Nuances of sanctum spell

[Shinoskay]

It must also be noted that a sanctum spell is always considered one level lower until it is cast in a sanctum, not just when it is cast outside the sanctum. It is a subtle distinction I know, but a significant one considering that you don't craft a spell cast, you craft a spell prepared. Sanctum a 0 level spell and you are golden as far as crafting. If the custom item guidelines are not in order, then at least spell traps will make you money.

So, Sanctum spell is a little confusing to me.

I've developed the understanding that it changes the spell when you prepare the spell... so if you prepare it in your sanctum you gain +1.

but the feat says cast... not prepare...

and people are talking about using it to intentionally lower a spells level for crafting....

I don't get it.

[Crake]

Thats not quite correct. When you prepare a sanctum spell, its in a superposition of a +1 and -1 spell. That is determined at the time of casting, if you are inside or outside your sanctum.

People will try and use this to argue that, if you use a sanctum spell outside of your sanctum for crafting, it would be treated as a spell level lower, thus reducing the cost.

Good luck finding a DM that agrees though. After all, item crafting GUIDELINES are not hard and fast rules, and the DM is the final arbiter on what items can exist and how much they cost.

[Troacctid]

Metamagic spells are placed in the item at their modified spell slot level, which, for a Sanctum Spell, is the spell's original level.

[Shinoskay]

Thats not quite correct. When you prepare a sanctum spell, its in a superposition of a +1 and -1 spell. That is determined at the time of casting, if you are inside or outside your sanctum.

People will try and use this to argue that, if you use a sanctum spell outside of your sanctum for crafting, it would be treated as a spell level lower, thus reducing the cost.

Good luck finding a DM that agrees though. After all, item crafting GUIDELINES are not hard and fast rules, and the DM is the final arbiter on what items can exist and how much they cost.

that's even more confusing.

So, Im in my sanctum and prepare a level 2 spell as a sanctum spell and I have earth spell.
Then I go hit up a dungeon

I do I cast it as a level 3? or as a level 4 spell?

Shadow craft mage. I have a level 8 shadow spell... I prepare it in my sanctum, does it get boosted to level 10 and allow me to cast wish as a level 9 spell? or does it cast as a level 9 shadow spell giving me 8 and below options?

[icefractal]

Sanctum Spell really has one of the worst broken-ness to legitimate use ratios of anything in D&D. Because the actual intended use is extremely niche and not amazing even in that niche, yet it creates a bunch of uses which are not only unbalanced, but also mechanically unclear.

TBH, metamagic not "really" being the adjusted level was pretty bad design too. For the sake of solving a non-issue (Empowered Fireball is better than Cone of Cold? Maybe that should clue you in that the high level blasting spells are bad and need more design work), it creates all kinds of complication and loopholes.

[Darg]

that's even more confusing.

So, Im in my sanctum and prepare a level 2 spell as a sanctum spell and I have earth spell.
Then I go hit up a dungeon

I do I cast it as a level 3? or as a level 4 spell?

Shadow craft mage. I have a level 8 shadow spell... I prepare it in my sanctum, does it get boosted to level 10 and allow me to cast wish as a level 9 spell? or does it cast as a level 9 shadow spell giving me 8 and below options?

Metamagic only takes effect when a spell is cast. So preparing a sanctum spell in or out of your sanctum has zero effect on the result. It's where you cast it that matters.

By the rules, a sanctum 2nd level spell is prepared and cast as a 2nd level spell while the effect is either 1st or 3rd level depending on location. Earth spell only works if you apply heighten to the spell. Thus if you heighten the sanctum spell to 3rd, it is prepared and cast as a 3rd level spell while the effect is either 3rd outside the sanctum or 5th level inside the sanctum.

Shadow Illusion is asking for the level of the spell, not the spell's effective level when cast. Sanctum spell and heighten spell don't have an effect on a spell's actual level. The only reason the concept is even entertained is because some people think a feat's plain text is not rules text (which is not true, just look at weapon focus). Effective level is mention in 3 separate topics in the PHB: druid levels, heighten spell, and negative levels. In all 3 cases it's the level used for calculations or die rolls (as mentioned in the glossary definition of negative level).

[Crake]

that's even more confusing.

So, Im in my sanctum and prepare a level 2 spell as a sanctum spell and I have earth spell.
Then I go hit up a dungeon

I do I cast it as a level 3? or as a level 4 spell?

