Making "Divine Metamagic" balanced:
There's a lot of recent discussion on the feat "Divine Metamagic" (source: Complete Divine page 80, and Complete Divine errata PDF), the consensus seem to be that its overpowered. the main complaint i've heard from a few friends I've talked to (as well as people on the D&D message boards) seem to be that clerics are able to metamagic any of their spells anyway they want with this feat, & it can be done at 1st level. Given the original requirements to quicken, persist, twin, or maximize a spell, these feats obviously weren't meant to be accomplished by a spellcaster of FIRST LEVEL. Yet under the current rules as written by WotC, Divine Metamagic allows a cleric not only to bypass those original limitations, but do so as early as first level. This is one of the reasons my DM in Reno prohibited this feat altogether.
I'm a newbie to D&D, but from what I can tell, here's the original intent of the writers when they came up with the "Divine Metamagic" feat:
As you know, there's a lot of cool prestige classes available to clerics, as well as multi-class character builds. Many, if not most of these character build possibilities do not progress their turn/rebuke abilities. This makes the turn/rebuke class feature practically useless. As you progress, the higher challenge rating undead will just sit there & laugh at you if you try to turn/rebuke them as a 6th or 7th LV cleric (even though you might be a 15th or 16th level character). Thus to keep turn/rebuke useful, the writers came up with "Divine Metamagic", allowing clerics to save a few extra higher level spell slots by spending what is now useless turning/rebuking attempts instead. Now this useless class feature can be spent on something productive. So, to maintain the original intent of the WotC authors, here are 2 simple revisions to Divine Metamagic that I think would make this feat perfectly balanced:
1. Instead of making casters spend turning attempts equal to 1 + spell slot increase, we could just make them spend a number of turning attempts equal to the spell slot increase involved. This would grant the spellcaster a little more use out of the feat.
For example, currently to maximize a spell would require spending 4 turn/rebuke attempts, the revision will only cost you 3 attempts, which is equal to the normal spell slot increase if you wanted to maximize by conventional means.
2. In order to use divine metamagic, you must be able to cast the resulting spell level. Whatever you want to use Divine metamagic with, you must be able to do it normally also as if you didn't have the feat.
For example: if you wish to empower a cure moderate wounds spell, normally you would need a 4th level spell slot to do it. so under the new rules, although you still use a 2nd level spell slot with divine metamagic (empower), you still MUST BE ABLE TO CAST 4th level spells.
I think the aforementioned revisions would satisfy both intentions of the authors: it gives casters use of turn/rebuke feats instead of wasting them if they pursue prestige classes or multi-class, this is done by giving them extra use of their metamagic capability. This also gives balance, since now they won't be able to use those divine metamagic feats until they reach a spell level where they can do it normally.
I'm a newbie to D&D, but from what I can tell, here's the original intent of the writers when they came up with the "Divine Metamagic" feat:
As you know, there's a lot of cool prestige classes available to clerics, as well as multi-class character builds. Many, if not most of these character build possibilities do not progress their turn/rebuke abilities. This makes the turn/rebuke class feature practically useless. As you progress, the higher challenge rating undead will just sit there & laugh at you if you try to turn/rebuke them as a 6th or 7th LV cleric (even though you might be a 15th or 16th level character). Thus to keep turn/rebuke useful, the writers came up with "Divine Metamagic", allowing clerics to save a few extra higher level spell slots by spending what is now useless turning/rebuking attempts instead. Now this useless class feature can be spent on something productive. So, to maintain the original intent of the WotC authors, here are 2 simple revisions to Divine Metamagic that I think would make this feat perfectly balanced:
1. Instead of making casters spend turning attempts equal to 1 + spell slot increase, we could just make them spend a number of turning attempts equal to the spell slot increase involved. This would grant the spellcaster a little more use out of the feat.
For example, currently to maximize a spell would require spending 4 turn/rebuke attempts, the revision will only cost you 3 attempts, which is equal to the normal spell slot increase if you wanted to maximize by conventional means.
2. In order to use divine metamagic, you must be able to cast the resulting spell level. Whatever you want to use Divine metamagic with, you must be able to do it normally also as if you didn't have the feat.
For example: if you wish to empower a cure moderate wounds spell, normally you would need a 4th level spell slot to do it. so under the new rules, although you still use a 2nd level spell slot with divine metamagic (empower), you still MUST BE ABLE TO CAST 4th level spells.
I think the aforementioned revisions would satisfy both intentions of the authors: it gives casters use of turn/rebuke feats instead of wasting them if they pursue prestige classes or multi-class, this is done by giving them extra use of their metamagic capability. This also gives balance, since now they won't be able to use those divine metamagic feats until they reach a spell level where they can do it normally.
posted by Anonymous at
7:04 PM
2 Comments:
I really think the 2nd Ruling balances the feat alot. You must be able to cast the meta-spell normally before being able to use the divine metamagic feat.
But I think the first rule should not be used. Being able to use metamagic multiple times without pre-selecting is useful enough. And considering you could take this feat with quicken spell makes it well worth 5 turning attempts.
One issue - I played a cleric that just OWNED everything with this, following rule 2 (something our DM made us do) and not using rule 1.
The Persistent or even Extended combat buffs, the Empowered blasting spells, or Split or Twinned... just overkill.
When I party joined, I challenged the party barbarian/fighter/racial paragon with nearly 30 STR at level 11 to a duel, and crushed him. I tanked a group of 3 Frost Giants solo, while the party dealt with the 12 headed Cryohydra. I stomped the guts out of a gulvorg. Finally, I retired the character because he was too damn good.
I can't speak for anyone else, but in this case the feat was just way too powerful. Oh, and it was a low treasure campaign - I was a Cleric/Radient Servant of Pelor.
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