Ridiculous Metamagic Bard... Why not?

[Wiggins]

This is hardly original, but I keep looking at it. I'm going to spend the afternoon optimising her.

Bard 6
Lyric Thaumaturge 3
Virtuoso 1
Sublime Chord 2
Virtuoso +8

Metamagic Song, Practiced Spellcaster and Practical Metamagic

Metamagic Feats, probably as many as I can fit from; Extend, Persist, Sculpt, Disguise, Empower, Maximise, Reach, Fortify, Entangle

and probably at least one each from Arcane Thesis and Metamagic School Focus

I don't want to include anything from Dragon Magazine, though Easy Metamagic is obviously awesome, and Sculpt Spell would benefit hugely from Ray Coning.

I'm feat starved, so I'll probably want full flaws, again without Dragon Magazine. 2 Unearthed Arcana Flaws normally means something turns out painfully lacking, but so be it.

There seem to be 4 races that give a bonus to charisma without level adjustment

Hellbred
Lesser Aasimar
Spellscale
Star Elf

I'm trying to picture a Hellbred Bard, driven to giving inspirational performances of improvised and mournfully beautiful hymns about appreciating life because happiness can be short lived. Maybe another time.

Elves and Aasimars have sort of the same problem.

So she'll probably end up being a Spellscale. A confident and beautiful dragon scaled human born comedienne who's spent her life being shoved and heckled and accused of being half kobold.

Okay, that's a good start, time to start running the numbers on paper.

[Rebel7284]

Wasn't there a way to just polymorph into that archon that gives infinite music per day?

[Tshern]

Wasn't there a way to just polymorph into that archon that gives infinite music per day?

Raises an interesting question really. For example Binder can be used to get Turn undead, but since it gives to specific number as to how many turn attempts you have (once every five rounds is how it works, I think), it is usually considered incompatible with Divine metamagic. As such, I think the same limitation would apply here.

[Aradu]

Depends on whether a Firre Eladrin (BoED) doesn't need any bardic music uses for Song(Su) or Song(Su) grants infinite bardic music uses. The ability is badly written anyway, it doesn't even specify an effective bard level.

[SorO_Lost]

Depends on whether a Firre Eladrin (BoED) doesn't need any bardic music uses for Song(Su) or Song(Su) grants infinite bardic music uses. The ability is badly written anyway, it doesn't even specify an effective bard level.

I agree it's badly written but as worded it's has no uses.

Song (Su): A firre has a captivating voice and can use bardic music just as a bard can, inspiring courage, fascinating, inspiring competence, or giving suggestions to those who hear it (see Bardic Music in Chapter 3 of the Player’s Handbook). Unlike a bard, however, a firre can sing as often as it likes.

1. It inherents the Bard's Bardic Music rules unless otherwise noted.
2. It has access to the special Inspire Competence & Courage, Fascination and Suggestion abilities.
3. It has no effective Bard level thus has no uses per day, however as an exception it ignores this limitation.

The only thing that needs to be clarified is that Courage is probably ran at a +1 bonus which is both appropriate and kind of it's default value since to have a higher bonus you need more Bard levels.

[Wiggins]

Yeah, I can't see how I could apply the ability to use Songs without using Musics to use Musics, but it was a good thought.

The problem I'm having is Feats. I'm having to measure everything against the advantage of Extra Music. I'm thinking I may have to give her a speciality Metamagic or two that I'd want to apply to everything. Possibly Persist, naturally, but I hope I can think of some alternatives.

[X-Codes]

No, in order to pull this off you need to specialize in one or two metamagics and/or one or two spells (Arcane Disciple), otherwise you'll blow all your bardic music on a few spells and you'll be a mediocre arcanist for the rest of the day.

I would look and see if you could empower Improvisation.  If so, then maybe you could cast Empowered, Quickened Improvisations for... 5 music uses?

[Wiggins]

I can't combine Metamagic Song and Arcane Preparation, unfortunately, but Empowered Improvisation would work.

[Tshern]

Can you even Empower that since there is no numeric variable the same way dice rolls have? I thought, for example, you could not Empower Divine power to gain more temporary hitpoints. I could be wrong here though.

[X-Codes]

Can you even Empower that since there is no numeric variable the same way dice rolls have? I thought, for example, you could not Empower Divine power to gain more temporary hitpoints. I could be wrong here though.

