Arcane Preparation or Craft Wand ?

[Li Shenron]

Hmm... I think I'll go with Craft Wand at 12th, since at 13th level I get Instant Metamagic 1/day, which can also be used to quicken any one spell each day.

That's exactly what I was thinking since your first post

I am not very fond of Arcane Preparation since spontaneous casting is still the best feature of... ehm... spontaneous casters but it makes sense once you have so many slots available. However, with Instant Metamagic you can get at least 1 quickened spell per day without selecting it in advance (if it's the same as in 3.0, you still use a +4 slot). With Arcane Preparation you can have more, but only if you choose them beforehand, not that this is completely bad however, since you can choose to quicken spells that you always use.

On the other hand, if I understand from this thread how MST works (which I don't know, is it in PGtF?), that it lets you freely add any metamagic you know to a spell cast from a wand/staff if you have the appropriate IC feat, only at the cost of more charges, that is a TOTAL BLAST! Do you actually have to craft the wand yourself, or does MST work on existing wands? That would be totally awesome.

Consider the cost: a wand has market price of 750 x SL x CL, so each charge costs 15 x SL x CL. If you were able (not sure, but that's just for comparison) to craft a wand with all its spells metamagicked, I am not sure but I think you also had to increase the CL. The result is that the cost per charge with MST is much lower! For example, a wand of quickened 1st-level spell would cost as much as 5th-level wand (if it was possible, again for comparison) that is 675 per charge; with MST you would use 5 charges from a 1st-level wand, that is 75 per charge.

If instead you would not need to increase the CL, the cost would be the same, and MST would just give you (1) the flexibility of choosing WHICH metamagic to apply, (2) the flexibility of choosing not to apply it, and (3) the opportunity to apply a mm that raises the spell over 4th-level. They are all very good IMHO I would definitely go that way!

 

[Li Shenron]

9th. One of those feats will be my 12th level feat.

Doh! I am catching you... I am a Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 2 and only 100Xp to my next level

But wait... I am only an obsolete 3.0 Incantatrix...

 

[Thanee]

On the other hand, if I understand from this thread how MST works (which I don't know, is it in PGtF?), that it lets you freely add any metamagic you know to a spell cast from a wand/staff if you have the appropriate IC feat, only at the cost of more charges, that is a TOTAL BLAST! Do you actually have to craft the wand yourself, or does MST work on existing wands? That would be totally awesome.

It's an incantatrix ability in 3.5, so yes, PGtF it is.

And yes, you can use it on wands you havn't crafted yourself, but you must be able to craft wands to use the ability on wands (or craft staff for staffs).

If instead you would not need to increase the CL, the cost would be the same, and MST would just give you (1) the flexibility of choosing WHICH metamagic to apply, (2) the flexibility of choosing not to apply it, and (3) the opportunity to apply a mm that raises the spell over 4th-level. They are all very good IMHO I would definitely go that way!

You don't need to increase the caster level, the ability alters the existing spell, which only needs to match the caster level on the original item. You can exceed this number, the metamagic feat is just added retroactively while using the spell trigger item.

For example, you can pick up a caster level 1 wand of magic missile and use 5 charges to cast a quickened magic missile doing 1d4+1 damage from it.

Of course, you can also quicken 4th level spells this way, but it gets kinda expensive.

What I am not sure of is how to figure in Heighten Spell with this ability. If it is even useable, can you heighten a spell to 9th level? Will the DC be based on the minimum attribute then, which is higher than the one used in the wand's creation?

Anyways...

I think it would be a nice feature for a wand of shield or wand of true strike (750gp only), a wand of magic missile 9th (6,750gp), or a wand of ray of enfeeblement 10th (7,500gp). Maybe even a wand of false life or even a wand of scorching ray 11th (16,500gp), but you are probably better off to just use that one normally.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Doh! I am catching you... I am a Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 2 and only 100Xp to my next level

Did you start at 1st or 2nd level?

We had a lil pause for a couple weeks, since some players weren't around, so we played something else in the meantime. But now we have picked up the campaign again.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Oh, and the new Instant Metamagic is like the pre-errata 3.0 ability. No increase in spell level!

BTW, you never needed to use a higher level slot, only the 3.0 errata has put a limit on which spell level you can use (maximum of your highest level minus the level modification of the metamagic feat you want to use).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Li Shenron]

Did you start at 1st or 2nd level?

Ehm... 6th But to my defense, I had another Sorcerer in a campaign before who went from 1st to 6th, but I couldn't use it in the current campaign because we had to be all drow.

 

[Li Shenron]

Oh, and the new Instant Metamagic is like the pre-errata 3.0 ability. No increase in spell level!

BTW, you never needed to use a higher level slot, only the 3.0 errata has put a limit on which spell level you can use (maximum of your highest level minus the level modification of the metamagic feat you want to use).

Are you sure? I think the FRCS says that a Wizard does NOT need to use a higher level slot, but a Sorcerer only get the advantage of not increasing the casting time (which is mostly useful for Quicken Spell alone).

 

[Thanee]

I'm sure you are just misreading that part.

It says "...without preparation time (wizard) or increase in casting time (sorcerer)..."
That's the whole difference between wizard and sorcerer.

The stuff afterwards might lead to that assumption, but is more of an example, they probably just didn't want to restate that part about increase in spell level.

It's pretty obvious, how it has to work, no?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm sure you are just misreading that part.

It says "...without preparation time (wizard) or increase in casting time (sorcerer)..."
That's the whole difference between wizard and sorcerer.

The stuff afterwards might lead to that assumption, but is more of an example, they probably just didn't want to restate that part about increase in spell level.

It's pretty obvious, how it has to work, no?

Well it wasn't obvious to me... I remember that when I made my character and read through the description of the Incantatrix I had this doubt. It seemed to me that if only the Wizard got to cast it without increased slot level, it would be very unfair for a Sorcerer, because the increased casting time is not a serious drawback which IMM prevents, and the Wizard already has a big advantage not to have to prepare the MM beforehand.

However the text seemed quite clear to me (I think it's the next part, but I cannot check now) to specify that Wizards don't increase the slot, while it didn't say for Sorcerers. Now if I had the exact text here...

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, I know what you mean. The sentence afterwards easily leads to that assumption, if it is read as the rule and not as a clarification.

"The wizard's prepared spell works as if prepared with the metamagic feat except it uses the same spell slot. A sorcerer or bard's spell is cast without the adjustment to the casting time but works as if cast with the metamagic feat."

They surely only didn't want to restate that "...except it uses the same spell slot." part again.

Bye
Thanee