[3.5] How I nerf Divine Metamagic

[Pteryx]

Normally, I'm fairly comfortable with min-maxed builds; I've even helped my players min-max, even to the point of pointing a PC with Fast Healing to the spell Blade of Blood.  Sometimes, though, something is just too good to allow as written, and I don't think I'm the only person who feels that to be true of Divine Metamagic.  Thus, in my games it gets two solid whacks with the nerfbat:

• Divine Metamagic cannot be applied spontaneously.  Instead, the caster spends the turning attempts to modify a spell at the start of the day when preparing spells.
• Divine Metamagic does not cancel the level adjustment of the spell completely.  Instead, it halves it, rounded down, after all other modifiers are applied.

I believe this should make the feat still situationally useful and possible to build around, but correct me if I'm wrong here.  -- Pteryx

[Ashtagon]

I think the biggest cheese with divine metamagic is the Extra Turning feat and that magic item that gives you extra turning. The best fix is just to say that anything that grants extra turning is literally just that - it grants you extra turning attempts that cannot be converted into metamagic or anything else.

[X-Codes]

I wouldn't use it in your campaign.

Simply use the errata on it and add the following two restriction: Only "Turn Undead" powers it (no greater turn undead, no turn plants, no whatever else).  Nightsticks are plain not allowed in the game, since they're very powerful if used with *any* Divine or Domain feat.  With that, it takes some serious investments to make it practical for high-powered metamagic like Persistent Spell and Quicken Spell.

[JaronK]

Personally, I've had no problems with DMM:Persist as long as the spells are group buffs.  That way, the whole group gets stronger, instead of having that one Cleric making the Fighter look stupid.

JaronK

[veekie]

Personally, a few limits should make it sane enough:
Extra Turning is fine.
Max of one Nightstick per day(make them require attunement for 24 hours and can only be attuned to one at a time, if they want more turnings from nightsticks, work out a cost increase factor analogous to weapon enhancement bonuses for each beyond the first)
Divine Metamagic cannot raise a spell's effective level above your highest spell level(or caster level/2), but keep it spontaneous.

The last item keeps the output within the normal range, if with a bit more flexibility.

[Dictum Mortuum]

You can't increase a spell's level higher than 9 when appying a metamagic feat with Divine Metamagic.
e.g. divine favor + persistent spell = 7 (ok)
divine power + persistent spell = 10 (not ok)

[woodenbandman]

^But then there's no point. It throws clerics very far behind druids in terms of the power curve, because druids can put all their buffs on in 1 turn (with swift wildshape/bite of the weretiger), while a cleric needs at least two turns unless they're using DMM quicken to put up divine power/righteous might.

[Dictum Mortuum]

^But then there's no point. It throws clerics very far behind druids in terms of the power curve, because druids can put all their buffs on in 1 turn (with swift wildshape/bite of the weretiger), while a cleric needs at least two turns unless they're using DMM quicken to put up divine power/righteous might.

And fighters are still underpowered as hell. Your point ?

[Ashtagon]

^But then there's no point. It throws clerics very far behind druids in terms of the power curve, because druids can put all their buffs on in 1 turn (with swift wildshape/bite of the weretiger), while a cleric needs at least two turns unless they're using DMM quicken to put up divine power/righteous might.

This is the first time I have seen the druid heralded as the model of a balanced class design.

[woodenbandman]

Not saying that a druid is balanced relative to the entire game, but it's balanced relative to, say... a DMM cleric.

[JaronK]

I'm personally fine with DMM Clerics being weaker than Druids.  And then I'd be find with Druids getting nerfed too!

JaronK

[Straw_Man]

Normally, I'm fairly comfortable with min-maxed builds; I've even helped my players min-max, even to the point of pointing a PC with Fast Healing to the spell Blade of Blood.  Sometimes, though, something is just too good to allow as written, and I don't think I'm the only person who feels that to be true of Divine Metamagic.  Thus, in my games it gets two solid whacks with the nerfbat:

• Divine Metamagic cannot be applied spontaneously.  Instead, the caster spends the turning attempts to modify a spell at the start of the day when preparing spells.
• Divine Metamagic does not cancel the level adjustment of the spell completely.  Instead, it halves it, rounded down, after all other modifiers are applied.

I believe this should make the feat still situationally useful and possible to build around, but correct me if I'm wrong here.  -- Pteryx

  Most of the time DMM is applied at the start of the day. And I think that Persist and Quicken are good enough that players would still use it - alot. Mostly, I have a ecology of optimisation, once the DMM cleric mows down a encounters the organised enemies start fielding dispell builds. So far this has kept my players from being flagrant about abuse.

  A houserule set of mine also has no Extra Turning feat and you have Cleric spellcasting level/2 + Cha mods number of turn attempts. I'm looking forward to running a game with that soon if see how it affects the balance of builds.

[RobbyPants]

  A houserule set of mine also has no Extra Turning feat and you have Cleric spellcasting level/2 + Cha mods number of turn attempts. I'm looking forward to running a game with that soon if see how it affects the balance of builds.

Are you also cutting out nightsticks?

[Pteryx]

Most of the time DMM is applied at the start of the day. And I think that Persist and Quicken are good enough that players would still use it - alot. Mostly, I have a ecology of optimisation, once the DMM cleric mows down a encounters the organised enemies start fielding dispell builds. So far this has kept my players from being flagrant about abuse.

Thanks, this is the kind of feedback I was looking for.  Mostly I was concerned about free insta-quickened spells; hadn't thought much about the Persist cheese.  Then again, I'm not sure if there's much reason to allow Persist as written or not... hmm... *ponders*  -- Pteryx

[RobbyPants]

Thanks, this is the kind of feedback I was looking for.  Mostly I was concerned about free insta-quickened spells; hadn't thought much about the Persist cheese.  Then again, I'm not sure if there's much reason to allow Persist as written or not... hmm... *ponders*  -- Pteryx

Well, you have a couple of options.

One school of thought is that DMM (Persist) is a three feat investment (or you have to get creative with your domains), so it's no biggie.  Still, it really depends on the power level of the other PCs.

If you're looking to change/fix Persistant Spell, that itself can fix a lot of DMM problems.  Over in my project, Veekie came up with a nice rewrite.  The basic idea is that the most abusable persistant spells are the ones with extremely short durations.  His fix just increases the duration based on the original duration; basically a beefed up version of Extend Spell.  Here's what he did: