Ok, now I know why people love Eberron...

[Sinfire Titan]

Basically, use Arcane Disciple to put Miracle on your class spell list as a Shadowcraft Mage, then cast it as a Shadow spell (no exp component).

Echoing Shadow Genesis would be another fun one.

But as I see it, here's how you could combine Residual Metamagic, Arcane Thesis (Silent Image) Heighten Spell, Earth Spell, and Echoing Spell on a Wizard Shadowcraft Mage (illusionist, so Silent Image is a 0 level spell).

1:  Cast Silent Image heightened to 9th level (10th with Earth Spell) to cast a 9th level shadow spell in a 9th level slot.  Note that due to Earth Spell, you're at +9 caster level.
2:  Cast Echoing Silent Image, Heightened via Residual Metamagic, to cast a 9th level  shadow spell in a 2nd level slot.  Again, +9 caster level.
3:  Cast Heightened Silent Image, Echoing via Residual Metamagic, to cast a 9th level spell with a 9th level slot.
4:  2:  Cast Echoing Silent Image, Heightened via Residual Metamagic, to cast a 9th level  shadow spell in a 2nd level slot.

Repeat until the encounter is over.  In one hour, all but the first 9th level spell slot are restored to you, and the spells are permanently echoing and heightened (so they're all effectively 9th level slots that will echo again), and because of the wording of the feat they're all at +5 caster level (4 lower than your initial caster level). 

Basically, you just launched a volley of 9th level shadow spells at the cost of only 1 9th level slot.

JaronK

Add in Practiced Spellcaster to give you an extra use of each, and we are talking seriously broken.


Echoing Shadow Miracles. That just makes me shiver in places I didn't know about...

[BowenSilverclaw]

Damnit, and I just finished my Shadowcraft Mage, now I'll have to tweak it again

Seriously, I love you guys

[JaronK]

Of course, I just remembered, it's at least +12 caster level to start... Arcane Thesis and Gnome.

JaronK

[Braithwaite]

The thing is that Echoing is a Metamagic Feat and can be applied to all of your spells (if you can reduce the price tag a notch or two) while Extra Spell only gives you one spell slot at all. This let's Novas do their trick while granting them some sort of saftey net for when the backlash sets in. It softens the blow for the later encounters by giving you back some options, even if they are all somewhat crippled. Which is why this is viable, as this+Practiced Spellcaster+Ultimate Magus (or Divine Metamagic) allows for a 2/day nova while still allowing you to play in the third and fourth encounters. That's what makes this a solid metamagic feat.

That, and the fact that CL is so easy to boost it isn't much of a penalty.

But only if your DM habitually gives multiple combat encounters in a day that are more than one hour apart but less than 8. In most games that I have been in (which may be the exception, I don't know) important battles seem to be either 1 big battle per day (wilderness encounters, or you get jumped in town, or you jump someone in town) or smaller fights stacked right on top of each other with little downtime (you are in a big location going room to room with time constraints or threat of discovery). If running out of spells is a problem, and you have unlimited time, OTOH, you rope trick, or just camp. I see very few instances where this feat would actually see practical use. Shadow miracles is certainly one, due to the versatility of the spell, but honestly, I can't think of a game I have been in in the last year where if my gm gave me this Meta on all my spells for free it would have really altered play at all. So you are going to spend 2 feat slots on it (one for the meta, one for Practiced Spellcaster)? I'd say this one takes a big leap out of useful and into the theoretical optimization side.

[Sinfire Titan]

The thing is that Echoing is a Metamagic Feat and can be applied to all of your spells (if you can reduce the price tag a notch or two) while Extra Spell only gives you one spell slot at all. This let's Novas do their trick while granting them some sort of saftey net for when the backlash sets in. It softens the blow for the later encounters by giving you back some options, even if they are all somewhat crippled. Which is why this is viable, as this+Practiced Spellcaster+Ultimate Magus (or Divine Metamagic) allows for a 2/day nova while still allowing you to play in the third and fourth encounters. That's what makes this a solid metamagic feat.

