Heighten Spell + another Metamagic feat

[rushlight]

Typically, one catches more flies with honey than, for example, a pile of granulated, and dessicated, palm fronds.

Well, I did try to be nice. At least, nicer than Thanee's post.

Metamagic feats, are, in general, pretty weak except under very specific conditions. The fact that it's impossible to find a spell that, when modified by three metamagic feats, is more powerful than a compative spell of the same level speaks more to the weakness of stacking metamagic feats.

You might get close with an maximized empowered split-rayed ray of enfeeblement or something, but this is not my area of expertise. And I still doubt it.

-Which is exactly my point. Allowing the stacking of Heighten with other metamagic feats wouldn't be unbalancing IMHO. The Sage's response, while "official", is unsatisfying. The text of the feat says one thing, but the Sage says the feat should do something else - and he needed to redefine the feat in order to make it say what he wanted it to. Not to mention that (as pointed out above) the way the Sage has ruled it makes it patently ignorant.

Who's gonna cast an 11th level, Empowered, Maximized Burning Hands Heightened to 6th level? No one - that's absurd. But someone might do that as a 6th level spell. Even though it does less damage, effects less targets, and requires more feats than a normal 6th level spell. But it's better than requiring Heighten to add slot levels.

I suppose that's my point in continuing this thread - to generate discussion. Am I the only one who sees fault in the Sage's ruling? Why go out of your way to invalidate a feat, when the use (as written!) isn't unbalancing in the least?

 

[two]

Well, I did try to be nice. At least, nicer than Thanee's post.


-Which is exactly my point. Allowing the stacking of Heighten with other metamagic feats wouldn't be unbalancing IMHO. The Sage's response, while "official", is unsatisfying. The text of the feat says one thing, but the Sage says the feat should do something else - and he needed to redefine the feat in order to make it say what he wanted it to. Not to mention that (as pointed out above) the way the Sage has ruled it makes it patently ignorant.

Who's gonna cast an 11th level, Empowered, Maximized Burning Hands Heightened to 6th level? No one - that's absurd. But someone might do that as a 6th level spell. Even though it does less damage, effects less targets, and requires more feats than a normal 6th level spell. But it's better than requiring Heighten to add slot levels.

I suppose that's my point in continuing this thread - to generate discussion. Am I the only one who sees fault in the Sage's ruling? Why go out of your way to invalidate a feat, when the use (as written!) isn't unbalancing in the least?

Heighten, as feats go, has its uses. It's just not for all PC's all the time. As everyone has pointed out, it's nice for sorcerers on occasion. It's not great when combined with other metamagic feats, so don't combine it.

The fact that a feat is not always useful does not make it "invalid," even if it's not unbalancing if it is changed to be useful more often. It's just a house rule.

A lot of other feats are much more marginal in my opinion. Certain skill-boosting feats might never play a mechanical role in a PC's entire adventuring career. Never. But they are nice for flavor and they just might, maybe, make a difference once in a while. I mean, come on. +3 to Sense Motive? Will that ever really make a difference to the fighter with no Sense Motive ranks and a terrible Wisdom? Probably never. Is the feat "invalid"? No. Just not very useful for some PC's or some situations.

 

[Lamoni]

I suppose that's my point in continuing this thread - to generate discussion. Am I the only one who sees fault in the Sage's ruling? Why go out of your way to invalidate a feat, when the use (as written!) isn't unbalancing in the least?

No, you aren't the only one who sees fault with the Sage's ruling. I think that applying it to spells that have already been modified by other metamagic is the best use for it. It keeps being said that it is extremely useful to sorcerers. I disagree. The sorcerer can already cast the same spells at the same spell slots without the feat for the same amount of damage. Raising the DC of the less effective spells is helpful. But in my opinion not as helpful as many other feats that I would much rather have for my sorcerer. Plus, it lengthens the casting time to a full-round.

I also don't understand why people say that the wording in the player's handbook is clear and therefore there can be no interpretation on it. The fact that this topic keeps coming up and is debated for so long should say that it isn't clear. I think that if you read the rule as it is written without adding any preconceived notions about how you think it should work based on other feats or your past playing experience, that you will read the feat as not raising the spell slot... just raising the effective level up to the spell slot that it uses.

Yes, it gives an example of using a 2nd level spell in a 4th level slot. Does it say that the feat changed it to a 4th level slot? No. You can already do that without any feat. What the feat did was that it made the 2nd level spell in the 4th level slot act like a 4th level spell. Quit bringing up the rule that metamagic stacks. Of course it stacks. But if you take a 2nd level spell, add +2 to the spell slot from a metamagic feat, add another +1 to the spell slot just because you wanted to, and added +3 to the effective level you end up with a spell that starts at 2nd level and becomes a 5th level spell. You still stack all increases to the spell slot.

There is one good argument that this isn't the case. That is the line that says: "Benefit: A heightened spell has a higher spell level than normal (up to a maximum of 9th level)." This can be interpreted as saying that you can't apply heighten to any spell that isn't in a higher level spot... or it can say that the feat actually does raise the spell level concurrently with the effective level. Still, it is far from clear. To help clear it up you just read on...

"Unlike other metamagic feats, Heighten Spell actually increases the effective level of the spell that it modifies. " Still it doesn't say whether or not the feat raises the spell level, but it makes it clear that it DOES raise the effective level. Assuming that it raises the spell level too is based on what we expect it to do based on the effects of other metamagic feats.

Good thing there was an official answer to clear it up because the rule as written isn't very good. Unfortunately, that moves heighten spell from being of about equal benefit as other metamagic feats back down to being about the least useful. Some people will still get it, but only because they can also get a few of the better ones and they think that a sorcerer casting with a full-round action is offset by the +1 or +2 DC. I just know that I'll probably never pick it up. I didn't mention the higher spell slot since the sorcerer is already going to be doing that out of necessity. The thing is, that is a drawback of the sorcerer that they need to do that so often. Using the feat only lessens the drawback... and not by much.

