METAMAGIC SPELL TRIGGER (Complete Mage pg 45)
You can apply metamagic feats you know to spell effect from magic items you activate with a spell trigger.
Prerequities: Any metamagic feat, Use Magic Device 15 ranks, or Spellcraft 15 ranks.
Benefit: You can apply any one metamagic feat you know to a spell generated by a spell trigger item (such as a wand or staff) that you activate. You expend one extra charge for each change in spell level a metamagic feat normally requires.
If the metamagic feat's level adjustment would normally incruease the slot of the chosen spell's level above 9th, you can't apply the metamagic effect to the spell. For example: you can't apply Quicken Spell to an antimagic field generated by a staff (since that would take a level 10 spell slot).
If sufficient chrages aren't available in the itme to power the application of metamagic feats (OR IF THE ITEM DOESN'T USE CHARGES), the item fails to activate and no charges are used, but the action used to activate the item is wasted.
This is a great feat, and I almost always take it for my casters. However, you can't use it with many wondrous items, as it is only usable with items that use charges. A necklace of fireballs doesn't use charges, it discharges beads. Consider using this feat with feats like Persistant as an easy way to metamagic lower level spells in cheap wands.
Another way of doing it would be to make, say, a Staff of Maximized Fireballs. This is simple to do. Just treat the spell as the spell slot it takes to make and the minimum caster level to cast that modified level. Example: a maximized fireball is level 6 and requries a caster level of 11 for purposes of creating your staff, etc. So, 6 x 11 x 375 would be the price or a Wand of Maximized Fireballs, divided by two to craft it. Making it use two charges per shot will half the cost too! Note, wands have a max spell level of 4, so only level one spells can be maximized as wands.
