What's wrong with metamagic?

[Plane Sailing]

Anyone who does not go down the route of metamagic is a fool in my opinion. My DM is a great fan of it. Hence why a party of 5 11/12th level members and a group of frost giants entered a room and attacked a couple of ice golems. Doors open and instantly a maximised 16th level fireball and quickened fireball came off in the round. A total of 150+ points of damage. DC 21 reflex save required. Frost giants vapourised, rest fled and party members singed around the edges due to protection and luck, otherwise total party kill.

Ho Ho.

High level wizard makes an appearance after party have trashed his simulacrum which attempted to open negotiations. He appears and shouts something like "will you cease fighting now or else!". Nobody makes any sound or indication of willingness to stand down. So wizard casts a maximised fireball and a quickened fireball - total damage potential 96 as a 60 and a 36. The rogue evades both and takes no damage. His character makes both saves and has fire resistance 30 so takes no damage. The dwarf fighter fails both his saves but has protection from fire up and takes a mere 16 damage. The four frost giants fail all their saves and take +50% damage for 144. One (injured) frost giant makes his second save and takes 90+27 = 117 damage.

Admirable tactic for clearing out frost giant allies, it did almost no harm to the party and re-advertised that this was a very powerful wizard they were fighting.

To reinforce what Thanee said - metamagic is meat and drink to the sorcerer, who get stupendous value out of it. Much less important for wizards, but for very high level wizards it often does make sense to use some of the slots below your highest level for some metamagiced spells.

Long ago I devised some potential alternative metamagic house rules - ones that made metamagic a risky proposal for gamblers

(in short the total "level adjustment" of all metamagics added to a spell on the fly is multiplied by 10 and that gives the percentage chance that the spell fails. If it fails there is the same percentage chance of a backfire. e.g. fred wizard attempts to maximise his fireball on the fly. It is a +3 adjustment so there is a 30% chance the spell fizzles as he tries to warp it, and if it does there is a 30% chance that it backfires - either treat as a scroll backfire or ground-zero the spell as appropriate. Basically inspired by the numerous "klutz factor" spell houserules that appeared in the late 70's and early 80s.

Cheers

 

[Thanee]

Interesting idea, so you can just use them all the time, but always have a chance, that something goes wrong?

That makes Quicken Spell a lot less useful, tho.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Actually, it's the other ones (Still Spell, Silent Spell) which have seen more use. That's mainly because under the Spontaneous Metamagic (3/day daily use) rules, though a metamagicked spell doesn't take a higher slot, the maximum level of spell a caster can apply a metamagic feat to is equal to the max spell level he can cast minus the spell level adjustment of the feat. So a 6th lvl wizard can apply Still Spell to spells up to 2nd lvl but Empower Spell up to only 1st lvl.

Yes, that's what I was getting at... is that enough to make Silent Spell as good as Quicken Spell, for example?

I'm not so sure about that... certainly, Silent Spell with that method is more useful than Sudden Silent Spell (for obvious reasons), I'm just wondering, if it is now also as good as the really good metamagic feats. Empower, Quicken, etc. That's the benchmark.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

It's a lot worse than that.

Enervation = 1d4
Split ray = 2d4
Twin spell = 4d4
Maximise spell = 16
Empower spell = 16 + 4d4/2 (Average = 21)

Metamagic is ALWAYS applied to the UNMODIFIED base spell (not only Empower Spell, all Metamagic), which is Enervation - 1d4 negative levels!

Split Ray creates another basic ray that does 1d4 negative levels, as does Twin Spell.
Maximize maximizes the original ray only, and Empower only adds one-half of the random effect of the original spell (altho, that effect is not applied itself, because it's changed via Maximize).

All Metamagic feats are applied to the base spell.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

We use that option in our games, and it hasn't unbalanced anything.

I'm not really worried about unbalanced compared to the original method... altho it certainly does create an imbalance between the sorcerer and the wizard, since it is much, much, much more advantageous for the wizard as it is for the sorcerer. The spontaneous metamagic is a huge boost for wizards and gives only very little advantage to sorcerers.

Anyways...

What I'm really wondering about is, whether the various feats are now roughly equal.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Doug McCrae]

Metamagic is ALWAYS applied to the UNMODIFIED base spell (not only Empower Spell, all Metamagic)

Cite source.

