Craft Wand, Extend Spell, or Spell Penetration?

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

As the title of the post says, my next feat will be one of these three things, and I'm curious to hear other people's feedback.

I'm going 30 wizard. My level 20 metamagic feat is most likely going to be quicken spell. I have three levels to make a decision for level 18.

I presently have: Scribe Scroll, SF: Evo, GSF: Evo, SF: Enchant, GSF: Enchant, SF: Abjur, GSF: Abjur, Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Still Spell.

I'm an Evocation Specialist - no cnjuration for me! I'm also Good-aligned. This means no undead summoning. This means my only viable summon until very late epics is Mordenkainen's Sword.

Craft Wand: Money, and the ability to metamagic buffs without using half of my fifth level spell slots. Money isn't really relevant, due to enchantment foci. All I have to do is stand next to a basin. >.>

Extend Spell: Enchantment spells benefit a great deal from this. There's also Mordenkainen's Sword, which is 1 turn/caster level. Extending that to 36 turns instead of 18 would help a great deal for some of my crawls.

Spell Penetration: If I take it, I'm only taking this one, NOT greater and epic. I'm going 30 wizard, so practically speaking whether character vs. environment or character vs. character, Ast will probably be able to bypass anything that isn't an SR stacked 30 monk. It's more of a Quality of LIfe improvement for the road of 16-25, wherein I frequently find a majority of my spells shrugged off by SR when I go somewhere I would otherwise consider a decent challenge.

Is the quality of life enhancement of 10% increased chance worth it, in comparison to the perks of the other two?

[Cortex]

You should've taken extend spell a long, long time ago, buddy.

[Red Sunset]

Yep, extend spell is useful, as Cortex said. I don't understand why you took still spell? That would be useful if your character were wearing armor, but if you're going 30 wizard I'm guessing that's not the plan?

As for spell penetration. I wouldn't take more than one penetration feat. Sure if you take more maybe you can make monks suffer, but its a big gamble. The chance the spell penetrates is more, but then you always have to overcome monk saves (and remember they are mind immune at higher levels). If you're concerned with end game power then penetration is less useful.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Yep, extend spell is useful, as Cortex said. I don't understand why you took still spell? That would be useful if your character were wearing armor, but if you're going 30 wizard I'm guessing that's not the plan?

Still spell works on instantaneous spells (read: Evocation) while extend does not, allowing me to prepare another use of that spell in the next level. This is particularly good for converting sixth level spell slots into additional firebrands, which has a slightly lower damage cap on the primary target than chain lightning, but more easily affects more targets, and has higher secondary target damage (max 90 to all targets, as opposed to max 120 to initial and 60 to all others).

Chain lightning, stilled, also affects a larger area than delayed blast fireball, at the trade-off of less damage (although at this level I usually go for empowered firebrand).

Horrid wilting is so far vastly superior to meteor shower in a number of ways that I can't begin to describe it, and it makes me sad. But I'd rather cast a stilled horrid wilting or an empowered delayed blast fireball than swarm, most of the time.

You're correct that I have no intentions of wearing armor. It's all about spell slot versatility.

[Green2Bee]

If that's your reason than pick Silent Spell! That'll allow you to by pass silence and will have more utility than Still if no armor/shield.

[Tashalar]

Green, he already has Still Spell.

[ArcanaFTW]

Extend spell is extra useful, for, well, extending shortly-timed spells. It's probably your best choice.

However, Craft Wand is pretty handy if you're looking to make some extra gold, and also to free up things like ultravision and darkness slots if you're in need and don't wanna pay out for someone else to craft them.

Uh.. You're going 30 wizard. Forget about SP. You really don't need it.

[Green2Bee]

1 Spell Penetration will allow you to penetrate spells without any chance of failure against gift of SR, drow, and svirf. I think it's 10% chance strictly speaking without it.

And sorry about not reading about earlier Still Spell stuff!

Are craft wands actually profitable? People always seem to want them, but the XP/gold cost, to my understanding, really doesn't sound all that worthwhile. It certainly will make you popular!

[Nitro]

The only thing SP will help you against is pure monks as a 30 wizard really.
Craft wand is really neat for making gold, if you get yourself a shop and sell the more popular wands on it for reasonable prices you will become stupidly rich in no time.
Extend spell has some pretty handy applications, such as Ethereal visage, and can add a lot of extra utility to your kit.

Personally, I'm a greedy sod, so I'd go for craft wand any time. Those Stoneskin wands make mad bank.

[JediMindTrix]

You should've taken extend spell a long, long time ago, buddy.

[TeeHeeTummyTums]

30 wizard, no need for spell pen imo.

craft wand if: money problems, want to help out buddypals with awesome wands

extend: so nice to have. extended haste is just the best. Extended lots of things are the best.

[P Three]

You should've taken extend spell a long, long time ago, buddy.

Yes.

[Hunter548]

You should've taken both craft wand and extend spell a long time ago, to my mind. Craft wand (Along with scribe scroll) basically lets a wizard print money. Spell pen is very rarely useful, and is going to be a waste if you're going pure wizard.

[Scurvy Cur]

Craft wand additionally allows you to mitigate some of a wizard's weakness in PvE by providing a reserve of some staple spells that work just fine in wand form and letting your spell slots be used more exclusively for stuff that can't wand well.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Alright, spell penetration is out, then.

Probably going with extend spell. There's a bit of flex built into my epic levels. I might take craft wand at the expense of ES:Dragon Knight. (I'll be treating it as a transmutation ability on my originally faerie dragon familiar.)

Familiar is not happy being stuck in a golem body all the time. So I probably won't take craft wand.