Energy Substitution and The Sorceror

[Thanee]

What would you prefer?

We play it as normal and I have no problems with it.
I'm using metamagic a lot, easily half the spells cast are metamagicked.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mr. Kaze]

2) If I'm right, how unbalancing would it be to allow the use of the feat as a normal casting of the spell (standard action)?

Mildly, but not too bad. If your game has psionics in it, then it actually helps to restore balance against the kineticist who doesn't need to waste feats on silly energy substitutions anyway. (Which is, IMO, the most offensive thing to sorcerors as a class ever....)

::Kaze

 

[Infiniti2000]

Basically, as I undesratnd it, a sorceror using the Energy Substitution feat would cast his spell as a fullround action. My questions are two:

1) Am I correct in this assumption of a full round of casting for AcidBall?

You use both terms, so I don't think it's clear which one you mean. A sorcerer indeed would use a metamagic feat on a 1 action spell as a full round action, not "a full round of casting" which would imply something far worse. If this was a typo, then everyone's responses were correct.

 

[iwatt]

Ah. If only there were some way for a Trollkiller sorcerer to deal fire or acid damage with a fireball without a feat!

... oh, wait...

-Hyp.

I know....Burning Blood in Complete Adventurer. The player already asked for it

You use both terms, so I don't think it's clear which one you mean. A sorcerer indeed would use a metamagic feat on a 1 action spell as a full round action, not "a full round of casting" which would imply something far worse. If this was a typo, then everyone's responses were correct.

You're correct in my lack of clearness. But all the responses were appropriate to the question I "wanted" to ask. Never meant to imply a full round of casting.


EDIT POST: Hyp: I read "and" in place of "or" in your reply. Thought you were reffering to spells that deal both acid and fire at the same time. Since my brain is working very slow today, what did you imply?

 

[Jdvn1]

EDIT POST: Hyp: I read "and" in place of "or" in your reply. Thought you were reffering to spells that deal both acid and fire at the same time. Since my brain is working very slow today, what did you imply?

Archmage?

 

[Hypersmurf]

EDIT POST: Hyp: I read "and" in place of "or" in your reply. Thought you were reffering to spells that deal both acid and fire at the same time. Since my brain is working very slow today, what did you imply?

Well, a vanilla fireball gets past a troll's Regeneration just fine... I'm not sure why acid is necessary at all...?

-Hyp.

 

[iwatt]

Well, a vanilla fireball gets past a troll's Regeneration just fine... I'm not sure why acid is necessary at all...?

-Hyp.

Fiendish Trolls?.....

I have them playing in the Silver Marches and lately they've kept running into large packs of trolls displaced by Giants that were displaced by Oboulds Horde. So now he wants more eficient ways of killings trolls. And energy substitution is an effective way for a sorceror to gain damage type flexibility.

Also, if you're going to add Trollbane to your name, you gotta have the stuff to back it up

 

[Liquidsabre]

You could also take a look at the Unearthed Arcana variant for spontaneous metamagic, but I consider it not so well thought-out as it is much more benefit for wizards than for sorcerers and the more effective metamagic feats (high level modifier) get more benefit than the less effective ones (low level modifier) IMHO.

Yea, having used the Spontaneous Metamagic varaint for a year and a half now we see sorcerers benefit *almost* as much as the wizard since they can now cast metamagic spells as a standard action rather than a full-round action and gain access to the quicken spell metamagic feat. 3/day quicken spell sees a bit more usefulness than a 3/day silent spell though the spontaneity of the use still has it's advantages. Not to mention the possibilities for a sorcerer selecting a MM feat more than once for 6/day use, quite nice.

IME the best thing to do would be to allow all +0 and +1 spell slot increasing metamagic feats to be cast as per the core rules AND using spontaneous metamagic to keep them balanced with the higher slot adjusted metamagic feats. With this in effect I can't ever imagine going back to core use of the MM feats, let alone play a MM-using caster in a core game (though I'd be alright using the +0/+1 MM feats, anything higher really isn't worth the trade-off).

 

[TheGogmagog]

2) If I'm right, how unbalancing would it be to allow the use of the feat as a normal casting of the spell (standard action)?

I don't think it would be, I haven't been able to playtest it either. I would definitly allow a feat that would allow energy sub to be applied as a standard action.

Another option would be to let him learn a unique spell, acidball. But I would suspect that wouldn't fulfill his probabale goal of energy admixture.

 

[Caeleddin]

It won't be unbalancing at all. The Archmage gets it for free and for any of the energy types. You get it for 1. I have a campaign where the House Rule is that Sorcerors don't get penalised for applying Metamagic feats. I even allow them to take Quicken. So far, I have 1 Sorceror and he is half Ranger and going for Arcane Archer. Go figure.