New Feats: Meta…power?
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Metamagic feats.
Disparagingly absent from 4th Edition, metamagic feats could take those wimpy low-level spells and make them worth using again.
Let’s cut right to the chase. I’ve outlined a few ideas for bringing back metamagic, only we’re now going to make it metaPOWER. Let me know what you think.
All feats are Heroic Tier feats.
Empower Power (Metapower): Once per day as a free action, spend a healing surge, but do not heal hp. Increase all variable, numeric effects of a power by one half. An empowered power deals half again as much damage as normal, cures half again as many hit points as normal, etc. Roll the numeric effects as normal, then multiply the result by 1-1/2.
Enlarge Power (Metapower): Once per day as a free action, spend a healing surge, but do not heal hp. Increase the range of a ranged power by one half, rounded down. For example, A ranged 10 power would become ranged 15. Resepectively, a power that has multiple effects, one of which being range, may also be modified. For example, a burst 3 within 20 squares power would become a burst 3 within 30 squares power.
Maximize Power (Metapower): Once per day as a free action, spend a healing surge, but do not heal hp. Maximize all variable, numerical effects of a power. If a player hits with a maximized power, he/she is considered to have scored a critical hit for all purposes.
Quicken Power (Metapower): Once per day, as a free action, spend a healing surge, but do not heal hp. Make the action required to activate a power one action faster. For example, a power that normally requires a standard action would require only a move action. A power that normally requires a move action would only require a minor action, and so forth. Powers that only require a free action cannot be modified by this feat.
Widen Power (Metapower): Once per day, as a free action, spend a healing surge, but do not heal hp. Increase the affected area of a burst or blast power by one half, rounded down. For example, a close burst 3 power would become a close burst 4 power. A close blast 5 power would become a close blast 7 power. Resepectively, a power that has multiple effects, one of which being burst or blast, may also be modified. For example, a burst 3 within 20 squares power would become a burst 4 within 20 squares power.
Thank god somebody finally did this. The lack of metamagic feats was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t adopt 4e, but now I might give it a shot.
Prepare for a plug from me, btw. More people ought to look at this.
Although you bill this as a way to ‘take those wimpy low-level spells and make them worth using again’ – it seems likely that these will actually be used most often on players highest level daily power.
Perhaps these should be limited to Encounter Powers or powers n levels lower than the character’s level?
Carl
Erm… the problem being that these are all much better than other heroic tier feats. Enlarge is the only one I could even conceive of offering at that tier, and I think it’d still fit better at paragon.
Empower is at least an extra 1[W] worth of damage, and perhaps as much as 4[W] under the right circumstances. Maximize is an automatic critical “for all purposes”, which means not only maximum damage but also extra dice from magic weapons/implements and perhaps activation of class features or powers. Widen increases the potential number of targets of any AoE significantly (burst 2 to burst 3 goes from 25 squares to 36). And Quicken allows for two standard actions in one round, which can make for some ludicrous combos. All of those are epic effects. At least.
*sigh* Burst 3 would be 49 squares, of course. Silly math.
Keep in mind that unless your DM is trying to do something utterly ridiculous, you’re never going encounter 49 enemies set up exactly in burst 3 (unless they’re minions, in which case this works great because the idea of minions in the first place is that they get mowed down for cinematic effects not unlike the war scenes in LOTR). Rangers attack multiple times in a round as is. So for another class to be able to do so is not asking much. Rangers can attack 4 times a round if they use an action point. Players can attack twice a round once a day because of the action point you receive after you rest. These feat only add a more specific use of the action point w/out actually burning one…and these aren’t overpowered at all in my opinion. Ok the wording on maximize is a bit off. Instant critical is not what I was going for, simply maximum damage. My last post got pretty torn apart by you as well Scott…I’m starting to think you’re just out to get me.
And your math is pretty silly…burst 3 means 9 squares…burst 2 is 4 squares.
Burst 3 would go to burst 5…going from 9 to 25 yes…sorry I had trouble deciphering what you were trying to say…However I don’t see this is very unreasonable…like I said, in most games you may be able to hit one or two more enemies with this. Daily powers should be exempt from this, just because they are powerful enough already, and DiceMonkey and I had a discussion that if to activate this power you had to expend your second wind without gaining hp…this would make the feat much more risky to use, and please Scott, if you’re going to criticize my posts, I wish you’d at least give me some tips on improvement to go along with.
The original drawing I had for this up-ed the type of power it was to gain the advantage of the feat. For example, an at-will power became an encounter power, an encounter power became a daily power, and daily powers could not be altered by the feats. This was done in the fashion of original wizard metamagic feats in 3.5. What does everyone think of this?
Great idea!
I agree that the absence of metamagic is woefully missing from the otherwise IMHO generally underdeveloped wizard class. However, in 4E, feats (especially at heroic tier) are much less powerful and fill a much different niche than they did in 3.x . For comparison, other core wizard-oriented heroic tier feats allow you to:
- get a +1 to damage with powers using one of two keywords (eg Dark Fury)
- add one additional daily spell to your spellbook.
Without having serious limitations (i think the having it be a use of your second wind rather than just a healing surge is a good idea), the ability to effectively give yourself a bonus 1[w] is pretty darn powerful by comparison. I’m not sure whether the second wind cost, even combined with a “encounter/at-will powers only” rule is enough of a limitation. We might have to do the math on that one.
Also, I wonder if limiting the use of metamagic to once a day makes narrative sense (the same way that it’s a bit weird that daily powers can only be used once per day for no other reason than the fact that they’re daily powers, balance issues notwithstanding). As an alternative, coming back to your idea of the second wind cost, doing so would effectively limit metamagic to once per encounter without bluntly stating that it can only be used once per encounter. This might allow PC wizards to try to conjure up (pardon the pun) ways to get their second wind back, and it would make metamagic very risky for the still somewhat low-hp wizard. My experience with 4e combat thus far suggests that if you go into combat and have to rely on leaders to heal you, you’re walking a tightrope.
I don’t know if you’ve read Quintessential Wizard, but they approach metamagic in a similar way (ie, cool effects at the cost of healing surges). IMO they are a bit too powerful, but it might be something to check out.
Thus, in the name of constructive feedback, I humbly submit the following:
- Good idea with the second wind cost.
- Good idea with the “no daily powers” rule.
- No need to arbitrarily limit it to once per day.
Ideas for future metamagic feats: an energy substitution (change power elemental keywords) feat, a feat that adds forced movement to a power, and a feat that allows you to change the origin of a spell for the purposes of line of effect.
‘scuse me – metaPOWER, not just metamagic
These do indeed seem like the QW feats in base design, and I think it’s the right idea. Of course, it opens up the possibility of Durability abuse, as there’s no RAW limit on the number of times you can take the feat. I do recommend getting the Quintessential Wizard and looking over it, as it would serve as an excellent template from which to build on the ideas you’ve laid out here.
[...] Also, a house rule I’d like to revive interest in, because it was a good idea with not enough feedback in the way of testing. Metapower@The Dice Monkey [...]