kkarty wrote:
My apologies for not being clear, when I said the SRD, I meant the DMG 3.5, not ELH. Which reads:
"The spell slot you must use to cast a metamagic spell is one level lower than normal (to a minimum of one level higher than normal). For instance, you could cast a quickened spell as a spell of three levels higher than normal rather than four levels higher."
Etc...
This wording rather strongly suggests the feat applies to the spell slot, but does not alter the metamagic feats themselves, as the original wording suggests.
It doesn't suggest that at all... It explicitly states that you use the feat as normal, but the spell level adjustment is one lower than normal. Call it better training or more natural talent at using metamagic feats. Whatever. The feat simply lowers the spell level adjust "cost" by one, and nothing more. It doesn't say you need to alter how the feat or spell work. The spell is still the same spell level it always was - when you use a metamagic feat you're adjusting it to an "effective spell level" and therefor need to cast it out of a higher spell level slot in order to utilize those additional "effects" on the spell that you gain by using the metamagic feat.
The feat doesn't do anything to a caster's spell level slot(s). Those are just an abstract way to track what a caster can do in a single day. They're not some regimented legalese training method in the game world (do you really think our characters see magic as a "spell level" and "spell level slot" kind of operation? No, the casters just have a feel for what they can and can't do and what takes what kind of power - I've seen some people house-rule the spell system to allow casters to burn lower level slots to caster and upper level spell (at the cost of +1 spell level) or to do the oppositte (at the cost of -1 spell level slot gained (a 6th level spell slot would grant a 5th, or a 2nd and 3rd level slot(s), etc) for this reason. It works, it allows Wizards and Sorcerers some flexibility, but penalizes them for doing things that are a bit out of their commonly trained way of doing things (since it is a trained art and doing it differently does have different mental and physical demands)... Of course, my GM also home-ruled a feat (a level-one-only feat) to allow you to convert your spells into a spell point system (he used a binary-type basis for points at spell levels to ensure combining them came out balanced - I'll have to get a copy of that list and his notes on it sometime... very cool and it worked wonderfully!).
