Preparing Ball Lightning with two metamagic effects

[JDawg75]

I'm a 13th level wizard. What I'm wanting to do it prepare the 4th level spell Ball Lightning and add Dazing and Heighten metamagic to it. My understanding is that I can do this and it would be a 7th level spell with a 7th level save DC, is this correct?

J

[Cavall]

I think it would be as of the heightened level before the other metamagics.

[andreww]

No, heighten isn't free which is what you seem to be trying to do here. Apply heighten first then anything else on top.

[Meirril]

JDawg75 wrote:

I'm a 13th level wizard. What I'm wanting to do it prepare the 4th level spell Ball Lightning and add Dazing and Heighten metamagic to it. My understanding is that I can do this and it would be a 7th level spell with a 7th level save DC, is this correct?

J

If you prepare a spell with heighten, it only raises its Spell Level by the amount it is heightened. If you want a 7th SL Ball Lightning you have to heighten it +3 to 7th level. Then if you want to make it Dazing you have to add +3 more SL to make it a 10th level spell. Since you can't cast a 10th level spell you can't do this, even if you reduced the cost of the metamagic. Though if you had a rod of metamagic you could add its effect as you cast the spell.

So the only way you could throw a 7th level heightened, dazing ball lightning would be if you prepared a 7th level heightened ball lightning and then used a greater dazing rod on it. The normal version of ball lightning could be used with a normal (4th-6th) dazing rod but since this is heightened to 7th level you'd need the greater (7th-9th) rod.

If you chose to throw a Fireball that you made Dazing (+3) and Heightened as a 7th level spell that would be a spell level (7th level slot -3 Dazing) 4th. So the DC would only be 1 higher than a normal Fireball.

[JDawg75]

Meirril, I think I understood your entire post except that last paragraph, which didn't make sense to me.

J

[Val'bryn2]

If you wanted to cast a spell that is both dazing and heightened, you're bumping the spell level by a minimum of 4, 3 levels of dazing, 1 or more heighten. So a Dazing, Heightened Ball Lightning is either an 8th or 9th level spell, 4 base, 3 Dazing is 7, either heighten Ball Lightning to a 5th level spell for a total of 8, or to a 6th for a 9th level spell.

And I believe if you have a way to lower the metamagic cost, you can cast a spell that would otherwise be impossible.

[Meirril]

JDawg75 wrote:

Meirril, I think I understood your entire post except that last paragraph, which didn't make sense to me.

J

Ok, let me try this again.

A Fireball takes a 3rd level slot. You need to add 3 levels to make it dazzling. If you wanted to use a 7th level slot you could heighten it 1 level to make it a 4th level spell, that uses a 7th level slot.

And you can't cast metamagic spells above the maximum level of spell you know. So at 13th level a wizards highest level spell is 7th. So a 13th level wizard can't make a spell go above 7th level with metamagic feats because he can't cast them. Reductions in metamagic levels are applied after you figure the spell level.

Rods of metamagic work outside of these rules. You can apply them to any spell as you cast them and the rod can bump the spell past your limit. If you had a Greater Rod of Quicken and you cast Meteor Swarm you could use the rod to Quicken it, effectively making it a 13th level spell.

If you could apply cost reductions before you figured the final level of the spell it would be utterly ridiculous. I'll throw Trap the Soul, heighten it to level 500 (+491 levels), use Spell Perfection to do that for free. Can you make a will save DC 528? There is a reason people put Spell Perfection on mostly mid to low level spells.

[Val'bryn2]

Meirril wrote:

JDawg75 wrote:

Meirril, I think I understood your entire post except that last paragraph, which didn't make sense to me.

J

Ok, let me try this again.

A Fireball takes a 3rd level slot. You need to add 3 levels to make it dazzling. If you wanted to use a 7th level slot you could heighten it 1 level to make it a 4th level spell, that uses a 7th level slot.

And you can't cast metamagic spells above the maximum level of spell you know. So at 13th level a wizards highest level spell is 7th. So a 13th level wizard can't make a spell go above 7th level with metamagic feats because he can't cast them. Reductions in metamagic levels are applied after you figure the spell level.

I disagree with your assertion that applying metamagic that puts a spell at a higher level than you can cast renders it impossible to use, even if you can reduce the final spell level to something you can use. Your argument about absurd Heightened Metamagic on a spell is rendered moot because Spell Perfection specifically says it doesn't work on a spell rendered higher than level 9. The reason everyone puts it on mid to low level spells is because it has specific language prohibiting the majority of uses on higher level spells.

[Azothath]

it is quite simple. Dazing is +3 spell levels. Heighten is +N spell levels where N=(0,)1,2,3... The caster MUST be able to cast the final spell at the higher spell level. A Metamagic Rod does get around that limitation. The order isn't important so long as you apply all the levels for a metamagic when you apply that metamagic to the spell. Lowering the spell level cost with a trait isn't helpful on the final castable spell level restriction as metamagics take the worst option for the caster.

so Fireball (3rd) plus Dazing spell metamagic(+3) plus Heighten spell (+4 to get 7th spell level) = 10th spell level (which isn't possible in regular PF1). So +3 on Heighten is the best you can do in this situation (9th level maximum, see Heighten text). Ball Lightning being 4th with Dazing limits Heighten to +2, or again 6th spell level.