Min/Max Boards

So I know this is not really what you are asking for (you asked for metamagic and specifically arcane), but I would like to point out the psionic items called power link shards from magic of eberron.  They give you free pp and free augments and allow you to bypass your manifester level and thus I effectively consider them free metamagic.  Effectivelly they are metamagic rods but better 

• You need to be the race kalashtar or do a umd check pretending to be a kalahstar.
• You can have a number of shards equal to your HD or your ML which ever is lower.
• You lose 1 HP for each shard implanted inside of you, the shards are unslotted magic items.
• Activating a shard is a free action, you can use multiple shards at once.
• Each shard you activate gives you 2 free pp that must be used for augments.  Furthermore your ml is increased by 2 and you can bypass your normal ml cap.
• Each shard can be used 3 times per day (thus effectively 6 pp)
• Each shard costs 3,000 gp on the open market or 1,500 gp and 120 xp to craft.

A level “9” build (In reality it is a level 8 due to the xp drain of crafting.)
Wizard 1/Telepath 3/Cerbemancer 4
Race Kalashtar
Cast as a 7th level Psion at ML 7, Cast as a 5th level Wizard at CL 8
Assuming 20 int for simplicity sake (16 starting int , +2 due to HD 8, +2 Headband of intellect)
Feats
1   Precocious Apprentice (for early entry, precocious apprentice actually works with Cerbemancer)
1   Practiced Spellcaster Wizard
1   Hidden Talent Astral Construct
3   Craft Wondrous Item
6   Expanded Knowledge Energy Missile
Eventually
9   Linked Power

46 Base PP
20 Bonus PP due to ML 8 and 20 Int
8 Kalashtar Racial Bonus PP
48 effective bonus PP from power link shards.
122 Effective Total PP
Normal XP at level 9 is 8    36,000
Because you crafted 8 power link shards (12,000 gp+960 xp) and a headband of intellect +2 (2,000 gp+160 xp) you are 14,000 gp and 1,120 xp behind.  In other words you are 86% done with level 8 (xp wise).  You have spent 38% of your wealth by level (level 9) on crafting items.

Powers Known
1   Astral Construct (Hidden Talent)
1   Synchronicity
1   Crystal Shard (Ranged Touch AC)
2   Energy Stun (Save or Stun)
2   Energy Missile (Multi Target fireball with less area but don’t hit allies) Expanded Knowledge
3   Time Hop
3   Energy Wall (Wide Area Damage, that you can use for a long time, but doesn't cost pp after initial casting, perfect for a schism mind to concentrate on)
4   Schism
3 1st Level Powers Free, 3 2nd Level Free, 2 3rd Level Free, 1 4th Level Free

Pretty much you use Schism and Synchronicity to break the action economy, giving you 2 standard action powers each round (and this doesn’t even count intermediate actions.).  You can pump out level 9 astral constructs and up to 21 ML blasting at level 8 (when a normal wizard is at level 9).  You still have 3rd level wizard spells for versatility.  Just a little over 1000 xp later at level 9 you will get linked power and thus another “free standard action” one per encounter with linked power and synchronicity.  Level 10 you get anticipatory strike which effectively allows you to trade your  swift action from round 1 for your 2nd round actions standard and main round action being used earlier during round 1 instead of round 2.

Don’t forget if you use synchronicity to ready an action and you cast a damage spell during an opponent’s turn when they are casting a standard action spell, they take the damage as well as make a concentration check of 10+damage dealt, if they fail the check they do not cast the spell. Thus if you lay down a big astral construct, you can then use your remaining time of the encounter making sure the opposing wizard never does anything awesome to stop your party and your beat stick.  Effectively you are counterspelling but with damage   And unlike a normal ready action if the triggering event does not occur you can still cast the damaging spell to kick butt.

Just realized the lycanthrope template allows you to add more HD to a humanoid or giant, but not give any special traits to the effigy that the template does not remove besides +2 Na.  Thus it is a balanced way to give more HD to a effigy giant beyond what the normal advancement rules allow.

Consider Sacred Guardian (Beastiary of Krynn) on top afterwards, if you're only avoiding abusive pre-template use and not avoiding post-template.

I forgot about Sacred Guardian template, since it is from a weird book.  Sacred Guardian can also be added to effigies in addition to or instead of Rudimentary Intelligence.  Sacred Guardian makes the intelligence of an effigy equal to 10 (this gives you feats and skills for your intelligence is greater than 2) as well as stat boosts and many other benefits.

You have to be a cleric to make a sacred guardian.

It adds to the cost of creating an effigy equal you add this cost to make it a sacred guardian
Fine         500 gp +10 XP
Diminutive      1,000 gp+20 XP
Tiny         1,500 gp+30 XP
Small      2,000 gp+40 XP
Medium      2,500 gp+50 XP
Large         3,000 gp+60 XP
Gargantuan   3,500 gp+70 XP
Colossal      4,000 gp+80 XP

(Note in the book it lists steel pieces instead of gold pieces.  This is a dragonlance term for money and gold pieces in the phb are supposed to be converted to steel pieces with a 1:1 ratio.

