Brainstorming on spell fixes

[Sepulchrave II]

Thoughts?

I like this a lot. My main problem with metamagic is actually that I think some other mechanism than feats should be used to implement it.

Since it uses up a swift action, metamagic becomes like metapsionics (i.e. only 1 per spell is feasible).

Either making metamagic spells have a move (-equivalent) action casting time, or have certain other spells have a move-action casting time could also create interesting possibilities in terms of action economy.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Thoughts?

Awful for Sorcerers - a real killer. Requiring the use of precious spells known (rather than spell slots or feats) makes metamagic pretty much impossible for them, further restricting them.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Either making metamagic spells have a move (-equivalent) action casting time, or have certain other spells have a move-action casting time could also create interesting possibilities in terms of action economy.

Hmm. Move-action metamagic spells could work as well, though I don't quite like the aesthetics, in that the only offensive/buff ability that uses move actions that I know of is the war weaver's Quiescent Weaving feature. I'd much prefer to sacrifice Quicken for balance and aesthetic reasons, but if you implement something like this in your games it's up to you what you do with it.

Awful for Sorcerers - a real killer. Requiring the use of precious spells known (rather than spell slots or feats) makes metamagic pretty much impossible for them, further restricting them.

I wasn't quite sure what, if anything, this system should do differently with spontaneous casters, so I didn't address it at all. Upon further thought, I see no reason why we couldn't keep metamagic feats as a mechanic--they just function like Extra Spell, giving you a single spell known per feat, while scrolls and other means of buying the metamagic feats would be more expensive than normal spells of their level--so spontaneous casters wouldn't have to spend spells known and prepared casters couldn't just learn every metamagic spell they wanted. To further differentiate the spontaneous casters from the prepared casters, how about one of these?

• At each odd caster level (when a prepared caster would get a new spell level) spontaneous casters learn one free metamagic spell of their choice that they could normally learn. This is a class feature not advanced by "+1 spellcasting" PrCs (giving sorcerers a reason not to PrC out at level 5).
• When taking a metamagic feat, a spontaneous caster learns all versions of the metamagic feat at the appropriate levels (e.g. if a wizard takes Empower Spell, he learns empower I and would have to take it again for empower II, but a sorcerer taking Empower Spell would automatically learn empower II as soon as he gained access to 4th-level spells and empower III as soon as got 6th-level spells).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Perhaps the answer is to make metamgic work very differently for all.

For non-spontaneous casters, simply make metamagic Versions of spells into discrete spells. IOW, an Empowered MM would be a different spell from a Maximized one or an unmodified one.

For spontaneous casters, modifying a spell with metamagic would require a Spellcraft check- DC set by current LA mods- with a failed check meaning the spell goes off in unmodified form, but using the higher spell slot.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I'm really interested to see thoughts on the spell levels being 1-20. It sounds so much more intuitive than how things are now.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Perhaps the answer is to make metamgic work very differently for all.

For non-spontaneous casters, simply make metamagic Versions of spells into discrete spells. IOW, an Empowered MM would be a different spell from a Maximized one or an unmodified one.

For spontaneous casters, modifying a spell with metamagic would require a Spellcraft check- DC set by current LA mods- with a failed check meaning the spell goes off in unmodified form, but using the higher spell slot.

At the risk of sounding rather mad, an even simpler fix is simply to make all metamagic modifications to spells automatically available for all spellcasting classes.

If you're talking about completely redefining spellcaster balance - and I think you probably are - there are lots of other elements which can be pared down to assert that balance. You can choose to state: "Metamagic is freely available" as a starting premise.

Metamagic adds versatility. But how much? You use a higher level slot; how much does this offset the cost?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm really interested to see thoughts on the spell levels being 1-20. It sounds so much more intuitive than how things are now.

In case you missed it, I broke that off into it's own thread in this forum: http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/301868-brainstorming-spell-level-fixes.html


It's a task which is proving to have some interesting challenges.