It's ambiguous.  IIRC, the example given in the PHB is an empowered Magic Missile, with the damage being displayed as either (1d4+1)*1.5 or 1d4+1*1.5.  In any case, it's implied that the +1 was being multiplied, too, which suggests that non-random variables can be empowered and increased by 50%.

[Tshern]

Can you even Empower that since there is no numeric variable the same way dice rolls have? I thought, for example, you could not Empower Divine power to gain more temporary hitpoints. I could be wrong here though.

It's ambiguous.  IIRC, the example given in the PHB is an empowered Magic Missile, with the damage being displayed as either (1d4+1)*1.5 or 1d4+1*1.5.  In any case, it's implied that the +1 was being multiplied, too, which suggests that non-random variables can be empowered and increased by 50%.

One of these cases again. No shortage of them.

[Kethrian]

According to the feat, you still need a random variable to multiply.  But if you have that, plus a flat number, then you add it all up before multiplying.  Makes empowering the holly berry bomb version of Fire Seeds very potent (8d8 + [8xCL]) x 1.5

[X-Codes]

Isn't there a way to add some dice of healing to a spell?  I don't know if I'm pulling something completely out of my ass, or just thinking about something like the Combat Medic's abilities.

Ah, if only there was a Linked Spell feat... Then you could link Improvisation with Cure Light Wounds and Empower both.

[zook1shoe]

There's a couple good bard only feats... I believe Disguise Spell and Melodic Casting?

[Jackinthegreen]

There's also Lyric Spell.  In conjunction with ways to get infinite bardic music, you now have infinite/3 spell slots!

Any chance on getting Words of Creation on this build?  The uses are pretty good overall.

[Wiggins]

Yeah, there are some good options. Lyric Spell turns music into Spell Slots, Melodic Casting allows Music/Magic multitasking, and so forth.

This time I wanted to concentrate on Metamagic, which means picking a few key metamagic feats, and the right combination of enabling feats and extra songs to get decent use out of them.

Thanks for trying X-Codes. It looks like Empowered Improvisation is off the table unless we can find a dice of something to add to it, and I can't think how.

As for quickened type stuff, I'd totally forgotten about Rapid Metamagic (as I've always figured with Arcane Preparation as an option, why would you wait til level 9). Could be worth it.

What are Words of Creation?

[Wiggins]

Ah, Exalted. Reading that chapter now.

[SorO_Lost]

Can you even Empower that since there is no numeric variable the same way dice rolls have? I thought, for example, you could not Empower Divine power to gain more temporary hitpoints. I could be wrong here though.

It's ambiguous.  IIRC, the example given in the PHB is an empowered Magic Missile, with the damage being displayed as either (1d4+1)*1.5 or 1d4+1*1.5.  In any case, it's implied that the +1 was being multiplied, too, which suggests that non-random variables can be empowered and increased by 50%.

Hmm, it's like I blocked the example from my mind knowing how insane such a thing would be.

Sadly/Happily a quick check into the PHB backs this up.

DICE
We describe dice rolls with expressions such as “3d4+3,” which means “roll three four-sided dice and add 3” (resulting in a number between 6 and 15). The first number tells you how many dice to roll (adding the results together). The number immediately after the “d” tells you the type of dice to use. Any number after that indicates a quantity that is added or subtracted from the result. Some examples include:
1d8: One eight-sided die, generating a number from 1 to 8. This is the amount of damage a longsword deals.
1d8+2: One eight-sided die plus 2, generating a number from 3 to 10. A character with a +2 Strength bonus deals this amount of damage when using a longsword.
2d4+2: Two four-sided dice plus 2, resulting in a number from 4 to 10. This is the amount of damage a 3rd-level wizard deals with a magic missile spell.

So if you have 72d8 & +7/die for +504, you're "viable" damage range is 576~1,080 (828 avg).
Opposed the the concept only the dice them selves are empowered with is an average +162 (72*4.5/2), you're empower bonus would be around +414 (828/2) damage.

It really screws up all my blaster posts. they all probably deal an extra three hundred damage per shot >.>

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Tshern binder is okay for DMM but everyone forgets the inherited uses limitation. It's in my CoDzilla build