Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1386408" data-attributes="member: 3051">Just because these can be described in one sentence doesn't make them "flat".  The increase in power due to Empower will still equal ~50% of the base spell's power.  This, of course, scales with the spell modified.  If Empower said "the spell deals +2d6 damage of the previous damage type", then that'd be a flat increase, and could be assigned to a specific spell level.  But it doesn't.  So, Maximize, Empower, Twin, etc. all need to scale with the spell's level, because the actual benefit depends on the spell involved.Then, there's the actual power bestowed.  Like you said, Quicken is like giving a free round, but only allowing the person to cast spells.  That's almost as good as a 9th-level spell (Time Stop), without the duration issue that instantaneous spells suffer from (made more explicit in 3E).  So, allowing someone to Quicken with only a 4th-level slot?  Too cheap.  We could double all the numbers, and require an 8th-level slot to Quicken, but then you'd never be able to use it for low-level spells.  Likewise, there's no 1st-level spell that'd allow you to bypass Silence, so why should Silent Spell only require a 1st-level slot?  (And, it'd be like a spell that casts as a Free Action.)-------------------------As a possible suggestion, let's rewrite all the metamagics' costs to depend on the level of the spell being modified.  That way, it still scales, like the old system, but in a way that isn't quite so obnoxious.If I take the metamagic feat, and I want to apply it to a spell of level X (OR LOWER), I need a slot of level Y (OR HIGHER), defined by:Empower: Y = X/2 + 1to Empower a Magic Missile takes a 1st-level slot, a 4th or 5th level spell takes a 3rd-level slot, and to Empower an 8th or 9th takes a 5th-level slot.Maximize: Y = Xto Maximize a 3rd-level slot requires another 3rd-level slot.  Since the damage is doubling this only makes sense.Quicken: Y = X + 2to Quicken a Magic Missile would cost a 3rd-level slot, to quicken a Fireball would take a 5th, and so on; you couldn't Quicken a Meteor Swarm unless you went Epic.Still: Y = X/2 - 1 (min 0)Silent: Y = X/2 - 1 (min 0)For 1st-3rd, it'd only require a cantrip slot.  An 8th- or 9th-level spell would require a 3rd-level slot; not quite negligible, but not significant.and so on.Okay, algebra may not be the best thing to require, so let's put it into more of a tabular form using categories.  For example:(excuse the lack of formatting)Spell level: 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9+1 metamagics: 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 (formula is (1/3)(X))+2: 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 (formula is (1/2)(X+1))+3: 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 (formula is (2/3)(X+2))+4: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - - - (formula is (1)(X+3))The point is, you still need to keep some scaling IMO, because none of the metamagics are truly "flat", even the ones like Still and Silent that don't have numerical effects.  If I'm Held, then Still Spell is more valuable applied to a Meteor Swarm than to a Magic Missile.  The one constant should be that when applied to your best spells (which, of course, improve with level), the fractional loss in power for using the metamagic should remain constant.  If you always require Empower Spell to use a 2nd-level slot, at high level this becomes a trivial cost.</blockquote>

Verification