Sudden Metamagic Feats from Complete Arcane

[The Amazing Dingo]

Hey all,

Hope everyone has had a good New Years.

I was wondering what everyone's opinion on the Sudden Metamagic Feats from Complete Arcane. The lack of any prerequisites for these spells is certainly something I question. As the DM, I know I have final say, but I've had an opinion and later changed my mind after hearing some opinions from those here on Enworld.

Also, can all of the Sudden Feats be used on the same spell? I see nothing saying 'no', so I assume 'yes', but I just wanted to double check.

Thanks all! Have a good day!

 

[zoroaster100]

As a DM, I really like them. In fact, I like them much better than most of the other metamagic feats which require spells to be cast at a higher level. My players did not ever want to pick the original metamagic feats in the low or mid levels, so they were mostly going to waist since those are my favorite levels to run. But the sudden feats are what I think feats are meant to be, adding a little bit of variety with out adding a huge amount of power. Remember, the character can only use the feat once per day, so it doesn't really boost the character's power too much. The Player's Handbook metamagic feats always seemed underpowered because they require the opportunity cost of picking the feat instead of a different feat, plus the cost of using a higher level slot, and on top of that they have little flexibility since they must be prepared ahead of time for a wizard or require longer casting time for a sorcerer. That was just too many drawbacks.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Some of the 'sudden' feats do have prerequisites. Sudden Quicken in particular has a boatload.

Overall I think these feats are pretty good, neither too strong nor too weak.

 

[Kershek]

The feats are way too strong, even for once per day. For instance, a first level human wizard can get Sudden Maximize. At 5th level he can do 30 damage in a 20-ft radius with a fireball. An 8th level wizard could do an automatic hit magic missile once per day at 25 damage using up only a 1st level slot. Or perhaps empower it to do 37 auto-hit damage using a 3rd level slot. At 9th, it turns into 54 damage either with fireball or cone of cold. Then there's cloudkill at 9th level doing 4 constitution damage PER ROUND while they're in the cloud. At 11th level, you could cast a disintegrate that does a whopping 131 damage. Or, with Energy Admixture from Tome and Blood, a 14th level caster could cast an acid cone of cold that does 168 damage (84 cold AND 84 acid) in a 60 foot cone! Can you imagine empowering that to 252 damage with a Rod of Empower (well within a 14th level wealth range)? Remember, this caster can do this stuff once per day with no pre-prep or level adjustment!

Or, perhaps you're a druid casting call lightning at 5th level and doing 18 damage per round for 5 rounds, or 30 damage per round if the weather is right.

I think that they should, at a minimum, put in a prerequisite that you cannot cast a spell with Sudden Maximize (or other Sudden spell) without being high enough level to prepare it with that metamagic feat normally. Therefore, that wizard would have to wait until 20th level to do his 252 damage from that acid cone of cold empowered by his rod.

I'm sure I'm not even thinking of the best ways to min-max it, either.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Gotta agree with Doug and disagree strongly with Kershak. Sudden Metamagic feats are a great addition, and not even remotely overbalanced. They're usable only once a day, after all, and if a 1st-level wizard wants to devote every feat he has to Maximizing one spell once/day--after all, Sudden Maximize requires one other metamagic feat as a prereq--I see no problem with that. It's not like it's increasing his damage potential, since he could possibly do max damage normally. So he automatically does max once/day? Big deal. It's almost still too weak (but not quite).

I've see the Sudden feats used long-term, in an ongoing campaign. And so far, not only have they not proven game-breaking, I can only think of a few fights where they even made a notable difference.

 

[Kashell]

So let me get this straight...


Complete Arcane has something useful in it?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Or, with Energy Admixture from Tome and Blood, a 14th level caster could cast an acid cone of cold that does 168 damage (84 cold AND 84 acid) in a 60 foot cone!

Energy Admixture is +4 spell levels so an energy admixed CoC takes up a 9th level slot.

Can you imagine empowering that to 252 damage with a Rod of Empower (well within a 14th level wealth range)?!

Maximise doesn't work on the empowered dice, you still just roll normally. For example, a 10th level sudden maximised empowered fireball does 60 + 10d6/2 (average = 67.5) not 90.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Or, with Energy Admixture from Tome and Blood, a 14th level caster could cast an acid cone of cold that does 168 damage (84 cold AND 84 acid) in a 60 foot cone!

Umm... No.

Energy Admixture (which is revised in Complete Arcane, BTW) adds +4 to the level of the spell, and doesn't have a Sudden variant. So you're not tossing an Admixed cone of cold until you can cast 9th-level spells, at which point 168 points of damage isn't unreasonable.

Edit: D'oh! Doug beat me to it.

And Kashell, I find CA to be chock-full of useful material. It may be the best Complete book to date.

 

[beaver1024]

So let me get this straight...


Complete Arcane has something useful in it?

Not really. The Sudden feats are really weak because of the 1/day mechanic. Additionally if you allow Sudden feats then the Mage Slayer type feats inevitably comes rolling in. If you're a player playing arcane spellcasters, there's nothing in Complete Arcane that justifies crippling your character that way. It's one of those books which the intended customer is better off without.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I was wondering what everyone's opinion on the Sudden Metamagic Feats from Complete Arcane.

I like Sudden Silent, Still, Empower, and Extend.

Sudden Quicken has a lot of prereqs, so I doubt many players will want it.

I don't think I'll allow Sudden Maximize. Maximize Spell is very worth the +3 levels it adds to any given spell. Letting a 5th-level wizard cast a 6th-level spell, even once a day, messes with the setup of the game too much for my liking.

It's not like it's increasing his damage potential, since he could possibly do max damage normally. So he automatically does max once/day? Big deal. It's almost still too weak (but not quite).

I've never seen a wizard roll max damage on a Fireball. Ever. So as far as my experience goes, Sudden Maximize absolutely adds to the damage potential of the mage. Quite a lot. If I'd seen more wizards roll max damage, I suppose my thoughts on this might be different, though.