Metamagic List

[seasong]

Recent edits:

1. Added stretch spell as an alternative to extend spell. A spell caster could choose either one, depending on which kind of effect he was looking for, as they have different kinds of limitations on their function. Stretch spell is a bit cooler, I think, but isn't always as useful.

2. Dropped ranged touch spell to +3 levels. I'll probably regret that at some point, especially combined with chain spell, mass spell or enlarge spell.

(as a 6th level spell, chain ghoul touch ray sounds pretty nice, although not terrible)

 

[Technik4]

Energy confusion:

Sorry, I was sort of vague. There are 2 feats in T&B: Energy Substitution and Energy Admixture. Your feat is a hybrid of both of these, which is cool, but I think you end up charging too much to mix energy.

Energy Sub: you can sub out an energy type for another type. SL +0

Energy Admixture: you can add an additional type of energy to a spell. The strength of the new energy is equal to the old one.

Example: Take fireball. Lets say you want a fire/ice ball. Now it does 10d6 fire damage and 10d6 cold damage, but it is 3 levels higher.

I think admixture provides good bang for your buck, but is generally too expensive to see much play. Your Transmute Energy is similair in that you can mix energies, but you charge +1 spell level just to have a mix of energies (I think its too high).

For instance with your feats:

I could take fireball, my wizard's favorite spell, and if I was fighting a salamander, switch it to an iceball for SL +0.

I could perfect it, ensuring a 60 pt fireball for SL +3.

I could expand it, filling an 80 ft diameter for SL +3.

Or I could mix the energies, making it part ice, part sonic, part acid for SL +3.

The last one is weird. First of all, I don't know why I would want to (perhaps fireball is a bad example for this feat) and second of all considering the other effects I could get for SL +3, why would I bother? Although on the whole your feat is more useful than either T&B feat.

I like stretch spell a lot, but day/level scares me. Make sure that an elf's 4-hour meditation counts as being "not awake" and it should be fine. Im not really sure day/level makes sense if you have to be awake, but I suppose in extreme situations it could be very very cool. (I picture a haggard wizard with deep shadows beneath his eyes following a monster through a trail to some hidden place muttering "just a couple more hours...").

Sorry about misreading chain spell! At any rate, the WotC version also has a line about not hitting a secondary target more than once, I just neglected to quote it.

One of the things that kept combos from turning a touch spell into a ray spell and then chaining the ray was that chain spell required the original spell to be a ray. Not sure how you want this to work for your game, but it could be a limiting factor on Ranged touch spell.

Technik
Edited: I love Hetha's Gambit man, keep up the great work!

 

[seasong]

Energy confusion:

Sorry, I was sort of vague. There are 2 feats in T&B: Energy Substitution and Energy Admixture. Your feat is a hybrid of both of these, which is cool, but I think you end up charging too much to mix energy.

Energy Sub: you can sub out an energy type for another type. SL +0

Energy Admixture: you can add an additional type of energy to a spell. The strength of the new energy is equal to the old one.

Example: Take fireball. Lets say you want a fire/ice ball. Now it does 10d6 fire damage and 10d6 cold damage, but it is 3 levels higher.

Wow. That's like two empowers AND variable energy types for 3 levels.

I think admixture provides good bang for your buck, but is generally too expensive to see much play. Your Transmute Energy is similair in that you can mix energies, but you charge +1 spell level just to have a mix of energies (I think its too high).

For instance with your feats:

I could take fireball, my wizard's favorite spell, and if I was fighting a salamander, switch it to an iceball for SL +0.

I could perfect it, ensuring a 60 pt fireball for SL +3.

I could expand it, filling an 80 ft diameter for SL +3.

Or I could mix the energies, making it part ice, part sonic, part acid for SL +3.

This would only be SL +2. To break it down, it would be SL +0 to make it all ice; +1 to add partial sonic; and +1 for partial acid. If it was part fire, part ice, part sonic and part acid, then it would be +3. But why on Earth would you be doing that?

I'm not sure you would ever use this for more than one additional energy type. In fact, if you know the weaknesses of what you are facing, most of the time you will just use this for the +0 level effect.

The last one is weird. First of all, I don't know why I would want to (perhaps fireball is a bad example for this feat) and second of all considering the other effects I could get for SL +3, why would I bother? Although on the whole your feat is more useful than either T&B feat.

Really, I think I'm fine with it. I don't see this ever being used for more than a +1, and in those rare cases it costs +2, the wizard will likely be happy to have it .

I like stretch spell a lot, but day/level scares me. Make sure that an elf's 4-hour meditation counts as being "not awake" and it should be fine. Im not really sure day/level makes sense if you have to be awake, but I suppose in extreme situations it could be very very cool. (I picture a haggard wizard with deep shadows beneath his eyes following a monster through a trail to some hidden place muttering "just a couple more hours...").

Heh heh . For elves, I don't have them in my campaign, but if I did, I would count the 4-hour meditation as "not awake".

One of the things that kept combos from turning a touch spell into a ray spell and then chaining the ray was that chain spell required the original spell to be a ray. Not sure how you want this to work for your game, but it could be a limiting factor on Ranged touch spell.

