Publication:Unearthed Arcana/Metamagic Components

Metamagic Components
With this variant, casters can produce more potent spells by using a rare and exotic metamagic component in the casting of a spell, in place of the spell’s standard material component (or in addition to the spell’s other components, if it has no material component).

A spellcaster who uses a metamagic component casts a spell as if a specific metamagic feat had been applied to the spell. The casting process otherwise functions as it would if the character cast the standard version of the spell. For example, Boredflak can cast a widened fireball by using a 1,900 gp fire opal (the metamagic component) instead of a tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur (the material component). A wizard doesn’t need to prepare such a spell as a higher-level spell, and a sorcerer doesn’t use a higher-level spell slot or take a full-round action to cast the spell. A spellcaster can use a metamagic component without having the relevant metamagic feat. The spellcaster merely chooses at the moment of casting whether to employ the standard material component (if any) or the metamagic component given in these variant rules. In either case, the casting process consumes the material component or metamagic component.

A character can’t use a metamagic component to add the effect of a metamagic feat to a spell or effect created by a magic item. If a spell has an arcane material component or a divine focus (shown in the spell description as M/DF), then a divine spellcaster must have the relevant metamagic component in addition to his holy symbol. Some spells that have expensive material components can’t be made more potent by the use of metamagic components, and a few spells don’t have metamagic components because there’s no useful way to add the effect of a metamagic feat to them.

Specific Metamagic Components
Table: Metamagic Components presents a list of metamagic components for standard d20 spells. There’s plenty of room to add metamagic components unique to your campaign, because each spell as presented here has only one metamagic component and thus only one metamagic effect associated with it. Doing so is a good way to add specific flavor to your campaign world. Perhaps all your metamagic components are alchemical reagents, or maybe the dwarves in your campaign world use only uncut gems as metamagic components. Truly evil spellcasters might use vile, disgusting metamagic components. Discovering a new metamagic component is also a useful activity for spellcasters who have time for spell research.

The table entries present a wide variety of metamagic components, each belonging to one of the following categories.

Expensive Versions of Existing Material Components
True seeing, for example, requires a rare ointment as a material component. It’s easy enough to imagine that by using more ointment, the spell’s duration can be extended. Just saying “more of the same” is a fine metamagic component for spells that already have expensive material components. It’s also possible to design a metamagic component that’s an expensive version of a free material component. Resilient sphere has a hemispherical piece of clear crystal as its material component. It has no cost, and you could find that piece of crystal in a spell component pouch. The spell’s metamagic component is a sphere of pure crystal worth 850 gp—just an expensive version of the standard material component.

Gems
Many spells already require expensive gems as material components, and players are used to the idea that powerful magical effects sometimes require gemstones, whether cut or ground into powder. Gems make good metamagic components (from a character’s point of view) because they’re easy to carry around, they can be found as treasure, and there’s the established precedent of gemstones as a source of magic power. They’re a particularly good choice for particularly potent metamagic components (ones that maximize, widen, or quicken spells), because a gem can easily be worth 5,000 gp or more.

Jewelry and Art Objects
Jewelry—everything from anklets to headbands—and art objects such as statuettes and carvings also make good choices for metamagic components. It feels appropriately mystical to use a golden medallion as a metamagic component for hypnotism, for example. Like gems, jewelry and art objects seem to work well as particularly expensive metamagic components because it’s easy to imagine them being worth that much, and they can be found in treasure hoards.

Other Treasure
Occasionally, a weapon or other bit of treasure (usually magical in nature) finds its way onto the metamagic component list when thematically appropriate. For characters who face a lot of well-equipped NPCs, being able to use treasure as a metamagic component is often a useful alternative to simply carting an item back to town to sell it. High-level characters who would ordinarily disdain a weapon with a mere +1 enhancement bonus might think twice if they know it’s the metamagic component for a quickened version of align weapon.