Note it is never made clear if a sacred guardian is a npc or still under your control.  Rudimentary Intelligence specifically states the construct is under your control.  Awaken Construct specifically makes the construct an npc.  Sacred Guardian does not state so it is a DM call.  Flavor wise though Sacred Guardians are supposed to be Guardians of Temples and sometimes Avatars from which gods speak to the mortals.

If your DM allows Sacred Guardians to be under your control, then Sacred Guardian is a vastly superior template to Rudimentary Intelligence.  It gives vastly more abilities and is cheaper.  Only time you should do Rudimentary Intelligence is that you need a high int on the character for a feat or you really want the skills.  That or you do not want to be a cleric. 

well, the half dragon template changes any living corporeal creature into a dragon type. So that could take care of any type issues.

While this is raw legal, I rather stay away from this since it adds to the creatures strength while not changing the cost of an effigy.  Same thing with the shadow template.  This thought led originally to an effigy that was 30 something half dragons for you can add the template for free.

Well when you're losing everything the base creature can do, it's really not that bad to increase the size to try to make up for it a little, imo =P

I rather not allow houserules in this thread, especially when we can do legal stuff such as as feats and skills and open up stuff like umd and martial maneuvers.

For example a Rukanyr advanced to 21 HD (Large Size) will the extra arms advancement from dragon 327 would have Str 31 and Dex 6 and 200 average hit points.  The Rukanyr has 12 Natural Attacks (10 normal 2 additional with extra arms), with 3 being Save or Suck with a Fort DC of 31 where you are stunned for 1d4 rounds. Cost 34,000 GP with Legendary Artisan plus some xp.  The Rukanyr also has 8 feat which he can spend on things to increase his save dc, or his damage, or even do a white raven tactics.

This is easily superior any summon monster you can do even summon monster ix.  Plus these creatures are permanet, no need to waste time summoning them, you can equip them, etc.

Oh your poor Rukanyr doesn't have pounce, well that is why your raven familiar cast benign transposition from a wand or imbue familiar with spell ability.  Or you cast Dimension Step (3rd level) to give all your allies including your Rukanyr construct a move action.  Or the Rukanyr took travel devotion, etc.

Can you make an effigy out of an ooze? Bone Ooze has Ex special attacks of draining 1d6 Str, Dex, and Con per slam attack, engulf, and a DC 35 SoD against engulfed creatures...

EFFIGY
“Effigy”is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, or vermin (referred to hereafter as the base creature)"...

So no oozes

And *expletive* no outsiders too it appears  .  Will do some edits.

And, just because a 12headed hydra caps out at 12HD doesn't mean you can't add more HD with Craft Construct's 1kgp per HD. And even if it is only Huge sized, that doesn't mean you can't make a colossal version of it by simply paying for the colossal price of an effigy, thus being able to increase it's strength according to size category increases along with granting more bonus hp and higher DR.

How effigy works is that you take a legal creature and the apply the effigy template to it.  Thus if the creature doesn't come in the correct size or has a maximum hd in its advancement table you can't just add it because you want to.

Now you can apply templates to effigies, but I consider that to be bad form if it dramatically changes the monster without changing the cost of the effigy template.  Since most templates do not change the hd or size, and only hd and size are used in calculating the cost of an effigy using templates that dramatically change the monster is in my mind bad form.

Basically you're looking for the best (Ex) abilities you can find.

Kelvezu is medium, 12HD, and has +8d6 sneak attack (and evasion and uncanny dodge), so you could make a good and cheap roguish char.
Jovocs have (Ex) fast healing.

A Battlebriar would make a RIDICULOUS grappler.

You wouldn't get the Kelvezu evasion and uncanny dodge for those are ex special abilities and you don't get special abilities only special attacks.  You would keep the Kelvezu sneak attack, high dex, high na, and flight though.  I think this is a good form.

Jovocs losing their fast healing for that is a special quality.  Thus they are nothing special for effigies.

Battlebriars are a good creature for effigies though.  For fun give them a little UMD (all skills are class skills for effigies), and some magic items that increase grapple checks such as fearsome grapple, expansion, etc.

A colossal 12 headed hydra ._.
I don't need Ex's. I'll just attack you a dozen times with like a +20 str modifier from size alone.

Hydras are nice but their is no advance entry past 12 headed, and no size increase options.

By the way, using Awaken Construct would be cheaper than the Rudimentary Intelligence feature, wouldn't it? Though of course the latter is available a lot sooner than a 9th level spell is.....but if getting to that point...it is cheaper to just make something that casts Awaken Construct like 1-2/day. right?
(Even buying a 9th level scroll (3,900~gp) is cheaper than it even after applying like ~50% cost reduction to Craft Construct...)