Well, I built out the best abuses I could come up with at +3, and the combos were reasonably appropriate for their level.

Edited: I love Hetha's Gambit man, keep up the great work!

Thanks . I'm working on it right now .

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hi Seasong,

As I said in the other thread, I'm very happy for you to use "lingering touch" metamagic.

Some of the other metamagics in my campaign I'll jot down here, in case any of them take your eye too.

Encrypt Spell
Your spells cannot be counterspelled.

Benefit: An encrypted spell is cast using an unusual combination of arcane words and symbols, which disguises it's true nature. Attempts to identify an encrypted spell with spellcraft always fail. An encrypted spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Expand Spell
Your spells cover a wider area of effect

Benefit: An expanded spell has it's area of effect doubled. When a spell has a radius, multiply by 1.5. An expanded fireball will have a 30' radius, chain lightning targets must be within 45' of each other and firestorm will cover 4x10' cubes per level. It does not affect the range of spells, and has no effect on rays, cones. Neither does it increase the number of targets for spells which affect a variable number - although it can increase the area within which those targets can be selected (e.g. Horrid Wilting). An expanded spell uses up a spell slot 1 level higher than the spells actual level.

Magnify spell
You can affect a greater weight of material.

Benefit: For any spell which specifies weight, the weight limit is doubled (e.g. telekinesis, tensers disk). If using 3.5e rules, then when teleport etc. specify "1 medium sized creature per 3 levels", it is doubled to 2 medium sized creatures per 3 levels. A magnified spell uses up a spell slot 1 level higher than the spells actual level.


also:

Sorcerous Mastery
You are particularly adept at manipulating certain spells, and can metamagic them quickly.

Pre: Sorcerous magic use.

Benefits: You may select 3+cha bonus spells that you know. These spells have become so intuitive for you that you can use any metamagic feats that you know on them without increasing the casting time to a full round. You still have to fulfil all the other conditions for metamagic by using a higher level spell slot.

Normal: Under normal circumstances if a sorcerer wants to metamagic a spell, it becomes a full-round casting action.



Cheers

edited for caps problem

 

[seasong]

As I said in the other thread, I'm very happy for you to use "lingering touch" metamagic.

Cool . The listing in the license part of the document will read

"Lingering Touch Spell Copyright 2003, Mark White (Plane Sailing on ENWorld)"

You will also be in the Special Thanks section without a specific attribution of why; and I'm looking at the Netbook of Feats and thinking about how and if it's a good idea to attribute you (and Technik4) within the OGL text itself (the legal wording seems to say "no", but the netbook group is getting away with it, so maybe it's a "yes").

Encrypt Spell

Counterspelling is so difficult already, I don't see PCs going with this option. The spellcraft aspect is interesting though. Do you have any house rules on counterspelling that make this more worth the spell level?

Expand Spell

Hm. This reminds me that I should specify how a "doubling" works .

Magnify spell
You can affect a greater weight of material.

Benefit: For any spell which specifies weight, the weight limit is doubled (e.g. telekinesis, tensers disk). If using 3.5e rules, then when teleport etc. specify "1 medium sized creature per 3 levels", it is doubled to 2 medium sized creatures per 3 levels. A magnified spell uses up a spell slot 1 level higher than the spells actual level.

I like this one, but I think it needs some balancing work - how would you handle flesh to stone or other single-target-creature spells, for example?

Doubling telekinesis could also be a bit tricky, and might bring up questions about control weather .

Sorcerous Mastery

Hm. I may make this one a mastery of a particular metamagic feat, rather than of a certain number of spells. Otherwise, I like this!

 

[seasong]

Added in magnify spell.

It's not technically metamagic, so it's not in my reference list above, but I worded sorcerous mastery thusly in my document:

Sorcerous Mastery: Prereq 1st level or higher bard or sorcerer, at least one metamagic feat. This feat is only available to bards and sorcerers. Each time the character takes this feat, choose one metamagic feat which the character can use. This metamagic feat no longer increases the spontaneous casting time of spells it is added to, and can be combined with a quickened spell. You may take this feat multiple times; each time, select a different metamagic feat.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hi there,

The real-world name is Alex White

I went with sorcerous mastery affecting the spell rather than the feat for two reasons.

1) nice mirror image with Spell Mastery for wizards

2) it has more of a limiting effect to it. The way you've got it written, who wouldn't take "Quicken" Actually, I suppose the restriction that it can only be a feat you can use means that any sorcerer who came up through the ranks (instead of being created at high level) would be likely to have the low-impact metamagic feats anyway, to get any kind of use out of them.

I've not found the full-action casting time to be a problem to date, and the only issue is that sorcerers can't quicken. My idea was to allow them to choose a small number of spells that they could effectively quicken.

re: Encrypt spell. IMC I allow all arcane casters to attempt reactive counterspelling as an "AoO" against other casters. Way different from normal, but it might make Encrypting of spells handy (especially if you *really* want to teleport out of there!). I should have mentioned that in my previous post.

re: Magnify... I'll admit I've not ironed out all the kinks in that one yet, but was thinking to myself "what other elements of spells could be enhanced but which are not yet". Considering 3e wording, I think it should probably be "doubles the number of targets which can be affected" at +3 levels. (higher level increase because it can now be used for more massive slow spells, chain lightnings, mass anibuffs etc).

