Pathfinder: WotR - Metamagic, What Is It & How To Use It 

There is actually one more meta magic feat: Completely Normal Magic. It reduces the spell slot level required to cast the spell by one and it’s only accessible through Trickster’s Perception 2 trick.

Something people coming from 5e should know about heightened spell. Using heightened spell does not increase the amount of dice rolled with damage or duration or targets. Heightened is for the purpose of raising the save DC to keep spells like grease relevant at lvl 20.

I think you should show people how good it can be, because I know when I first started playing Kingmaker I was like "Why would I want to waste spell slots of my level 6 spells on level 2 spells?" It's hard to understand. You should get some good examples and make a video. Like I think a good one right off the bat is reach on touch attacks for an offensive spellcasting cleric.

Buying bolster, persistent, empower, maximize, or quicken rods are high value purchases, in my opinion. They are very versatile since you can use them without having to prepare in advance. And most of the rods remain useful for the entire game.

I’m at the beginning of Act 5 and yet to use Metamagic, I wasn’t playing a spell caster so didn’t really delve too deep beyond buffs in my companions. Having built Ember to essentially be a glorified fire elemental I finally decided to delve into it, but even after taking the feats 4 or so levels ago I had never been able to work out how to apply them - thanks so much for this, it’s super helpful!!

I love how every single time I watch a video I see the number after the decimal for subscribers going up by one at least. Always glad when good content creators begin getting the recognition they deserve

As someone who is going through this game for a 3rd run and PETRIFIED of playing a caster, this helps tremendously!

I absolutely love the addition of selective and persistent metamagics (and bolster to a lesser extent). Metamagics for non-damage based spells seemed a tad lacking without them. Persistent especially is just so cool and you get a ton of mileage out of it with certain spells (e.g. Phantasmal Killer).

So interesting fact is that selective spell is not working per it’s description. It is actually working with non-instantaneous spells like web. It also seems to ignore the stat modifier and just does not affect allies regardless of number.

Really appreciate this video, saw the metamagic panel and had no idea what to do with it thanks!

Note on bolster, it's still bugged/Tooltip incorrect. The boosted damage is friendly fire even though the Tooltip expressly says 'enemies'.

Thanks for the info. I knew vaguely what they did but now I have a better understanding.

This is quite useful!! I only know basic dnd rules like how to use your spell at a higher level and didn't figure it out how to use metamagic when playing kingmaker . Thx for this video!

Finally! Been playing a couple weeks and noticed little grey circles on top of the spells with no idea what that meant. No in game tutorial or notification at all.

I never knew how to do this for Kingmaker and recently learned how to do it on my own after looking over some builds. Thanks for your vids as always!

I really don't have a basic understanding of the magic system, I just like watching your vids :D

Use those rods guys ! Maximizing three bolstered hellrays per day is well worth it.

I love selective spell - grease/web only hitting enemies makes the early game fights a lot easier in terms of positioning

Mythic metamagic was a game changer for me, in actually using the system.

So a Magus true strikes his maximized empowered shock touch critting whatever stands before him into oblivion. Neat.

It's hard to survive this game without guides

Thassillion Evoker/Eccliesithurge Mystical Theurge with every single spell slot except level 1 cleric filled with magic missile.

Remember to use those metamagic rods, had my lich sorcerer with them on my first run and he was doing insane damage by end game since a lot of lich spells still do full damage even if they pass the savings throw.

Early Nenio and Carmellia are very good buffers and their lvl 1-3 spells are great! Blessing, that one spell I don't remember, that protects members against Evil, Chaotic, Lawfull, Good creatures and Haste. I used the Metamagic - Extend to use it for a decent amount of time in the beginning and don't regret it.

Very helpful guide

Great info!

A cleric can convert any of their spells modified by reach metamagic into a reach cure or harm spell. You can also scribe scrolls which include the metamagic effects. I've been trying a priest of balance using all reach spells.

Can you do a video breaking down the different spell schools and what types of spells fall in those categories? I'm so confused starting out having to choose a specialty school of magic with no context of what they do. I think I figured out buffs may fall under transmutation, but I'm super clueless on most of it.

Another great topic!

