As the only metamagic feat with no predetermined 'level cost', as it stands, an Artificer is fully within the RAW to give a wand he Heightens 200 levels if he applies Metamagic Infusion to the device.
I could reasonably come up with a few restrictions...
Restrict level on wands to level 4, the maximum a wand could contain.
Restrict the spell level to half the caster level of the device.
Restrict staves to either the highest spell in the device, half the caster level, or to the highest level of infusion the artificer could cast. In no case can you Heighten above 9th level without the Epic Heighten feat, or using an Epic Item capable of holding more then 9th level spells (caster level 21 or higher).
This could potentially run into problems at the Epic level without some restrictions.
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And while you are at it, how about a definite ruling on the Using UMD to emulate a caster level for using a magic item, essentially staves. IF you look at the wording now, you could use buffs to give yourself a massive UMD check that allows you to emulate a caster level of 30+ for, say, a staff, and go around blowing the crap out of stuff as a mock Epic caster. The Optimizers can routinely churn out UMD checks of 100, which gives Caster level checks of over 50...shouldn't need to tell you how broken that can be.
Thanks! We need some balance and perspective, and as artificer is one of my favorite class, I'd like the conservative approach to it that un-breaks these two potential abuses.
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Lastly, a THIRD abuse. We really, really, REALLY need a ruling on whether or not Metamagic Item infusions stack on one another. The infusions are a completely cheesy way to break the metmagic cap to begin with, and being allowed to Split Ray, Admixture, Twin, Repeat and Quicken a staff or wand for x16 dmg twice a round (for an Empowered Scorching Ray, for example...18d6 x 16, anyone?) at a charge a pop, is completely busted.
This could be nipped in the bud, and brought back into balance simply by not letting the infusions apply independently, but only the most recent (which is what Keith Baker has intimated he does.) This needs to be a finished ruling, or the Artificer breaks far too easily.
And of course, if this ruling applies, we also need to get rules on applying metamagic, because you can still use Metamagic Spell Trigger to add a second effect, and that stacking problem is addressed in my second post.
==Aelryinth
