One of my players came to me with this question and I'll admit I'm not 100% sure what the ruling here should be. Here's the question:
"If I take Heighten Spell and Improved Counterspell, can I then take one cantrip from each school, planning to heighten the appropriate one to counterspell if needed (Imp. Counterspell allows me to counter a spell with any spell from the same school of magic), thus saving my higher-level slots for good spells."
Well, yes. However, Heighten Spell still uses the spell slot of the level to which you are heightening. So if you made a cantrip a 6th level spell via Heighten, it uses a 6th level slot. And I'm guessing the player is a Sorcerer or Arcanist, right? Trying to do this with a prepared caster is a Bad Idea™ due to how counterspelling works.
He says he'd use the feat Sacred Geometry to help mitigate that.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry/
Uh... Sacred Geometry turns a standard action spell into a full-round spell for prepared casters, so how is he going to ready to counterspell with that? I mean, if he can ready a full-round spell then it works, at least I think it does... I'll defer to people with more ranks in Knowledge: Arcana than myself.
To quote him:
"1. I'm not readying anything--I'm using the Improved Counterspell feat and/or the Counterspell Arcanist exploit , both of which allow me to counterspell as an immediate action, without having any specific spell readied at all. Neither of those are at-will, unfortunately, but a few times per day, just--zzzapp!
2. We get two Metamagic feats out of Sacred Geometry if I can make that ridiculous roll that it requires. If I take Quicken and Heighten then I actually CAN ready an action to counter if I want (and if I can make that absurd roll). Probably a Quickened Heightened Dispel Magic would be the only thing worth doing.
3. (A few minutes later, having thought it over in the meantime.). Or maybe take it twice: Quickened and Dazed early on (say, 5th or 7th level). A Quickened Cantrip is a 4th level spell which swats down anything 3rd or below. That should take care of most level appropriate encounters. Later on, take Heighten and Dazed, so I can use a Heightened Quickened cantrip to slap away Time Stop and/or Meteor Swarm. Or Wish.
4. (And even later, having thought about it again...) Except that I can't cast 4th level spells at 5th or 7th level, so Quickened is useless. Therefore: Heightened and Dazed at that point, Quickened and something else fun and exciting at 11th or so. All in all, I like answer number 1 best. Improved Counterspell and the Counterspell Arcanist exploit means no need to ready an action a few times/day so no need to worry about Quickening spells until later. Heighten does just fine (again, assuming I can make the Sacred Geometry roll. Otherwise, the story has an unhappy ending. If I need to counter with Dispel Magic, I'll do it the old-fashioned way, without any Metamagic trickery."
1. If he's using Improved Counterspell but not the Arcanist Exploit or anything else, then he is readying an action, because normal counterspelling is a readied action. Improved Counterspell is not an immediate action, unless he's talking about some 3pp shit that has the same name as this feat.
2. Not sure why you'd Quicken or Heighten a Dispel Magic for a regular counterspell, since that spell just works when used to counterspell, spell level doesn't matter.
3. Quickened does not raise the spell level, only the spell slot required to cast. You need Heighten to raise the actual spell level. However, if he's using the Arcanist Exploit, that works, since it's just an immediate action. But then he doesn't need Improved Counterspell, cuz the Exploit either eats a spell slot one higher OR a spell slot of the same level, if you have the spell the foe is casting prepared that day.
1. Ban Sacred Geometry. At a certain point, it's an automatic make, and applies 2 metamagic feats without increasing the spell level. Basically, it works 93%-100% of the time once you have 6 ranks in the skill Knowledge Engineering
http://i.imgur.com/ZCv6Ea2.png
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rb6y&page=7?Sacred-Geometry
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/46clps/the_best_worst_feat _sacred_geometry_calculator/
2. For a character focused on Counterspelling, just focus on the 2 spells Dispel Magic + Greater Dispel Magic, the 2 feats Dispel Focus + Greater Dispel Focus, and a readied action to Cast a Spell.
