Okay, the subject line is exaggerated, but that is essentially what I am facing here.
This concerns a few feats and a trait.
Situation:
Select Ray of Frost as a 0 level spell. (No save)
Apply a feat called "Ray Burst"*, which does exactly what it sounds like, at the cost of 3 levels, the ray spell is instead a 30' burst.
Apply a feat called "Fell Drain"*, which at the cost of 3 levels, the spell, if damages someone, they gain a negative level.
At this point the spell is a 6th level spell.
Then there is a Feat called "Improved Metamagic"*, which reduces the penalty for a Metamagic feat by 1. The Wizard takes this feat 5 times, which reduces the spell down to a 1st level spell. The feat specifically states that you can't reduce the penalty below 1 level.
So now we have a 30' burst that pushes negative levels as a 1st level spell.
Now, here is where the fun comes in. There is a trait in the Advanced Player's Guide called "Magical Linage" (I think that is it) that allows you to consider a specific single spell to be one level lower when you apply metamagic feats to it. It give the impression that you apply this "one level lower" affect at the end.
If this is all true, the rules appear to allow a 0 level, 30' burst spell, with no save, that deals 1-3 frost damage, and if it damages, it applies a negative level.
As it is a 0 level spell, it can be fired off, every round.
Now, as a GM. I have already ruled that this WON'T happen, regardless of how the rules read, but I am curious to if there is a hole in the rules or if we are just reading it wrong.
The crux of the situation is, all the Feats seem to work together, and Improved Megamagic, actually says you can't reduce the penalty below 1. The issue seems to be the Trait.
*I am not sure of the original sources of these feats. I think one is from Forgotten Realms...one is from the evil book (Book of Ultimate Evil?). Not sure though.
Thanks everyone.
Windquake
There are two problems here:
1) You are using feats from books that are not generally known for their balanced content, and are intended for use with 3.5 rules where there are no at-will 0-level spells.
2) In general, you cannot take a feat more than once, unless the feat specifically says so, and I am certain the Improved Metamagic feat, wherever it's from, does not say so. If it does indeed, it is horribly broken. Personally, I think it is questionable even if can be taken only once.
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You can't really talk about "holes in rules", because it would be impossible to take into the account EVERY 3.5 era WotC rule (there's like few thousands feats out there), let alone even try to take 3PP design into the account - there will always be a case of two of feat Y making a broken combo with feat Z, item X and spell V.
After all, Pun-Pun was built using official legitimate WotC rulebooks.
Alright. First, "Ray Burst" is from a Dragon Magazine Annual (2000), which puts it three years before the 3.5 revision. As mentioned above, there were no at-will 0 level spells at the time.
Fell Drain is from Libris Mortis, and is a 3.5 product. Still not a Pathfinder product, though.
Improved Metamagic is from the Epic Level Handbook, and is an Epic Feat. There's a prerequisite of 30 ranks of Spellcraft and a character level of 21 or higher - which, to get those 30 ranks means level 30 (via Pathfinder rules; level 27 with 3.5 rules). At that point this trick wouldn't be that broken. And, again, it is a 3.0 book - not even 3.5.
Finally, the Magical Lineage trait states that you treat the selected spell as 1 level lower for purposes of determining the spell's final adjusted value. It would be applied first, and since there's no such thing as -1 level spells, it would still be a 0, resulting in a 2nd-level spell (+1 raise for Fell Drain, +1 raise for Ray Burst)
This said, to pull this off in the current rule set you'd need 1) a GM who is willing to use outdated feats with the current system, 2) a character of at least level 33 (to have selected Improved Metamagic twice), and in the end it would still be a 1st level spell. Of course, a caster of level 33 could probably throw around a lot of 2nd-level spells - though I think that 1-3 damage might be a bit of a liability against your average CR 33 monster.
Edit: There was a feat in Dragon #325 called Easy Metamagic, and that may be the one that people remember. However, its effects do not stack (though it may be selected multiple times and applied to a different Metamagic feat every time). At best one could reduce this trick by 2 levels by taking the feat twice - once for Fell Drain and once for Ray Burst. After that, it's epic levels before it can be reduced further.
OK, I see Improved Metamagic is a 3.5e epic feat that can indeed be taken multiple times, and need not be taken for individual Metamagic feats. However it is an epic feat that can be taken at 27 level at the earliest in 3.5e (prerequisite Spellcraft 30 ranks), and funky synergies with using 3.5e epic rules with Pathfinder core rules are, in general, not unexpected.
The rules for the feat, however, state, that the cost for each individual feat cannot be reduces to less than +1, so you will not get your spell to a lower spell level than 2.
OK, I see Improved Metamagic is a 3.5e epic feat that can indeed be taken multiple times, and need not be taken for individual Metamagic feats. However it is an epic feat that can be taken at 27 level at the earliest in 3.5e (prerequisite Spellcraft 30 ranks), and funky synergies with using 3.5e epic rules with Pathfinder core rules are, in general, not unexpected.
The rules for the feat, however, state, that the cost for each individual feat cannot be reduces to less than +1, so you will not get your spell to a lower spell level than 2.
Cool. Thanks.
This is why, I generally hate all the extra books and usually stick to Core only.
