Best Spell to Maximize

[Thanee]

Level 9 spell would be maximized and 5x empowered from an Incantatrix, thus resulting in 5x3.5 or +17.

I think there is no good spell to maximize as empower is just superior in most cases and therefore it's not worth to spend a feat on Maximize Spell.

Bye
Thanee

 

[kreynolds]

One fun situation is using a metamagic rod of maximize

And the best part about metamagic rods? They're a free action to use them while casting and they don't actually raise the spell level in regards to spell slots. I love those things.

 

[FullTinCan]

Why would you maximize Harm?

It is the "silly" option of the poll. Of course you wouldn't want to maximize harm, but you could.

 

[Belares]

An empowered lightning bolt/fireball does more damage on average than a maximized one, and besides that, a 6th level spell would probably work better.

ok lets see empowered fireball at 10th level can on the average do 45 damage (avg. 3 hps per dice and then 1.5x). This is taking in account that on a 6 sided dice that 3 is the average.

A maximized fireball can do 60hp period.

Both if saved on are 23 and 30 respectivly.

Of course that is IF you take the average of a empowered vs. maximized.

Then if you roll real well and max out ...could happen..hehe...then 90 is pretty awesome. Then a maximized empowered fireball is 90 hp...hmm I like the sound of that!

 

[Dr. Zoom]

I voted for poison. Not for any particular reason other than I just made a necromancer for a friend's new campaign and look forward to using this spell. He is also from a barbaric and frozen land (Frost Barbarian from Greyhawk) so I thought it would be cool for him to focus on cold type evocation magic in addition to necromancy. So if my cone of cold does not get you, I will cast spectral hand and poison.

 

[Taluron]

A high level cleric in one of our compaigns is causing significant mayhem which maximized energy drains.

 

[Thanee]

Actually the average on a d6 is 3.5 and an empowered 10d6 fireball would do 35 x1.5 = 52.5 damage on average, with the potential to deal as much as 90 damage.

And most important, it is one spell level lower (5 instead of 6)!

A 7th level 2x empowered fireball would deal an average of 70 damage, which is not possible with the Maximize Spell feat. Therefore I think, that Empower Spell is superior to Maximize Spell. You either get a slightly lower effect for a one lower spell level, which also means, that you can use it 2 levels earlier, and you get a much higher potential with stacking!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Belares]

I was unsure what the average of the d6.

I did not know that you could do a 2x empowered fireball, so that is using the empowered feat twice, correct?

I still like the maximized empowered fireball as it does a straight 90 hps, but the extra slot is a lot.

 

[Victim]

Maximized Fire Seeds. First of all, fire seeds uses a d8 for damage, so there's potentially lots of variance. Maximize on a d6 based spell gives +2.5 to average damage while on a d8 based spell it gives +3.5. If you're interested in killing a single target ASAP, then Max Fire Seeds yields 160 points at level 20, compared to 120 from Max Chain Lightning. While Fire Seeds can miss, it is a touch attack so hitting is pretty easy and it can also critical.

However, Empower is much better than Maximize. First of all, it is legal to apply empower multiple times. Therefore, it's much better with lower level spells since they can be empowered many times, while Maximize only works once.

BTW, metamagic feats don't see each other, each is applied to the spell independently. So a Maximized, Empowered Fireball does 60 damage from the Maximize and another 5d6 from the Empower.

 

[Morose]

It depends on your target (ie race/class/subtype), but overall I'd have to say Poison. That much con drain is just obscene. Not only that, but if the initial damage succeeds then you're nicely set up to insure the final damage takes effect a minute later and there aren't a lot of things that can shrug off 20 points of con damage.