 

[soulcat]

I'm dying to play a character who uses Meta Magic, it'll be a Sorceror, or a wizard.

The reason? I see him as being a haughty Magician with no time for anyone who doesn't understand the nuances of Magical theory. His whole aim in life will be to become the most powerful mage in the world. He will be self centred, and not above breaking the law, and will treat the rest of the party as bodyguards, and companions, but rarely friends.

Do you see? no where in there have I discused game mechanics. When I create a character, and when I chose feats and skills etc, I do it based on the character and the story, not whether it's cost effective, or if it will kill more goblins!!!!

My character will be a snob. I will take metamagic feats because he would see it as a logical extension of experimenting with Magical theory.

Sometimes on these boards I wonder how many people understand what ROLEplaying is. It's not just combat, it's not just strong, it's not just powerful. Even the most powerful people make bad choices and have weeknesses. (look at any world leading politician!).

Metamagic feats are part of the whole picture. There are other feats that are weak too, but I have taken them in the past, and probably will do in the future.

I see some of the people in this thread as the sort of people that go through the spells to only pick the most powerful combat ones! Where is the colour, the scenery, where is the CHARACTER!

 

[Pants]

Weird. I've never played a spontaneous caster, but I always thought that because a metamagicked spell took a round to cast it would be a big pain the ass. Maybe it's not as bad as I think.

As a person playing an almost 9th-level Sorcerer, metamagic is invaluable to me. You must remember though, that spontaneously using metamagic increases the casting time to one full round, not one round (big difference there).

My sorcerer has both Silent Spell and Empower Spell and he's used both of them extensively. Empower has seen more use, especially since I only know one 4th level spell, I can use up those extra spell slots to throw around some empowered melf's acid arrows and empowered magic missiles.

Silent Spell was integral when the party and I needed to escape from a band of goons. Using silent message spells to talk with trapped party members while invisible helped save the day, along with a couple of well cast silent invisibility spells.

Still, not every metamagic feat is going to be useful in every situation. Everyone seems to be judging every feat here in a combat only scenario. Possibly, in heavy rping games, silent stilled spells may see more use than empowered maximized spells, it really just depends upon the game type and situation.

Then again, I'm really the only person in my group who has made use of metamagic extensively. Most of the villain caster NPC's that I've run have used metamagic spells (using quickened spells pisses my players off) and the few spellcasters I've played have used metamagic at least once. However, only one two other player have taken metamagic and the two that were taken were Energy Substitution (Sonic) and Empower Spell.

Why use Empower on a Fireball, if you can cast Firebrand instead. The advantage isn't big enough to justify taking the feat.

Because Firebrand is horribly powerful for its level.

 

[Gez]

Cite source.

Cite source for the reverse. Nothing says Empower Spell is an exception. Heck, nothing says Empower Spell doesn't synergize with Maximize Spell. Cite source for that.

So,
Enervation = 1d4
Maximize Spell: 4
Empower Spell: 6
Split Ray: 12
Twin spell: 24

It may be clarified in a FAQ or in Complete Arcane or something, but I see nothing in the Revised Players' Handbook that says that Empower and Maximize, when used together, doesn't affect each other.

Simplicity and consistency requires that, either all metamagic feats affect each other's effects, or no metamagic feat affect any other's effects. Use one or the other. The consensus is on the latter, of course.

But, either your maximized, empowered, splitted, twinned enervation (which occupies a 15th level spell slot) inflicts a set 24 negative level, or it inflicts 4+(1d4*1/2)+1d4+1d4 negative levels (min 6, assuming Empowered is rounded down; max 14, statistical average 11.5).

 

[shilsen]

Yes, that's what I was getting at... is that enough to make Silent Spell as good as Quicken Spell, for example?

I'm not so sure about that... certainly, Silent Spell with that method is more useful than Sudden Silent Spell (for obvious reasons), I'm just wondering, if it is now also as good as the really good metamagic feats. Empower, Quicken, etc. That's the benchmark.

Bye
Thanee

Well, some metamagic feats will be better than others, just like some feats are better than others. Right? I think this method does make the weaker metamagic feats a little more popular, but I don't think it completely levels the playing field.