Witch, metamagic, and magical lineage

[Roco]

So my DM is letting us re-work some aspects of our characters before we reach level 4, so I was thinking maybe take out reactionary for something a bit more fun, like magical lineage.

I'm playing a winter witch.

I'm curious what metamagic and what one spell would be good/fun to specialize in?

Off hand I'm thinking spells like:
Snowball (Throw rime, and then later, extra damage metamagic feats)
Flurry of Snowballs (as above, but AOE, for 1 spell level higher)

Also, suggestions can be for things not specifically for a winter witch.

I thought about trying to do touch spells cus of Reach metamagic... but there's doesn't seem to be many good touch spells. Maybe chill touch at best?

[Joynt Jezebel]

Take Metamagic Master instead. It does what magical lineage does better.

Flurry of Snowballs is good with rime spell. Any AOE spell with the cold descriptor suits, ice storm or cone of cold if you are prepared to wait for a long time. Hurting a bunch of enemies and entangling them is really good.

[avr]

Flurry of snowballs is great when you get it but doesn't scale at all, not even with intensify spell. Chill touch is not a cold spell; frostbite is.

Winter's grasp (witch 2) is a good AoE debuff with rime spell. Better than flurry because it has range, area and a lingering effect. You get ice storm as a 3rd level spell as a winter witch (at 6th class level) and it would be OK to specialise in too, at least at first. Ice spears (witch 3) might be better in the long run, but it's not great until you have a couple of spears (CL 8). Snowball (witch 1) would be possibly the best choice for pure damage. Witch blasting spells do suck.

[Minigiant]

Joynt Jezebel wrote:

Take Metamagic Master instead. It does what magical lineage does better.

I think you have them the wrong way round. Magical Lineage is the uncapped version of Metamagic Master

[Roco]

avr wrote:

Flurry of snowballs is great when you get it but doesn't scale at all, not even with intensify spell. Chill touch is not a cold spell; frostbite is.

Winter's grasp (witch 2) is a good AoE debuff with rime spell. Better than flurry because it has range, area and a lingering effect. You get ice storm as a 3rd level spell as a winter witch (at 6th class level) and it would be OK to specialise in too, at least at first. Ice spears (witch 3) might be better in the long run, but it's not great until you have a couple of spears (CL 8). Snowball (witch 1) would be possibly the best choice for pure damage. Witch blasting spells do suck.

The issue with the large area lingering spells is, like obscuring mist, detremental to my allies and they'll chew me out for it as well.

Chill touch "can" be cold with the winter Witch hex frozen caress (add in reach meta magic for ranged touch attacks)

Ya, the issue with flurry is no scaling, but still, 30' area cone. There is that one meta magic that increases damage by 1.5x so there is that at least.

[Roco]

avr wrote:

Flurry of snowballs is great when you get it but doesn't scale at all, not even with intensify spell. Chill touch is not a cold spell; frostbite is.

Winter's grasp (witch 2) is a good AoE debuff with rime spell. Better than flurry because it has range, area and a lingering effect. You get ice storm as a 3rd level spell as a winter witch (at 6th class level) and it would be OK to specialise in too, at least at first. Ice spears (witch 3) might be better in the long run, but it's not great until you have a couple of spears (CL 8). Snowball (witch 1) would be possibly the best choice for pure damage. Witch blasting spells do suck.

Oh ya, ice Spears would take some time but even with just 1 it would be pretty sweet.

No aoe debuffing like flurry can do though, by level 8 at least two specific targets can be hit

[baggageboy]

Winter's grasp is a great debuff, especially because the stacking ofbhalf movement speed with entangled. One thing to keep in mind is if you aren't damaged by the spell time spell doesn't take effect. Winter's grasp only does at max 6 damage, so ER10/cold will make you immune to the time spell. This can be an advantage though if your team members are willing to invest a bit in getting that ER. It's a fun trick, but will fall off in usefullness as monsters have er and or fly.

[Joynt Jezebel]

Minigiant wrote:

Joynt Jezebel wrote:

Take Metamagic Master instead. It does what magical lineage does better.

I think you have them the wrong way round. Magical Lineage is the uncapped version of Metamagic Master

I think you are right. I thought the phrase " When you use the chosen spell with a metamagic feat" meant one particular metamagic feat.

The two traits are of different sorts, so you can take both. I suspect they stack if you take them on the same spell but I could be wrong again.

avr's suggestion of ice storm, which you get as a 3rd level domain spell, looks a good choice.

I like to pick AoE spells for a witch. Single targets get hexed.