Plant-Based Metamagic Components
Some spells, especially druid spells, have mushrooms, herbs, or other metamagic components derived from rare plants carefully grown by experts. These metamagic components, often referred to as “druid-tended” items in Table: Metamagic Components, have a potential advantage for PCs because some characters might have the ability to grow and cultivate these plants—thereby saving some money.

To grow and harvest a plant-based metamagic component, a character must first sow and tend the seeds, which takes one month per 1,000 gp value (or fraction thereof) of the metamagic component. At the end of that time, the character must make a Profession (herbalist) check (DC 20 + 1 per 1,000 gp value of the metamagic component) in order to harvest the plant successfully. A character can grow multiple metamagic components at a time, but each planting beyond the first one being tended at the same time adds 1 to the DC of all Profession (herbalist) checks made during that time.

Alchemical Metamagic Components
Alchemy provides another traditional source for metamagic components—there’s a strong fantasy archetype of the wizard concocting powerful substances in his dank laboratory. An entry on Table: Metamagic Components that contains some form of the word “alchemical” is a metamagic component created by the use of the Craft (alchemy) skill.

When a character sets out to concoct an alchemical metamagic component, the rules in the Craft skill description apply, except that the calculations are done in gold pieces, not silver pieces. Any new alchemical substance (such as the alchemical dreamwisp dust that is the metamagic component for sleep) and anything alchemically treated or alchemically prepared has a Craft (alchemy) DC of 15. Alchemically distilled metamagic components (for example, see ray of exhaustion) have a DC of 20, and alchemically purified metamagic components (see polymorph any object) have a DC of 25.

Alchemical metamagic components can take a very long time to make, so they’re often a poor choice (from a character’s point of view) for particularly expensive metamagic components.

Planar Metamagic Components
Some metamagic components come from places beyond the Material Plane, especially in games where planar travel is common. The planes have exotic substances as well as purer, enhanced versions of common substances, and it makes sense that (for instance) rare soils from the Elemental Plane of Earth might make your move earth spell more potent.

Purity is a major consideration for metamagic components of this sort; obtaining one is not simply a matter of going to the appropriate plane and scooping up a handful of stuff. In general, it takes a day of scavenging and a DC 30 Knowledge (the planes) check to find enough of the relevant raw material in its purest form to serve as a metamagic component. Because there’s no raw materials cost, planar metamagic components are a poor choice (from the GM’s point of view) for more expensive metamagic components, although this is ameliorated somewhat by the fact that it takes high-level spells to reach other planes, and those other planes are perilous places.

Ritual Metamagic Components
Some items become metamagic components after they have been prepared during a series of ancient rituals. Performing the entire ritual takes one day for every 500 gp (or fraction thereof) of the value of the metamagic component. At the end of that time, the preparer must make a DC 25 Knowledge (religion) check if the component is for a divine spell or a DC 25 Knowledge (arcana) check if it’s for an arcane spell in order to successfully finish the creation process.

Unless the item used for a ritual component has some intrinsic value, ritual metamagic components can be poor choices for powerful metamagic and high-level spells (from the GM’s perspective), because a character with enough ranks in the relevant skill need only spend the time to acquire the component.

Fanciful Metamagic Components
The darkness spell has a metamagic component of “coal mined and kept in total darkness.” While evocative, such an item is not necessarily hard for PCs to obtain—although there’s an inherent disadvantage involved because the component can become “spoiled”—a consideration that doesn’t affect the other kinds of metamagic components. For instance, if the coal needed for a darkness spell (or the oil needed for deeper darkness) is ever exposed to light before the spell is cast, it loses its special properties and becomes ordinary. But legends and folk tales are rife with examples of extra power coming from ordinary items handled in a fanciful way. If you use such fanciful metamagic components—which appear on Table: Metamagic Components only rarely—keep a close watch on how they change the economy of the game. If the PCs shy away from adventuring in favor of working as metamagic-component coal miners, the situation is out of hand.

