Magic

*casts threadomancy*

So I was just rewriting some of the related code (since Temple+ is mainly based on the Co8 DLL, but this modification caused clashes with vanilla Patch 2), and this came up.

Up until now I'd assumed this was a bug fix - but it turns out it's not RAW at all??
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm
Under Metamagic Feats, says you can't apply the same effect more than once.

Am I missing something here?

 

Correct. You cannot apply more than one according to raw in 3.5. I am pretty sure you could do that in 3.0.

 

Funny how no one called that one out. Oh well, I guess it should become a House Rules option then. I'll retain the underlying data structure changes and make the UI handle the restriction.
On that note, since I'm rewriting a large part of that UI, this could open up the possibility of new MM feats. Is there anything noteworthy?

 

All that sounds great! Energy Substitution should be added for sure! There are a couple others worth looking at too.

 

@Sitra Achara
Metamagic Handbook mentions and explains more metamagic feats. What I listed below most interested me with which to play.

Assume that any Knowledge skill rank requirements are replaced with an equal number of Spellcraft skill requirements.

Some winners here for metamagic feats. (Note that all or most metamagic feats have a corresponding metamagic rod in Magic Item Compendium.)
-Chain Spell: Useful for Chained greater magic weapon and buffs more than chained rays like Melf's acid arrow. Also felt stupid expensive at +3. It probably should only be +1. (Chain lightning is a useful base for this feat.)

-Energy Admixture: Now fireball also does extra acid (or cold or electricity) damage! This also felt overly expensive, like its cost should be +2 at most.

-Fell Animate: Any creature killed with a Fell Animate spell (like acid splash or magic missile) becomes a Zombie under your instantaneous control, kinda like animate dead. Reduce, reuse, reanimate!

-Fell Drain: Best with magic missile and sonic snap/acid splash (and Easy Metamagic, below), baby, to kill things with negative levels from an early character level! Note that each target of a Fell Drain spell only gains 1 negative level, not one neg level per projectile.

-Irresistible Spell: +4 spell slot levels to either totally remove a spell's save (source), or give it +10 spell DC (post-errata).

-Lord of the Uttercold: Damaging spells deal half negative energy damage and half cold damage. Most useful when shooting area spells when supported by your Undead army.

-Persistent Spell: Buffs last 24 hours and are Extendable to last 48 hours, regardless of their original duration!

-Sanctum Spell: Spells cast in your sanctum (probably Hommlet/Nulb/Verbobonc in this case, or simply when cast outside of combat) are cast using the same spell slot level but get a free +1 Heighten spell level effect. Spells cast elsewhere get -1 spell level, like an inverse Heighten. Mostly useful for early qualification: Having this feat means that you can cast level 2 spells at character level 1, for example. This feat is very not useful otherwise.

-Sculpt Spell: Change a spell's area to be a line (a la lightning bolt), a cone (a la cone of cold), a cylinder (a la flame strike), or a ball (a la fireball). The four 10' cubes option seems awkward to input from a UI perspective.

-Split Ray: Add another ray to a ray spell, like scorching ray or disintegrate. Debatably applies to any ranged touch spell that requires an accuracy roll, like with Ocular Spell.

-Twin Spell: Cast the same spell twice at the same targets. Sometimes, you just want to double-blast stuff or double cast a save or X spell to ensure that your spells do what you intend!

Winners here for metamagic cost mitigators and things that function kinda like metamagic:
-Alternative Source Spell: Cast arcane spells as divine ones to avoid arcane spell failure (or, for some reason, also vice versa). Mostly used on arcane/divine casting builds (Mystic Theurge!) to enter sooner.

-Arcane Thesis: Pick a spell you know to cast it at +2 CL and reduce all metamagic feat costs by 1 (minimum total of +0). Yes, Practical Metamagic and Easy Metamagic also count. (The epic feat and Incantatrix class capstone, Improved Metamagic, seemingly doesn't apply since it lacks the [Metamagic] feat tag.)

-Archmage: Permanently lose spell slots to gain certain effects, such as Mastery of Elements (Energy Substitution but also with Sonic damage), Mastery of Shaping (exclude the spaces from area spells you want, such as to only affect allies or enemies), and Spell-like Ability (lose a spell slot to gain a spell you know as a SLA usable a set number of times per day, even with metamagic you know pre-applied)!

