What LA should Widen Spell be?

[Quartz]

Currently the adjustment for Widen Spell is +3 levels. I have yet to see any character take it. I've yet to see any character published with it, even. It's a killer feat for a high-level battlefield spellcaster with lots of mooks around - think Widened Fireball, Widened Bless, or Widened Wall of Fire - but how many of those are there? For the small-scale mid-level skirmish that is the meat and drink of D&D, it's not so much useless as hopelessly overshadowed.

Even at +2 levels it's a poor choice: compare Widened Color Spray with Fireball. But I think that at +1 level it could be a bit too good, though I'll cite the precedent of Extend Spell.

Would you admit +1 LA if Widen Spell were split into two, with Widen Spell affecting bursts, emanations, and spreads, and a new feat, Lengthen Spell adding 100% to the length of lines and rays?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think +3 LA is ludicrous.

Before WotC came up with their widen I had introduced a metamagic feat called 'Expand' which added +50% to the radius of spells with a radius, and doubled the number of cubes created by anything which was measured in cubes. Of course, in those 3.0e days cones would be affected by enlarge spell (and why did they make that silly change in 3.5e, I wonder?)

I rated Expand as +1 LA, and a Widen metamagic should be too. It only has a marginal benefit in almost all circumstances

 

[Kerrick]

I'd go with +2. While doing epic spells for my level-based system, I found (and UK pretty well agreed) that +3 is too much, but +2 seems to work quite well. A widened fireball at L5 is about right, IMO.

I like the idea of a Lengthen Spell for rays/cones, but I'd just fold it into Enlarge Spell and rename it (Enlarge makes things LARGER, not LONGER).

 

[Li Shenron]

Maybe +2 would be better, but +3 is not wrong IMHO. The area is more than doubled, and the standard level increase for a metamagic feat that sort-of doubles a spell (Twin Spell, 2x Empower Spell, Energy Admixture) has always been +4.

So +3 is quite ok for a potentially doubled spell, which realistically is going to be less than doubled.

 

[CRGreathouse]

+3 would be fine for Widen if it also Heightened it by +3 levels. It's much too weak at +3 otherwise, and not worth using at +2. It's pretty powerful at +1.

Cry Havoc has War Spell, which is +1 level and is much better for mass combat. Brief summary (the feat is 1/3 of a page long): Range, size, and casting time increase by a factor of 10.

 

[Quartz]

+3 would be fine for Widen if it also Heightened it by +3 levels. It's much too weak at +3 otherwise, and not worth using at +2. It's pretty powerful at +1..

Do you think that splitting it into two (or more) feats covers this?

 

[Hammerhead]

Plus one level seems fine to me. One of my characters had free Widens from the War Wizard PrC and most of them went unused. Extra area on a spell is a much a curse as a blessing, since it compounds friendly fire issues. That's why high level spells like Firestorm and Horrid Wilting offer expanded selectivity along with their larger areas.

War Spell is much fun, especially combined with Rapid Spell.

 

[Victim]

Plus one level seems fine to me. One of my characters had free Widens from the War Wizard PrC and most of them went unused. Extra area on a spell is a much a curse as a blessing, since it compounds friendly fire issues. That's why high level spells like Firestorm and Horrid Wilting offer expanded selectivity along with their larger areas.

War Spell is much fun, especially combined with Rapid Spell.

Dang. The above is my opinion, not HH's.

 

[Kerrick]

Maybe +2 would be better, but +3 is not wrong IMHO. The area is more than doubled, and the standard level increase for a metamagic feat that sort-of doubles a spell (Twin Spell, 2x Empower Spell, Energy Admixture) has always been +4.

I don't know about Twin Spell, but Admixture is too high too - it should be +3.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't know about Twin Spell, but Admixture is too high too - it should be +3.

Well, I cannot say for sure that +4 is the "just right" increase for doubling the damage, but I can say that at least it's been using as a guideline:

Empower Spell adds 50% and costs +2, so in 3.0 Empower twice doubles the damage for +4.
Energy Admixture adds 100% so it's doubled and costs +4.
Twin Spell doubles the entire spell like you had casted 2 identical spells and costs +4.

I don't remember exactly at the moment but there is also Repeat Spell which doubles a spell but the second goes off in the next round. IIRC it's +3, discounted because it sometimes happens that the target becomes illegible before the second spell.

I don't see the reason for a discount to Admixture...