 

[Lamoni]

Actually, I don't know why I wrote such a long reply. I think that everyone has said what they wanted to and there isn't much discussion left for this topic... at least not without people repeating themselves.

Thanee made it pretty clear that there was no interest in discussing it further once a decision was made. I just wanted to voice my support for your position before the thread died.

 

[IceBear]

The problem with allowing it to work like you're describing rushlight is that if you apply it to a spell on it's own it has a cost, but it doesn't have a cost if you add it to a spell that already has a metamagic feat added to it. That seems to go against designer intent in my mind and why I don't think it's meant to work that way.

Sure, if you house rule it to work the way you want it might make it more useful but it also makes it a feat that all spellcasters would want (if they took another metamagic feat anyway) and what did a designer once say about balancing feats - "If it's something that everyone would want, then it's not balanced".

Again, if you want to rule it that way that's fine and it probably adds something to the feat. It just seems to make it "weird" (the cost/no cost thing) and maybe too attractive.

Also, I haven't read that section of the rules recently but it was always understood that you just added everything together.

Anyway, I personally probably would never take Heighten spell (hell, I wouldn't take any metamagic feat - too much cost for too little gain), but I can see an enchanter or illusionist using it whenever they wanted to raise the Will Save DC. In most cases there is very little benefit from a metamagiced spell that couldn't be gained from using a spell of that level anyway. It's really only if you have no offensive spells of that level would you want to use them. Heighten I could see using if you HAD to get MM through someone's Globe of Invunerability, but still I'm sure there are spells of that level that would have been better

What were Monte's changes to metamagic in AU? Maybe those will help here

 

[apsuman]

Actually, I don't know why I wrote such a long reply. I think that everyone has said what they wanted to and there isn't much discussion left for this topic... at least not without people repeating themselves.

Thanee made it pretty clear that there was no interest in discussing it further once a decision was made. I just wanted to voice my support for your position before the thread died.

Thanee might have made it clear that Thanee didn't want to discuss it further but that does not mean that there is no discussion left to have.

 

[Lamoni]

The problem with allowing it to work like you're describing rushlight is that if you apply it to a spell on it's own it has a cost, but it doesn't have a cost if you add it to a spell that already has a metamagic feat added to it. That seems to go against designer intent in my mind and why I don't think it's meant to work that way.

If you are a wizard and you are preparing a 5th level spell in a 6th level slot (for whatever reason you could think of where it would be beneficial). Since you are already going to be using a 6th level slot, you could use the feat for free. In fact, I believe that most of the time that heighten spell is used, it is only used because you are already going to be using the spell in the higher level slot so why not use the feat for the 'free' increase to DC?

 

[apsuman]

I really hate having to say "Well the sage said X so that's official, I guess I was wrong." because it is so unsatisfying.

I will try to make this my last attempt to explain the feat (at least in this thread) and how it stack by MY interpretation of what the PHB says.

Since the various meta magic feats do not "see" each other when they are applied to a spell there can be no order of operation precedence. An empowered maximized fireball is the same as a maximized empowered fireball.

So you have a base spell, Burning Hands. You maximize it, this requires the caster to use a slot three levels higher. Everyone agrees up to this point.

Now you also want to heighten it. You heighten it by three levels. This has two effects, it raises the actual spell level by three spell levels at a cost of requiring a slot three levels higher.

So caster Ned is maximizeing and heightening and the result is that burning hands is now a fourth level spell in a seventh level slot because the three slot raises from the maximize and the three levels from the heighten combine.

That said, I think they could have done a better job wording the heighten feat.

Also, you are free to change it in your game. While I think it would be unbalancing it would be a rather small imbalance.

 

[mikebr99]

If you are a wizard and you are preparing a 5th level spell in a 6th level slot (for whatever reason you could think of where it would be beneficial). Since you are already going to be using a 6th level slot, you could use the feat for free. In fact, I believe that most of the time that heighten spell is used, it is only used because you are already going to be using the spell in the higher level slot so why not use the feat for the 'free' increase to DC?

It isn't "free"... in this case, it is a one slot increase payment, for a benefit of a higher spell DC and effective level. Simply using a 5th level spell in a 6th level slot is the "free" part.

Heighten has a benefit... variable, based on how much you want to pay.

Using a lower level spell in a higher slot is free.


Mike

 

[IceBear]

If you are a wizard and you are preparing a 5th level spell in a 6th level slot (for whatever reason you could think of where it would be beneficial). Since you are already going to be using a 6th level slot, you could use the feat for free. In fact, I believe that most of the time that heighten spell is used, it is only used because you are already going to be using the spell in the higher level slot so why not use the feat for the 'free' increase to DC?

True - it would be smart to Heighten it to 6th level instead of just preparing it there. This is not what I meant about it being "free".

Wizard decides to heighten a spell from level 1 to level 4. The "cost" is a 4th level spell slot. Later the same wizard decides to maximize a first level spell to 4th level. The cost is a 4th level spell slot. With this interpretation, if the wizard heightens the maximized spell to 4th level, he essentially isn't paying any cost for the heighten. That makes it a given that a spellcaster WILL heighten any spell that he is going to use metamagic on anyway because it's free. The small spellcaster may not heighten a spell on it's own because it has cost. That's broken in my mind. Every other metamagic feat has a cost you pay EVERY time you use it.

I'm with Aspuman's interpretation.

Since this topic is over 26 pages on the official forum I don't expect any resolution here. The Sage clarified and people will either agree or disagree and some of us will end up using a house rule, just like every other rule in the game