Sudden Metamagic Feats From Mini Handbook Question?

[Aluvial]

I'm curious about these... Each seems to suggest that you can use them once a day for various metamagic feats...

Do you need to have the metamagic feat in quesiton first, or do you just need ANY metamagic feat?

Also, is this balanced? I would like to hear a few opinions....

I think yes BUT the metamagic feats you can effect usually take different spell level slots, some one higher, some two, etc. The Sudden Metamagic doesn't seem to take this into account...

Aluvial

 

[Camarath]

All of these feats allow you once per day the add the metamagic feat with out increasing the spell level or needing to perpare it beforehand.

Sudden Extend, Enlarge, Silent, Still ,and Widen all have no prerequisite.
Sudden Empower and Maximize both have any metamagic feat as a prerequisite.
Sudden Energy Affinity has Energy Affinity as a prerequisite.
Sudden Quicken has Quicen Spell, Sudden Empower, Sudden Extend, Sudden Maximize, Sudden Silent, and Sudden Still all as a prerequisites.

I have not used them in game yet but they appear balanced to me. I think they may be of more use to NPCs than PCs in most cases though. IMO Sudden Empower and Maximize are the two most powerful of these feats. They would be a very nice boost for a casters highest level damage spell but at once per day I don't think they will be game breaking.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My players would love it if I cast Maximized Disintegrate on them at 11th-level

Those feats are broken. I can't believe they didn't remember the experience with the incantatrix.

 

[Marimmar@Home]

Sudden Empower and Sudden Maximise are way over the top. No way I would allow those feats in my campaign, at least not with that low prereqs.

When I read those feats, I looked up the prereqs after reading the flavor, expecting to see a long list of prerequisites, but there was nothing. Sudden Maximise would allow a 5th level mage to cast a fireball as effectively as a 9th level wizard would and that is very problematic. I'm not much into spells after 4th spell level but I don't think that it would be balanced even at higher levels.

~Marimmar

 

[I'm A Banana]

The balancing factor being that they could only do it ONCE in a day. A 9th-level wizard can cast a fireball that powerfull over and over and over....'specially with a wand.

I don't see them as too bad. In fact, IMC, they're pretty much replacing the normal metamagic feats, which don't see any use becuase of the level increase and the advanced preperation (which balance out by being able to memorize several of the same for added firepower....a wizard with the metamagic feat could memorize a small handfull of empowered fireballs. The guy with the sudden metamagic could only do that once).

 

[Darklone]

Doing something horrible (paladin charging with feats, true strike potion, smite evil, scythe, Power Attack, Power Critical and all the other goodies) once per day means it's a smackdown build and not necessarily balanced for average gameplay.

 

[Thyrwyn]

I do not own the book - but looked at the feats briefly the other day - to my recollection the can only be applied to spells of a level to which you could normally apply the regular metamagic feat. No 5th lvl wizards casting maximized fireballs.

Maybe that is wishful thinking on my part, but that is what I remember........

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I don't see any problems with the feats. It's only once per day, lets the PCs pull off a little extra oomph and, as my players well know, anything that's available to them is available to my monsters/NPCs.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I do not own the book - but looked at the feats briefly the other day - to my recollection the can only be applied to spells of a level to which you could normally apply the regular metamagic feat. No 5th lvl wizards casting maximized fireballs.

Maybe that is wishful thinking on my part, but that is what I remember........

It's wishful thinking. If they didn't break the metacap, it could be used 3/day or so and still be balanced.

Instead, it's just a way to beef up NPCs or let PCs kill BBEGs even faster.

 

[jgsugden]

It's wishful thinking. If they didn't break the metacap, it could be used 3/day or so and still be balanced.

Instead, it's just a way to beef up NPCs or let PCs kill BBEGs even faster.

I have yet to see this book, but I have a question:

Isn't it just for miniature games / wargames?

I didn't think it was designed with campaign balances in mind. I thought it was designed for wargames, not role playing games.

In other words, it was designed for a world where battles are quick and bloody - where a lost battle results in people setting up the battle and doing it over again, not a long quest to see a character raised. My impression is that it is designed to up the power level of combatants and make fighting bloody and fast.

Is this not so?