Cheers

 

[Technik4]

Variant Metamagics

Couple ideas buzzing through my head today.

How about a special ammendment to metamagic feats in general stating:

You may choose for a metamagic feat to affect only 1 spell, if you do then decrease the amount of spell levels it takes to use it by 1, and you may use it without preparing it, without additional action, once per day.

For instance, if you chose "Quicken Magic Missile" then it would only cost +3 levels to Quicken a Magic Missile (instead of +4), and once per day you could cast a level 1 Magic Missile (or an empowered magic missile or a perfected magic missile, etc) without adjusting the spell level.

Thats the idea, I'm not sure if that implementation is best.

I like Planesailing's Sorcerous Mastery better, as sorceror's already receive so few spells that being able to enhance a few of them makes those spells more personal. Like, "Fear Razzgen the Fire sorceror, for his flames are more potent then most". Maybe he chose to affect 3+cha fire spells. Granted, Seasong's method is nicer because as you gain levels, your metamagic which you chose to enhance is still not taking a full-round action.

And heres something that I thought of a little earlier:

Leash Spell [Metamagic]
Spell Level +1
Using this metamagic feat allows you to cast a spell and then hold it (not cast it) for a number of rounds equal to your primary casting attribute modifier. It is a standard action to "leash" the spell to yourself (and this does not have any verbal, somatic, or foci involved), and only a move-equivelent to "unleash" it (this part uses the foci, verbal, and somatic components). If you have not unleashed it when the time is up, you gain the spell back in your memory, but it is not enhanced with metamagic. Unleashing a spell does not count towards the limit on spellcasting, you can cast a quickened spell, a spell as a standard action, then unleash a spell in the same round.

Example: Cedric the Illusionist doesn't like the look of the Ogre the paladin is trying to reason with. He decides to leash a mirror image, just in case. He spends a standard action preparing the spell, which does not involve any verbal, somatic, or foci. Since his Intelligence is 18, he has 4 rounds to unleash the spell. In the end, the paladin convinces the Ogre to leave the group alone and to stop waylaying travelers. The time runs out, and instead of having a 3rd level Leashed Mirror Image, Cedric now just has the regular old 2nd level version memorized.

[And yes, Im sure there is a more concise way to word it! ]

Technik

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another potential metamagic idea - dunno what you'd call it - lets say "enhance statics" for the moment.

A metamagic feat which allows you to increase the static bonuses granted by a spell by 50%. Thus Bulls Strength would give +6 instead of +4, Righteous Might (or whichever it is) would give +9 instead of +6.

It doesn't effect any +x/level values, only flat static values; it can't be used to pump up GMW/divine favour/etc.

I'd also suggest that it can't be used on a maximised spell.

Level rating for this? Maybe +2 as a nod to the use Empower used to see a lot of?

 

[seasong]

I went with sorcerous mastery affecting the spell rather than the feat for two reasons.

...

2) it has more of a limiting effect to it. The way you've got it written, who wouldn't take "Quicken" Actually, I suppose the restriction that it can only be a feat you can use means that any sorcerer who came up through the ranks (instead of being created at high level) would be likely to have the low-impact metamagic feats anyway, to get any kind of use out of them.

Honestly, I allow sorcerers to use Quicken without a full round anyway . But considering that you can't even use Quicken until 10th level, there is plenty of opportunity for sorcerers to take this with other metamagic.

re: Encrypt spell. IMC I allow all arcane casters to attempt reactive counterspelling as an "AoO" against other casters. Way different from normal, but it might make Encrypting of spells handy (especially if you *really* want to teleport out of there!). I should have mentioned that in my previous post.

That's pretty cool . I like the reactive counterspell idea - makes wiz battles a little more of a test of nerves .

re: Magnify... I'll admit I've not ironed out all the kinks in that one yet, but was thinking to myself "what other elements of spells could be enhanced but which are not yet". Considering 3e wording, I think it should probably be "doubles the number of targets which can be affected" at +3 levels. (higher level increase because it can now be used for more massive slow spells, chain lightnings, mass anibuffs etc).

Yikes .

Okay, so firstly, empower spell, as I have it written, will do this for spells with a variable number of targets (if it affects d4 targets, it will now affect d6 targets), for +2 spell levels per +50%.

On the other hand, that doesn't cover all of the other spells that don't have a variable so much as a per level, or set number of targets.

So howzabout this....

Magnify Spell: Spell level +2. The weight affected by the spell is doubled. This only affects spells which have a weight listed, such as telekinesis or dimension door. Spells which affect a number of creatures or targets are not affected, and the size of creature that can be affected is not changed.

Magnanimous Spell: Spell level +3. The number of creatures affected by the spell is doubled. Thus, a spell which normally affected one Medium-sized creature per level would now affect two Medium-sized creatures per level; and a spell which affected d4 creatures would now affect 2d4 creatures.

(Note that this is more efficient than empower spell for this narrower purpose, but I'm cool with a narrower feat doing better at a single thing)