Shadow craft mage. I have a level 8 shadow spell... I prepare it in my sanctum, does it get boosted to level 10 and allow me to cast wish as a level 9 spell? or does it cast as a level 9 shadow spell giving me 8 and below options?

I dont know why its confusing to you. If youre inside your sanctum when you cast it, its +1 effective spell level, if youre outside of your sanctum its -1

Sanctum Spell really has one of the worst broken-ness to legitimate use ratios of anything in D&D. Because the actual intended use is extremely niche and not amazing even in that niche, yet it creates a bunch of uses which are not only unbalanced, but also mechanically unclear.

Easy solution is to just remove the -1 spell level effect. Getting +1 when in a specific location doesnt need to be offset by a -1 when not there.

[Chronos]

Sure, that takes away most of the brokenness, but the non-broken use case still isn't worth a feat.

[Vaern]

So, Im in my sanctum and prepare a level 2 spell as a sanctum spell and I have earth spell.
Then I go hit up a dungeon

I do I cast it as a level 3? or as a level 4 spell?

Sanctum spell doesn't care whether the spell is prepared in your sanctum. You're casting it outside of your sanctum, so its effective level is reduced. I don't see why earth spell would modify the spell's level in this case, so it would be cast as a 1st level spell.

[Crake]

Sure, that takes away most of the brokenness, but the non-broken use case still isn't worth a feat.

It would be for a boss who youre gonna fight in his sanctum?

Not every option needs to be exclusively useful for roaming adventurers, the world is more extensive than just those people

[Chronos]

Even if a character is literally always in their sanctum, a free Heighten by 1 for all spells is an awfully weak feat. In most cases, the only practical effect that'll have is to increase all save DCs by 1, and there are lots of other ways to do that.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

As with most others, I prefer Sanctum Spell when it reduces the level of a spell. Think of how that interacts with stuff like mnemonic enhancer and (greater) arcane fusion.

[Darg]

As with most others, I prefer Sanctum Spell when it reduces the level of a spell. Think of how that interacts with stuff like mnemonic enhancer and (greater) arcane fusion.

It doesn't interact with them in the way you think it does. They ask for the level of the spell, not the level of the effects.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It doesn't interact with them in the way you think it does. They ask for the level of the spell, not the level of the effects.

And the level of the spell when cast is one lower, yes.

"All effects dependent on spell level (such as save DCs or the ability to penetrate a minor globe of invulnerability) are calculated according to the adjusted level."

The effect of a spell one level lower is that of a spell one level lower. If it interacts with a globe of invulnerability effect as one lower, then the same goes for (greater) arcane fusion.

[Crake]

Even if a character is literally always in their sanctum, a free Heighten by 1 for all spells is an awfully weak feat. In most cases, the only practical effect that'll have is to increase all save DCs by 1, and there are lots of other ways to do that.

Sure, but spell focus is also a thing, and thats just for one school.

Plus its thematically interesting, a character who has imbued their home with great power that they can draw from while they’re there. Thats a great launching pad for a whole slew of homebrew effects that one might be able to draw upon from their sanctum

And the level of the spell when cast is one lower, yes.

"All effects dependent on spell level (such as save DCs or the ability to penetrate a minor globe of invulnerability) are calculated according to the adjusted level."

The effect of a spell one level lower is that of a spell one level lower. If it interacts with a globe of invulnerability effect as one lower, then the same goes for (greater) arcane fusion.

Yall can argue till youre blue in the face about “but the RAW!”, but the truth is, its mostly irrelevant.

Either your DM will think its a neat concept and allow it, or they’ll think its dumb, and not allow it. Neither side is basing their decision in what the “true” definition of the rules is, and both sides have already made their decision on the matter, so the argument is largely moot.

Personally, I’m in the “thats stupid” camp. It would be the equivalent of saying “i can cast a twin repeat maximise enhanced fireball with arcane fusion, bEcAuSe ItS oNlY a 3Rd LeVeL sPeLl”

[Shinoskay]

Metamagic only takes effect when a spell is cast. So preparing a sanctum spell in or out of your sanctum has zero effect on the result. It's where you cast it that matters.

By the rules, a sanctum 2nd level spell is prepared and cast as a 2nd level spell while the effect is either 1st or 3rd level depending on location. Earth spell only works if you apply heighten to the spell. Thus if you heighten the sanctum spell to 3rd, it is prepared and cast as a 3rd level spell while the effect is either 3rd outside the sanctum or 5th level inside the sanctum.

