Incantatrix broken?

[keeper2161]

Form what I see Incantatrix from the player's guide to faerun isn't broken. The abilities that are trouble have a x/day thing attached. The instant metamagic feature is only 1/day at level 7 and 2/day at level 2. The only thing I see getting out of hand is metamagic spell trigger you could make a wand of persistent say wrathstrike but its wouldn't have that many charges and the cost would be enormous because it would be like making a wand of a 9th level spell or is it that the Incantatrix makes a level 2 wand of wrathstrike and then adds the persist onto it because the feature says they have to have the item creation feat too. Plus to recharge the wand wouldn't they need to cast a persisted wrathstrike on the wand and not just wrathstrike? Am I missing anything or do I have the wrong class because there is a Incantatrix in the magic of faerun I think.

[Zanos]

Metamagic effect is usable 3+int times per day and can be used to persist spells. If you pump spellcraft you can persist tons of spells per day, and it synergies amazingly well with Wizard's and their Int SAD, since both spellcraft and the uses per day are keyed off Int.

You also get four bonus metamagic feats over 10 levels, good class features basically all the time, and a blanket metamagic reduction as the capstone.

[Pluto!]

Free metamagic is the most powerful ability in the game. Incantatrix gets it.

[Gabrosin]

There are two serious breaks to Incantatrix. The first is at level 3 when you gain Metamagic Effect, which then lets you apply metamagic to an existing effect based on a Spellcraft check. Traditionally, this is how you get Persistent Spell onto the spells you cast: cast them normally at the start of your day, then apply Persistent Spell, using some method (item familiar, Guidance of the Avatar, +X to spellcraft magic items) to be able to consistently succeed on the check.

The second is the capstone ability that reduces all your metamagic costs by -1; when combined with other cost reducers, you can add a whole lot of metamagic to a low level spell to produce ridiculous effects.

In my eyes, the first one is the gamebreaker. It's not unreasonable to be able to use it 8-10 times per day, or more if you can get a +Int Tome. When you're able to persist that many spells, and combine that with tricks to keep them from getting dispelled, you can become ridiculous good.

It gets worse when you have more than one, because then you can both use the level 2 ability, Cooperative Effect, to persist spells on each other's behalf. Or you can take a non-persisting spellcaster (say a Druid) and now they get to run all day with persistent buffs too.

Stuff like Metamagic Spell Trigger and Instant Metamagic is just gravy. Not to mention the obvious: full caster progression and four bonus metamagic feats on the way up.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Metamagic Effect and Cooperative Metamagic at the 2nd and 3rd levels are the issue. They allow you to make a spellcraft check to add Persistent Spell to your buffs for no cost other than a use of that ability. Cooperative Metamagic can be used on your own spells outside of combat since the action economy system only exists during initiative. So that's two abilities, each of which are usable 3+Int/day, on probably a Wizard who's Int-SAD. Getting sixteen or more persistent buffs every day at level 8 is indeed broken. At level 8, this Wizard/Incantatrix has as many persistent spells as a DMM Cleric with twenty-six Night Sticks.

Making the Spellcraft check is trivial with Item Familiar skill investment, considering you can take ten on the checks. The DC to persist a 4th level spell is 48. At level 8 you'll have 11 ranks, +11 for invested ranks, +5 or more from Int, +2 synergy, +2 for a masterwork tool, for +31 already. You can dip Master Specialist for Skill Focus to make that +34, and you can easily upgrade a Competence bonus onto your Item Familiar to make up the remaining +4 so you can take ten and always succeed. That's Persistent Greater Invisibility, Swift Fly, Ray Deflection or Friendly Fire, Expeditious Retreat, Wraithstrike, Thunderlance, Alter Self (+9 natural armor), Shield, Magic Circle Against Evil, Death Armor, Fire Shield twice, Cloud of Knives five or more times, etc. Plus you can skip a few persistent spells to add Fell Drain and/or Fell Frighten to your Persistent Persistent Clouds of Knives and/or your Persistent Death Armor and Fire Shields, though you probably won't need those with Greater Invisibility.

At level 9 you can switch out Thunderlance for Draconic Polymorph: Cave Troll plus Draconic Might or Bite of the Wereboar or Werewolf and go ham. Your Wizard BAB won't matter with Str 42 and Wraithstrike, and your Wizard HP won't matter much with Greater Invisibility, +15 natural armor, Greater Luminous Armor, Magic Circle, Heart of Earth, and other buffs.