Did you mention that any standard action become a full action spell when using metamagic (except Quicken) for spontaneous casters? It's quite important for people like me who aren't particularly familiar with those dnd rules. (I used to think it's a bug in the game lol.)

Guess I need to start putting some level up feats or points or wtv un metamagic. Thanks for this video.

Just a note about empower and maximize metamagic. Empower Is best used with small dice (1d4 vs 1d10 for example) spells, as well as spells that have static bonuses added on to the dice, since it will multiply the static bonuses in addition to the dice. Maximize is best to use when you're rolling a lot of dice without static modifiers. For example, an empowered magic missile will do a little bit more damage on average than a maximized magic missile, while taking up one spell slot lower. The small damage range of the magic missile 1d4 die combined with the static plus 1 damage per missile synergizes well with empower. On On the other hand a maximized fireball will do considerably more damage than an empowered fireball. Rolling a whole bunch of six-sided dice with no static modifiers works pretty well with maximize.

Your awesome Mortem, there is very little info for this game surprisingly lol

Very nice. Just wished I had known that 100 hours of gameplay ago -__- Oh well ! Thanks for the nice guide

I havent comfirmed this, but apparently Boldering spell bypasses Selective spell damaging your allies but only for the additional damage granted by Boldstering, tho it may have been pached upp since i found it. I used this to put enforcing vigor on ember to give my team a gentle reminder on how to not suck at killing.

good video. I understand it now..well better.

Thank you for the video, Mortismal. I have a about 300 hours in total in kingmaker and WotR, so that stuff was known to me, but there are still a lot of things, which I have 0 info on and have trouble finding info on the net. Here are a bunch of questions that I have: 1) The magus arhitype: When using spell combat to deliver a touch spell through weapon strike, do you attack the touch AC (as the spell suggests) or do you attack regular AC, since you are delivering the spell through weapon attack? Eldritch archer using arrowshot to deliver ray-attached spell - again what AC do we target? 2) If we have weapon finnesse do we use dexterity for attackroll with melee touch spells, or do we still use strenght? 3) What exactly is a death effect and how can we know if something qualifies as such? Is it a death tag on the spell, or is it just anything with a chance of killing on successful hit? For example we know that rogue's master strike is death effect. But for example is phantasmal killer a death effect? That is to say if enemy is immune to death magic and I know I can't use stuff like wail of the banshee, because wail of the banshee has spell descriptor: Death. However Weird doesn't have that spell descriptor, so will Weird work on enemies immune to death magic? Would You make a video about those things and similar ambiguous stuff, as I assume other players might have misunderstandings about them as well. Regardless of wether you make such a video or not, thank you for your work. I learned a lot from You :)

Loving bolster and empower, though I think bolster is bugging out and making controlled fireball so the added damage to your friends.

Don't have forever to play CRPG's, I'm 69 years old, have POE II, played about 15 hours, if you had 100 hours to put into a game would you pick POE II or Pathfinder WOTR. POE II seems to better graphics but not too keen on pirate background. From reviews and gameplay videos POE II seems to have better writing, WOTR more character options. Which do you recommend more?

Heightened + Persistent = Why yes, I did just use phantasmal killer on Baphomet. Got my entire party a level for doing it as well. This was on core with him shaken and hexed. Quickened is great if you pair use it to stack up effects. Firing off two stat draining spells in a turn, hitting an enemy with two different elements to trigger the relevant mythic ability, or just firing off two nukes in the same turn.

The mythic focus feat for meta magic I took it and can no longer use them?

It's so bad that I picked the selective metamagic feat, but constantly kept forgetting to swap some of my spells lol.

I've really wanted to get into hardcore cRPGs (by that I mean games you basically have to know by heart before playing) for some time now, but seeing how many videos you pump out about mechanics of WotR, I'm starting think I should just give up and stick to simpler and more player-friendly games like Divinity.

Thanks for the video. What meta magic do you suggest for a magus?

My personal use rule for Metamagic is to only use it on a spell of equal spell level or higher than the levels used by the Metamagic feat.

Great guide, personally i've never used meta magic in either KM or WOTR, so i was never entirely sure how the system worked. This certainly explained things in a consistent manner. Is MM actually useful enough to trade a feat for it?

