An Arcanist is walking around with their Lesser Reach Metamagic Rod at the start of the day and decides its time to prepare spells.
An arcanist must prepare her spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, her spells are not expended when they're cast.
They decide to use their shiny new Rod that has 3 uses per day, and prepares a Reach Blindness/Deafness (3rd level).
Now, I understand that an Arcanist can use the Rod during the casting, much like a Sorcerer as a full-round action, losing one of the Rod's charges. This is easy enough to understand. But what happens when they prepare a spell with the Rod for the day?
However, she may also prepare a spell with any metamagic feats she knows and cast it without increasing casting time like a wizard.
It says Feat but...
Possession of a metamagic rod does not confer the associated feat on the owner, only the ability to use the given feat a specified number of times per day.
So if she prepares a Reach Blindness/Deafness (using 1 of the 3 Rod charges), it is not expended when cast (according to the top). So when they use one of their 3rd level spells, can they always choose the Reach Blindness/Deafness? Only 2 more times? 3 times? Does that effectively mean a single Metamagic Rod charge permanently changes the way their spell functions (until it is prepared again at least)? After all, it is not expended when its cast.
And further to this, if they decide they really like Blindness/Deafness, could they also prepare a non Reach version in one of their 2nd levels? I don't see anything stopping them from preparing the same spell multiple times (in multiple versions) if they wanted.
I'm about to dive into an Arcanist and I'm trying to figure out all the potential kinks, as I'm coming in with some WBL and want to know how things work with Rods.
Thanks in advance.
Bump.
tl;dr
When an Arcanist prepares a spell with a Metamagic Rod, are all instances of it for that day using that Metamagic because the spell isn't expended?
I could be way off, but the way I see it a Wizard has 1 option, prepare the spell with the Metamagic beforehand.
The Sorcerer has only 1 option, use a Full-Round Action to apply the Metamagic as you cast.
The Arcanist can choose either option.
The issue comes from the Metamagic Rod line which contradicts the first line (that you posted).
Metamagic rods hold the essence of a metamagic feat, allowing the user to apply metamagic effects to spells (but not spell-like abilities) as they are cast. This does not change the spell slot of the altered spell. All the rods described here are use-activated (but casting spells in a threatened area still draws an attack of opportunity). A caster may only use one metamagic rod on any given spell, but it is permissible to combine a rod with metamagic feats possessed by the rod's wielder. In this case, only the feats possessed by the wielder adjust the spell slot of the spell being cast.Possession of a metamagic rod does not confer the associated feat on the owner, only the ability to use the given feat a specified number of times per day. A sorcerer still must take a full-round action when using a metamagic rod, just as if using a metamagic feat he possesses (except for quicken metamagic rods, which can be used as a swift action).
I might be overthinking it, but any clarifications would be good.
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Wizards don't use metamagic rods when they prepare spells. All rod use happens at the time of casting - have the rod in hand, cast the spell, use the rod, spell goes off with the metamagic effect. Prepared casters don't increase the casting time when they do this. The rules only specify that sorcerers need to increae casting time, but RAI is almost certainly that all spontaneous casters increase the casting time.
So your arcanist doesn't prepare a Reach spell, but can use the rod 3/day as to apply Reach on the fly to a previously prepared spell, increasing the casting time.
Thanks for that clarification.
Then if thats the case, does she use the Rod as a Wizard (no cast time increase) or as a Sorcerer (with the increase)?
I suppose the Prepared versus Spontaneous debate was never resolved.
That is what makes the Metamagic rods so awesome - you don't have to KNOW the feat, you don't have to prepare the spell to use the metamagic, and you don't use a higher level spell slot.
They do require you to have a free hand, so that's a bit awkward at times (can't use them while grappled or climbing a rope or holding something else, etc.), but they're still pretty awesome.
For every class there is a rule about how they use Metamagic feats (standard action or full round). That rule applies to the rods, too. For arcanists, the rule is:
"Like a sorcerer, an arcanist can choose to apply any metamagic feats she knows to a prepared spell as she casts it, with the same increase in casting time (see Spontaneous Casting and Metamagic Feats). However, she may also prepare a spell with any metamagic feats she knows and cast it without increasing casting time like a wizard. She cannot combine these options".
So if you KNOW the feat (owning a rod is not KNOWING the feat), you can prepare the spell in a higher level slot like a wizard with no increase in time. Or if you don't do that, you can apply the metamagic feat at the time of casting like a sorcerer but this increases the time. Using a rod falls into that second category because the spell was NOT prepared into a higher level slot in advance.
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I have a related question, and this feels like the best thread to add it to. During a session when trying to answer a question about how a metamagic rod affected casting time for an arcanist (a common theme) when I read this:
She cannot combine these options—a spell prepared with metamagic feats cannot be further modified with another metamagic feat at the time of casting (unless she has the metamixing arcanist exploit, detailed below).
The question we then had was if that applies to rods?
Said more explicitly, if an arcanist has prepared a spell with a metamagic feat, lets say empowered fireball. If they had a metamagic rod of selective, could they apply that dynamically to make it an empowered selective spell? or would that be the same as applying the feat as a spontaneous caster, and those being not allowed?