D&D 5E Metamagic for wizards not for sorcerers?

[Todd Roybark]

You'd have to cut so much they'd basically be Sorcerers, and that defeats the purpose of the exercise.

I agree, with a caveat.

A Wizard subclass, that solely gave access to Metamagic, could be balanced.
Metamagic is potent, but so are Subclass abilities! Mixing the two is even better.
The Divine Soul rocks metamagic. Just ask Moon Song!

So a a Wizard with just some Metamagic, wouldn’t be too far from a a Wizard with Subclass.

Font of Magic, to me, is and should be, the beating heart of the Sorcerer class.

A Sorcerer class that played like a Weaver from Invisible Sun, or the D20 Wheel of Time RPG, is my ideal of the class. Alas that would require a redesign.

 

[lall]

But only wizards have access to:

I’M A DORK
1st-level enchantment (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V
Duration: 24 hours

Upon uttering this spell’s name, you calm the ____ down. For the spell’s duration, you recall the fact that you’re unathletic, cowardly, unattractive, and unlikable. You can use a dagger, but you’ll never Action Surge. You can sling a spell, but you’ll never master Metamagic. You’re a dork, and you’re okay with that.

 

[Kurotowa]

A Wizard subclass, that solely gave access to Metamagic, could be balanced.

In theory, the same sort of abstract theory where anything is possible if you design it right, I suppose so. In practice, I played in a campaign where my brother ran a Loremaster Wizard. The UA Loremaster, if you didn't know, was exactly what you describe. It was a Wizard subclass that gave them Metamagic type abilities, powered by burning extra spell slots. It was OP. It was so, sooooo OP.

The power budget split between class and subclass is different for each class. This is what the occasional complaints about some new subclasses having "too many features" miss. Those are subclasses where the base class offers less, which both allows and demands the subclass provide more. But then you've got Wizards and Rogues and Paladins, where the base class features occupy a majority of the power budget and the subclass features are more flavorful than transformative.

Metamagic is a transformative class ability. Wizard subclasses just don't have the budget for those. If you're hungry for a character that uses Metamagic, I honestly think you're better off talking with your DM about one of the many Sorcerer buff packages that have been proposed. There really isn't room to bolt it onto the Wizard. And if your argument is nothing more than the conviction that Wizards should be able to do all the magic things, no matter what... let's just say I don't give that a lot of weight.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Metamagic is a transformative class ability. Wizard subclasses just don't have the budget for those.

Most Wizard subclasses grant a passive ability, and an At Will, ( or near At Will) at 2nd level.
Exchanging that, for say, a Once per day use of the Extend Metamagic, probably is not going to burst the power curve.

I take your point. It is a valid concern.

That said, on a Narrative level, many players have been casting Metamagic effects with their Magic Users since 1e and the Extension spells.

The Wizard and the Sorcerer are stuck in a Dark Crystal scenario. The Crystal Cracked, the Magic User, got split, and nobody has been entirely happy about it, ever since.

Some Wizard players want to have some capacity to use metamagic, with out having to multi-class. Not to be “the best”, but because 30 years of history, leaves a mark on the imagination.

Some Sorcerer players want either more spells or the add of spell like powers through Font of Magic changes, ala the U/A article.

I think both, can be accomplished.

 

[MoonSong]

The Wizard and the Sorcerer are stuck in a Dark Crystal scenario. The Crystal Cracked, the Magic User, got split, and nobody has been entirely happy about it, ever since.

More like the Magic User was a shard pretending to be the whole crystal and other shards have surfaced since then.

We never had the whole crystal to begin with.

Now on to the wizard and metamagic. Part of the problem is names (and names are some of the bigger problems that can be), but most of it is plain exposure. Halfway during the playtest metamagic feats got dropped and nobody noticed. Metamagic wasn't so quintessential to wizards as to warrant inclusion and was proving to be too difficult to balance on a Neovancian system. They only resurrected it because Sorcerer needed something to hang on, and the cost of it is pretty stiff. The 5e system is already quite flexible, it can't be made more flexible because then we end with the likes of the Loremaster or things closer to "once per long rest" that aren't very satisfactory.

 

[Coroc]

....

In 5e, the only variables you can alter is energy input (spell slot) and intensity (spellcating mod)
Wizards, for all their knowledge, cannot alter anymore variables. They have to make wholy new spells.
Sorcerers can.
....

Well here you go. Wizards do know how to manipulate the outcome of their spells, but again in a precise scientific scaleable way.

 

[Li Shenron]

Font of Magic, to me, is and should be, the beating heart of the Sorcerer class.

The point is, Font of Magic makes the Sorcerer shine exactly when it's used for metamagic.

Font of Magic i.e. spending Sorcery Points for creating spell slots does not make the Sorcerer shine, because it does not make the Sorcerer cast more spells than a Wizard (compare the total spells slots that can be created with the Wizard's Arcane Recovery). It is only marginally better in the fact that the Sorcerer is more flexible about what spell level those slots are. It's better than nothing, but it doesn't shine because... see next.

Font of Magic is also what enables some subclass special abilities. This can make the Sorcerer shine except that it is competing with metamagic AND creating more spells slots! By all means Sorcery Points are supposed to be what fuels a Sorcerer's cool powers but they effectively work as a bottleneck instead! If you want to activate cool subclass abilities like everyone else (except the Monk) you have to give up some metamagic. If you want to cast as many daily spells as a Wizard, you have to give up all metamagic.

The Wizard doesn't have to choose between using Arcane Recovery for a few extra slots OR activating subclass abilities. So if they grant the Wizard class access to metamagic, how are you going to make them PAY for usage? I tell you how: they won't, because the Wizard doesn't have "points" to spend to activate anything. They'll likely put a limit such as "can use metamagic X per day" but it will still be free. Unless they require the Wizard to burn spell slots to fuel metamagic, now that would be more fair in comparison with the Sorcerer, but I can already hear the outrage...

 

[Minigiant]

Well here you go. Wizards do know how to manipulate the outcome of their spells, but again in a precise scientific scaleable way.

Another thing
The Evocation Wizard basically has metamagic. It only works for 1 school.

You as a wizard can spend your whole life studying magic and only figure out certain metamaagics for one school. And they only figured out the easiest and most blunt school.

Maybe using metamagic is to dificult with a shortcut (magic blood).

 

[Li Shenron]

You as a wizard can spend your whole life studying magic and only figure out certain metamaagics for one school. And they only figured out the easiest and most blunt school.

You as a player are not doing any effort however, so why should you get more power while a Sorcerer player does not deserve it?

Once again this sort of narrative reasoning for giving more abilities to one class does not really serve the game and especially not the game balance. It's almost like wanting to have a "god" class, and then say it deserves to have everything because hey it's a god, it makes sense!

 

[Minigiant]

You as a player are not doing any effort however, so why should you get more power while a Sorcerer player does not deserve it?

Once again this sort of narrative reasoning for giving more abilities to one class does not really serve the game and especially not the game balance. It's almost like wanting to have a "god" class, and then say it deserves to have everything because hey it's a god, it makes sense!

It's part narrative and part gamist.

Sorcerers get General Megamagic as a class feature. Sorcerer's subclasses are just minor boosts on the base class.
Wizards get Specialized Metamagic as a subclass feature. Wizard's subclasses are just minor boosts on the base class.

A wizard would have to sacrifice a class feature in order to learn general metamagic.
Wizards would have to sacrifice their spellbook to get it.

A wizard without a spellbook? That's a sorcerer.