Divine Metamagic

[Crosswind]

Let's get the tradeoff straight: You are spending 4 feats to get:

+6 strength
+2/+3 AB (in the level ranges I'm talking about)
+1 hp/level.

And then, if you want, you can spend 7,500 gold to get another spell persisted. If it's Righteous Might, this finally becomes worth the trade, assuming you don't run into anybody with Dispel Magic memorized.

Is it good? Yes. Is it game-breaking, "we can't let this in our game"? Naw. It's just a good combination, pretty on-par with a lot of other stuff that you can do from the Complete series.

-Cross

 

[Mistwell]

But that cleric is not a fighter without feats. A fighter without feats with way better will save and plentiful of spells.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Undeath has several good spells, particularly for a necromancer. Also, you a are a fighter with, as Shin said, a lot of spells, better saves, and spontaneous healing. And a feat left (for power attack perhaps, which would be quite deadly with this combo). I'm telling you, you put those two guys in an arena and it's the cleric coming back out alive.

And it only gets worse as levels increase.

I am not one to call things broken. It's very rare in fact. But this is one of those rare combinations that I think are clearly broken. Divine Metamagic needs a cap on it at the maximum spell level you could already cast. Without that cap, it's just plain silly overpowered.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I am not one to call things broken. It's very rare in fact. But this is one of those rare combinations that I think are clearly broken.

I agree with this sentiment. Divine Metamagic is incredibly overpowered in this way.

Crosswind, your argument against this, that spellcasters are so much more powerful than other classes at high levels that having them not cast to fight is a disadvantage is highly presumptuous. It goes against what I have seen at high levels, and the key to why Divine Metamagic Persistant is so powerful is because you are straw-manning Divine Power as if it was Tenser's Transformation. The key here is that the cleric can and will continue to cast spells, as well as being able to fight with incredible power. I've played high-level NPC clerics who were willing to spend either precious rounds or high-level quickened slots to get those spells up and they were an incredible force with which to be reckoned--but at least their opportunity cost was extremely high (several rounds or some 8th and 9th level spells) compared to the Divine Metamagic cleric, and the Divine Metamagic cleric gets far more yield (her spells last all day).

Even my players immediately discounted the Divine Metamagic feat. In the words of one of my players, it fails the '3.0 Incantatrix test' , where you compare any ability to the extremely powerful capstone abilities of Incantatrix, and if it is stronger, it is probably overpowered. In this case, it is stronger, and it is just a feat, rather than a PrC capstone.