-Circle Magic PrCs (Halruaan Elder, Hathran, Red Wizard) all have Circle Magic (as described in the Red Wizard class) which lets them spend spell slots to improve the Circle Leader's caster level or/and grant free Heighten (max spell level 20!), Empower, or/and Maximize. The Red Wizard Handbook explains more. (Like Incantatrix, I'm very excited to see Circle Magic casters in ToEE! Such is a dream come true!)

-Divine Metamagic. Wonderful with Quicken and Persistent Spell! For ToEE, add a radial menu toggle for Divine Metamagic to have a submenu of all DMM metamagic feats you have, such as Divine Metamagic: Quicken and Divine Metamagic: Fell Drain and Divine Metamagic: Empower. Be able to toggle each of them off/on with checkmarks. If you have too few turning attempts (and, remember, elemental turnings don't fuel divine feats, but greater turnings like from the Sun Domain do!), you can't use that DMM ability.

-Easy Metamagic: Pick a metamagic feat you have and reduce its cost by 1 (minimum +1).

-Elven Spell Lore: Not metamagic per se, but allows changing the energy type of one spell. It's like Energy Substitution, but for acid/cold/electricity/fire/force/negative energy/positive energy/sonic/arbitrary damage type.

-Incantatrix: The D&D 3.5 metamagic expert class, gaining 4 metamagic feats over 10 levels, Improved Metamagic @10 to reduce all metamagic costs by 1, minimum +1, and being able to use Spellcraft checks instead of metamagic costs for readying vs. allied spellcasting (Incantatrix2) and for any spell currently in effect (Ix3)!

-Magic of the Land: This feat is mostly used with Spellguard of Silverymoon to ensure all personal buffs you want to make touch range can do so.

-Ocular Spell: Mostly used with Persistent Spell, Chain Spell, and Incantatrix 2 & 3 abilities to get mass buffs.

-Practical Metamagic: Effectively Easy Metamagic for spontaneous casters that stacks with Easy Metamagic.

-Spelldancer: In 3.x tabletop RAW, Spelldancer is most useful to replace metamagic costs with a certain number of rounds of dancing. Since buff spells are the ones that matter most for Spelldance, tabletop players said things like, "I Spelldance until I have Persistent Spell and Extend Spell active on all my buffs," and just handwave the time. I recommend that, if Spelldancer is implemented, the same is done out of combat, but Spelldancers pay the time cost in combat.

-Spellguard of Silverymoon: Mostly used to ensure only allies or enemies are affected with area spells (L1) AND to make certain personal spells into touch spells to Ocularize/Chain.

 

@anatoliy I recall discussing this with you... what was the verdict? IIRC it needed some extensive UI replacements to not look like a hack.

Edit: ah, here it is
https://co8.org/community/threads/how-to-enable-more-skills-in-char-editor.13074/

 

The most relevant skills are the creature knowledges - Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, Planes, and Religion.

 

So are you going to do it?

 

I'm on a roll with the MM stuff, so maybe I will.

 

Isn't Chain Lightning a perfect example of Chain Spell being +3 caster level? Why would it make sense for MM Chained Spell Lightning to exist at lvl 4 if Chain Lightning already exists as a lvl 6 spell?

 

@erkper
The authors of Chain Spell saw the difference between lightning bolt and chain lightning being 3 spell levels and probably just used that as a number, disregarding the increase in spell DC and maximum damage.

A similar philosophy applies to fireball and delayed blast fireball for Delay Spell. Delay Spell isn't worth a feat most of the time, and very not worth a feat for +3 spell slot levels.

@Shiningted
I agree with much of 3.x stuff being expensive or overcosted.

 

That's basically my point. If Chain Lightning is accepted as a lvl 6 spell, isn't that some fairly strong evidence that a Chained Spell would be game balanced as +3? I can't remember ever seeing or hearing discussion of how Chain Lightning was an under-powered spell for it's level. I think the 3.5 Ed. is pretty well thought out and balanced, and while everyone is entitled to their own opinion, mine would be that an example of this balance is already at hand.

As for Delay Spell, I would agree - rarely if ever worth a feat and +3 levels, and Fireball is a particularly bad example of a spell for which it would be worth the expense.

 

As Endarire pointed out, CL does up to 20d6 dam vs 10d6 dam for lightning bolt. Since this is level dependent, let's say on average CL does 15d6 - that's equivalent to an empower spell, which is +2.