Using new Wiz Prestige?

[francegr]

How do you gain spells permanently?

[Khimberlhyte]

How do you gain spells permanently?

Take the Prestige Enhancement - this requires specific feats, including spell focus and greater spell focus in a particular spell school such as enchantment to open up all tiers of the PrE. You then spend action points (enhancements) on the spell-like abilities in each spell school. Open up your character sheet, pick the enhancements tab, and drag each Spell-Like Ability (SLA) onto a hotbar.

They are separate from your memorized spells, and do not show up on your memorized list. You could have Hypnotism as a SLA, and also memorized as a level 1 spell, and use both (separate timers iirc, with a longer cooldown on the SLA). The SLA have free metas for now, although that could change in the future.

[Jaid314]

The SLA have free metas for now, although that could change in the future.

well, if they do, even fewer of the SLAs will ever get used. certainly, i would be shocked if anyone would bother taking a level 4 or 5 spell (they make you take every spell along the chain to get the later stuff, and frankly i'm not convinced that most of the spells are worth nearly enough to consider that). it's already only worth taking if you get metamagics free, for the most part... i'm not going to be casting most of those spells often enough for the discount to be worth it if it doesn't include free metas (that is, the only reason i'm likely to use hypnotism particularly often is because it's so cheap. if it was to cost 41 SP instead of 50 for a heightened hypnotism, it would probably get used very rarely)

[Khimberlhyte]

It's been discussed a lot already in other threads. Around a month ago, the devs indicated that metas were free, but that may be revisited.

The SLAs are not a silver bullet, and are more likely to be taken as niche abilities that depend on your preferred playstyle. I'll likely take the first few enchantment SLAs, and that's all. Someone posted in another thread that it will cost the same SP to cast one extended mass hold monster as it will to cast four SLA hold monster. The SLA will take 20-30 seconds to cast with cooldowns, plus the loss of SP for the SLA.

Just getting the Archmage PrE tiers are worthwhile for many builds for the bonus SP alone. The Spell Mastery schools are likely worth the cost for the DCs.

The SLAs are very situational, and I agree that adding any cost for metamagics will basically kill them. I will likely take up to Enchantment III for Hold Person. Charm monster SLA (Enchantment IV) is pointless when compared to Mass Suggestion, as is Hold Monster SLA (Enchantment V) when compared to Mass Hold Monster.

I played with SLAs on Lamannia a bit at level 12. Approach a group, Hypnotism, Hold, then dual wield heavy picks to autocrit mobs to death. Somewhat effective but slow. I could have probably done it far faster and with fewer SP used by just dropping a firewall, but the SLA makes other methods possible, and at least gets the SP cost into the same order of magnitude as a firewall.

[Jaid314]

It's been discussed a lot already in other threads. Around a month ago, the devs indicated that metas were free, but that may be revisited.

The SLAs are not a silver bullet, and are more likely to be taken as niche abilities that depend on your preferred playstyle. I'll likely take the first few enchantment SLAs, and that's all. Someone posted in another thread that it will cost the same SP to cast one extended mass hold monster as it will to cast four SLA hold monster. The SLA will take 20-30 seconds to cast with cooldowns, plus the loss of SP for the SLA.

Just getting the Archmage PrE tiers are worthwhile for many builds for the bonus SP alone. The Spell Mastery schools are likely worth the cost for the DCs.

The SLAs are very situational, and I agree that adding any cost for metamagics will basically kill them. I will likely take up to Enchantment III for Hold Person. Charm monster SLA (Enchantment IV) is pointless when compared to Mass Suggestion, as is Hold Monster SLA (Enchantment V) when compared to Mass Hold Monster.

I played with SLAs on Lamannia a bit at level 12. Approach a group, Hypnotism, Hold, then dual wield heavy picks to autocrit mobs to death. Somewhat effective but slow. I could have probably done it far faster and with fewer SP used by just dropping a firewall, but the SLA makes other methods possible, and at least gets the SP cost into the same order of magnitude as a firewall.

actually, charm monster would be a pretty useful one even single-target... charm a single monster, and you can often make the rest of them ignore you and try to kill the charmed one.

and in the situation described, i suppose you may be right at level 12. in epics, where strategies like this are more common, i think you might see it a bit differently... mostly because hypnotism can be used to shut down the group, then you can deal with them at your leisure. so far as i know once a mob is hypnotised it stays hypnotised until the duration wears out, whereas mass hold may require reapplication anyways (especially if your DC is not as high as you might wish). even better if you go with one or more melees with stunning abilities who can pick one mob at a time to slaughter without spending any mana beyond the hypnotism whatsoever.