Easy metamagic

[Jackinthegreen]

Also, unless I'm mistaken, the Easy Metamagic feat drops the cost by 1, but keeps a minimum of +1.

I could be wrong, of course, but that's the way I remember it.

You're correct. It's also true of the Practical Metamagic feat. Arcane Thesis can change things up though.

For whomever said sorcerers can't do Quicken, there's Rapid Spell or an ACF to trade the familiar for metamagic specialization which takes away the lengthened casting time. Use a feat on Obtain Familiar and all is hunky dory again.

 

[delericho]

First off, let me link to an EN World thread discussing this very subject.

That's an interesting thread.

Now, exploits.

As are those. It seems to me that the issue is not specifically the brokenness of swapping a Standard for a Swift action, but rather the interaction of that with the other various things you mention - and in general that anything that allows you to get more actions in the round is very likely broken (especially if you chain them).

That said, of course, you can fix it in one of two ways:

1) Don't allow Standard actions to be traded for Swift actions.
2) Go through all the powers and items that grant extra actions and fix each individually.

No prizes for guessing which is the easier of the two!

Reasons to allow this house rule: It seems "realistic".
Reasons to disallow: Creates bugs.

Yep, that about sums it up. (I would replace "realistic" with "reasonable", but that's a quibble.)

 

[delericho]

For whomever said sorcerers can't do Quicken...

That would be me.

there's Rapid Spell or an ACF to trade the familiar for metamagic specialization which takes away the lengthened casting time. Use a feat on Obtain Familiar and all is hunky dory again.

Fair enough. Of course in that case the character has invested two of the seven feats he will get across 20 levels in order to achieve this feat. That's a fairly significant cost.

(Edit: sorry, that should be three - Quicken Spell, Easy Metamagic, and either Rapid Spell or Obtain Familiar.)

Also: blech. All this is reminding me again why I much prefer to play Core Rules only!

 

[Dandu]

Eh, Sorcerers use Arcane Fusion and Arcane Spellsurge.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

That would be me.



Fair enough. Of course in that case the character has invested two of the seven feats he will get across 20 levels in order to achieve this feat. That's a fairly significant cost.

(Edit: sorry, that should be three - Quicken Spell, Easy Metamagic, and either Rapid Spell or Obtain Familiar.)

Also: blech. All this is reminding me again why I much prefer to play Core Rules only!

The cost can be quite worth it though, especially for blasters. Being able to reduce the costs on Energy Admixture for example is rather potent and worth the feats.