Type: General
Source: Dragon #358
You can craft a unique signature staff or other item that serves as a focus for your magic.
Prerequisite: Craft Wondrous Item, any metamagic feat, arcane caster level 3rd.
Benefit: You create a personal arcane device that you carry with you, typically a staff but optionally another item like a pocket watch or amulet. This device serves as a focus for magical energy, improving your ability to apply metamagic effects to spells. You must hold the item in your hand in order to gain its benefits. If you spontaneously cast spells (as a sorcerer does), three times per day the focus allows you to apply a metamagic feat to a spell without increasing its casting time. If you prepare spells (as a wizard does), three times per day you may spontaneously convert any spell into a metamagic-enhanced version of any lower-level spell you currently have prepared. Converting a spell in this way forces you to lose the higher level spell, which must be of the appropriate spell level for the spell you cast and the metamagic feat you use. You must have the metamagic feat you wish to use in this way. For example, you may spontaneously lose a prepared fireball spell in order to cast an empowered magic missile, but only if you have both a normal fireball and a normal magic missile spell prepared. In addition, you may treat the item as an arcane focus in place of any spell components worth 1 gp or less, and a hand in which you hold the device is considered your free hand for the purpose of casting somatic components. You may also use magic item creation feats such as Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Staff, and Craft Wondrous Item to enhance the device as an item of its type. If you lose your arcane device or it is not on you, all your spells suffer a -1 penalty to caster level until you recover it or create a new one. If you have your device on you but aren't wearing or wielding it actively, you suffer no ill effects but neither do you gain any benefits.
Creating an arcane device costs 100 gp and takes 24 hours.
Special: A wizard may take Arcane Focus Item as a wizard bonus feat.