Intensify spell on ray of frost

[Blightana]

I have a rules question that I would like to find an official answer can you use the meta-magic feat “intensify” to improve the damage potential of the spell “ray of frost”. This has been a argument point between players, I am aware that it ultimately comes down to the DM/GM but if the DM/GM says wants it to stay game balancing so for game balance purposes I ask what would be the official answer from Paizo. Don't care about the multitude of opinions, just looking for a Developer to pipe in and say his veiw.

I've Heard many opinions from other players ranging from:

1) Its a cantrip, not an actual full blown spell, there for meta-magic does not work on it.
2) I've even heard, its a cantrip so no matter what the level goes to from meta-magic it is still a cantrip by clasification and can be cast unlimited times.
3) Its base damage is not in dice per level so it can't be advanced that way.
4) It becomes a 5D3 Damage, with the Meta-magic it rises to a 1rst level spell
5) and I'll throw my direct opinion too;
Ray of Frost
School evocation [cold]
Level magus 0, sorcerer/wizard 0
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect ray
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none
Spell Resistance yes

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger.
You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal
damage to a target. The ray deals 1d3 points of cold damage.
------------------------Becomes------------------------
Intensified Ray of Frost
School evocation [cold]
Level magus 0(+1), sorcerer/wizard 0(+1)
Casting Time 1 full round action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect ray
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none
Spell Resistance yes

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger.
You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal
damage to a target. The ray deals 1d3 (cast@5th level 5d3) points
of cold damage.

(In my opinion it does not out balance when they had to learn a
feat to get the spell slot 1, full round action, to still use it.
also if combined with the "magical lineage" trait it brings it
back down to a 0 level spell slot, bring it back to unlimited
use. With a minimum damage of 5 and a maximum damage of 15 as a
base damage, at 5th level I'v seen many other ways to create more
more damage per attack using a feat, trait, and a full round
action)

There are many ways to view it, I'm looking for the factual interations according to the existing rules and the Developers opinion and intent for game balance.

[Edgar Lamoureux]

Intensified Spell

Intensified Spell wrote:

No other variables of the spell are affected, and spells that inflict damage that is not modified by caster level are not affected by this feat.

Emphasis mine. Unless you can find somewhere in the spell description that says the damage scales with level, the feat does nothing but increase the effective level of the spell.

Edit: Actually, intensify wouldn't even do that. That would be affecting the spell.

[Damien Rosaltier]

Not a developer, but Edgar is correct, there is no scaling-with-level damage to increase. Same emphasis as he stated. It says specifically that the spell does 1d3 damage, not 1d3 per caster level with a max of Xd3.
The Intensified Ray of Frost would take up a 0 level spell slot, because Intensify Spell cannot modify Ray of Frost in any way.

[Alitan]

An Intensified Ray of Frost would take up NO spell slots, because it cannot exist.

[cartmanbeck]

Alitan wrote:

An Intensified Ray of Frost would take up NO spell slots, because it cannot exist.

That's not true, you can definitely make an Intensified Ray of Frost, and it would take up a level 1 spell slot, but it would have absolutely zero effect since the damage doesn't go up with level. It would be pointless.

[Edgar Lamoureux]

cartmanbeck wrote:

Alitan wrote:

An Intensified Ray of Frost would take up NO spell slots, because it cannot exist.

That's not true, you can definitely make an Intensified Ray of Frost, and it would take up a level 1 spell slot, but it would have absolutely zero effect since the damage doesn't go up with level. It would be pointless.

While you are technically closer, the Intensify Spell metamagic cannot affect a spell with non-scaling damage in any way, including the spell slot it would take up. An intensified ray of frost is mechanically identical to a ray of frost.

[LazarX]

The only way to build up damage on Ray of Frost that justifies the trouble doing so is Sneak Attack.

[Blightana]

This is only my opinion but;
The wording of http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/advancedFeats.html#intensified- spell

Intensified Spell Metamagic)
Your spells can go beyond several normal limitations.

Benefit: An intensified spell increases the maximum number of damage dice by 5 levels. You must actually have sufficient caster levels to surpass the maximum in order to benefit from this feat. No other variables of the spell are affected, and spells that inflict damage that is not modified by caster level are not affected by this feat. An intensified spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Fact: Ray Of Frost Has "Damage Dice" and the meta magic says it increases damage dice by 5 per level but not "per level Damage dice"
Fact: It only says it "increases the maximum number of damage dice dy 5 levels"
Fact: Quoted from above "spells that inflict damage that is not modified by caster level are not affected by this feat"
Opinion: For game balance "it does not out balance" the spell in game terms.
Opinion: It would "out balance" the spell if it was a non damaging spell with other effects like dazing, slowing, -2 (whatever) ect...

My only question goes back to my original post
"I'm looking for the factual interations according to the existing rules and the Developers opinion and intent for game balance."

Thanks for the facts guys.....

I have gotten the Factual Interaction, I'm still looking for "Developers opinion and intent for game balance"

Thanx for everybodies posts, now I would like a Developer to pipe in if possible to make sure this was what was intended, sometimes little details get overlooked. The folk down at Pazio get very busy. The Intent for game balance might have been alot of things and this post might spur a correction to the errata or faq. They might have intended stopping it for damage over time spells, which could break the bank, not keeping cantrips from sounding redundant "Does 1D3 point of damage per level with a (max of 1 level)". Or the intent could be some other thing when they were spitballing this around. I don't know, I'm not them. I like to play more the intended spirit of the game "goes back to my TSR days" we are all human and its about having fun and game balance is part of that fun.

[Damien Rosaltier]

You missed a very vital part of the feat description, OP.

Quote:

You must actually have sufficient caster levels to surpass the maximum in order to benefit from this feat. No other variables of the spell are affected, and spells that inflict damage that is not modified by caster level are not affected by this feat.

This, in addition to the 'increases the maximum damage dice by 5' bit, makes it apply only to spells that specifically have the 'per caster level' clause after the damage dice involved.

There's no balance issue involved. The feat cannot modify a spell that does not have scaling damage dice.
Opinion or not: an Intensified Ray of Frost is a 0 level spell that does 1d3 damage, completely identical to a normal Ray of Frost.

Edited for clarification.

[Edgar Lamoureux]

On your second opinion up there, intensify spell wouldn't do anything to a non-damaging spell either, just so you know. And in almost every instance I can think of (except for that cheesy Magical lineage thing), an actual 1st level spell would be more effective almost every time, even if the interaction did work. With the same magical lineage, you can easily have, at 5th level, a Reach Shocking Grasp, dealing 5d6 damage at 35 feet, for a 1st level spell slot.

This wouldn't affect any DoT spells, at least none that I know of, as the DoT damage doesn't scale with damage, while duration does. This seems more to me to limit spells like scorching ray, which have a low-damage dice effect, but still scales reasonably well with level. If it were able to be put on scorching ray, and take effect, each ray would deal 9d6 damage max, far beyond the reasonable power of +1 Spell level.

Not a dev, but if they'd intended this to work in this fashion, I think they would've spelled it out. Cantrips were never intended to be true "Combat Spells", and more of a last resort. I'm not saying that the 5d3 damage 1st level spell is OP, it's definitely not (Although the 5d3 cantrip with magical lineage is definitely stretching the boundary, if not outright breaking it), it's simply a matter of not many damage-dealing spells actually not being able to have this applied. THose that can have it applied are reasonable, those that can't, (Ie Shocking Grasp, Acid Arrow, etc) would be incredibly broken with the +1 spell level +5 damage die cap applied. It looks to me like they looked over the spells that it would and would not apply to fairly thoroughly.