

I suppose it could be a problem if the Wizard also converted his Move action to another Swift action, and so cast three spells in the round. But even then, he'd be burning through his allocation very quickly (and of course the Sorcerer can't use Quicken Spell...). So, I suppose if the 15-minute Adventuring Day is a real concern, then that would need to be blocked as an option.

I dunno. It all sounds like a way to cast a lot of pretty crappy spells very quickly.

 

[Dandu]

Do you want to hear some rules exploits? Because if you do, the word "Celerity" will come up.

 

[delericho]

Do you want to hear some rules exploits? Because if you do, the word "Celerity" will come up.

Sure. If you don't want to rehash them, even some links would be good. Always good to know what my powergamer is liable to try to pull.

 

[Dandu]

First off, let me link to an EN World thread discussing this very subject.

Now, exploits.

Offhand, you could fire off a swift action spell, then activate a swift action item in one round. Not a huge problem unless that item happens to be something like a fully charged Belt of Battle.

But that's really tame compared to Anticipatory Strike + Schism + Metamind's Font of Power, which lets you have infinite actions now. Finally, a reason to take Metamind...

Or you could do this at lower levels by combining Anticipatory Strike and Celerity to fuel a Schism'd Synchronicity. Your Schism can use its standard for swift for Celerity too. Or Anticipatory Strike, if that's your thing.

The rules are quite clear that you can trade your standard action for a move action, but they do not indicate you can trade down a move or standard for a swift. It's probably best if we keep it that way. Neither SWSE or 4e is 3.5e, so adopting rules from them is not necessarily the best idea.

tl;dr
Reasons to allow this house rule: It seems "realistic".
Reasons to disallow: Creates bugs.