Monster Parts
A few of the metamagic components listed on Table: Metamagic Components are parts of monsters. Some players want their characters to dissect their slain foes, “harvesting” metamagic components for later use and sale.

There’s a fair amount of real-world precedent for the notion that some part of a creature’s power remains in its body after it’s dead. Dozens of realworld cultures have rituals involving animal parts for this very reason. Fantasy literature has a rich tradition of using strange ingredients such as unicorn horns and dragon scales to accomplish great feats of magic.

But harvesting monster parts is not without its problems. From a game balance standpoint, saying a rakshasa hide is worth 1,250 gp is tantamount to giving every rakshasa in the game world an extra 1,250 gp in treasure—yet it’s treasure that the rakshasa can’t use itself (other than in the obvious way). It’s also treasure that the PCs can’t acquire any way other than killing a rakshasa, as opposed to normal treasure, which the PCs could attain by tricking the rakshasa or driving it off. Requiring the monster parts to be specially prepared ameliorates the problem to a degree—and generally that’s what we’ve done—because it’s assumed that much of the cost lies in the special preparation, not the on-site butchery. That pushes the problem into a corner, but it doesn’t eliminate it, because a player whose character has enough ranks in Profession (taxidermy) skill may want to know the DC for preparing the metamagic component himself. If monster part harvesting becomes a frequent exercise in your game, carefully monitor the amount of other treasure you give out. But extracting the teeth of the occasional blink dog won’t break the game.

A second and thornier problem is that many players find harvesting monster parts distasteful, and some players who don’t mind the idea might play characters who would be aghast at the very notion of cutting up the dead. Not only is the actual harvesting objectionable to some, but it builds in a potential conflict between characters who want to capture their foes (whether for mercy or information) and those who want to slay them and begin dissection. Consider carefully the perspectives of your players and their characters, and think hard about what kind of d20 game you want to run.

If your characters are interested in doing some monster part harvesting themselves, it takes 10 minutes and a DC 15 Profession (taxidermy) check to carefully remove the relevant part, then 1 hour and a DC 20 Profession (taxidermy) check to preserve it so it won’t rot or otherwise deteriorate. The embalming materials themselves cost one-tenth of the market price of the finished metamagic component. Unless you use gentle repose, the monster’s body deteriorates enough after 15 minutes that you can’t get a metamagic component from it.

With some monsters, it’s obvious how many of a particular part they have—a snake has only one tongue that can be used for a detect poison metamagic component. As a general rule, one monster provides enough substance for a single casting of the relevant spell (such as the dire bat fur needed for arcane eye or the chimera scales needed for obscure object). In some cases, the number of parts that can be obtained from one creature is obvious by the nature of the monster (one minotaur can supply enough metamagic components for two castings of maze, and each of a gorgon’s four hooves can be used for separate castings of acid fog). If the number of parts obtained is not obvious or doesn’t necessarily follow the general rule, assume that one monster can provide up to 1d4 separate parts that are suitable for metamagic components. (This guideline applies to such components as the janni eyelash needed for invisibility and the troll blood needed for regenerate.)

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Behind The Curtain: Metamagic Components

 * If you use this variant, you may find that characters are less likely to take metamagic feats because they can just pay for the occasional metamagic effect by using a metamagic component instead. Spellcasters who use metamagic components repeatedly may fall behind the other PCs in terms of wealth, because metamagic components are quite expensive. Although using a metamagic component is more expensive than casting from a scroll with the metamagic version of the spell, a spellcaster gets more bang for his buck with a metamagic component, because he can use his own caster level and ability score to set the spell’s parameters such as save DC, damage, and range. Metamagic components give spellcasters more flexibility, because they can either cast a spell normally or get the extra benefit of the metamagic component, and they don’t have to decide until the moment spellcasting begins.

Metamagic components are an effective tool for NPC spellcasters in particular, who often have only a few rounds to cast spells before the encounter ends. But because metamagic components are expensive, such NPCs may use up more of their treasure than is typical.}}