Divine Metamagic Feat

[Marshall]

So "free" metamagic is not strong in your mind?

No. Just useful. Which is something that you rarely find attached to the MM system.

Being able to cast any spell Silent on the fly?

You actually have a problem with that?

So you often see someone roll 10d6 and get all 6s? I need you rolling my stats...

No, but that IS the sum total effect of Maximize, and to a lesser extent Empower. You dont get jack snot more out of the spell than you could have before **without spending three(3) feats**.

You can't maximize a Flamestrike unless you are 16th level. That's in the core rules. This feat as printed in CD allows a 10th level caster to maxaimize a Flamestrike. That's 6 levels of difference.

No, frankly, Its not. You're still throwing a 10th CL Flamestrike while the real 16th level caster is throwing a 16th CL Firestorm

Without the million-to-one chance of rolling all 6s with ten dice.

Hey, he figured it out!
Maximize does NOTHING to enhance the spell, it only changes the odds to your favor.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Maximize does NOTHING to enhance the spell, it only changes the odds to your favor.

Ooo-okay.

Same goes for Weapon Focus and Masterwork weapons.

Cloaks of Resistance, Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes.

Divine Grace.

What's the point of bonuses to attacks and saves? A natural 20 automatically succeeds anyway, so none of those things are providing any actual benefit...?

-Hyp.

 

[rushlight]

Ooo-okay.

Same goes for Weapon Focus and Masterwork weapons.

Cloaks of Resistance, Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes.

Divine Grace.

What's the point of bonuses to attacks and saves? A natural 20 automatically succeeds anyway, so none of those things are providing any actual benefit...?

-Hyp.

Not to mention stats, skill points anf nearly anything else that constitues a character.

No, but that IS the sum total effect of Maximize, and to a lesser extent Empower. You dont get jack snot more out of the spell than you could have before **without spending three(3) feats**.

That may be the effect it creates, but you'll not find a 10th level cleric who can cast Flamestrike and get 60 points of damage. In fact, I'd say it's rare to get over 45 points of damage. 15 or 20 points of damage can be significant.

And honestly - it doesn't take three feats! It takes one. Divine Metamagic. A character would then apply that feat to a metamagic feat he already has (and was already using). The way you see it, it's like saying Weapon Specialization isn't any good because it takes two feats. That really ignores the fact the the previous feat (Weapon Focus or the metamagic feat) has it's own value and uses - both before and after selecting another feat that has it's own uses (but requires the previous feat as a prereq.)

 

[Marshall]

Ooo-okay.

Same goes for Weapon Focus and Masterwork weapons.

1 feat, works on every attack or a few gold. Is there a comparison here?

Cloaks of Resistance, Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes.

Divine Grace.

What's the point of bonuses to attacks and saves? A natural 20 automatically succeeds anyway, so none of those things are providing any actual benefit...?

-Hyp.

No, they are providing benefit commensurate with their "cost".
The spell slot cost versions of most MM feats dont even come close. In most cases, they dont even provide an appreciable benefit.

That may be the effect it creates, but you'll not find a 10th level cleric who can cast Flamestrike and get 60 points of damage. In fact, I'd say it's rare to get over 45 points of damage. 15 or 20 points of damage can be significant.

They ALL CAN! In fact the better the 10th level CLR rolls, the worse Maximize becomes. 25 points on average is a nice benefit. Reducing that to 15 or 10 with decent rolls makes your feat investment look foolish. When you factor in the save, its just not worth it.

And honestly - it doesn't take three feats! It takes one. Divine Metamagic. A character would then apply that feat to a metamagic feat he already has (and was already using).

You cant have been using the feat because you dont have the higher level spells to pay the cost. Thats why you took DMM. You could drop ET and reduce the cost to two feats, still a significant investment. For all that, you get one or two uses per day of a somewhat useful ability.

 

[Jarrod]

Actually, my biggest problem with the DMM feats is not that clerics can use turn attempts (often freebies) to get metamagic, but that they can do it on the fly. I'm not going to touch the lack of level cap... Houserule #1: you can only use a DMM on a spell N levels lower than your maximum

It's the spontaneous part. The big trick of a Sorcerer is spontaneous metamagic: 1 full round action. Now clerics can do it as a Standard. Wizards have to _memorize_ metamagic, but not clerics.

I'm hoping this will get dealt with when Complete Arcane comes out, but I do _not_ want clerics outshining the wizards/sorcs when it comes to spellcasting.

Oh, and add Divine Spell Power to that list. Nope, clerics don't get to boost spell power if mages can't.

 

[Darklone]

Marshall: To see how ... let's say it nicely... irrelevant your arguments are: Exchange Maximize with Empower.

Any ability that allows a PC to combine his chars ability in one big bad attack is usually balance threatening. See 3.0 Power Critical. Plus spirited charge, lance, rhino hide, smite evil, true strike, Divine might, Divine Favor...

 

[James McMurray]

No, frankly, Its not. You're still throwing a 10th CL Flamestrike while the real 16th level caster is throwing a 16th CL Firestorm

Good luck getting off a firestorm at 16th level. With a full round casting time, ever enemy within a mile is going to focus their efforts on stopping you, especially if the guy with spellcraft tells them there's a major nuke coming their way.

And even if he gets it off, he can expet to deal only 56 damage on average, whereas the 10th level cleric will do 60. The area is different, but that doesn't matter in many situations.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Flame strike has that nice added bonus of doing half untyped damage as well.

 

[The Souljourner]

Metamagic for clerics less than 13th level is useless. Let's assume you choose empower... exactly what are you going to empower that's lower level than flamestrike? Nuthin'. So you are using two feats to get an effect that you can probably use twice per day (assuming you can get 16 charisma). Empower twice per day for free, even spontaneously, is not broken if it costs two feats for a class already short on feats. It's 17 extra damage for flamestrike if you're 10th level. Just 17, at 10th level. That's 34 damage per day for half your feats (or almost half if you're human). This is me caring.

-The Souljourner

 

[Thanee]

Extend is ok and Quicken is very good for clerics of 9th level or so.

Divine Metamagic Quicken is probably the best choice for a cleric, since Persistent ist very tough, but costs 2 feats (one of which is halfway decent at least) and is otherwise totally useless before 13th level.

Bye
Thanee