Shadow Illusion is asking for the level of the spell, not the spell's effective level when cast. Sanctum spell and heighten spell don't have an effect on a spell's actual level. The only reason the concept is even entertained is because some people think a feat's plain text is not rules text (which is not true, just look at weapon focus). Effective level is mention in 3 separate topics in the PHB: druid levels, heighten spell, and negative levels. In all 3 cases it's the level used for calculations or die rolls (as mentioned in the glossary definition of negative level).

most of what you said here actually clears up a lot...

Except I'm going to have to disagree on shadow illusion.

A shadowcraft mage can use the altered spell
to mimic any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning),
conjuration (creation), or evocation spell at least one level lower
than the illusion spell. The altered spell functions identically to
the shadow conjuration or shadow evocation spell, except that the
spell’s strength equals 10% per level of the figment spell used.

It doesnt actually clarify at what point the spell converts to the one you are actually casting but considering it becomes shadow conjuration of appropriate level... you are basically casting shadow stuff into the spell you want. You prepare silent image, and then when you cast it you decide it will form into the acid spell you want it to mimic.
Ergo, you are casting the silent image and then shaping it. Meaning it functions in all ways like the prepared silent image but then acts like the intended spell.

the rest though, the way you explained metamagic. That all actually made sense, thank you.

[Darg]

Except I'm going to have to disagree on shadow illusion.



It doesnt actually clarify at what point the spell converts to the one you are actually casting but considering it becomes shadow conjuration of appropriate level... you are basically casting shadow stuff into the spell you want. You prepare silent image, and then when you cast it you decide it will form into the acid spell you want it to mimic.
Ergo, you are casting the silent image and then shaping it. Meaning it functions in all ways like the prepared silent image but then acts like the intended spell.

the rest though, the way you explained metamagic. That all actually made sense, thank you.

Everyone has an opinion and RAW is just as subjective as it is objective. Your way is a common understanding for sure, but to clarify my position it is that if something is asking for a spell's level it is asking for the spell's actual level unless otherwise specified to be different or at a specific junction of use. Metamagic doesn't ever state it alters a spell's level except for the purposes of preparing, casting, crafting magic items, or manifesting the effect (in the case of heighten); and in all of those cases the PHB declares it isn't actually changing the levels of the spells. As nothing says the feats can alter the spell's levels for calculation of features, it's just not valid. That said, the class feature out of context is ambiguous enough for it to be eternally debated. Especially when the SRD is missing the important text declaring heighten spell never actually changes the level of a spell.

[Pinkie Pyro]

Good luck finding a DM that agrees though. After all, item crafting GUIDELINES are not hard and fast rules, and the DM is the final arbiter on what items can exist and how much they cost.

Hi. Turns out, it can actually be pretty fun to just let your players go ham with crazy builds, you just scale the campaign off it.

On topic:

Sanctum spell reduces the spell level. metamagic is weird in that it doesn't affect spell level but the spell slot prep, but sanctum spell explicitly effects the spell's level.

a big question here is 'does the minimum caster level go down with it'? you still need the minimum caster level to cast the spell from that spell slot, I believe.

If you're really wanting to push magic crafting down in cost, look at mindmage, as with optimization it allows you to drop even 9ths down to 1st level spells, and with sanctum you can drop that to 0th.

what is that, a wonderous item of continuous timestop for 1K gold?

[Crake]

Hi. Turns out, it can actually be pretty fun to just let your players go ham with crazy builds, you just scale the campaign off it.

Yeah, I've found that gets pretty old, pretty quick, the same way that turning on god mode, and cheats in a video game gets pretty boring and generally ruins the fun of the game after the novelty wears off.

[Darg]

Sanctum spell reduces the spell level. metamagic is weird in that it doesn't affect spell level but the spell slot prep, but sanctum spell explicitly effects the spell's level.

Actually, that's "effective spell level." It never alters the actual level of the spell. I know that the books never define it, but all the context clues point at least to the fact that effective =/= actual. The fact that level and effective level are two differently defined words in the glossary should make it incredibly obvious that the adjective "effective" should alter the meaning of the whole term.

Yeah, I've found that gets pretty old, pretty quick, the same way that turning on god mode, and cheats in a video game gets pretty boring and generally ruins the fun of the game after the novelty wears off.