Yes, it's broken.

[keeper2161]

So has anyone checked out the other incantatrix from magic of faerun?

[Zanos]

So has anyone checked out the other incantatrix from magic of faerun?

Yeah, it's much more balanced but it still gets blanket metamagic cost reduction which can be problematic.

[Psyren]

So has anyone checked out the other incantatrix from magic of faerun?

I'm not sure why you would - MoF is 3.0 and was superseded by the PGtF one (which is 3.5.)

[ShurikVch]

Excuse me, but about the "persistent buffs": since when encounter not started with some sort of area dispell?

[Pluto!]

Excuse me, but about the "persistent buffs": since when encounter not started with some sort of area dispell?

So the Incantatrix would only have 13 Persistent buffs instead of 14?
(If the enemy has dispel magic. If the CL check succeeds)

[Gabrosin]

Excuse me, but about the "persistent buffs": since when encounter not started with some sort of area dispell?

Use the usual magic items to increase your caster level, making it less likely for the dispel magic to work. If it's the area version, it'll affect one spell at most, not a huge deal. If it's the targeted version, you can become immune to it with stuff like Ring of Counterspells, a Spellblade weapon, etc. If you know that your main path to losing an encounter is to get dispelled, then of course you protect against that.

[ShurikVch]

So the Incantatrix would only have 13 Persistent buffs instead of 14?
(If the enemy has dispel magic. If the CL check succeeds)

Strongly depend on which exactly buff was dispelled.

[jiriku]

Casters who rely heavily on persisted spells usually also invest in spells, feats, and items that make their spells harder than normal to dispel. It's also fairly trivial to protect yourself from an area dispel by casting a low-value, long-duration spell on yourself at less than your normal caster level. This spell functions as a sort of ablative armor against an area effect, since it is always dispelled first.

[eggynack]

Excuse me, but about the "persistent buffs": since when encounter not started with some sort of area dispell?

A ring of counterspells, tuned to either dispel or greater dispel magic, works quite efficiently against that plan, and at a low price at that. A ring of spell-battle is more expensive, and limited in range, but it is also highly effective at this task, and often significantly better. Also, if your opponent has to waste actions and spells against your buffs, then that's pretty much the whole point right there. Extra rounds are the greatest thing ever for and against casters.

[Rubik]

Excuse me, but about the "persistent buffs": since when encounter not started with some sort of area dispell?

Multiple castings of Magic Mouth at maximum CL nip that right in the bud, and a spellblade handily castrates the targeted version.

[keeper2161]

So as long as the class build didn't have a high int say a sorc or a dread necro or simply that the wizard didn't persist everything and instead used other metamagic feats like extend, incantatrix would be a very good class to finish out a build?

[Psyren]

Multiple castings of Magic Mouth at minimum CL nip that right in the bud, and a spellblade handily castrates the targeted version.

And since Spellblade is in the same bloody book...

[Gabrosin]

So as long as the class build didn't have a high int say a sorc or a dread necro or simply that the wizard didn't persist everything and instead used other metamagic feats like extend, incantatrix would be a very good class to finish out a build?

If you were playing in a world without Persistent Spell, then yes, Incantatrix loses some of its power. The capstone is still strong, but you pay for it by going the full ten levels. It would still be a very powerful choice because of the free feats and the less broken uses of the class abilities, and because you lose almost nothing in order to enter Incantatrix: some skill ranks you were going to have anyway, a feat you can outright buy if Complete Scoundrel is allowed, and the banning of a single school of magic, which is usually not a huge deal unless you're a specialist, and even then it's manageable.

[Gabrosin]

Multiple castings of Magic Mouth at minimum CL nip that right in the bud, and a spellblade handily castrates the targeted version.

Wait, how does this work? Area Dispel Magic starts with the highest CL and works its way down. Once they fail the check on all your real spells, what's the point of having a low-CL spell array beneath them?

[keeper2161]

I'm not saying no persist I'm saying just one or two. Like haste and wrathstrike or shield and wrathstrike. If wrathstrike is too powerful go magic weapon or something similar. D&D classes are only broken if you play them broken, Tainted scholar being the obvious exception.

[Kantolin]

Metamagic reducers with Persist, Quicken, Twin, probably Chain, and probably Maximize spell are almost certainly too powerful unless you're in a very high-optimization game or being extremely silly with your spell selections.