Another question about spells from mythic paths. Azata spellbook uses CHA right? Does it follow the same rules as regular spellcasting? That is to say, if my character has dumped charisma and say I have 7 CHA, will I be able to get at least 1 spell from each level of the azata spellbook, or will I be denied that, just like with regular spellcasting?

How would persistent affect a spell like phantasmal killer that has 2 saves?

Can heighten spell change 'Summon Monster I' into it's higher level types? Heighten SM1 into SM2 through SM9?

I would argue empower is more powerful than maximize, as you can and will go with empower over the maximum limit of the spell. Other spin: It raises minimum, maximum and average damage. Maximize sets min, max and average the same, but never exceeds it. The higher a damage dice is, the more useful becomes maximize. The lower the dice, the more usefull is bolster. Bolster and empowering of Magic missile makes absolute sense (changes D4s to D6+2s with a min of 2+2 … the former max). As magic missile is very special you just add up positive treats. There is a lot more to say about Metamagic, espescially what happens to special spells like non-damage spells: I like to use my necromancer with empowered and maximized spells for calling undeads, so I have more of them. A maximized and empowered spell gives me 9 undead, but bolster does nothing. When a spell has a maximum dice limit can you increase it over that limit? You should also mention that an upgraded spell / same Spell but of a different spellslot literally can give you more uses of that spell. So if you love magic missile (or whatever) but you are unhappy you can regularly cast it only 7-times, than a bolstered one will give you 5 additional uses, an empowered one gives you 4 more uses and an maximized one 2 more uses. Now you have instead of only 7 a total of 18… you literally can no longer run out of uses. You can even more increase that amount by applying several metamagis at once. Your highest tier spells will not make use of metamagic as you cannot go past level 9 spellslots. However - if you have a metamagic that increases spellslots by 1, but you take the option to reduce the penalty to 0, you can even then e.g. bolster level 9 spells. Some lower spells are better/more efficient as an upgraded version on a higher spellslot than other spellslots. Espescially look out for touch spells that bring your casters into melee range. Usually the touch spells are more powerfull than the range ones, so to enlarge their reach might be more useful than to just boost your dice. Heal spells work weird with metamagic.

Spamming phantasmal is op, metamagic makes it even better

Where did you get that cool portrait??

I think empower might be bugged since there are many spells that can't be empowered but should be allowed to be empowered. Also, there's no mythic metamagic for bolster.

the thing that I'm not quite getting is which spells are concentration because coming from regular DND a lot of spells that would be concentration don't seem to be in Pathfinder

I havent used it but i want to try metamagic necromancy on a cleric.

Good old selective Sirocco. Not working as intended, but working like a charm.

I'd imagine for a summon build. Metamagic wouldn't be half bad given you could Empower early on, and then change to extended duration later.

for the algorithm

Based on the PnP rules, Selective Metamagic shouldn't work on non intantanous effects, so the very popular Selective Grease or Selective Glitterdust are technically illegal. Curious if OwlCat is gonna change that for the game.

How do you use heighten?

I have a hard time justifying taking metamagic feats when rods are so abundant

You mean Metamagic isn’t used so I can slot Fireball into every spell slot past Casting Level 3?

Wow, I didn’t even know this was a thing. I thought the amount of spells and schools available were already overwhelming and confusing. I’ve only gotten to act 3 and much prefer to use ranged weapons because the spell system seems so lackluster. Lann can be crushing dudes with his bow but nenio casts magic missile for like 10 points. It feels useless, but there has to be more, I just don’t understand

But how do you use metamagic wands?

It's a pity this wasn't a bit more indepth. This was much more a lets read out the english, rather than lets explain why to use it. Which is a shame, I just got done the other day explaining metamagic feats to someone who wanted to play a summoner trying to keep their summons relevant till endgame. A few examples here would have helped to hopefully hammer the point home about the why's.. the whens.. and the when not to use metamagic. Missed opportunity.

Seems to me heighten is just the way to go Kinda don't see the point of bolster or empower when u got heighten

Metamagic Extend doesnt work on prayer for no reason

This comment is just meant to metamagic: heighten this video in terms of the algorithm.

Selective spells are something I was missing in Kingmaker - selective dragon breath, shout, sirocco ftw. Now if only there was selective kinetic metakinesis for the sweet selective deadly earths/clouds :D