Metamagics pass and What should/shouldn't work.

[Shade]

Outright nerfing extend to no longer work with a massive variety of offensive spells (nearly all of them, tho not quite all from what I saw) isn't a good solution to balance casters.

Nor is what was done to enlarge.. Free enlarge for select spells making the feat even less desireable? (which was already a very rarely taken feat at best)

And some key savant enhancable spells are even missing maximize/empower as options.. That's the worst - especially since elemental savant 3 makes you further enhance those feats as enhancement requirements.

Some examples that should be looked at:

Wall of fire/Incendiary cloud/etc.. All persistant AOEs that deal damage:
Should be extendable.
We get that you want to balance there dmg output totals against there sp cost. But you can do that without nerfing extend. Just drop there duration to half of what it is now (so 15s for firewall) then enable extend. Tweaking the SP cost to match may be nice too, but either way I'd pay the extra SP to avoid the nerfs and keep the game balanced.

Free enlarge on ray spells:
I get that some players have problems landing these.. But why is the solution to just nerf enlarge? Seems like "better tracking" fix alone would of done the trick. Personally I can never fit enlarge into my builds, so it's only a bonus to me... But still don't like it, all meta magic feats should be worthwhile. I guess the ideal solution would be to keep some of the extra range on them, but let enlarge work to make them go even further - but I realise this would be tough to code. Probably low priority.
Atlernative fix:
Since enlarge is a feat that is near impossible to fit into most good Sorcerer builds (and sometimes wizards) why not simply make it an enhancement instead? Could just be an expensive enhancement: Say 4-6 AP and works as is. Or cheaper free version per spell line: Say: 2 AP to free enlarged rays, 2 more AP for enalarged CC spells, 2 more ap for enalrged aoe direct dmg spells. Would be better then just plain "free for everyone, for ray spells"

Spells just plain missing maximize/empower as options that could really use it:
Cloudkill:
Since this is one of the KEY earth savant spells and deals firewall like damage - it really should be maximize/empowerable. It's not like you would be creating a very broken spell like wall of fire tended to be.. As it would still be inferior to wall of fire due to the fact that massive amount of monsters in the game are immune to it (Anything immune to poison = immune to its acid dmg also, which includes every red/purple named in the game)

Contagion:
Well max/emp stat dmg may be overpowered. But since the "slimy doom" portion was changed to straight acid dmg, that should be max/empowerable, as well as correctly effected by enhancements. May be tricky to selective set sub-spells as max/emp enabled, but if you can. Turn it on please.

Well the metamagic on/'off pass wasn't all bad at least.. Some good changes:
Mass hold no longer extenable:
This is good because with a base duration of 2min, and recurring saves every 2-3 seconds.. It was ultra unlikely that it would ever last over 2 mins, no matter how good your spell DC.

[Maegin]

On the enlarge portion...

Since they are enlarging stuff for free these days, it would have been nice to see them add an ap line for Arcane Reach as per DMG.

[HarveyMilk]

One solution:

Change both enlarge and extend to add (passively) 50% more distance and duration, respectively, at no extra sp cost.

So, FW/BB would go up to 45 sec with extend. Would be a nice boost, no sp cost would fit the theme of the update, and it wouldn't be as hugely op as it was before.

Enlarge, with 50% more distance, would be an awesome sniping spell feat, as it was before.

[Trillea]

I saw this suggestion on another thread and really liked it:

For extend - on the currently nonextendable spells that give recurring saves, have it double the time that the enemies actually get between saves - so like 6 sec between saves for mass hold.

For enlarge, I would keep the bolt spells distances as-is with the free doubled distance, but replace the enlarge spell with the widen spell feat which gives double AOE on any spells with an AOE.

[Diyon]

I saw this suggestion on another thread and really liked it:

For extend - on the currently nonextendable spells that give recurring saves, have it double the time that the enemies actually get between saves - so like 6 sec between saves for mass hold.

For enlarge, I would keep the bolt spells distances as-is with the free doubled distance, but replace the enlarge spell with the widen spell feat which gives double AOE on any spells with an AOE.

Always sad that widen wasn't an available feat. Probably because it would be much better in DDO than pnp because using it in pnp you had to worry about the room size and inadvertently nuking yourself/the party.

[voodoogroves]

These sorts of things are exactly what ... concerns? ... me a bit. Player tolerances re important but subjective. Changes like this to extend/enlarge may look one way on paper but if their "real" use drops to basically nothing it was wasted devtime and completely game shifting.

Not doom/gloom ... I can roll with punches ... but folks need to understand stuff is just gonna be different.

If they made every spell equally useful that won't change the fact that most players will optimize on a subset and use them repeatedly.

[shagath]

Mass hold no longer extenable:
This is good because with a base duration of 2min, and recurring saves every 2-3 seconds.. It was ultra unlikely that it would ever last over 2 mins, no matter how good your spell DC.

I really like this. It's very good.

Only if I could somehow figure out how to disable heighten on halt undead.

[Ryiah]

Always sad that widen wasn't an available feat. Probably because it would be much better in DDO than pnp because using it in pnp you had to worry about the room size and inadvertently nuking yourself/the party.

If you want to reduce the player tendency to use firewall everywhere, just implement friendly fire. I bet that would encourage more people to use ray spells. I think I'd enjoy the feature. Someone starts doing something stupid during a quest you just drop a fireball on them, pick up their stone, and raise them at the end.

[Truga]

If you want to reduce the player tendency to use firewall everywhere, just implement friendly fire. I bet that would encourage more people to use ray spells. I think I'd enjoy the feature. Someone starts doing something stupid during a quest you just drop a fireball on them, pick up their stone, and raise them at the end.

Yes. Yes please. Hard/Elite(/Epic?) should have friendly fire on. Call it hardcore d&d rules like NWN did. Casuals and normals can keep their easy mode.

[kcru]

Speaking of Extend...

SUmmon Monster. I mean, come ON! IF you can keep it alive, why disregard Extend? It's too powerful? haha. I get really annoyed when I summon, give him my group buffs that last over twice as long as he will, so I need to cast it again later (or go to the trouble of toggling annoying metamagics.)

[dunklezhan]

Speaking of Extend...

SUmmon Monster. I mean, come ON! IF you can keep it alive, why disregard Extend? It's too powerful? haha. I get really annoyed when I summon, give him my group buffs that last over twice as long as he will, so I need to cast it again later (or go to the trouble of toggling annoying metamagics.)

eh? Monster summons last until death or leaving the adventure these days, don't they?

[Shade]

eh? Monster summons last until death or leaving the adventure these days, don't they?

No. 10 minutes. Not extendable.

Same with the new "create undead" ones. Which I tested out.. All pretty weaksauce.

[zorander6]

The whole spell pass is pretty weaksauce in my not so humble opinion. Nerf the hell out of extend to the point of being almost pointless, make commonly used spells more expensive to try to force people to use less effective spells, and as a "boon" to casters change points slightly for less popular spells. All so that we can see the pretty graphics they made for all the spells.


Sure I can survive this nerf but I'm not happy about it.