extend spell and heat/chill metal

[dcollins]

There was a pretty extensive discussion about this maybe a month back. My own ruling is simply to expand the max-damage segment in the middle. Thus:
01222222222210

Rationale:
(1) If you ignore the table, and only focus on the text (under the text-overrides table principle), this is actually what is implied.
(2) It's still balanced under the theory that most D&D fights are over in 4 or 5 rounds anyway.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Rationale:
(1) If you ignore the table, and only focus on the text (under the text-overrides table principle), this is actually what is implied.

I agree with dcollins that the text accompanying the spell effectively says "first and last rounds of the spell it does 0, second and second-last rounds it does 1d4, and all the rest it does 2d4".

However in general I would agree with doubling the duration of each 'phase' of the spell. This means that an extend will double the damage of a damage-per-round spell, and will usually make the spell take longer to achieve full effect, which makes the metamagic not strictly more powerful than empower in such cases.

 

[reanjr]

I would cut off the extra 0s as well...otherwise, extending the spell actually makes it weaker in some ways, as it doesn't go into effect as fast, and gives the enemy more time to remove their gear. As a matter of fact, I think I would rule that the spell causes the higher damage for longer, but still heats up and cools just as fast as normal. So I would use a chart like this:

1 0
2 1d4
3 2d4
4 2d4
5 2d4
6 2d4
7 2d4
8 2d4
9 2d4
10 2d4
11 2d4
12 2d4
13 1d4
14 0

This may be a generous ruling, but otherwise, extending the spell has drawbacks in addition to the advantages of doing it.

This seems to be the most logical ruling to me. The spell heats metal. Extending it isn't going to cause this effect to happen more slowly. The duration that it continues to heat the metal (and thus keep it maximally hot) would be extended.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

This seems to be the most logical ruling to me. The spell heats metal. Extending it isn't going to cause this effect to happen more slowly. The duration that it continues to heat the metal (and thus keep it maximally hot) would be extended.

Okay, I'm not arguing with your rationale. But I don't see anything at all more "logical" about your stance. Ruling that the Extend Spell feat extends the duration that the metal is heated makes sense, sure. Ruling that the Extend Spell feat extends the entire magical process of heating/cooling metal also makes sense. Neither is more "logical" than the other.

/rant Sorry, people throwing the word "logical" into their arguments is a pet peeve of mine...