How often are metamagic feats used by PCs in your campaign?

[Chroma]

I'm planning on advancing to the Loremaster PrC--doesn't it require 3 metamagic feats (I dont' ave access to my DMG right now)?

Or three item creation Feats... which you'll probably get more mileage out of... as a wizard, you already have Scribe Scroll.

Metamagic can be cool, but there are a lot of other Feat choices as well, not sure if, other than the Incantrix (FR) there are many metamagic focused prestige classes.

 

[Nifft]

Actually, that's not quite true... as DM, several of my bad guys have made use of Metamagic Feats, including Quicken Spell.

Still, it's more calculation and powergaming than my group usually bothers with.

-- N

 

[gariig]

The inherent problem of metamagics is..
1. For most spellcasters you need to know that a Quicken Fireball or a Stilled Dim. Door will be useful. That's one reason I can see NPCs using them while PCs don't. The NPC has one purpose, to antagonize the PCs so he can be more specialized then the PCs need to be.

2. The level adjustment usually isn't worth it. Is an empowered magic missile worth a fireball? I think most mages would rahter throw a fireball over some extra +1s on their MM.

I like AU's where all metamagics except Quicken are one feat and Quicken is another. Then you just spend two spell slots of the same level and you metamagicked. Allows you to be flexible and metamagic when you need the stilled dim door.

Gariig

 

[takyris]

I said "Sometimes", but really, it sort of depends. In low-level games, it's rare or never -- you just don't have enough 2nd level spells to go Stilling a first-level spell for that slot unless that's your whole gig, doing the (non-3.5 bard) armored caster thing.

At high levels, my guys were always tossing around metamagicked whatsits of lower level stuff.

And random side-note: Had a ton of success with a d20 Modern one-shot wherein I collapsed all magic to work as follows:

- Each spell you get costs you a feat.
- Casting a spell is a knowledge(arcane) check
- You can do a lot of things to modify it, such as lengthening the spellcasting process to a full minute in order to make it easier, shortening it to a standard action (from a full-round action), which makes it harder, or stilling and silencing it.

The more d20 stuff I play, the more I love the core "roll d20 and beat DC to do what you want" system. I wouldn't make every spell cost a feat in a D&D-type game, but you could do it with something like "Mind Control Magic" as a feat -- Charm Person is easy, Dominate Person or Hold Monster is hard, Dominate Monster is next to impossible.

Random thought, sorry for topic drift.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

In the highlevel FR game that got put on hold, the cleric was fond of using Maximized Flame strikes right and left, and looked forward to being able to maximize Fire Storms. He was also fond of using spontaneous Ranged Touch cure spells to avoid having to go into melee and provoke attacks of opportunity, as he was not the toughest fighter around.

He's playing a low-level Invoker fire mage in the new game now, so I suppose it won't be too long before he starts using meta-magic again.

 

[Olive]

I'm planning on advancing to the Loremaster PrC--doesn't it require 3 metamagic feats (I dont' ave access to my DMG right now)?

even if it did, it would probably be worth it. It's a pretty cool PrC.

 

[Wycen]

None of my characters have ever had a metamagic feat. I had a wizard who had a feat I found on a Kalamar fan site, called Perfect Spell or something like that, which gave you a chance of perfecting a spell each time you cast it and thus allowed you to choose any metamagic feat to apply to the spell, though the level adjustment still counted. That game died before I did much it it though.

As for others and my players, in one group they never take metamagic feats. In my current group a wizard with the Sage of Phylacteric Vault prestige class has a few, but never uses them. The sorcerer had a necklace of maximize spells, but it burned out of charges.

 

[Maldur]

It looks Like Ill have to use silent spell alot, as our new DM seems to be overly fond of silence spells.

But Im not a great fan of metamagic, esp now as my character concept is having as much spells as possible, with a great variety, and metamagic reduces that Idea.