(Uh, and invisible spell is then separately wonky for an array of reasons)

If you are using metamagic reducers with most other metamagics, you certainly won't break anything. Widening things or enlarging things or even still/silent? Sure: It's a bump, but not a crazy one.

[Aegis013]

I'm not saying no persist I'm saying just one or two. Like haste and wrathstrike or shield and wrathstrike. If wrathstrike is too powerful go magic weapon or something similar. D&D classes are only broken if you play them broken, Tainted scholar being the obvious exception.

This falls under the same fallacious reasoning that a rule isn't bad because the DM can fix it. It's bad because the DM needed to fix it.
Just because a person doesn't play a class to its broken potential doesn't make it not broken.

[keeper2161]

But if the whatever build only has one metamagic reducer its not bad. And it doesn't matter how much a class can be broken, if you don't play it broken it won't be broken. So only persisting two spells and using other metamagic feats will make it very strong class but by then you are high enough level that you are fighting strong stuff. And if you use incantatrix with a gish build and purposefully avoid misusing it then it's not a problem. Again the only way a class is broken is you play it broken. Tainted scholar being again the exception.

EDIT: Aegis013 by your reasoning psychic warrior is a broken class because of the build king of smack. You don't have to play it broken.

[jiriku]

Wait, how does this work? Area Dispel Magic starts with the highest CL and works its way down. Once they fail the check on all your real spells, what's the point of having a low-CL spell array beneath them?

Whoop. Man, I wonder how many years we've been playing that wrong.

Rings of counterspelling are the way to go then.

[Urpriest]

You've also got the option to just choose a less broken class, though.

[keeper2161]

The reason I chose it was because of the metamagic bonus feats. I didn't really know what it could do yet till I started this thread.

[Gabrosin]

Whoop. Man, I wonder how many years we've been playing that wrong.

Rings of counterspelling are the way to go then.

You probably just had the idea backwards. A lot of buffs don't care about your CL (especially once you make them persistent). If you had the ability to cast a bunch of Magic Mouth spells or something similar at just one CL higher than the rest of your buffs, they would provide the sort of shield you're talking about, albeit not perfectly reliably. The odds are that if the opponent can knock out one of your spells on a high roll, give them 100 chances to make that high roll on a useless spell and hope they do so.

I suppose it could work at equal CL, depending on who got to choose the order in which the dispel checks are made.

[Psyren]

Wait, how does this work? Area Dispel Magic starts with the highest CL and works its way down. Once they fail the check on all your real spells, what's the point of having a low-CL spell array beneath them?

Good eye, but there's still the simple expedient of Battlemagic Perception and using your own Dispel to autosucceed at countering that one. Or blocking line of effect to the area dispel e.g. with Wings of Cover.

[Gabrosin]

But if the whatever build only has one metamagic reducer its not bad. And it doesn't matter how much a class can be broken, if you don't play it broken it won't be broken. So only persisting two spells and using other metamagic feats will make it very strong class but by then you are high enough level that you are fighting strong stuff. And if you use incantatrix with a gish build and purposefully avoid misusing it then it's not a problem. Again the only way a class is broken is you play it broken. Tainted scholar being again the exception.

EDIT: Aegis013 by your reasoning psychic warrior is a broken class because of the build king of smack. You don't have to play it broken.

The issue is that once you've taken the class, you're counting on just your personal restraint to stop you from breaking the game. And as soon as you start feeling like you're losing, the ultimate power you're holding back starts to look prettttty good. Would you really keep yourself from unleashing your full power if the alternative is a TPK?

If what you want is the bonus metamagic feats, I suggest you negotiate with your DM. As I mentioned earlier, if you forgo Persistent Spell the class is still great, but arguably not broken.

[Aegis013]

EDIT: Aegis013 by your reasoning psychic warrior is a broken class because of the build king of smack. You don't have to play it broken.

Not necessarily. Everybody has different opinions on what constitutes a broken or overpowered class. And if King of Smack is the optimization ceiling for Psychic Warrior, I wouldn't call it broken.

However, there is, in my experience on various forums, fairly wide spread agreement that Incantatrix is an extremely powerful class. One of the most powerful in the game.

But by your reasoning Tainted Scholar can't be an exception, because you just play it not brokenly.