Merciful Spell: There is one situation where it's very valuable. Necromancers can this on undead (and construct) allies as they are immune to non-lethal damage.
Send your horde of undead on the heroes, merciful fireball right in the middle, heroes take damage, undead take none, repeat.
Or a lich who casts merciful fireball point-blank when the heroes surround him. This makes contingency merciful spells quite interesting.
Also nice for magical traps that won't harm the room/valuables.
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It really is hard to rate things without a build, so thanks for writing the guide in the first place.
I think it is really hard to figure out what metamagic works with which build, prepared casters have different needs from spontaneous casters and 9 level casters have different needs from 6 level casters and arcane casters have different needs than divine casters. It gets to be a mess pretty quickly. Figuring out how to rate things that have many different uses like Reach Spell or Heighten Spell is tricky.
Bouncing spell needs to be rated higher and not compared to persistent spell. Consider this example....used on Cacophonous Call(2nd level, will save or nauseates target), you get 2 bites at the apple for only a 1 level rise in spell level(this is VERY important to classes like bard, inquisitor, etc. that gain spell levels slowly). In the exact same situation(being rushed by multiple foes) persistent spell helps the spell land less often, because a bouncing spell helps with spell resistance, "Whenever a bouncing spell targeting a single creature has no effect on its intended target (whether due to spell resistance or a successful saving throw)", while persistent does not...but requires a 2 level bump. Now the 2 level bump is worth it when there is more than one target, and necessary if there is only one foe..... but wasted otherwise. Both should have the highest rating possible for any caster casting save or suck spells with regularity and are not at all redundant for spontaneous casters due to the absolutely huge flexibility they offer such PC's.
I'd view Wizards thus:
You must prepare your spells and their metamagics prior to each days adventuring. Therefore what are you going to need? It depends on your role, the metamagics available (which hopefully compliment each other) and the enemies/situations you anticipate.
In terms of working out your 'build' remember you can get 'bonus' metamagics at 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level. This gives you more scope to take a number of different metamagics feats to compliment your role (e.g. Dazing, Ectoplasmic and Elemental Spell for a blaster or Bouncing, Heighten, Persistent and Thredonic for an enchanter).
The worst case scenario for you is that you have no spells of use for a particular encounter/situation e.g. you have an elemental cold fireball prepared and come up against a white dragon, so your choices are made a lot easier by good intelligence (in all senses of the word).
Sorcerers:
You can access some useful metamagics through your bloodline (usually just one) but other than that you are eating into your feats for them. Therefore you must be more certain about what you want/need them to do, e.g. Empower Spell is of limited use for a character who focusses on summoning. The easiest way to do this is to plan on the basis of probability - am I at some point likely to need 'x' metamagics for 'y' spell in my adventures? I personally love to have Extend Spell and Haste as a backup for a big/long battle. If you get this right, you have more spells to cast and can have a huge impact throughout the adventure - also remember you can 'burn' lower level spells in higher level slots in an emergency or spam an essential spell (Piercing Dispel Magic anyone?)
Spontaneous casting also gives you a better deal situationally from some metamagics than prepared casting - e.g. Heighten Spell and Light, a spontaneous caster can make it a higher level spell than darkness thus trumping it, whereas the Wizard is highly unlikely to have that prepared without advance warning. As I said plan on the basis of probable usefulness against common enemies/situations, in this case darkness.
The worse case scenario for you (beyond the first 3 levels) is that your only spell to meet a particular challenge is woefully pitiful. So you must plan your spell/feat much more carefully.
The much maligned full round casting action depends on your situation to be honest, it has yet to get me killed and so I personally don't worry about it, but I am sure there are situations that it is bad - I've just not found one yet... Possibly summoning.
I added the things to consider section and an item section.
Spellsight Bracer was recently reprinted (uncharged, which raises questions on how one ability works with PF's cantrip system). Functions as a 1/day Silent metamagic rod. Only 900 GP less than a rod, but uses a more common crafting skill and you don't need to hold it (and if Paizo ever bothers to fix it, effectively gives you an extra cantrip slot, resistance bonus and 1/day detect magic are lame though).
If the GM is up for it, see about getting variants with other +1 metamagic (Still Spell being prefered, because it's hard to grab a rod when it would be useful)
Also from Inner Sea Gods is the spell Channel the Gift, which ALSO wasn't updated. Channel the Gift combos very well with the fact that non-heighten metamagic does not raise spell level, allowing someone to throw out stupidly metamagic spells using just a third level spell slot for an extra action.
Metamagic Gems from the rival guide are 1 use metamagic things. Useful for being wonderous items (instead of rods) and for an odd metamagic you might not use every day (Silent) and don't need to be drawn (you retrieve them like a material component). A mythic caster with Component Freedom can possibly abuse the "material component" part.
Magician’s Hat from UE needs someone better with metamagic than I to look at it.
Arcane Concordance is a third level bard spell from APG gives free metamagic to any caster in a 10-ft.-radius emanation free enlarge/extend/silent/still on any spells they cast. Even though it is Bard only, Pathfinder is fairly friendly to getting foreign spells (A quick check of my guide on the subject says the always excellent Mystic Past Life, 24,000 gp for a Page of Spell Knowledge 4 as a Sorcerer/Summoner, levels Pathfinder Savant or the Forbidden Knowledge feat as a Paladin are your options. PoSK and Pathfinder Savant raise it to a 4th level spell).
deuxhero wrote: Also from Inner Sea Gods is the spell Channel the Gift, which ALSO wasn't updated. Channel the Gift combos very well with the fact that non-heighten metamagic does not raise spell level, allowing someone to throw out stupidly metamagic spells using just a third level spell slot for an extra action. Uuuugh. This whole problem would have been solved if Paizo had actually listened during the beta and made Metamagic Spells actually become the spell level they are modified to.
Or they included the clause on a Ring of Spell Storing.
edit: Actually, that reminds me Spell Storing (both the weapon and armor variant) don't have that clause either. Very useful.
Getting there, well done.
On concussive spell you mention it having not save but you don't for rime spell. In my opinion that is what makes rime so powerful. Unless you fail to deal damage (because of resistance, immunity, spell resistance)the target is entangled.
I used it to great effect with my witch, riming frost fall and ice storm. For frost fall it is especially good because is deals damage every round and each time the entangle duration is reset.
Great guide, few things:
1. Its robe of arcane heritage, not robe of the archemagi.
2. I disagree with the common opinion on maximize. Sure, you get less damage per spell level, but you gain consistency, and a lot of it. Every once in a while empower fails to deliver, and that horde you said you'd take care of reaches your group and... well, you get the point. Also, it works better with spell perfection. So even if this doesn't convince you it's as good as empower, it's no more than a step behind.
3. Glove of storing needs a shout-out since you don't want to wast your move on getting a rod.
4. The greater quicken rod is one of the only and very rare ways of quickening a 9th level spell. Maybe that should be mentioned.
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