Artificers & Persistent Spell feat?

[Errant]

I've been considering making an artificer PC and looking at some threads about how to make the most of the class.

The Persistent Spell is touted again & again as a *must have* feat IF my DM will allow it, but I'm not seeing why.

If I understand the feat right (from Complete Arcane), it allows me to change the duration of a personal or fixed range spell to 24 hours at the cost of preparing it as 6 levels higher. A Persistent 1st level spell would therefore count as a 7th level spell.

Artificers don't *get* 7th level spells/infusions, so Persisten Spell can't be for preparing spells, which leaves making magic items.

With metamagic feats, I can store a metamagic version of a spell in a scroll, potion, or wand, but level limits for potions and wands apply to the spell’s higher spell level (after the application of the metamagic feat), so I can't make Persistent spell potions or wands, just scrolls.

Is that it? Persistent Spell is so popular just because it lets artificers create personal spell scrolls with 24hr durations? Or am I missing something else?

 

[FrostedMini1337]

You can use Divine Metamagic to spend turning attempts instead of spells levels and to fuel the spell, so 24 hour long buffs.

 

[Patlin]

Only the tiniest part of metamagic feats for artificers is about modifying your infusions. There's an infusion (I think it's third level) that adds a metamagic feat to a wand temporarilly.

A typical use of the Persistent Spell feat for an Artificer would be to use a 3rd level infusion on a wand of shield and make one charge from the wand last all day long. Now consider a wand of Divine Power...

 

[Vysirez]

Only the tiniest part of metamagic feats for artificers is about modifying your infusions. There's an infusion (I think it's third level) that adds a metamagic feat to a wand temporarilly.

A typical use of the Persistent Spell feat for an Artificer would be to use a 3rd level infusion on a wand of shield and make one charge from the wand last all day long. Now consider a wand of Divine Power...

Patlin nailed it right there. The reason Persistent spell or any other metamagic feats are good is the Artificier ability to apply them to spell completion items like wands and scrolls. You can very quickly get some very powerful buffs running all day. Divine favor, Divine might, Righteous might are all very powerful. How about Wraithstrike from CAD? all your attacks are touch attacks for 24 hours. Though I can't remember for sure if that one works, don't have my books handy. I think there are more methods then just the 3rd lvl infusion, but they cost more charges out of the wand I think.

Other useful metamagic feats are Twin spell, repeat spell, anything that has a high metamagic cost really, chain spell is another good one.

 

[Patlin]

I think there are more methods then just the 3rd lvl infusion, but they cost more charges out of the wand I think.

Yes, their is a class ability that let's you spend extra charges to apply metamagic effects to spell completion items. Nice, but expensive. There's another one for scrolls, but you have to make a somewhat difficult UMD check. Very nice, once your level is high enough to make the check reliably. The scroll one is also limited in number of times per day.