If you want to do this at lower levels than Epic, there are still plenty of 3.5 options for that.
Metamagic School Focus (Complete Mage) - requires only that you are a specialist wizard or that you have Spell Focus, and allows you to reduce the metamagic cost of a feat added to a spell of the chosen school up to 3 times per day.
Arcane Thesis (PHB2) - requires knowledge (arcana) 9 ranks, and lets you choose one spell whose level is reduced by one when you apply metamagic feats to it.
Because of the Magical Lineage trait?
Seriously, there have been numerous feats helping those metamagicians. Last in date: Spell Perfection.
And there are still open discussions on stacking metamagic effects with both positive and negative modifiers to the spell level.
The most generous interpretations allows stacking Arcane Thesis and Magical Lineage for a -2 to all metamagic spell modifiers.
If you take those two for Fireball, will a Merciful Fireball take a 0-level slot?
And, if you apply Spell Perfection to Fireball too, that's a free Quicken, too.
Please note that if you apply a metamagic feat to an at-will spell that is 0 level, and it becomes 1st level, it still uses up one of your first level slots. So you can't 'at will' metamagic'd 0-level spells.
This isn't usually my schtick, but it does seem that if you take the Magical Lineage Trait, and apply it to Magic Missile, you could then use Merciful Spell to spam a 0-level nonlethal Magic Missile all day.
Except when fighting undead or constructs, this would be nasty.
If I were GMing, I'd never allow any combination of Feats/Traits/whatever to reduce a spell below its orginal level. But if you're going strictly by RAW, it's not a bad tactical option.
Here's the thing
at e.g. 10th level fighting a large mob of 8-10HD creatures
takes you 8-10 rounds to kill them outright with negative levels
wizards using normal spells work alot faster than that to take down a mob using more powerful 5th level and below spells.
having it at-will is nice in theory but even though you might not need to rest the rest of your party does.
Undead will smile at you ;)
and the burst would hit your allies so you couldn't use it effectively once they've entered melee.
plus you've wasted alot of abilites being a one trick pony.
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Yes but you can't reduce the metamagic cost per feat below 1, so that takes care of that.Please note that if you apply a metamagic feat to an at-will spell that is 0 level, and it becomes 1st level, it still uses up one of your first level slots. So you can't 'at will' metamagic'd 0-level spells.His plot was to get it back down to level 0 through feats/shenanigans so that he could use it every round.
except you can...
If your mixing 3.5 and PF. Go go incantrix.
Yes but you can't reduce the metamagic cost per feat below 1, so that takes care of that.Please note that if you apply a metamagic feat to an at-will spell that is 0 level, and it becomes 1st level, it still uses up one of your first level slots. So you can't 'at will' metamagic'd 0-level spells.His plot was to get it back down to level 0 through feats/shenanigans so that he could use it every round.except you can...
If your mixing 3.5 and PF. Go go incantrix.
I disagree. If one of the feats says 'You can never reduce the cost by to less than +1', then that is an absolute limit. You don't get to choose what order you apply all the abilities. You apply them all in whatever order prevents you from violating their use. If one says 'Can't reduce below +1' then you can't ever go below +1, or you violate that abilities restriction and it no longer functions.
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Okay, the subject line is exaggerated, but that is essentially what I am facing here.
This concerns a few feats and a trait.
Situation:
Select Ray of Frost as a 0 level spell. (No save)
Apply a feat called "Ray Burst"*, which does exactly what it sounds like, at the cost of 3 levels, the ray spell is instead a 30' burst.
Apply a feat called "Fell Drain"*, which at the cost of 3 levels, the spell, if damages someone, they gain a negative level.At this point the spell is a 6th level spell.
Then there is a Feat called "Improved Metamagic"*, which reduces the penalty for a Metamagic feat by 1. The Wizard takes this feat 5 times, which reduces the spell down to a 1st level spell. The feat specifically states that you can't reduce the penalty below 1 level.
So now we have a 30' burst that pushes negative levels as a 1st level spell.
Now, here is where the fun comes in. There is a trait in the Advanced Player's Guide called "Magical Linage" (I think that is it) that allows you to consider a specific single spell to be one level lower when you apply metamagic feats to it. It give the impression that you apply this "one level lower" affect at the end.
If this is all true, the rules appear to allow a 0 level, 30' burst spell, with no save, that deals 1-3 frost damage, and if it damages, it applies a negative level.
As it is a 0 level spell, it can be fired off, every round.
Now, as a GM. I have already ruled that this WON'T happen, regardless of how the rules read, but I am curious to if there is a hole in the rules or if we are just reading it wrong.
The crux of the situation is, all the Feats seem to work together, and Improved Megamagic, actually says you can't reduce the penalty below 1. The issue seems to be the Trait.
*I am not sure of the original sources of these feats. I think one is from Forgotten Realms...one is from the evil book (Book of Ultimate Evil?). Not sure though.
Thanks everyone.
Windquake
The way I see this is that a person would need to be able to cast sixth level spells to be able to do this. I see the feats and traits as having being to be applied seperately, so I would have to say that the ones raising the spell level would apply first, then the ones that lower the spell level. But that's the way I would handle it.
I do agree that it would still end up as a first level spell.