Metamagic feats combined with Item Cration feats

[AuraSeer]

There is a feat that can increase a spellsong's duration by a certain amount when the spellsong is cast. The amount that it is extended by depends on a Perform check.

What do you mean by "spellsong"? Are you working with a bard PrC or something? The bard's Perform-based abilities (like Countersong, Inspire Courage, etc) are not actual spells and can't be put into magic items with the standard rules.

Putting that aside, do you have a description of the feat you're working with? It doesn't sound like something I've heard of before. It's entirely possible that you've just come across a badly-designed feat. In general, only [Metamagic] feats modify spells at all. (The exceptions are things like Spell Focus, which modify all (or a large subset) of the character's spells at once.)

 

[Carthain]

That's pretty much what I said.

Then I got the question "Is that official?" from Mistwell. Having used official rules to determine how it worked (that you couldn't use the feat in item creation) I said "Yes, it is official"

But apparently Mistwell doesn't think anything is official until it has been specifically stated so by someone of authority.

 

[Carthain]

Sorry, I should have clarified it a bit more.

A spellsong is the type of spell that the variant bard published by Monte Cook (in the Book of Eldritch Might 2) can cast. They are arcane in nature, and effectively only have level 1, 3, and 5 spells (called spellnotes, spellchords, and spellmelodies respectively).


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Now then, for the feat in question:

Sustain Song (Sostenuto) [General]
You increase your spellsong's duration with your skill in music
Prerequisite: Ability to cast spellsongs
Benefit: You increase teh duration of any noninstantaneous spellsong. To accommplish this, you must make a Perform check. The required DC depends on the desired amount of duration increase, as well as the spellsong type:
DC Result
15 Increase spellnote duration by 50 percent
18 Increase spellchord duration by 50 percent
20 Increase spellnote duration by 100 percent
23 Increase spellmelody duration by 50 percent
25 Increase spellchord duration by 100 percent
28 Increase spellmelody duration by 100 percent

You must choose the desired result before you make this check, a free action that draws no attack of opportunity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's the feat. Now, one more thing you might want to know, is that normal metamagic feats cannot be applied to spellsongs (which is why feats like the above one were created -- as a sort of replacement feat for the metamagic ones).

 

[1337 h4xor]

That's pretty much what I said.

Then I got the question "Is that official?" from Mistwell. Having used official rules to determine how it worked (that you couldn't use the feat in item creation) I said "Yes, it is official"

But apparently Mistwell doesn't think anything is official until it has been specifically stated so by someone of authority.

the problem i see is that this has to do with mc's alternate bard. the spellsongs aren't the same as the spellcasting ability of the standard bard and The feats that modify his spellsongs act like metamagic feats would for a regular bard.

That being said i think the simple answer would be to ask monte himself weather he meant for it to be able to be used in the fashon you would like to. Rather than trying to apply rules designed to wrk with the core books to things published by outside sources.

 

[Carthain]

Actually, Monte is a good designer, and will specifically design his products to work within the rules of the core rulebooks -- that's the whole point of his products: to work with the D&D system.


Oh, and Monte has chimed in (over on his boards, where this discussion originated) saying that they were not intended to be used in item creation.

 

[kreynolds]

Actually, Monte is a good designer...

It doesn't matter if Monte is a good designer or not. The point is that his alternate bard does not function within the standard framework of the core rules. If it did, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But, this isn't your fault.

If it had been stated in the first post that Monte's alternate Bard was the source of this problem, this thread would have been much shorter, the equivalent of "Go ask Monte." Instead, we got a rather dubious "bard" as an example. But again, this isn't your fault either.

Oh, and Monte has chimed in (over on his boards, where this discussion originated) saying that they were not intended to be used in item creation.

Yeah, I didn't figure he intended his feats to work that way. It looks to me like both of you need to brush up on the rules a bit (sort of a refresher), and this is a good place to do it, so stick around, and don't forget to check out errata occasionally.

 

[1337 h4xor]

Oh, and Monte has chimed in (over on his boards, where this discussion originated) saying that they were not intended to be used in item creation.

so that should be end of discussion...lol

 

[AuraSeer]

IMO the alternate bard shouldn't be creating magic items at all. Monte appears to have purposely made them very different from the other types of casters, to the point of using a different set of spellcasting rules. Creating magic items is very much a wizardly thing, and I don't think it fits the concept of the AltBard.

Come to think of it, all the item creation feats have a prerequisite of N spellcaster levels. I'd say that since the AltBard doesn't cast actual spells, he has no spellcaster level per se, and therefore doesn't qualify for any creation feats. But that's just my gut feeling, YMMV.

 

[Mistwell]

I long ago came to the "we have to ask Monte" conclusion, since nothing any of us said (debate over the word "official" or not) was going to resolve this issue.

The Alt. Bard IS meant to be able to create magic items, with the appropriate feats. Spellsongs are supposed to be treated like any other spell (though there are special rules for detmermining their level). And the Bard feats are supposed to be treated as replacements for [Metamagic] feats, though they are labelled [General] feats. So you can see they are kinda quasi-metamagic feats, and hence all these questions to begin with about their combination with Item Creation feats.

I'm glad Monte addressed the issue, and sorry for any confusion this caused. I was trying to avoid the direct discussion of the Alt. Bard from Book of Eldritch Might II (which you should purchase post haste, since it is a superb book), because I knew that would cause more confusion than it was worth. Thanks for all the advice.

 

[1337 h4xor]

I was trying to avoid the direct discussion of the Alt. Bard from Book of Eldritch Might II (which you should purchase post haste, since it is a superb bookadvice.

does that mean there are different version of boem 2? i bought it the day it was available for dl... so i guess it's time to truck over to monte's page to see what changes he made after release.