Awaken Construst makes all your constructs into npcs.  This is bad.
Awaken Construct also costs 5,000 xp (same as wish) or 25,000 additional gp if you make it into a magic item.
Awaken Construct is 9th level spell thus it is hard to get prior to level 17.  You can get rudimentary intelligence around ecl 5

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Rukanyr from fiend follio are awesome.

10 natural attacks
Poison
Stunning Strike, fort save or be stunned for 1d4 rounds on 1 of the natural attacks.  It formula is strength based 10+1/2 HD+Str
You can advance a Rukanyr to HD 14 while still keeping the large size, and if you want to go huge you can go all the way to HD 21.
Only problem with a Rukanyr is your Dex sucks.

Reserved

It was suggested by private message (I am summarizing what was said here) to do Incantatrix instead of more Wizard.  Yes Incantatrix makes everything better and is stronger than wizard if you do not mind losing 1 school of magic.  I am placing this suggestion here even though that I am trying to stay away from incantatrix for that gets closer to theoretical optimization.

It was also suggested metamagic reduction so you can get persistent spells up (easy and practical metamagic).  If you did go this route and your DM is okay with this level of optimization don't go incantarix instead go spelldancer.  Spelldancer requires these feats Combat Casting, Dodge, Endurance, Mobility and some skill ranks.  One of the benefits of spelldancer is spell dance which for some exchange of time and some ability damage you can spell dance metamagic adjustments away.  Thus spell dance, combine with persistent spell, and a wand or ally with lesser restoration means you can have all your spell buffs persistent.  Cobra Stirke Monk gives you these feats at levels 1, 2, and 6:  Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack which helps knock down some of the feat crunch that Spell Dancer requires..

If you go the Arcane Disciple (competition domain) route, you can scribe Divine Power, Righteous Might, and Greater Visage of the Deity, and make those buffs last all day; as well as other insanely good buffs like: Bite of the Werebear, Greater Blink, Anti Magic Field, etc...

Personally this is a little too optimized for my taste

The reason why I picked Monk for this build is simplicity.  There are stronger gestalt options out there.

This is what blink gives you (which you can do as an immediate action, and it last a number of rounds equal to your wisdom modifier, if your DM allows Kung Fu Genius it is based off your int modifier), Monk 9. Pretty much blink gives you half the nice stuff about Swiftblade, but you do it as an immediate action instead of a standard action.

• 50% Miss Chance a for Physical Attacks against you
• 50% Miss Chance a Targeted Spell will fail against you
• Half Damage from Area Attacks
• Strike as an Invisible Creature, denying your target any Dex Bonus to AC
• 20% Failure of your Spells
• Can move through solid objects
• If the Target can see invisible creatures, there is a 20% miss chance for physical attacks and 20% miss chance for targeted spells instead of a 50% chance.

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Total Concealment from Monk 7 (note this ability does not require an action to activate, it is always active if I chose to do so.)

Total Concealment
If you have line of effect to a target but not line of sight he is considered to have total concealment from you. You can’t attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).

You can’t execute an attack of opportunity against an opponent with total concealment, even if you know what square or squares the opponent occupies.

Concealment

• So physical attacks have a 50% miss chance, if the target knows you are there
• Furthermore since I have total concealment, I can't be targeted by many spells or abilities for most spells require line of sight.
• Any spells with the target description do not affect me, for all spells that are not touch range that have the target descriptior require line of sight.  If the spell is touch range, they still have to roll a 50% chance to hit me since I have total concealment (plus all my other ac, modifiers, and possibly my blink effect)

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So in sum if I have both effects active

• Near 100% miss chance from physical attacks if they don't know what square I am from (and most of the time they don't know which square I am from due to total concealment).  Since they must choose a random square and then I still get a 75% miss chance
• 75% miss chance (50%*50%) from physical attacks if they know what square I am for some reason.
• Immune to ranged targeted square / effects since I have total concealment and those require line of sight.
• 75% miss chance to melee targeted square / effects, furthermore why am I in melee range again unless I am doing a melee monk build?
• Still susceptible to area spells, but if these area spells do damage they only do 50% damage to me
• Still susceptible to effects and line of effects

Add to this I get good saves from monk and chameleon.  If the DM allows the correct feats I also get Int to Will (Oriental Adventures), Reflex (Complete Adventure), and AC (Either Champion of Valor or Dragon 319).  My hit points are not bad since I get d8 for 19/20 levels and I am mostly SAD with Con being my second most important stat.

Builds

Be Prepared (or should I say Flexible)
Wizard Focused Spellcaster
For the most part done

(Still need a name)
Melee Focused Build
Not close to be done

Sir Ben Kingsley: The Mandarin
"You don't know who I am. You don't know where I am. And you'll NEVER see me coming".
Stealth Focused / Illusion Build
Not close to be done

Master of Shadows and Reality
"I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality."
Shadowcraft Mage / Illusion Expert
Not close to be done