That is an understatement. Not to mention the headache of trying to balance and mediate exploitative behavior baked into the game from the beginning.

[Crake]

The fact that level and effective level are two differently defined words in the glossary should make it incredibly obvious that the adjective "effective" should alter the meaning of the whole term.

Citation needed?

Which glossary are you looking at? The PHB one for example makes no mention of "effective" anything related to spells.

[Darg]

Citation needed?

Which glossary are you looking at? The PHB one for example makes no mention of "effective" anything related to spells.

I could say that heighten spell actually defines it, but apparently the text of a feat that introduces the term saying it doesn't actually increase spell level and then telling you what effective spell level means isn't good enough. Which is honestly absurd, but it is what it is.

Still, the context clues are there if you look for them. In the PHB glossary you have the terms "level" and "effective level". Level is the actual level of something. Effective level is what you use when you need to calculate something based on your level. It's not your actual level, but you are treated as such in particularly stated ways. I'm not going to argue about how the use of terminology should be important, because it should be quite obvious, as the oppositional position has to assume an anticonextual stance. After arguing this position before I've come to understand there can be no meeting of the minds as it simple boils down to the basic structure of how you read the rules in the first place: you either read them as a cohesive whole or break them down into specific parts and functions independent of each other to parse the outcome. The two sides can't be reconciled because they are fundamentally oppositional.

level: A measure of advancement or power applied to several areas of the game. See caster level, character level, class level, and spell level.

For each negative level gained, a creature takes a –1 penalty on all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, loses 5 hit points, and takes a –1 penalty to effective level. (That is, whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce its value by 1 for each negative level.)

[Segev]

I could say that heighten spell actually defines it, but apparently the text of a feat that introduces the term saying it doesn't actually increase spell level and then telling you what effective spell level means isn't good enough. Which is honestly absurd, but it is what it is.

Still, the context clues are there if you look for them. In the PHB glossary you have the terms "level" and "effective level". Level is the actual level of something. Effective level is what you use when you need to calculate something based on your level. It's not your actual level, but you are treated as such in particularly stated ways. I'm not going to argue about how the use of terminology should be important, because it should be quite obvious, as the oppositional position has to assume an anticonextual stance. After arguing this position before I've come to understand there can be no meeting of the minds as it simple boils down to the basic structure of how you read the rules in the first place: you either read them as a cohesive whole or break them down into specific parts and functions independent of each other to parse the outcome. The two sides can't be reconciled because they are fundamentally oppositional.

I think the question is: "What is this 'effective level' effectively the level wrt?"

[Darg]

I think the question is: "What is this 'effective level' effectively the level wrt?"

It tells you right after introducing the term:

All effects dependent on spell level (such as saving throw DCs and ability to penetrate a lesser globe of invulnerability) are calculated according to the heightened level.

If people want to think that means they can get a heightened spell scroll and copy that into their spellbooks and prepare and cast it without the feat at that heightened level, then there is simply very little I could do to convince them otherwise. Likewise with shadow illusion. I could try to convince them that the feature is asking about the spell being used rather than the spell effect, but that's only going to go so far when they've already convinced themselves.

[Segev]

"All effects dependent on spell level" is not limited to the examples listed. That's where the arguments arise.

[Darg]

"All effects dependent on spell level" is not limited to the examples listed. That's where the arguments arise.

Of course. Not to mention the lack of consistency. If shadow illusion is referencing the effect of the spells then it should do so in all cases unless specified otherwise.

The altered spell functions identically to the shadow conjuration or shadow evocation spell, except that the spell's strength equals 10% per level of the figment spell used.

That includes the level of the spell. This should cause you to do multiple calculations for no reason, which ironically helps the cheese even further by lowering the saves for your more than 100% real shadow illusions.

However, if references to the spells are purely referential rather than being based on the actual effect (DCs are an effect according to heighten spell), then you end up with a completely cohesive whole that doesn't have logical hangups that need to be addressed and worked out to simply function. A +3 heightened silent image is simply a 1st level spell, that's 10% real, with the effect of a 4th level spell. Otherwise you end up with a +8 heightened silent image 6th if evocation or 5th if conjuration level spell, 90% real, and that has an effect of a 6th or 5th level spell. Then again people like to be selective in their application to the rules so you end up with a 9th, 90%, and 9th.