Anyone thought about spell depowering metamagic?

[Victim]

Minimize Spell + Harm = a more effective Harm at level 4. Or might reduce to only 4 depending on whether you word it for damge or effect - AFAIK, all meta feats use effect. Still, it's an even sicker way to use an already sick spell.

Considering that 1 min per level spells are usually combat actions anyway, using Compress spell on them is no big deal.

Reduce Spell rules. In actual play, I haven't seen people use spell ranges to the fullest. It'd be hard enough to spot someone at 800 ft, much less learn enough to decide to fireball.

 

[Magus_Jerel]

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

It is the spells with instantaneous duration that I AM most concerned about. Besides - if you are a wizard worth your salt - you use permanency to get your detect magic. Other than read magic (and you max spellcraft skill anyway) and light - these are the only really "extremely useable" cantrips. You still have the possibility of some "break the damage cap" issues - and these things are even worse in the hands of a sorcerer type.

Btw - Harm is sickest in the hands of a cleric who took improved unarmed strike and a strength modifier of +4 or greater.

you make a normal melee attack, and they are dying or dead - don't matter how many HP they have... and no save either.

 

[Shirt Guy John]

Yes, I have thought of it before, and Gah! the game mechanics would be a pain in the a$$ (Damage cap most common, do the spell DCs decrease?). I don't think they're even necessary. Can't you just work with what you've got?

 

[fba827]

I haven't read any of this too carefully, but I did have to say what jumped out at me immediately.

You should add a clause
"No spell may be lowered beyond 1st level" - ie you can not make any spell a 0 level spell, 1st level is the lowest you can make anything.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Obviously, spells wouldn't be able to be reduced below 0th level, if they were, you couldn't cast them since you don't have -1st level slots

Perhaps add another rule, only one reduction metamagic feat may apply to a single spell at a time.

Perhaps change them entirely, instead of reducing the level of the spell, why not increase the effective caster level in exchange? Or maybe an option, like caster level, DC, + to checks against Dispel. That wouldn't make them exactly useless, and would be more balanced then simply lowering the levels...

For example, maybe Mage Armor would last 10 min/level (or whatever), but the DC to dispel would be 15+caster level instead of 11+caster level.

 

[Geoff Watson]

How about this: The downgrading Metamagic feats can't reduce the spell level below the original, so they are only useful on spells that have positive Metamagic feats on them.

They are still very abusable, but not as bad.

Geoff.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Thanks for assorted feedback. I'll try to look at the netbook someone mentioned too.

It is great to have additional minds to "beta-test" an idea and highlight potential abuses.

To answer some of M_J observations:

1. Obviously you can't reduce something below 0th level just like you can't increase something above 9th level. existing rules apply and you couldn't apply these to a cantrip.

2. ditto

3. Good point. I think that minimagic feats (trendy new name) shouldn't be stackable with each other. Only one could apply.

4. A spell doesn't became available to a caster at lower level - he still has to be 5th level wizard/6th level sorcerer and get fireball on his list before he could start potentially using it with a minimagic feat.

The initial suggestions are not all created equal I'm just mentally playing around with the inverse of most of the existing metamagic feats.

I like the idea of a minimagic feat which changes duration of a (non-instantaneous) spell to "concentration". The "Slow spell" variant should perhaps only be applied to spells with an "instantaneous" duration since it doesn't matter how long you take to apply a buffing spell in most cases.

n.b. one of the things that would mitigate against abusability is that everyone gets only so many feats - in almost all cases a "proper" metamagic feat would be better than these and would be more likely to be taken - certainly by anyone in my campaign!

Cheers,

 

[chilibean]

The idea is cool. However, I have 1 major problem with it. Who in the heck is going to spend one of their precious feats on something like this? No player character would ever get them. And if you made NPCs with them, then they would simply be underpowered.

I suggest that you accomplish the same exact thing on a case by case basis in play by researching a new spell. If you want a fireball that's 2nd level, then create a new fireball spell that's 2nd level. Make it a 1d4 per level max of 5d4 and a blast radius of only 10 feet. Simple. No feats required. No munchkinism. Every spell gets researched, paid for by the player, carried around in a spell book, etc...

The only problem with this is that it works great for wizards but sorcerers get left out in the cold. However, they could still do it with the arcane preparation feat, so it isn't very much of a drawback.

 

[dragoncc]

In Felix's thread on the same idea, I gave feedback on essentially the same feats, but I'll address it here as well. I wouldn't allow Reduce unless its modification was 0 levels because it's too abusable to get something for nothing. Most spells aren't cast at their max range IME so this is not something that is actually being given up to recieve a reduced cost.

As a couple of options to address possible issues is to:
1) Don't allow increasing & decreasing metamagics to be combined. Reasoning: too many possible combinations that allow a beneficial something for virtually nothing in the situation. The examples with fireball are best. Reduced range or singlton & slowen give it to you for practically free & if you use all three, a maximized fireball on BBEG in melee is at same level as original
I will give you the fact that most are only 1 level reductions which aids in the balance of them. (You would have to spend 3 or 4 feats to be able to do this.) But this will address many of the issues people have with them I believe.

2) Don't allow more than one lowering metamagic to be used on any given spell. Again, would allow you to balance them more easily IMO.

3) Don't allow counterintuitive metamagics to be combined. Obviously.

Other than Reduce, I think Slowen also is not worthy of an actual reduction & should be 0 level adjustment as well.

To those who are of the opinion that it is just giving spells for cheaper -- It is, but for a cost. After all, these are feats which must be chosen by the character (instead of another feat).

I haven't read any of this too carefully, but I did have to say what jumped out at me immediately.

You should add a clause
"No spell may be lowered beyond 1st level" - ie you can not make any spell a 0 level spell, 1st level is the lowest you can make anything.

This is an excellent idea that I hadn't come to as yet, but nixes most of the problematic "1st level spells for free".

How about this: The downgrading Metamagic feats can't reduce the spell level below the original, so they are only useful on spells that have positive Metamagic feats on them.

They are still very abusable, but not as bad.

Actually this makes them just as abusable, especially with quicken spell.

 

[fuindordm]

It's a very good idea, and I'm glad you posted it!

Sorcerers would take these feats, no question. You could still use your high-level spells even when you're
out of high-level slots. But the reduction in power has to be real, and apply to all uses of the spell--that's why reductions on the range, number of targets, and casting time are so iffy and hard to balance. Probably no
feat should reduce a spell by more than one level.

Unstable Spell (must concentrate for spell duration) is nice.

Enfeebled Spell (cut the damage dealt by dice in half) is probably also fine.

I'm having trouble thinking of others that wouldn't be abused, though.

Ben