Post/Author/DateTime	Post
caploup 10-08-05, 02:45 PM	Hi!! I still have problems with understanding the incantatrix (3.5) from players guide to Faerun. I need some advice: Focused Studies: The incantatrix has to give up one school of magic (exept abj or div), does that mean that the incatatrix gets any bonus from specialisation like a specialised wizard? Metamagic spelltrigger: The Incantatrix is able to use a metamagic feat on a spell cast by a wand. May she just use one metamagic feat or is it possible to combine 2 different metamagic feats on one spell? Double wand wielder: With this feat the caster can use 2 wands in one round as a full round action but it takes 2 instead of 1 charges. How many charges does it cost to cast a maximised spell (with metamagic spell trigger ability) with a wand in the secound hand? Thats it for now, thnx
Ske 10-08-05, 03:17 PM	Focused Studies: The incantatrix has to give up one school of magic (exept abj or div), does that mean that the incatatrix gets any bonus from specialisation like a specialised wizard? It works like the Red Wizard's specialization from the DMG, which is a lot clearer on the process. Yes, you get the same bonuses, so +2 spellcraft checks concerning abjuration, bonus spellslot for abj spells and so on. Metamagic spelltrigger: The Incantatrix is able to use a metamagic feat on a spell cast by a wand. May she just use one metamagic feat or is it possible to combine 2 different metamagic feats on one spell? I don't see why not. Double wand wielder: With this feat the caster can use 2 wands in one round as a full round action but it takes 2 instead of 1 charges. How many charges does it cost to cast a maximised spell (with metamagic spell trigger ability) with a wand in the secound hand? I'm not familiar with this feat, but I'd say you just spent an additional 3 charges on the second wand.
runestar 10-08-05, 10:38 PM	Focused studies: Nope. You just give up a school, no benefits are accrued. Metamagic spelltrigger: Sure, why not? You could apply every single feat you know, to unleash a massive blast at the expense of burning out that wand super fast. Double wand wielder: Charges expended = 2+3 = 5 charges.
Link182 10-09-05, 12:28 AM	I've been playing with the Incantatrix for quite a while. As far as I know there are no limits on the Metamagic Spelltrigger ability. In alot of posts, people consider this effect quite broken as you could apply any effect to a wand. Even if you had say, Twin, Quicken then Intensify Spell which maxes and doubles all damage done all at the cost of 18 charges. Apply to a Wand of Magic Missles and I think thats two (twinned) 100hp attacks that wont miss with no save and all you have to do is take Craft Wand. If you took Craft staff, you'd have access to less charges but could boost up some serious spells before you trashed the staff, or perhaps a scepter if your using Lost Empires. It can be seriously exploited.
caploup 10-09-05, 12:11 PM	Does a faq exist for the 3.5 Incantatrix? Cause its difficult to find out if its a specialisation or just "focused studies". Does anyone know a link to a build of an incantatrix? Thnx
Jonathan Strange 10-09-05, 03:54 PM	I really don't think you get any specialization benefits. Your just getting screwed out of a school of magic to get all the other incredible abilities of this class. I dumped Illusion. There are however, three feats in Lost Empires of Faerun that you might be able to sneak past your DM to get the school back. I forget their names but they allow a specialist wizard to start getting first one spell back, second to use wands and such from the forbidden school and lastly, to use the school again. These feats are for SPECIALIST wizards and alot of people in other Incantatrix posts do not think the Incanty qualifies. Hopefully this will link you to the post "How exactly is the Incantatrix a balanced PrC" that went on for a while. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=6753724#post6753724
Ryll 10-09-05, 08:59 PM	I've been playing with the Incantatrix for quite a while. As far as I know there are no limits on the Metamagic Spelltrigger ability. In alot of posts, people consider this effect quite broken as you could apply any effect to a wand. Even if you had say, Twin, Quicken then Intensify Spell which maxes and doubles all damage done all at the cost of 18 charges. Apply to a Wand of Magic Missles and I think thats two (twinned) 100hp attacks that wont miss with no save and all you have to do is take Craft Wand. If you took Craft staff, you'd have access to less charges but could boost up some serious spells before you trashed the staff, or perhaps a scepter if your using Lost Empires. It can be seriously exploited. Intensify is double max, so the most for a magic missile is 25X2 = 50... IF the wand is made at caster level 9, so the twinned spells would make it two 50 hp attacks, or a total of 100 damage. For 18 charges, whereas 5 missiles per charge = 3.5 x 5 = 17.5 average x 18 charges = 315 points damage average (max = 450)... so it is not quite as unbalanced as it sounds, since a level 9 Magic Missile wand is not all that cheap for less than two uses. That said, from what little I have heard, the Incantatrix is very powerful, and should only be used in a high power setting (such as Forgotten Realms, etc).
