[Metamagic Feat] Burning The Candle (Break-Test Phase)

[Corinth]

Burning The Candle (Metamagic)

• Requirements: Two metamagic feats
• Effect: The caster may cast more than what his normally daily allotment allows, but at the cost of his health. He sustains temporary Constitution damage equal to twice the spell's level; if this spell is adjusted by other metamagic feats, then use the adjusted spell level.
• Normal: The caster may not cast more spells per day than his class level and ability score allows.

Designer's Intent: This is meant to simulate the ability of a magician to cast more magic than he's safely able to cast, but as the expense of risking his life.

Comments?

 

[Piratecat]

Good when you're alone. Horribly unbalanced when you're standing next to a cleric with a restoration spell or two handy. Even more unbalanced if you ARE a cleric!

 

[Avatar of the North]

bah. Psionics with Trigger power, budy fuel and lesser body adjustment does the same as that feat + cleric/restoration at possibly 0 cost. Just one broken trick psions can use that mages/clerics/druids should be able to do too

 

[Piratecat]

Avatar of the North, that's specious logic if I've ever heard it. "This thing has a powerful loophole, so we should design more broken things similar to it?"

Consider a cleric with a 16 constitution. He's slap an endurance spell on, giving himself a con of 18-21. This gives him eight free spell levels to play with for every 4th lvl restoration spell he had prepared, a 2-for-one bargain.

From a metagame perspectiver, it doesn't work for any character that has to prepare spells, like a cleric or wizard; although they would sacrifice their health to cast a spell, they wouldn't have any such spell prepared. It makes more sense for a bard or sorcerer, anyone who casts spells spontaneously.

I wonder if this would be more balanced at a 3-for-1 level? That way, someone with a 16 con could have 5 spell levels to play with.... a reasonable exchange for the cleric giving up a 4th lvl spell to restore them.

Thoughts?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Thoughts?

What if the character doesn't have a restoration prepared, but uses this ability to cast it? With 17 Constitution, you could cast a free 4th level spell followed by restoration as a free spell. If the Con damage is after-the-fact, then you could cast two 4th level spells (or an 8th-level spell) followed by a free restoration.

Basically, what I'm trying to say: too hard to use, too easy to abuse.

 

[alaric]

A simple fix would be to say that this damage is not healable by magic means. You also have to consider that with the low hit points of the mage the loss of hp is probably a bigger limiting factor than reaching 0 con. If you cast this in combat you better pray that whatever spell you choose finishes off the other guys, because your likely to be quite hurting after it.

 

[MonkeyBoy]

risk

My advice is to intoduce a random element.

If the designer's original intent was to allow a caster to risk their health, then you shouldn't have a totaly deterministic system - allowing you to calculate how much you can do removes all risk, and simply makes this a meta-gamer's feat.

(look how soon calculations about what spells you could get for free with restoration came about...)

With a random element (d8 damage per spell level?) you will sometimes get a cheap spell (lucky you!) but run a risk of totalling yourself. You should set the damage so that trying too high a level spell has a reasonable chance of killing the impetuous mage!

(use a single die, preserving a wide range of potential damage values)

Oh; and absolutely prevent clerics from cancelling the downside. Make the cost a sacrifice of HP or CON, recovered only when the character next replenishes spells (i.e. after rest!)