Heightening a cantrip and using Improved Counterspell could save you a spell level or 2 if you are dispelling a level 1 or 2 spell. But those 2 feats would be a lot better spent on Dispel Magic/Greater Dispel Magic.
Dispel Magic is not dependent on the fact that it is level 3 for anything, so increasing the spell level to 4 is useless, so you don't need to heighten it. The only thing that matters is the caster's caster level and Dispel Focus + Greater Dispel Focus for another +2 or +4.
If you were going to heighten your counterspell to 5th, just use the spell Greater Dispel Magic instead, and get a +4 on the dispel check for the counterspell. Then also take and apply the 2 feats and get yourself a +8 total on the dispel check.
as this is a rules forum I'll keep it RAW.
without any feats, counterspelling requires the user to ready an action to counterspell if a known target casts a detectable spell which may be identified. There are 3 key things in that paraphrased statement from RAW(ready an action, perceived target, perceived spellcasting). Failing to identify the spell leads to a wasted action which is okay by the rules.
Improved Counterspell feat, use spell of same school of spell-level or higher to counterspell. This relies on identification of the spell school otherwise it's random and failure is an option.
Counterspell(Su) exploit, spend 1pt arcane pool & identify spell then may immediately counterspell by expending target spell-level +1 or more spell-level spell slot.
at this point with all the above improved counterspelling does nothing and thus memorizing a spell does nothing. An arcane point is spent, spell attempted to be identified(caster has to be perceived and spell casting perceived), then higher level spell slot spent to counterspell. If the spell is identified first then the would be counterspeller without a readied action must use the exploit. With a ready and a target then spell identification gives the would be counterspeller options.
Sacred Geometry feat. *sigh* so the table waits while dice are rolled and numbers are resolved, then two metamagics applied to a spell. Sadly this doesn't help counterspelling as the requirements are static and metamagic (other than heighten) does not raise a spell's spell-level AND you still have to have a spell slot (be able to cast) a spell of the higher metamagic spell-level (thus if you are a 5th level wizard you cannot cast a 4th spell-level spell).
essentially your player is baffling you with extra/extraneous data.
Explain that doing things BTB(By The Book) without having to resort to rule lawyering is the tried and safe method that is known to work consistently.
Let him explain his method, do it in game and let it fail. Explain that retraining is available rather than untried and experimental methods. Your job is to explain things not guarantee everything or untried methods and pre-qualify crazy ideas, that is what spell research and such is for.
I agree that Sacred Geometry needs a rewrite and should be banned as is.
For your home game use the PFS Additional Resources and Campaign Clarifications. Put all that work PFS has done to work FOR you. That will cut down on all sorts of non-sense.
Y'all are babies. Sacred Geometry is fine. There's a player who uses it in my group and it hasn't caused any problems. Since using it for spontaneous casting is a 1 round action, the DM just told him he's gotta be finished with the math by the time his next turn rolls around or he fizzles.
Also, don't use the PFS clarifications, they're shit.
Kristal Moonhand wrote: Y'all are babies. Sacred Geometry is fine. There's a player who uses it in my group and it hasn't caused any problems. Since using it for spontaneous casting is a 1 round action, the DM just told him he's gotta be finished with the math by the time his next turn rolls around or he fizzles.
Also, don't use the PFS clarifications, they're s$%#.
yep, giving away 1-6 spell-levels on most spells and letting the caster cast 2 spells per round isn't a problem and makes the game fun for everyone... quicken maximized combats... game balance is maintained
By the time you're casting Quickened anything, much less Quickened and Maximized, the game's either almost over or you're playing at such a high level that balance doesn't exist. I play a level 20 Ninja in a game and I'm still doing the same thing I was doing 19 levels ago when we started, stabbing motherf++!ers. Meanwhile the Wizard is casting 20 buffs and throwing out Persistent spells like his slots are as unlimited as my stabs.
There's a big difference between being able spend two 5th-level spell slots to cast a 5th-level spell and a 1st-level spell in a turn versus spending a 1st-level slot and a 5th-level slot to do the same thing.
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