Ryll 10-09-05, 09:01 PM	Of course the above is merely my opinion, and not meant to sound as authoritative as it sounded to me on my second reading.
runestar 10-09-05, 11:17 PM	By the time you are able to apply epic metamagic feats to your wand, I doubt 50+damage per round will so much as scratch your foe. I guess it all balances out since you are rapidly burning good resources to kill a foe.
Link182 10-10-05, 12:45 AM	Your right about Intensify being double Max for 50, the Twin it and have two of those for 100hp. True but if you Quickened that whole thing, it'd happen twice in one round for 200hp. Now the cost. My Incanty would have the following charge cost. Max 2, Quick 3, Twin 3, Intense 6 for 14 charges and then 11 charges for the followup bolt without Quicken. You can drop that Metacost down to Max 1, Quick 2, Twin 2, Intense 5 by taking the Epic Feat Improved Metamagic which drops metamagic costs down by one. The Incanty gets to do this already so now all his Metafeats are now 2 less. So the above attack would be 200hp for 18 charges. You still only get two attacks out of the wand with my NPC and maybe squeeze out a third with the other PC with Improved Metamagic if they drop a metafeat. Now we're talking about 22 level characters here. Even that amount of damage is pretty rough considering the foe can't save against magic missle but what if your up against a Doomsphere or some sort of ghost templated enemy? Your going to want to hit, not take any chances. Of course, against spell casters there's always spells to make MM worthless so who knows if it's really worth it. A wand of magic missle created at 9th level costs what, like 6700gp? Kinda sucks for two attacks but they're good, easy attacks. Theoretically, my PCs could sell a BBEG's +3 flaming longsword and buy quite a few of those wands. I don't have the scepter info in front of me and I don't know the max charges they can hold but they can hold two spells up to 6th level. So think of some ugly spells you'd like to manipulate and see what kind of damage you can come up with. Yeah, the Incantatrix gets alot of flack. They seem to have packed that sucker full of abilities at each level. They nerfed the Instant Metastuff so you couldn't apply all your Meta talent to your 9th level spells for free, now your limited by slots. Thus I took Improved Spell Capacity to boost spells into 10th level slots with tons o Meta on them. However, the Coopertive Metamagic was never nerfed, so I can theoretically Meta any other casters spells with no cost for way more times a day then I can do my own. I'd have to make a spellcraft check thats not always easy to beat when dealing with high level spells but boosting others low level spells isn't to hard at all. (You are limited but they only exclude still and silent, maybe quicken too.) Anything else goes. Persistant, you name it. Persistant Mass Bulls Strenghts, etc. Powerful Stuff. Even divine spells get only like a +2 penalty. The incantatrix is a walking Metamagic battery and can REALLY do damage when you start thinking of all the buffs that could last all day long.
runestar 10-10-05, 01:34 AM	I take it you haven't seen the new improved metamagic feat in DMG3.5? It now simply deducts 1 from the final total of all slot adjustments, rather than from each feat. Some people have also gone so far as to apply that revision to the incantatrix as well, severely nerfing the extent to which this combo can be applied to. :(
Link182 10-10-05, 01:39 AM	No I hadn't seen it. I'll check it out. Sounds lame, there's no way I'm doing that to the Incantatrix.
Ryll 10-10-05, 01:40 AM	OK, I will concede that the incantatrix is a bit overpowered compaired to most other classes, or prestige classes...none of my statements are meant to contradict this premise :) But I am not convinced that wand use example is anything special as far as damage goe. In our group, at level 22 or so, the melees were doing 150-200 damage per round, every round. If there was a ghost, or some 50 percent miss critter, divide that average by 2 for every round... when compared to that, the 100 pts (or 200 if you used two wands, as I don't think you can use the same wand twice a round whether one is quickened or not) is not that much damage for 6000 gp per round of doing that damage.
runestar 10-10-05, 11:21 PM	At epic lvs, just about every monster you are facing has sr, so you will need to keep crafting wands that have your caster lv if you wish for it to be effective. So no auto-cranking it down to its minimum caster lv to save costs. That is one drawback.