That, and the fact that CL is so easy to boost it isn't much of a penalty.

But only if your DM habitually gives multiple combat encounters in a day that are more than one hour apart but less than 8. In most games that I have been in (which may be the exception, I don't know) important battles seem to be either 1 big battle per day (wilderness encounters, or you get jumped in town, or you jump someone in town) or smaller fights stacked right on top of each other with little downtime (you are in a big location going room to room with time constraints or threat of discovery). If running out of spells is a problem, and you have unlimited time, OTOH, you rope trick, or just camp. I see very few instances where this feat would actually see practical use. Shadow miracles is certainly one, due to the versatility of the spell, but honestly, I can't think of a game I have been in in the last year where if my gm gave me this Meta on all my spells for free it would have really altered play at all. So you are going to spend 2 feat slots on it (one for the meta, one for Practiced Spellcaster)? I'd say this one takes a big leap out of useful and into the theoretical optimization side.

The uses of the feat will vary from campaign to campaign, but in general having a number of spells per day limited only by how many times you can take a -4 penalty per spell is a benefit beyond awesome. I can name a number of premade modules that this feat works perfect in, and every one of them has the time between these encounters to allow you to get spells back. And there are builds that can take advantage of this feat by itself (Wizard 5/War-Weaver 5/Ultimate Magus 10, for example).

Its more the fact that this feat is so optimizable that it should not be ignored rather than the practical applications for it. Lord only knows what DM would allow Echoing Shadow Miracles without pulling out his own big guns.

[Omen of Peace]

Agreed. If you can use Shadow Miracles and Residual Metamagic, adding Echoing to the lot is a droplet. If you need it to survive it means anybody else would die since you already have double the usual number of high-level slots.

But I think they were not interested in Practical Optimization for this subtopic.

edit: ninja'ed.

[Cap Smash]

The thing is that Echoing is a Metamagic Feat and can be applied to all of your spells (if you can reduce the price tag a notch or two) while Extra Spell only gives you one spell slot at all. This let's Novas do their trick while granting them some sort of saftey net for when the backlash sets in. It softens the blow for the later encounters by giving you back some options, even if they are all somewhat crippled. Which is why this is viable, as this+Practiced Spellcaster+Ultimate Magus (or Divine Metamagic) allows for a 2/day nova while still allowing you to play in the third and fourth encounters. That's what makes this a solid metamagic feat.

That, and the fact that CL is so easy to boost it isn't much of a penalty.

But only if your DM habitually gives multiple combat encounters in a day that are more than one hour apart but less than 8. In most games that I have been in (which may be the exception, I don't know) important battles seem to be either 1 big battle per day (wilderness encounters, or you get jumped in town, or you jump someone in town) or smaller fights stacked right on top of each other with little downtime (you are in a big location going room to room with time constraints or threat of discovery). If running out of spells is a problem, and you have unlimited time, OTOH, you rope trick, or just camp. I see very few instances where this feat would actually see practical use. Shadow miracles is certainly one, due to the versatility of the spell, but honestly, I can't think of a game I have been in in the last year where if my gm gave me this Meta on all my spells for free it would have really altered play at all. So you are going to spend 2 feat slots on it (one for the meta, one for Practiced Spellcaster)? I'd say this one takes a big leap out of useful and into the theoretical optimization side.

The uses of the feat will vary from campaign to campaign, but in general having a number of spells per day limited only by how many times you can take a -4 penalty per spell is a benefit beyond awesome. I can name a number of premade modules that this feat works perfect in, and every one of them has the time between these encounters to allow you to get spells back. And there are builds that can take advantage of this feat by itself (Wizard 5/War-Weaver 5/Ultimate Magus 10, for example).

Its more the fact that this feat is so optimizable that it should not be ignored rather than the practical applications for it. Lord only knows what DM would allow Echoing Shadow Miracles without pulling out his own big guns.

*raises Hand* hell, I just know what I am doing, and I know the protoflios of each god by heart, and you have to find a god that is willing to help you. not too hard, but not super easy either